About two months ago I had my annual physical, a thing I have come to hate mostly because it is a waste of time. The theory behind getting a physical every year is that it may catch some terrible disease you have before it gets to the point where they tell you to get your affairs in order. The belief is that if they catch it early, they have a better chance of curing it. At the extremes this is obviously true, but in the main it is one of the many myths that keeps the system awash in your cash.
This time I learned, to the immense joy of the staff, that my blood pressure was out of whack and my cholesterol was getting high. The reason for the cheering and celebrating was that it meant pills. I would need pills, lots and lots of pills. This is the best of times at a doctor’s office. The average American now takes four different prescription medicines. Humans made it into the 20th century with no pills, but we left the 20th century addicted to them.
Instead of giving my future over to the pharmaceutical companies, I decided to take a hard look at my lifestyle. I have always been someone who has more on the schedule than time permits. This not only means plenty of stress, but it also means I often stay up late getting things done. Lack of proper rest is probably the worst thing you can do to yourself as you get old. Of course, being overly busy means not eating properly and not exercising on a regular basis.
It did not require an intervention to know that I had allowed by schedule to take over my life, so the trip to the doctor was more of an excuse to reorganize things than a “come to Jesus” wake up call. The last year has brought a lot of changes and one of them was seeing the numbers on the scale get bigger every week. The late middle-age life reorganization has been in the back of my mind for a while now, so the trip to the doctor was an excuse to finally get serious about things.
One of the first things I decided to do was cut out alcohol. This is not a big deal as I have often cut out booze to lose weight. For me, losing weight has always meant cutting carbs and beer is nothing but carbs. Even though drinking lowers your blood pressure initially, regular drinking tends to drive up your blood pressure. It can also drive up your cholesterol, which was the other issue from my physical. I need to lose weight anyway, so dropping alcohol was the obvious first move.
Something I never thought about until now was that in the past when I cut beer from the diet was that it was situational. I would stop having a beer with dinner or on weekends, but if I had a social engagement I would go ahead and have a beer. The point was to cut out the calories that come with beer, not cut out the beer. This time the plan was to cut out beer entirely, which meant no beer at social events. I did not realize it, but I was going to be that guy at the party.
That guy, of course, is the person at just about every social event who has to tell people that he is not drinking. This usually happens a few times before his last name turns into “who is not drinking.” I have become that guy. Worse yet, I have had to explain the blood pressure business a million times now. In retrospect, I should have made up a story about how the terms of my parole prohibit drinking. At least people would not feel the need to look like they are interested in the answer.
The other part of the diet and exercise plan is obviously exercise. I used to lift weights regularly and cycle, but nagging injuries got me out of the habit. Before heading back down those roads, I decided to research the topic a bit. I am not a kid anymore and we are awash in aging baby boomers. I assumed that there was a mountain of information on the best exercise for old people. I was surprised to learn that it is pretty much the same stuff they have been peddling for years.
Odder still, the fitness rackets are not aiming at the geezer demographic. This seems like a logical market if you are selling exercise plans or gym memberships. Imagine a gym that caters to old people. You have to be an AARP member to join. That way the old people do not have to see those young and fit people while they are pretending that age is just a number. Maybe there is a local chain working this demo, but it looks like the fitness rackets are still aiming for the young and fit.
I wonder if the issue is not cultural. Marketing fitness to old people means telling them that they are old, and that age is more than a number. Baby boomers are not going to react positively to being told that they are as old as feel. This is one of the consequences of youth culture. Everyone has to lie to themselves about getting old, which means everyone with something to sell to old people lies to old people about the undeniable reality of getting old.
The one exception to this is the weightlifters. There are lots of old guys with YouTube channels talking about their weight training. The reason is this is the one thing you can do until you die. It turns out that strength training is probably the one thing old people can do to hold off father time. The man with the world’s strongest grip is a 73-year-old Norwegian dude named Magnus, of course. Here is a great video of him explaining what he does to remain strong into old age.
None of this matters as the Grim Reaper is undefeated. The best you can hope to do with regards to your health is to take Father time into the late rounds and remain as fit as possible to the end. My clash with the sphygmomanometer was nothing more than a reminder that I have a choice. I can make the best of the time I have, or I can just mark time like a prisoner in an aging body. It also means that life is for living, so have a beer on me over the long holiday weekend.
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I am turning 70 this month and had to quit drinking 3 years ago to get back to a good BMI and make my blood pressure healthy. I started letting things go at 60.
I still exercise: weights, cycling, swimming and hiking. However, I have to do things differently than when younger. I warm up now and stretch before and after. Most men are worried that if they stretch other men will think that they want anal sex and are a bottom. They may sneak in one stretch but that is all. I find now my body wants to stretch from head to toe.
Grip strength is one of the great indicators of whether you will be healthy and active in old, old age versus being frail. I didn’t work on grip enough while young but have a good grip now.
I pity these young men with low testosterone now. They are going to be wrecks when older.
Posting this late because have been very busy.
