“How’s your oatmeal?” he asked and his face broadened to his ever friendly, genial grin. Too friendly, considering he asks this question every Saturday morning when our run/walk group concludes the exercise phase and relocates to the breakfast restaurant. This is “Bob” who recently survived a pulmonary embolism, whose specialists never raised the diet topic, and for whom a good meal is one of his life joys. And a good meal does not include oatmeal – rather fried eggs and rashers of bacon. I once asked him if he knew the Hippocrates quote “let food be thy medicine and medicine thy food” and he grinned and ducked and weaved like Muhammad Ali, and my question sailed away.
So today I quickly acknowledge Bob and focus on “Pete” (early seventies) who is describing his first week on anti-hypertensive medication and, though his blood pressure has not yet come down, it surely will. I ask Pete why the sudden rise in blood pressure and he says “aging” and tucks into his eggs and bacon.
Now I really like these guys, and they are pretty knowledgeable and smart, and Pete in his younger days ran sub 40 minute 10k’s, which is good going by my book. I am not after converts and so I enjoy the oatmeal (not comparable with my home brew – see pic below) and every so often one of the group (usually after a visit to his physician) will have oatmeal for a few weeks too. And then it’s back to traditional breakfasts, all part of living the good life. Safe in the knowledge that conventional medicine and an arsenal of medications are on standby for when the music slows down.
