Good morning!

All good on your end? It’s certainly Friday. It’s certainly not freezing yet (see below). Glad to see you are ready to take today by the horns and just wrestle it on down to the ground, look at you?! Cheers, my friend.

Me? Same. I’m now with my favorite people (you). Just had a great early morning walking the dogs and drinking (my first cup) of coffee with my best friend (wife, Kristin).

Here are 4 quick, good things.

One of these days, it’s going to be cold. Just in case we’re not together that day, let’s talk layers: base, middle, and shell.

Base – a while ago, a friend told me about Ice Breaker Merino. This stuff is definitely nice, but I find it too expensive, and now I find it to be unnecessary. Costco has 32 Degree brand tops and bottoms that my BFF and I find work perfectly. They’re around 8 dollars/piece. (This is not product placement, but a boy can dream)

Middle – fleece, sweatshirt, or down coat, maybe. FWIW, I’ve been wearing one of those puffy coats for years in this role; they’re worth their weight in gold to me. It’s shredded and leaking down, but you can’t tell because of the shell. 

Shell – protects us from the wind and rain and is the critical 3rd piece on the days we’re braving the elements.

Finally, a warm hat covering our ears and mittens that generate all that heat by keeping our fingers together.

At our office, most of us have our patients with a cardiac history use a scarf or mask over their mouths to warm the air coming in and protect their faces.

Please know that when you’re contemplating the treadmill or a safe, dry sidewalk, there are significant health benefits of being outside, even in colder weather. We talked about that at Read with a Doc last week when we discussed Florence’s book.

I’m coming up on my word count. Real quickly…

Lots of cardiology buzz this week about the polypill. Kudos to the polypill creators and kudos to our Walk Leaders who’ve been dishing out the OG polypill (walking, connection, and nature) for longer than Taylor’s been with Travis.

Starting to think about the fourth Thursday in November? I’m not, but I’ve always been a procrastinator (I hate that).

Finally, if you’re at ACLM in Dallas next week, please come hang out with Rachael, Bryan, and me. Rachael has jokes.

You are amazing. 

Have a beautiful weekend, you have most definitely earned it.