Yes lifting is the best thing. I’m 62 and have been doing barbell work for about seven years. Squatting 405 and dead lifting 455 and still getting stronger and never felt better.
Yes there are serious gyms focussed on this demograpic:
https://www.greysteel.org
Note the site links also to Dr Sullivan’s wonderful, witty book.
Enuf said.
As it said in a great South Park episode, I don’t believe than complete alcohol ban is a good thing. I’m afraid you’ll get obsessed with beer through the time.
One of the key point, outside good food than few think about is sleeping time. A frightenous amount of people don’t get their eight hours. They claim they “don’t have time” but lie to themselves. In reality, they choose other priorities. Literally no one “needs” to be active 16 hours a day.
I’m off alcohol for now – never did drink all that much, but am now taking meds for rheumatoid arthritis that make that not an option.
What I CAN drink, and are currently available at most bars, are the NA beers – not completely alcohol-free, but close enough for my needs. Many bars and beverage stores even have micro-brewed NA beers. Some of them very nice.
OT
Sat down for a snack and flipped on the TV.
The first thing to violate my senses was a commercial for…..San Francisco.
Interracial couple with mixed kids; check
Tranny entertainer; check
Cable cars going up and down Front Street; check.
Back to the yard work.
Ya know, one would think that Boo Boo doesn’t like his own kind, what with the honkey wives and all.
Also, there are multiple videos online of Front Street, and the wharf area, being a violent, dangerous ghost land.
The gaslighting is at epic proportions.
Z – man, pay attention to American Dr. Gundry’s advice on gut Health. He makes the most sense of all of this.
Where I live we still swear by one tried and true method of exercise: The Rocking Chair. You can set your own pace, it’s inexpensive, and you can rest your eyes while doing it or watch what interests you.
There are gyms that cater to old people.
They’re usually affiliated with “senior centers”. Which tends to scare off people until they’re ~ 70. As few want to be thought of as an old person.
Commercial gyms don’t cater to that demo because the semi-secret of the gym business model is selling memberships at a level that they cannot possibly accommodate. Their ideal customer joins the gym, goes once or twice then stops, but keeps paying the monthly fee out of habit or just to keep their option open. The people actually working out at the gym are really marketing for the gym.
Which means they ned to be attractive and young presenting.
So that when a mark walks in he sees attractive youthful people and thinks “That will be me “ and signs up. A room full of old people just won’t do.
It’s not the gym’s fault. For any form of genuine self improvement everyone shows up on day one with grand ideas of how wonderful the finish line will be. They imagine this goal will be achieved by oh, next Wednesday or so.
They quickly discover that it takes hard work and years of painful sacrifice whereas you can play a video game to learn unstoppable ninja moves and get the princess in a day while literally twiddling your thumbs sitting on the couch within arms reach of soda and chips.
Every gym would LIKE to retain more members and so get off the endless treadmill of having to market to new people but literally no one knows how to do this succesfully.
Americans, but problably western human beings in general today are simply too mentally weak to volitionally do anything hard consistently for ANY reason.
Its not even just weight lifting gyms, martial arts schools, music lessons, rock climbing, skateboarding, aerobics, cycling, running, etc…
Any business that sells the opportunity to learn a difficult skill has approximately the same issue of 90% of people buying the initial stuff then quitting within the first year. Theyve all dreamed of retaining all these customers but despite the lengths they go to its simply not possible.
That said, you are right that the constant churn of new or inactive participants creates a certain financial model. If youre one of the select few that actually follows through this is golden for you, you get a lovely expansive and usually not too crowded facilitiy for a fifth of what it might cost if everyone actually used the membership they pay for.
I begin to suspect that 90% of people quit when encountering difficulty is some kind of iron law of reality. The 10% is the REAL elite in the classic sense and the rest are the spiritual peasants. Not just limiting this to physical pursuits, same is true in studying music, art, mathematics, etc… most people (today? here?) simply will NOT do ANYTHING hard by choice, ever.
Um, blow it out your ass, Oberführer. And don’t be such a First World Problems chauvinist.
A lot of people have the potential to be much more than what they are, but it doesn’t work that way. If you have a family, you carry the cares of many people. Wives have problems, children have problems, eldering parents have problems, mortgages need to be paid. Silly as it sounds, some people actually feel a sense of obligation and they don’t just drop all that for a quixotic quest to climb the Himalayas.
Sadly, some people even nurture a secret dream that has been stuck in the bottom drawer for a long, long time. Something the achievement of which would benefit not only them but humanity as well. Yet they get ground down by lack of support, misfortune in their relations, economic devastation.
Tragedies happen. The man who holds a family together through a horrible time, who absorbs the harshest blows so others aren’t destroyed by them, who has to swallow all at once the bitter pill that his dream might never happen now, but who still toils away at a job unworthy of him so that his son might have a chance, that man is the spiritual elite, not the beach-muscled mimbo on Youtube.
What Gus Fring said..
And a man, a man provides. And he does it even when he’s not appreciated, or respected, or even loved. He simply bears up and he does it. Because he’s a man.
