My mom was recently diagnosed with breast and lung cancer, which caused me to dig in and better understand these types of cancer. I learned about a test called the “Galleri test” from a company named Grail. You’ll see from their website, https://www.galleri.com/, that this is a blood test that screens for over 50 types of cancers and can find them well before any type of symptoms show up or before traditional screening is done (which is only done for 5 types of cancer).

Dave Asprey just released a podcast today with the President of Grail, Dr. Josh Ofman. It is well worth listening to – less than an hour and full of facts about the test and how it can be used not just for early detection but also for people who are currently being treated to see how the treatment is working. There are very few podcasts out there talking about this test – some mention it as part of a broader discussion – but this one is solely about early cancer detection using the Galleri test by Grail.

Sadly, when I mentioned this test to my mom’s oncologist I got a blank stare – she had never heard of it. She quickly looked it up and then told me why it wouldn’t help. I smiled politely and went back to my own research. My point is, don’t expect your primary physician or oncologist to have heard of this.

Anyone can get this test – it must be ordered by a doctor and the results must be interpreted by a doctor, which makes sense. It is not cheap, but either is cancer.

Listen to the podcast, read their website, and hopefully you’ll be able to join me in getting yourself or a loved one tested early.

In my last post I mentioned I was comparing the Keto-Mojo ketone blood tester to my existing Nova Max one. The Keto-Mojo one wins. It is far easier to use (even if I touch my skin while collecting blood it doesn’t through off an error like the Nova Max does), and the testing strips are much cheaper. When I compared results with the Nova Max, the Keto-Mojo reader tended to read .02 mmol higher.

I’ve also recently started doing weight training with TRX resistance bands. I’m not going to lie, it’s hard. But I knew I wasn’t going to go to a gym consistently, these are easy to use in my house, and I get as hard of a workout as I want.

Today I received an email from TRX titled “Three ways to improve your daily routine.” One of the suggestions that I really liked was the idea of “movement snacks.” Many of us compartmentalize our workouts and once they are done, we rarely look for ways to move more than what our workout called for. I’ve been unintentionally doing “movement snacks” for weeks now – when I want to read for fun, I read while walking on my treadmill. I do the same thing when I want to watch a TV show by myself. I’ve started making myself stand while researching something on my computer or reading email.

The article suggests things like parking far away from the entrance in a parking lot, or scheduling walking meetings. I really like the idea of walking meetings, even in a virtual world. By setting the expectation that it is a virtual walking meeting you don’t feel awkward taking steps while everyone else is sitting! An outdoor walking meeting would be even better for those who have to go into an office every day.

I hope some of this information was helpful – I’d love to hear what type of “movement snacks” you engage in daily!

The last few years I’ve been a bit lazy about following a ketogenic diet. I had spinal surgery in 2020, and haven’t gotten back into the kind of shape I was in prior to surgery, both with my diet and with exercise. I’m working to fix both of those now!

I’ve rededicated myself to getting back to following a ketogenic diet, and getting back into riding and hiking shape as I’ve definitely developed a passion for hiking since moving to Colorado several years ago. I was also diagnosed with diverticulosis in early 2021 and I’ve struggled to find foods that won’t cause a flare up. Sadly, it took me several months to figure out that a ketogenic diet would most likely help, given I hadn’t had any serious stomach issues in the 4 years I followed it religiously. Yes, I am sometimes a slow learner…

As much as I love the foods I’m allowed on a ketogenic diet, the reality for me is that I cannot stay in ketosis with just monitoring the food I eat. I have to do more, and below are some of the things that have worked well for me.

1. Fasting. I’ve done 5 day fasts, and I’ve done much shorter intermittent fasting, i.e. eating within a 6-8 hour window. If you are having trouble staying in ketosis, try just skipping a meal (as long as you do not have a medical condition that requires you to eat) and see if you can get back in to ketosis. If not wait longer to eat next time or try my next suggestion.

