I must admit I’m confused. I expect approval from my doctor, but I’m let down instead. Told that I have been taking fish-oil capsules every night since my last visit, she’s not impressed.

 

“Well,” she says, “it won’t do you any harm. But neither will it do you any good.”

 

It recalls another of my periodic visits. I proudly told her I was taking a lot of soy milk: “Oh, that would explain the rise in your uric acid.”

 

Well, it was easy enough to drop soy milk. Until it came flavored with vanilla and chocolate, it had required some resoluteness to gulp down. But, with cranberry capsules, by which I swear and of which I now also tell her, she gives me the benefit of the doubt.

 

I thought urinary-tract infection would hound me the rest of my life, but I’ve never had another episode for over a year now, and she knows very well how I suffered through it. She still asks if I just heard about the cranberry capsules from a friend or got the info from the Internet. In fact, they were a prescription from a gynecologist-urologist who had put me through a series of tests.

 

“That’s good,” she says, seemingly pleased—until I get on her scale. “You’re overweight. You’ve gained 14 pounds since your last visit.”

 

I feel shocked, shamed. More than that, I feel betrayed by my own scale, which proved disloyal after 50 years of bathroom companionship: I was only 135 pounds when I left the house. Postponing my checkup precisely until I’ve lost five pounds from 140, I’m now here revealed unaware at 144. Could it be my doctor’s own scale?

 

Unkindest cut

 

But it’s Vergel who deals me the unkindest cut of all, tipping at only two pounds heavier, three yet under the limit he has vowed to keep for life. On my last pregnancy I weighed a mere 118—with a full-term child!

 

My doctor is relieved to at least find my blood pressure holding at 120/70. Before handing me a list of lab tests to undergo, she shares with me her own formula for staying fit. Like Vergel, she plays tennis, and, when she doesn’t find enough time for it, she makes up with other disciplines. As soon as her clothes feel tight, she goes on a 1,500-calorie diet for two days. She scribbles a referral to a dietician for me.

 

Not very long ago, my son Robert and I were seeing an Ayurvedic doctor. The doctor blamed chicken for many things, including constipation, and suggested lamb and duck, and supplied me weekly with brown pills that smelled like spices, all FDA-approved. We got along famously. I felt fine, and was never overweight.

 

He was also able to arrest Rob’s hypertension, a genetic condition, and soon got him off his own little brown pills, although not his diet—lamb, duck, lots of vegetables, fruits, lots of water, and an occasional glass of wine. But when he moved his clinic too far, we felt well enough to end our Ayurvedic experience.

 

Potential cancer

 

I once joined friends to visit a Chinese doctor in Binondo who had a German machine that supposedly could detect potential cancer. It produced colored pictures, dark and ugly, of my supposedly diseased insides, prompting her to order urgent blood tests before confining me in an apartment where I was to be put on a strict diet and treated with her own concocted medicines.

 

The tests belied her fears, and she looked almost disappointed. The big scare cost me a pretty penny. I should have suspected something when I saw her choice of office wallpaper—reproductions of $100 dollar bills!

 

It was also from her that I had picked up the fad of alkaline water, which I had delivered daily until I learned that lemon water does the same thing.

 

Vegetarian is the way to go, another doctor preaches, and I’m always prepared to give anything a try. But, for some reason and much to my relief, I’ve learned that a blood type “O” like me can’t be a strict vegetarian and that I, in fact, need to eat at least 10-percent meat.

 

I do take a lot of fresh greens at every meal and lately have been weaning myself from fried foods. The aftereffects are just too wonderful to ignore, I must say. So, whenever I crave steak, which is rarely, my partner and I go for it, since he can eat anything.

 

Great relief

 

If I managed to stay away from coffee, it was only to prove to myself I could do it, but, as bad as it was made to be, I didn’t like what I was becoming without it. Now, to every coffee lover’s great relief, it has been found good for the heart, as is red wine—taken in moderation, of course. So I’m back to coffee without guilt—until the tides of medical research change against it once again, or my teeth have grown gray, although, again, I may be too old to care by then.

 

Anyway, as my doctor unequivocally says, apart from diet, it’s exercise that more than anything keeps one healthy. So, back again to the gym.

 

Coming from a long layoff, I used to come close to collapsing trying to complete 45 minutes on a moderately paced treadmill. And just as I begin to gain in endurance, I learn that 30 minutes of mild exercise every day, so long as done regularly, is even better. Perfect!

 

After each meal, in comfy pambahay, I now walk as briskly in my tsinelas around our condominium home, although, whenever I can, I still do gym in proper gear.

 

At any rate, unlike some bathroom scales I know, blood tests don’t lie, and I’m giving myself another week to look good in them—whatever it takes.