Looks like he touched a raw nerve…
Medicare Advantage has a cheap gym membership. Look up Silver & Fit. My gym has many seniors, lifting, on treadmills and bikes, even playing racquetball or squash. Your reps may vary.
going to crossfit saved my life. I’m certain I’d be overweight, depressed, on prescription drugs and likely out of work a long time ago without it. I did 5 rope climbs in class this week for example and deadlifted 355# on my 69th birthday (about 2x body weight). I’m able to hang out with people mostly younger people and I believe that my brain seeing younger people often and sometimes outworking them makes my brain think I’m their age which I believe is healthy. I can’t emphasize it enough how much I enjoy the classes and learning new and perfecting movements like Olympic weight lifting. I know it’s not for everyone but it’s great for anyone. It’s given me a whole new lease on a productive happy life.
Moderation in all things. Including moderation.
– Oscar Wilde
Lotta these things are genetic, Z. My dad…who’s very fit – got diabeedus. My 63 year old brother (who still runs death races) got it too. I outweigh them both put together and don’t have the issue. No sign of blood pressure or cholesterol either. My father in law lived under the tyranny of cholesterol and blood pressure… and religiously exercised and dieted. Parkinson’s killed him off first of our parents.
When your number’s up, it’s up. Tomorrow, your fellow jewish black accomplice – Cornelius Rye – could light you up with his 9mm. It’s the quality of the journey, not the time that counts.
Make your time count. 😊👍
Its not a question of dying or when, although you certainly stack whatever cards youve drawn in your favor by staying in shape.
Its about fulfilling your potential as a man and God’s creation by not being a sloppy sack of crap who people intuitively dont respect because he cant get up off the floor without groaning.
I think Brittney Spears said it best
Money changes everything: https:/w w w .youtube. com/watch?v=pp4suZ4jNXg
Ole’ miss Spears makes it clear as day
She said I’m sorry baby I’m leaving you tonight
Modern AINO relationship logic:
“I found someone new he’s waitin’ in the car outside
Ah honey how could you do it
We swore each other everlasting love
She said well yeah I know but when
We did, there was one thing we weren’t
Really thinking of and that’s money”
Check!
No doubt this logic is also embraced by the Lets Go Brandon fucks and the Juggalicious accolytes, so maybe there is hope
But Damn Gaia, and Damn Democracy, at the end of the day…. Money Changes Everything!….!
[sigh] At least Britney gets cyncial credit where due. We’ve deteriorated a long way since the 1970s when Tom Petty crooned that “she’s gonna listen to her heart.” Well maybe back then she did, but in today’s world all bets are on his money and his cocaine.
Zman, you should be applauded for your honesty. In all sincerity, despite the comments in your recent “Diet and Superstition” post, you should consider a keto-carnivore lifestyle. The point is not to pretend that it will make you live longer, but that it will contribute to maximum fitness while you’re alive. The testimonials about its effectiveness are endless. Countless people have ditched their medications and returned to normal blood pressure, glucose, cholesterol, inflammation markers…you name it… on a carnivore diet.
What we all love about you is your cynical, razor sharp wit, and the diet industry is just too juicy a target not to be lampooned. That said, there is medical truth out there, and the low carb, no carb, diet works. Eating meat is as simple and as effective as it gets at no cost to you.
Normally, I would expect you to eviscerate guys like this as a carny acts, but you might want to have a listen to Shawn Baker and Anthony Chaffee. They have a lot to say.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-P-4p5e9VA&t=20s
agreed 100%. I discovered plant material is toxic to my system.
On the other hand, plant material processed by a cow and served up medium rare does wonders for my system.
The most important advice for good health: “Choose your parents carefully”.
The best thing for your health at this point is finishing your book.
FWIW, Biden’s Alcohol Czar is pressing for two drinks a week maximum, enforced by no doubt CDBC. That is already the case in Canada, though they are not (yet) officially enforcing this. Reading through the lines he claims there is no reason at all for anyone to drink anything.
For some bizarre reason the Regime wants Prohibition 2.0 . I have no idea why.
As for cardio, try a rowing machine. Quite nice.
Whiskey: “For some bizarre reason the Regime wants Prohibition 2.0. I have no idea why.”
/SARCASM?!?
Obviously they need sober shabbos goyische True Believers to fight the Holy War in Khazaria, so as to drive the final stake into the heart of Mother Russia, and ki11 off the filthy old sh!ksa b!tch, once and for all.
Stoners, soy-boyz & tr@nnies need not apply.
Sober stone cold k!llerz are what they need.
What they require.
Prohibition 2.0 would instantly kick off 1776 2.0.
Rowing machines are nice, but a bit pricey and in need of space.
I’m a big fan of the $200-300 spinning bikes with the 35-45 lb flywheels on Amazon. Very simple to maintain, and easy to do a 20-30 minute interval workout daily with very little joint impact.
I’ve seen the same push by the NHS in Britain. They’re on the “social drinkers” case. I forget their term for these folk, but they’re the type that visit the local pub down the street and have a couple of beers with their friends. Do this 5 times a week and the beers add up they say.