2. A hard workout in a fasted (or nearly fasted) state. Working out for at least an hour without having much to eat has always worked to boost my ketone levels. Earlier this week we were invited to dinner with friends and the main dish was paella, so I ended up eating rice. I had a hard session on the trainer earlier in the afternoon, so I was curious to see what my ketone levels would be today after eating rice at dinner. I finished my meal last night around 7:30, so I did not eat anything until 12:00 pm today. Before eating lunch I tested my blood for ketones and registered .07 mmol.

If I hadn’t had a tough workout yesterday afternoon in a nearly fasted state, I most likely would have registered lower ketones, and maybe none at all.

3. Tracking my food and drink intake. It is critical to track what you eat daily, and how that corresponds with your ketone levels. Tracking your food intake and what you drink will also help you stay accountable to a ketogenic diet, and it will help you figure out whether a particular food item is negatively impacting your ability to stay in ketosis. There are a lot of prepackaged foods now that are labeled as “Keto” but they usually contain sugar alcohols that can cause your ketone levels to drop (or at least that’s what happens for me). It is not cheap to check your blood, but it appears to be by far the most accurate way to measure ketones.

I currently use a Nova Max ketone meter to test my blood. The testing strips are very expensive ($2.50 each), so I’ve ordered a new one made by KETO MOJO that I read some good reviews about, and the testing sticks are much more affordable at $1.00 each. I’ll post here once it arrives and I’ve had a chance to compare it to the Nova Max meter.

Just over a month ago I was contacted by Lars Hundley, owner and publisher of RoadBikeRider.com. He had read my blog and wondered if I’d be interested in writing an article for his online publication on the topic of ketogenic diets for cyclists. I was happy to agree. We decided to have him interview me over a series of emails, and he put together the final piece which you can find here: A Beginner’s Guide to Ketogenic Diets for Cyclists.

If you’re not familiar with RoadBikeRider.com, please check it out. You can sign up for their weekly newsletter at no charge, and there is a premium option for a small charge. It has a variety of excellent articles for cyclists of all abilities, as well as e-books and reviews of all types of cycling products. And now it has a great article on ketogenic diets for cyclists!

Yesterday we rode up to the Pont d’Espagne, which translates to Spanish Bridge. We left from the gite and climbed 4500 feet on the day, with about 3000 of those up to the bridge. We drove the night before and got some beautiful pictures of the bridge and surrounding waterfalls:The ride was definitely challenging. I did not feel great after, but a nap and some good food (and wine) helped.

Today we did an even bigger ride, up to the Col du Soulor, and the guys went further up to the Col d’Abisque, where the Tour de France will finish tomorrow. I asked a Brit to take a picture of me at the summit:

There were a lot of people on the roads and in campers, preparing for the Tour to go through there tomorrow. I took one picture at the top of some of the campers, but it does not begin to accurately represent what it was like riding up – got lots of cheers (and sympathetic looks) from fans along the road. And as you can see, the view around it is incredibly beautiful.

I took a wrong turn and ended up with more miles than I intended to get home, so for the day I climbed just over 5,000 feet and my total mileage was 48. I felt much better today – perhaps I’m finally getting a level of fitness back after pneumonia.

Tomorrow we are going to watch the stage of the Tour de France, so it probably won’t be a big riding day, but will be an exciting one.

We arrived Thursday morning and spent 2 days in Pau sightseeing and trying to get acclimated. Friday we drove up to the border of Spain and had lunch at the top of a beautiful mountain pass in the Pyrenees.

Today we checked into our gite in Viscos, a tiny mountain town with beautiful views. It was quite foggy today so I couldn’t get any decent pictures of the view but will definitely post those later.

We did our first ride of the trip, up to Luz Ardiden. I went the back way from the gite, and Jonathan, Matt and Tim rode into town and rode up a different way. It was incredibly foggy for the last 3 km. I could hear cow bells all over (cows roam freely here) but I couldn’t see them until I was right next to them. Needless to say it made descending very tricky.

