As a lifelong New Yorker, I never aspire to spend my time in midtown.
But this time of year, the desire is even less.
Between the extra traffic, the department store holiday windows and the families of tourists all stopped in the middle of the sidewalk huddled around their pocket-sized guide books, navigating this part of the City can definitely be a chore worth avoiding.
However I recently found myself squarely between Saks Fifth Avenue and the Rockefeller Christmas tree recently in order to visit “The Lanby” - a concierge medical office who reached out to us as part of a potential partnership.
Members of their staff came to our Upper East Side facility to experience our style of training and, in exchange, I spent a random Tuesday morning going through their onboarding and consultation process.
Neat!
As someone who has spent a lot of time in doctor’s offices as a child I opened the door to their sixth floor offices expecting to see a receptionist behind a sliding glass window, several well-thumbed back issues of Highlights magazine randomly spread across a low coffee table and a corner filled with extremely grubby children's toys in order to insure if you didn’t go into the office already sick, playing with those blocks and dolls would ensure you left with a case of typhoid.
But this experience was quite different.
As I entered I was immediately welcomed by the office manager who came out from behind a beautiful desk in order to greet me. There were lit candles. There was a pitcher of cucumber water. There was an overstuffed couch. I was offered tea and snacks.
The point of this post is not to detail the step by step process of this out-of-network medical office but, suffice it to say, this is how medical facilities should be run. They took an extraordinary amount of time talking to me about my history, physical and mental challenges that I’m facing and lifestyle factors that could be affecting my health.
It’s what you would hope to get when visiting your doctor.
Also included was a physical exam, body composition analysis and blood work.
There is currently a fascination with technology and specifically wearable devices delivering statistics and analytics on the state of your health, performance and readiness to train. But your HRV score, closing the circles on your Apple Fitness+ and step count pale in comparison to the information you can receive from good blood panels.
Things such as risk for liver disease, chances of a cardiac event, vitamin deficiency and hormonal imbalances can all be revealed by a comprehensive blood test. The analysis will give you actionable items that can actually improve your health and your performance. So if you are someone who is serious about maximizing your capabilities and well-being, blood work should be a foundational piece of the puzzle and should be retaken regularly in order to determine if any interventions are actually producing results.
After receiving my detailed report from the lab the good folks at Lanby scheduled a video conference call in order to review my results and go over any potential interventions that could help me move the needle towards being my healthiest self.
Two medical professionals (one who specialized in breaking down the blood test results, the other who recommended lifestyle changes that could positively affect those results) spent about 45 minutes on the call with me discussing hormonal imbalances, vitamin deficiencies and how I could be sabotaging myself with some lifestyle practices.
Turns out my hemoglobin is low (I’ve always battled with anemia for as long as I can remember), my risk of a cardiac event is about zero, my liver is in fantastic shape, just like everyone else in New York in December my Vitamin D is low, so is my Vitamin B12, I’m terrible at handling blood sugar (also nothing new) and while my total testosterone count is remarkably average, my free testosterone was low.
(SIDE NOTE: just as people are squirrely about discussing money, I think people (particularly men) are also hesitant to discuss the state of their hormones, disease risk and health. And while everyone is absolutely entitled to their privacy, I do believe that removing some of the stigma will lead to people feeling more supported and being proactive in tackling any issues they might have.)
I’ll save you the details but the confluence of these factors were a bit perplexing. The main takeaways: make sure carbohydrates come from non-processed whole food sources, supplement with Vitamin D and methylated B vitamins and, most importantly, manage stress with breath work and get an adequate amount of sleep. Doing all of these should see all the problem areas improve.
I also showed my results to our dietician Jennie who was less concerned about my anemia and more concerned about my glucose management.
(SECOND SIDE NOTE: Jennie is a whiz with nutrition and blood work. We’ll be providing a lot more offerings from her in the new year. Stay tuned for that.)
You can 100% make some common sense changes to your diet and lifestyle and almost certainly change your health and performance. Things like managing your stress, incorporating strength training into your weekly routine, laying off the Scandinavian Swimmers (even though they are delicious!) and ensuring you get adequate protein are the low-hanging-fruit solutions that yield the greatest benefit.
However, once you get those foundational building blocks established, going deeper with blood work can give you specific and targeted insights that would be very difficult to find elsewhere. So I highly recommend you do so.
Even if that means you have to fight off holiday tourists to get it done.