I’ve always considered the local bar a source of social intercourse for the neighborhood—and in that, a positive social good. When, I visited a long time ago England, I remember the pub’s and the general populace’s aversion to taking packaged liquor home, rather than imbibing in a community setting. I thought this very admirable.
When I read this, I can see that this is trending dangerously close to Prohibition as we’ve known it here in the US. Didn’t work then, won’t work now, but will cause a lot of societal disruption.
I’m 53, and took advantage of a lazy Friday today to run two laps on a local park dirt trail loop. About 8 miles total. Noticed the past few years I just needed to cut back the pace when running. I have a natural running cadence and have to actively concentrate on slowing down to avoid injury. Takes longer to heal, so not getting injured is important. I have a treadmill for the bad weather days, and dropped $20/mo on the iFIT app which basically has you running or walking along with a trainer who is outdoors and coaching you. I did a 10K series with Tommy Rivs through Croatia that was riveting. If you want to read an incredible survival story, read what happened to him. He should be dead. Death is coming and it doesn’t care how old or fit you are. Best running advice I ever got was in one of those runs. He said, “Do you know why people hate running? They run way too hard. Get exhausted or hurt. Then they quit.” So I do these long distance runs now that are really only about 25% faster than my fast walking pace. It changed everything. I have more fun now.
I have few health related goals other than not getting ridiculously fat. My clothes fit and I don’t fat out of them. Running for me clears the mind. I have an incredibly stressful job with about 200 staff. There is something on fire every day. Sometimes 5x a day. So the running helps me deal with people and keep my head on straight.
When I don’t feel like running, I walk. Sometimes I do both. The benefits are similar, just a bit less for walking. I think for me it’s about maintaining a level of fitness so that as I get older, I don’t have narrowing choices. Colorado – unlike Bodymore – just begs you to go outside and play. The weather, the scenery, and a good pair of trail sneakers is cheap compared to a gym membership. Plus, you get some miles in and people ask what you did today and you point at a 12000’, 13000’ peak and mention you climbed that today before lunch. Then went and had a nice dinner with Dr. Hokkoda, a roll in the sheets, and a good night sleep.
Sex is important, too. And not just for the exercise, but the human connection. We all get old and saggy and lumpy. Use it or lose it.
My wife really struggles with her weight, but she still walks 40-50 min 4-5 days a week. The idea being that we’re not couch addled when we’re 60. I have no interest spending my last years on a couch watching the tube.
I watch a lot of my friends just sort of throwing in the towel and resigning themselves to the couch to watch sports ball until they die. Back when I still did social media, I always got notes from people asking me “How do you do that?” maybe after a relay race or Lead King Loop. One girl I was friends with started asking me lots of questions about running. She was about 5-7 and maybe a buck-seventy. Next thing you know, she’s in running groups, getting fitter, dropped a ton of weight and ran the Jackson Hole half marathon. Sometimes people just need to know “hey, I could do that, if Hokkoda can.”
I watch what I eat, but am not a prude. I like ice cream, but once a week is plenty. Friday is homemade pizza and wings night. I just don’t eat until I’m stuffed. Or if I do, I know those carbs will provide fuel for a Saturday long run. The thing that kills me is my wife is an amazing cook. As they kids have left the house, we’re working on portion control!
Never been much of a weight lifter. The grip strengtheners are a good idea though, and you can talk them in the walk or run.
But living in CO, there’s just nothing better than a little long slow distance on a Saturday. Teaches your body to endure.
Walking up the mountain is vastly better for you than walking down the mountain.
[Walking down an incline puts tremendous stress on your knees & your hips & your ankles & the small bones of your feet.]
If possible, the best situation would amount to walking up the mountain, but with a spare car awaiting to deliver you back down into the valley [so that the brakes on the cars are absorbing all the punishment from the gravity, rather than the ligaments & tendons in your knees absorbing the punishment].
True, but some of it is in how you run and the shoes. Really steep stuff I don’t run down anyways because it’s too hard to stay in control. But less steep is comfortable and let’s you work in foot turnover (shorter stride quicker turnover) which reduces impact stress. I ran down Peaks Trail near Breckenridge this morning. 10,300’ down to 9,000’ in Frisco over 3-3.5 miles. About -8%, pretty manageable.
The other value is concentration. I’m running over rocks and roots making complete focus important. Losing focus usually means rolling an ankle or a bad fall. It’s good practice keeping the mind focused on the task at hand. (Or the 10 feet immediately in front of your feet!)
Hokkoda: “Sex is important, too. And not just for the exercise, but the human connection. We all get old and saggy and lumpy. Use it or lose it.”
Since you seem to be the only fellow on this thread to have mentioned copulation [nobody else seems to be mentioning an aging gentleman’s licentious nor lascivious distractions], I’ma throw this one in right-chere:
A billionaire businessman has bought Jeffrey Epstein’s private islands and wants to turn them into a 5-star luxury resort
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4179357/posts
So here we have (((Jeffrey Epstein)))’s cousin, (((Stephen Deckoff))), purchasing the M0ss@d’s Shiksa Sex Slave Archipelago, for FIFTY CENTS ON THE DOLLAR.
