Weekend Reflections 9/24/2018: Baby, Food, Speaking, and Shoutouts!

Weekend Reflections 9/24/2018: Baby, Food, Speaking, and Shoutouts!

I haven’t really kept up with the Weekend Reflections series. But I really should.

Amazing things happen every day. This is especially true when you have a little human baby living with you and growing up before your eyes!

Speaking of which, I’ll start of by talking about some of the milestones that our baby has reached.

Baby steps and milestones

Some time around a week and a half ago, she started commando crawling. You know, the type of crawling where baby uses her upper body strength to pull herself forward while dragging her belly and legs. Some times she pushes forward with her legs too, but it’s definitely not in a coordinated fashion. She’s still not yet mobile since she barely moves a few inches. But I suspect she’ll get it down some time soon. She’ll probably be an early walker at 9 months, just like my wife when she was a baby.

Our baby has been vocal early on. She would babble, coo, and make funny noises since she was two months old.

When she was about three months old, she started smiling intentionally. She has such a huge, electric smile that really lights up a room. I think she gets it from both her mom and dad :D.

At four months, she started giggling and laughing. Actually, it’s more like a guffaw– a loud, unrestrained burst of laughter. When she starts cracking up, it’s incredibly infectious! She probably gets that from me because I’ve been known to LOL really loudly.

Ready to eat and speak

She just turned 6 months old a few days ago. We celebrated by introducing her first solid food– avocado. She just ate a little bit since her taste buds so far are only accustomed to breast milk. Also a few days ago, she started saying “mama” and “baba” consistently. We’re going to say that “mama” is her first word. Her voice is really cute.

We are lucky that my wife can take 14 months off to take care of her. My parental leave isn’t quite as generous, so I went back to work. Lately, I’ve been working “only” 40 hours a week just to be with her more. She’s such a fun baby!

It’s tough to be away from her for long stretches of time. Last weekend, I was gone quite a bit because I went to a four day conference…

Plant Based Nutrition Healthcare Conference

The Plant Based Nutrition Health Conference was held in San Diego this year, which was very convenient for me. It was very educational and fun. Half of the pain anesthesiologist in our department is vegan, so it was great to hang out with them outside of the workplace. I also got to see some friends from all over the country that I had met from previous conferences.

It was also great to see leaders in the field of plant based nutrition give excellent presentations. Among them were Michael Greger, Joel Kahn, Dean Ornish, T. Colin Campbell, Anthony Lim, Kim Williams, Danielle Belardo, and many more. I also got to meet James Wilks, who is is a vegan mixed martial artist who is featured in the movie The Game Changers. Who says vegans are weaklings?

The takeaway message from the conference is that the standard american diet contains way too much processed food and meat that promotes inflammation in our bodies which then causes the major (often preventable) chronic diseases of lifestyle. These diseases include some of the leading causes of death such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes, hypertension, stroke, Alzheimer’s disease. By eating a whole food plant based diet along with living a healthy lifestyle, people can prevent, treat, and possibly reverse these chronic diseases.

Plant based finance folks

It’s no secret that I follow a whole food plant based diet because I believe it’s the optimal diet for health, athletic performance, vitality, and longevity. I have referenced this in previous posts that talk about my inexpensive, yet incredibly healthy food budget. I also think that eating a plant based diet is kinder to the animals and more sustainable for the environment. Bethany of His and Her FI highlighted the environmental and frugal Reasons to go vegan in her guest post on Tread Lightly, Retire Early.

I recently learned that Cubert of Abandoned Cubicle eat a primarily plant based diet based on his Christopher guest post on Physician on Fire. Other bloggers that are also plant based eaters include Kiwi & Keweenaw, Team CF of Cheesy Finance, Cody of Dollar Habits, Finance Stoic, and Frugasaurus. If I forgot to include someone, let me know. I would like to know all of my fellow plant eaters!

Promoting a healthy lifestyle

In addition to encouraging a plant based diet among my patients and fellow physicians (I’m a physician wellness champion at my work), I’m also big on lifestyle medicine. There’s only so much that modern day medicine can do. We physicians often prescribe pills to remedy certain illness and problems. These drugs have a specific mechanism of action for a particular biochemical pathway. But there are unintended consequences that show up as side effects. And they never really treat the underlying chronic disease in the first place. With the exception of genetic disorders, most diseases can be treated with lifestyle modification.

That’s why I try to talk to all of my patients about healthy lifestyle habits. These include eating a healthy diet, getting enough sleep, exercising regularly, managing stress, and maintaining loving social relationships. I touch on this subject a little bit in my playful post 5 Simple Steps To Preventing Dad Bod, Maintaining a Loving Marriage, and Making a Happy Baby.

Whenever I get the chance, I try to discuss healthy lifestyle habits with my pain patients and how they improve. And while my role in promoting a healthy lifestyle as an anesthesiologist is fairly limited, I try my best to promote it during the pre-procedure interview and as the patient drifts off to sleep. Hopefully I’m planting a seed…

Physician blogger shoutout

Speaking of promoting a healthy lifestyle, kudos to “M” of Reflections of a Millennial Doctor for going over the healthy eating plate to all over her patients. It takes quite a bit of time for physicians to counsel their patients on living a healthy lifestyle.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the healthy eating plate, here it is below. I agree with the plate for the most part. However, I would limit milk/dairy and juice to even more minimal or none. Drinking your calories is not really healthy, unless you can’t properly chew and swallow your food. For optimal health, oils should only be used sparingly if at all. Potatoes and sweet potatoes are fine, as long as you eat the skin (more fiber and nutrients) and don’t put a ton of unhealthy stuff like bacon bits, cheese, and sour cream. In fact, one of my wife’s go-to meals is baked potato fries with homemade guacamole.

With reimbursements going down and the increasing pressure to see so many patients in a finite period of time, many physicians may take the easy way out by just prescribing pills. Many of us just assume that patients won’t change their life, which leads us to think “might as well not even bring up lifestyle consultation in the first place”. But M discusses it with every patient. And I commend her for it. She describes a typical (not so glorious) work day in her post So You Wanna Be a Doctor...

Recent shoutouts to me!

Speaking of shoutouts, I was recently mentioned on several blogs. Go check out their sites too! Here are a few notable mentions:

• M.D. Roundup featured Our Crazy Rich Experience On Singapore Suites. I have a feeling Millionaire Doc is getting ready for a sweet Singapore Suite award redemption of his own. He’ll love it. It’s like being a kid in a candy shop.
• Side Hustle Spotlights featured How to Buy Nothing And Earn Thousands of Credit Card Points. To me, earning credit card points is like earning other people’s money.
• Physician Finance Interview #7 on The Physician Philosopher features yours truly. He has a wonderful series of interviews and you should check it out.
• My Singapore Suites post was also featured in The Sunday Best (9/16/2018). It’s always a huge honor to be mentioned in the Sunday Best! Physician on Fire is no stranger to credit cards and using points to travel and slow travel. He has a great credit card tracking spreadsheet you can check out and download in this post.

Gratitude

I’m grateful for many things. In addition to my wonderful wife, baby, family, and work colleagues, I greatly appreciate the collegiality and support from the personal finance community. The online camaraderie among physicians in the finance blogosphere is especially noteworthy. It’s going to be awesome to interact with a lot of you in real life at FinCon Orlando. See you there!

*Featured image: My wife and I living the healthy Mediterranean lifestyle in the red sand beaches of Santorini