I felt good, except for an issue with my derailleur which kept me in one gear only, and of course it wasn’t my easiest one! I couldn’t downshift to stand because it wouldn’t go back into the easier gear so I sat and had to grind away the entire climb. It felt like I was being punished, yet it was enjoyable because I was riding a beautiful road in France.

Here’s a picture at the summit from today, and the one below is from 2 years ago. Quite a difference!

Tomorrow will be a little tougher ride, up Hautacam, another ski resort with super steep roads. Guess I should put the wine glass down and get some rest!!

I had a wonderful Memorial Weekend with my mom visiting.  I rode the trainer each day, did my achilles exercises, and worked on core strength and upper body strength. We picked up Jonathan and our friend Matt after they tackled Mt. Evans on Sunday. We saw the new Star Wars movie, “Solo” on Monday night. It was a great weekend. And then everything went black.

I woke up Tuesday morning knowing something was seriously wrong. I fought a fever all night, along with a splitting headache and pretty serious back ache. I literally could not get out of bed. I’d been dealing with the back pain for about 5 days, but it wasn’t anything serious, just more of an annoyance. And other than feeling like I was breathing harder than usual on the trainer, I had felt good exercising the prior days.

All day Tuesday my fever soared and my back ache continued. On Wednesday morning we went to urgent care, with me thinking I had a kidney infection. They ran tests for a kidney infection and the flu, and both came up negative. The Dr. then wanted to do chest xrays to get a closer look at my lungs, as my oxygen numbers when I came in were lower than they should have been, and I was running a 102.8 degree fever.

I was shocked to learn that I had pneumonia. I racked my brain trying to think of how I could have contracted it. The last few weeks have been particularly stressful at work and I wasn’t sleeping well, but I was still exercising, getting accupuncture treatments, taking my vitamins…and still it managed to get to me.

I spent the next 3 days in bed, and now I’m taking it easy trying to recover. But it has prompted me to learn more about pneumonia, and, in particular, whether I am more susceptible to getting it in the future now that I’ve had it once. Unfortunately, I cannot find anything definitive on the question of whether I’m more susceptible now. There are a few sites that just say you are more likely to contract it again, but they don’t say why.

So I decided to focus on how to avoid getting pneumonia in the future, which led to me to an interesting article which suggests that our bodies may produce protective cells that actually prevent us from a second episode of pneumonia. The article, “Your Lungs Aren’t the Same After a Battle With Pneumonia” is based on a study done on mice. The mice were first infected with a type of bacterial pneumonia, with a control group that was not infected. After recovery, the mice were infected with a more serious strain of pneumonia.

The mice who were previously infected fared far better than the control group who had not been previously infected. All of the control group mice died, while only 10% of the previously infected mice died. The previously infected mice had a population of white blood cells called memory T cells in the lobe where the previous infection occurred. The memory T cells protected that lobe from the second infection.

The authors of the study believe that these memory T cells could be used in human vaccines to provide protection against lung infection, without having to have pneumonia first. I hope they are right.

For now, I’m focused on finding ways to speed up my recovery and prevent future infections just in case the T cell thing doesn’t work out or become available in my lifetime (knowing how quickly the FDA approves medicines that can actually help people). I did learn about a type of plant, mullein, whose leaves have healing and protective properties for lungs. Mullein acts as an expectorant and removes excess mucus from the lungs while soothing the membranes. I’ve already found it on Amazon, but also hoping to find it at our local health food store as well. Here’s an  article discussing this “weed.” I just hope it tastes good enough to choke down, as I plan to drink gallons of it over my lifetime.

This is yet another setback, but I’m trying to focus on what I can do with my extra time as I recover and not what I’m missing out on. I’ve already learned a lot from this experience, and hopefully others will benefit from this knowledge.