Shaking muh d@mned head.
This is further evidence that, in all likelihood, the real Jeffrey Epstein was spirited away after the first “suicide attempt”, and a random homeless person’s corpse from the morgue was placed in the jail cell so that the medical examiner could file a falsified death certificate [upon the event of the second faked suicide].
I’m now at about 110% certainty that Epstein is lounging on a beach in Tel Aviv, sipping on Pina Coladas, and laughing uproariously at how easy it was to pull the wool over the eyes of the goyim.
Serpents.
Cold-blooded serpents, in human skin suits.
My wife after 22 years and 7 kids still has the perfected rotund ass of an Olympic god. No cottage cheese. Sex is the most important tool for us to use as counter to the globo homo. Use it or loose it indeed.
And Fuck MGTOW, armchair QB’s, Get in there and get it done!
Remember the Jack Nicholson on women : Understanding Women 101 – As Good As It Gets (Jack Nicholson #SHORTS)
Paste that and that’s all you need to know. My rotund assed wife blushes every time she sees that clip
MGTOW is for fat looser males scared to try like BLM is for fat looser women who are scared of dick!
Looser males? As opposed to tighter males?
At least he didn’t spell it mails. One outta two ain’t bad these days.
We Hate Everyone: “My wife after 22 years and 7 kids still has the perfected rotund ass of an Olympic god.”
A terrifying new study out of Italy just surfaced [Received: 29 April 2023, Accepted: 15 August 2023]; here’s a deep link to the PDF:
https://tinyurl.com/2mnms283
It’s a small study; only 20 PureBlooded participants & 20 v@xxinated participants.
The Takeaway:
1) The PureBlooded participants showed no signs whatsoever of any Spike Protein.
2) 50% of the v@xxinated participants continued to produce Spike Protein long after Spike Protein production was supposed to have ceased.
3) The authors fear that the Lipid Nano-Particles [LNPs] of the vaccines did not deliver their MRNA payloads into human cells, but rather delivered those payloads instead into bacterial cells in the bloodstream.
The big problem there – the really BIG BIG PROBLEM – is that we humans each have something like FORTY TRILLION BACTERIA in our bodies.
And the Italians seem to have come away from the study with the distinct impression that all of those FORTY TRILLION BACTERIA are potentially capable of receiving an MRNA payload from an LNP, and thereafter pumping Spike Protein into the bloodstreams of the v@xxinated.
===============
Getting back to your wife, here are some quick statistics:
There are approximately 10,000,000 [presumably fertile] females in American colleges & universities right now.
There are approximately 22 million healthcare workers in this country, roughly 76% of whom are female [a large portion of whom ought to be fertile].
That looks like (0.76) * 22,000,000 = 16,720,000 female healthcare workers.
Finally, there are about 250,000 females in the armed forces.
Summing it up, you’ve got
10,000,000 + 16,720,000 + 250,000 = just about exactly TWENTY SEVEN MILLION females, ALL OF WHOM ARE V@XXINATED!!!!!
[Because of University-required v@xxines, Hospital-required v@xxines, Armed-Forces-required v@xxines, etc.]
And here’s the second big problem: ALMOST ALL OF THEM SHOULD STILL HAVE HAD FERTILE WOMBS.
But if the Italians are correct, then each of those females are now potentially carrying SIXTY TRILLION bacteria cells which could be pumping out Spike Proteins to sterilize those females and/or kill their unborn children.
===============
So just from those three categories alone – higher edumakashun, healthcare, and the armed forces] – we’ve got at least TWENTY SEVEN MILLION females who can’t reliably produce live births [even though they otherwise ought to have been fertile].
And what are men supposed to do now in order to make families?
Personally, I can very easily imagine a not-too-distant future in which roving gangs of horny young “teens”, armed with shotgμns & gl0cks, move from house to house, searching for Pure-Blooded females with “the perfected rotund asses of Olympic goddesses”, and when they find such Pure-Blooded females [with such “perfected rotund asses”], they’re gonna mμrder the husbands & the sons, and abscond with the PureBlooded Wives & PureBlooded daughters as their pirate booty.
This is existential shiznat, folks.
EXISTENTIAL. SHIZNAT.
Please post here more in the future. We could use the added touch of class.
How much @mmun!tion is st0ckpi1ed chez Ostei Kozelskii?
100 r0μnds?
500 r0μnds?
1000 r0μnds?
5000 r0μnds?
9-emm-emm?
Forty Sm!th -n- We$$on?
Five dot Fifty Six?
Seven dot Sixty Two?
12 g@μge?
This is existential sh!znat, bro.
EXISTENTIAL. SH!ZNAT.
What’s gonna be worst of all is the psychological disadvantage here.
They know precisely what they want, and they’re being driven by an implacable biological imperative to seize [and deflower] what it is that they want.
Whereas you’ll be saddled with a permanent defensive posture [which is a terrible place to be psychologically], unless & until you summon the g0n@ds necessary to go on the offensive and prophylactically eliminate ALL OF THEM.
You ready for that, Bro?
Ready to eliminate ALL OF THEM?!?!?
You got any neighbors you can trust to watch your back?
Any neighbors who will stay up all night, on gμard dμty, walking the perimeter, while you try to catch a few precious hours of sleep?
[PRO-TIP: Invest in both Daytime Optics and N!ght V!sion.]
And here’s the very worst most existentially horrifying Truth of all: What if your bishes [your wife and your daughters] start to sense “Beta” in you, and they begin to lose faith in your ability to lead, and their innate hypergamous sex-drives convince them that it’s a better evolutionary bet to call it quits, lay back on the mattress, spread their legs, and welcome the troglodyte seed into their wombs?
You ready for that, Bro?
EXISTENTIAL. SH!ZNAT.
Ostei Kozelskii, I hope it’s obvious that I’m speaking rhetorically here, although, in a worse case scenario, certainly the rhetoric would apply to all of us [or at least to all of us who would be trying to safe-harbor one or moar fertile PureBlooded White wombs].
I’m not trying to AMOG nor anything asinine like that; I’m just trying to paint a picture in gentlemen’s minds regarding what the “Sexual Marketplace” [the old “SMP” of Game Theory], what the SMP is gonna look like if some yuge portion of the demographic pie is barren, and only a very small sliver of the pie is still offering White fertility.
It’s gonna be brutal.
In the worst case scenarios regarding the v@xxines, it’s very very easy to imagine dudes fighting to the death over fertile PureBlooded White wombs.
Try to imagine, in your mind’s eye, what the sociological landscape will look like, say, five years from now, when we [hypothetically] finally emerge from this v@xxine insanity, with, say, a Pareto Distribution of fertility, wherein 80% of the bishes were v@xxed [and lost their fertility], with only 20% of the bishes remaining PureBlooded [and retaining their fertility].
If, somehow, monogamy were to continue to persist in North America under those conditions, then 80% [four out of five] young aggressive masculine men would be left out in the cold when it came to the question of procreation.
And I don’t see how that story has an Happy Ending.
Rather, I see War.
THE WOMB WARS.
==========
Of course, the other possibility is that the “bottom” 80% of all young men will be completely broken psychologically [via relentless psy-ops such as feminism & divorce & single motherhood & man boobs & vidya games & pr0n & cetera], and they’ll simply give up the ghost of masculinity, and masturbate themselves into extinction.
Which, now that I think about it, might very well have been a very important pillar of the Depopulationists’ plans: Drop an epic Pareto boulder upon the soyboys, and watch their psyches disintegrate as they realize the Pareto-induced hopelessness of their lives.
Well you fixed the god vs goddess thing that was bothering me, but you left out fort e5 A Sea P.
See-Zee has a whole mess of D@n Wess0ns in fort e5 A Sea P.
http://tinyurl.com/ydyhzdyz
And they’ve the Kodiak in 10 Emm Emm.
Unfortunately, the Kodiak costs about the same as a used car.
“An annual physical is useless”
“An annual physical convinced me to stop boozing and start exercising”
– one of these things is not like the other
I find that people are quite different as for what diet-lifestyle works for them, that is, those who are actually paying close attention. I tend to be a binger. Most people are not. Quit drinking in 1985 because drinking moderately would have been a chore but not drinking was fairly easy.
Same thing with food but one cannot stop eating. Eventually I came to fasting, one day (really 36 hours) and eating immoderately for two. On fasting nights I sleep better, and shorter, so perhaps more effeciently, and am more alert on fasting days. I know people who are doing well on one and three. Perhaps the original design overthe first 150k was not for regular and dependable supplies of food? much less, corporate food.
No podcast this week?
He’s taking a 2-week hiatus.
You’re going to have to cut back on your posting. I’ve been amazed you’ve kept it up this long. You know you can have the alcohol without the carbs. It’s called liquor, and I recommend bourbon.
Not a bad rec, although I’m parshul to rye. Also vodka-and-tonic, gin-and-tonic, martinis, Bloody Marias, and a personal invention called the G-Bomb, which is comprised of tequila, grapefruit juice, coconut liqueur, bitters and soda water.
A little different than these g-bombs.
https://oncologycharlotte.com/g-bombs-cancer-fighting-foods/
Uh, I’m partial to gin and tonics as well as vodka tonics and there are tons of calories in those.
Shut up, man. Just shut up. We’re coping with mortality here, ok?
I enjoy a very simple combo either before, or with, a meal, the Italian herbal aperitivo, Campari with orange juice. Campari is a bitter concoction, but is admirably complimented by the sweetness of orange juice; the proportions are 1/3, Campari to OJ, and I favor a drink in that proportion with 2 oz./6 oz. in a large snifter with lots of ice. Campari is not for the faint of heart however, but Aperol, another Italian bitter can be substituted which is a less challenging alternative for those not persuaded of the virtues of bitters. At liquor.com one can find various drinks using either of those aperitivos, favorites being the Aperol spritz, or the Negroni for Campari (Campari, London dry gin, and sweet red Vermouth, 1/1/1).
Beyond that, the old standbys such as Gin and Tonic (good tonic, please, such as Fevertree, of which they produce several varieties), Rum and Cola (I favor Meyer’s dark Jamaican, and cola without sickly sweet HFCS, only with natural sugar, such as Boylan’s), and Old Fashions with a good Bourbon.
The possibilities of mixology, or the drinking of various noble beverages – brewed, fermented, distilled, etc. – straight are endless. I do not drink to excess, and not everyday, and that is where discernment is your friend.
Vodka, soda and fresh lime is my drink now.
No carbs so it’s dieting whilst drinking.
The Covid lockdown and full-time remote work has been devastating. I never had to do much to retain and or regain a nice physique and feel healthy. I finally committed to developing an effective routine.
I am using resistance bands and doing HIIT with them. On occasion I will slip in a muscle building workout, but the HIIT is doing wonders. In addition, I do a simple set of stretches morning, noon and evening: hams; hips; calves; back; neck. I do a ten minute meditation every morning. On days where I do it in the evening I feel even better. The resistance bands have been transformative. With old sports shoulder injuries, (even with a top surgeon who strapped down my shoulders), they reduce stress on my joints and force me to use my stabilizing muscles and keep my core engaged at all times. Keeping my core engaged and not being mentally lazy has really made my workouts far more effective than before.
Check out Undersun Fitness if you are interested.
The biggest impediment to my health has been waking up to The Great Replacement. I haven’t figured out how to deal with the perfectly natural emotional responses it provokes that combine with the perfectly un-natural unhealthy and outright sickness this evil social engineering project is.
I live a creative and constructive life, but I haven’t figured out a healthy way to deal with this one. Feeling powerless in the face of evil is bad for the health. Community is important, but hard to find.
RR-
Well, you’re not the only one. I spend a fair amount of time wondering, “Why bother?” lately.
As far as community, I’ve never really found a place to fit in the USSA. Somehow, I felt most comfortable among the expats I encountered when I was living overseas.
That is precisely how They want you to feel, demoralized and powerless. Rx, Meditations of Marcus Aurelius.
If youre 55 or under you should start a combat sport.
BJJ or Muy Thai are excellent workouts for your health, relatively low injury risk (unless youre dumb) and the secure knowledge that you could kill anyone in almost every room with your bare hands is a strangely reassuring feeling.
A small return to the warrior ethos of our proud European ancestors. Also if you have a kid and they’re playing football/soccer/baseball and NOT doing BJJ/Wrestling/Muy Thai/Boxing youre still mentally living in peak boomer america. We need a warrior generation.
BJJ low injury risk?! Hahaha. Yeah, unless you train w a bunch of fellow olds in a before work class. Everyone I’ve known that trained for more than a couple of years has had at least one major injury. I hung up the purple belt years ago and still have a couple of lingering niggles.
Also, no offense, but don’t overestimate your ability to handle yourself on the “street”. Nobody’s slapping hands and starting on their knees at the local diversity fest.
Ah the eternal internet purple belt…
This is why more white guys need to actually train. Anyone who has really fought has smashed dozens of big tough guys and yes this very much includes blacks. Trained strong disciplined blacks who can actually fight, not liquor store jackals that threaten solitary women and throw arm punches at senior citizens.
Having the real life bone deep knowledge that you can do this dispels the (((pop culture))) notion that other races are uniquely formidable. This an important step in rebuilding our self respect as a people.
Two asides:
Every sport has injuries, tons of guys get acl tears doing YMCA basketball and church softball leagues. Meanwhile being sedentary has a 100% injury rate because if you cant run a mile or push your body weight youre functionally disabled.
Oh well what if you get attacked by a dozen joggers with guns and knives?!? Yeah then youre dead. Question is, what if a lone jogger grabs your wife’s breasts at the bus stop. Are you going to: wet your pants OR break his arms? If youre not absolutely clear on the answer to that question you need to reevaluate.
My father, who is 82, is in better shape than I am. When he goes out with the grandkids on hikes, they are always pleading with him to slow down. He exercises religiously and eats a diet of beans, rice, yogurt and chicken breast.
And yet, when I call him on the phone, and ask how he is, he grumbles, “I’m still alive.” Every time. When Sean Connery lived till his late nineties and Warren Buffett is 93 or 94. My father will probably have at least a decade left in him but his natural pessimism is showing.
One of the things I disliked about Dad was his always advancing the goalposts by one year. You could be 364 days from your next birthday, and he would always say “You’re X+1 years old.” I must admit, I’m not fond of his fanaticism about health literature either. He believes reading science fiction rots the mind (and he’s an engineer) but he freely samples all manner of questionable material in the hopes of extending natural human healthy life.
The End. (Click on my name to come read my blog.)
Sean Connery is the man. If you have never seen his Barbara Walters/ Slapping a woman clip on Youtube, do yourself a favor and watch it.
Judging by your comments your father’s biggest failure was in raising his son.
Thank God there are some things you can always rely on. Like Bilejones always delivering the bile.
That blog is atrocious, and the daily spamming of this forum at the end of nearly incomprehensible posts has gotten old in just one week as well.
Bilejones with an appropriate wake up call.
My medical insurance covers an annual physical, so why not? That’s a separate question from accepting any meds the md may offer.
Staying fit (or trying to regain fitness) at 50 has been a completely different ballgame from doing so at 40. Played in a different stadium. Located in a different country. I discovered that there are other reasons, besides simple laziness or gluttony, that you see so many out of shape late middle aged people. The baseline moved. What used to work doesn’t work anymore, or with much diminished efficacy. These days you’re a winner if you can just stay off meds and out of the wal mart cart. It can require considerable exertion to achieve merely that.
Maybe all the old guys I see arr genetic lottery winners but I dont see any older guys exercising strenuously regularly and not getting great results. I do see a lot eating pancakes and watching sportsball TALKING about how exercise doesnt work past 20
Don’t take a break! You might not make it back!
An interesting point. As one gets older, it’s harder to improve and easier to lose all gains. You can never quit—or else.
Here’s some advice from a geezer in the mid-seventies:
Get into the habit of regular fasting. It’s the best thing for controlling your weight and lowering blood cholesterol. Don’t whimp out. Get up in the morning and don’t eat a thing until the following morning. No whining. After a while, you’ll like it.
Exercise! Walk at least ten miles a week. Lift weights and do it PROPERLY. You don’t need to show anyone how strong you are. Technique is everything. Swimming is the best exercise for old folks and you don’t have to worry about injuring yourself. Again, do it PROPERLY.
Drink wine, not beer or booze. And drink with your meals. Red wine is healthier for reasons having to do with tannins in the skins of red grapes. Something to do with helping preserve muscle mass.
Boost your testosterone with tablets on a daily basis. Men begin to lose virility naturally as they reach their sixties. Old men begin to look effeminate when their testosterone declines. Take supplements and lift weights to fight this off. I know a guy who is 80 at my gym and I don’t think people half his age would want to screw with him. He can still bench press over 300 pounds.
As for diet, stay away from sugar and too many carbs. Fresh foods and high quality protein are important. Eat all you like. Drink that red wine. And FAST frequently.
Make sure you’re the kind of old fart the young punks do not want to f**k with.
Forgot one important thing: SLEEP. Get nine hours daily…at a minimum.
I couldn’t sleep 9 hours if my life depended on it.
Same here. And I don’t need to. If I get 6:45, I’m right as rain. Anything beyond that is gravy.
Nine is on the high side, but that doesn’t mean 7 is OK. 8-8:30 is considered the ideal and quite normal for most of the world.
TEN.
Bare minimum.
Bourbon, if you need *10*—not supported by the research—perhaps you are not getting “good” sleep. Work studying up on.
Compsci, for me & muh metabolism, sleep is like caffeine.
If I can get a full ten hours, then I wake up the next morning fully prepared to conquer the entire world.
But if I get, say, only six hours, then it’s like I’ve been run over by a Mack truck.
True Natural Sleep is just about the most wonderful gift our Creator gave us.
True Natural Sleep.
I prefer to fast for 24 hours over the night. Eat at 1800 and then don’t eat again till 1800 the next day. You don’t even go to bed hungry.
the coolest thig about fasting is proving to yourself that you can survive without food (water only) for a pretty long time. I’ve gone as long as 10 days, I try to do an extended one every year at least 5 days. The trick is to schedule around social events.
Fasting makes sense as one ages simply because everyone’s metabolism slows down so much.
Beyond a certain age, none of us need all that many calories on a daily basis.
I am turning 59 this month. I hurt my back a couple months ago doing barbell training. I have switched to bodyweight exercises and walking. This guy does burpee workouts 20 minutes a day 4 times a week. He is kind of nerdy in his videos but I have benefited from his program. I supplement with additional bodyweight and light dumbell exercises – 120 minutes a week + a walk everyday.
https://busydadtraining.com/
Fwiw:
A. 8 hrs sleep.
B. Drink at least 1/2 gal water/day.
C. End day with push ups, sit ups, squats, pull ups. Done without rest for cardio. Stretch. Takes 15 mins.
D. Sitting is for meals and evening reading.
E. Cup of Sleepy Time tea before bed. (Or grow chamomile and steep the flowers.)
F. Bike and weight train as desired.
G. Supplement as you see fit.
H. Your body is more authoritative than a doctor.
I. Hot bath followed immediately with cold shower does amazing things.
J. Get outside!
Works for me.
A) Last time I slept for 8 hours through the night Bill Clinton was president
B) A recipe to have to pee every 20 minutes, doesn’t help with ‘A’
C) Good, though the range of motion from a classic sit-up is “meh”
D) And comment posting
E) See B
F) I never got biking, I did try
G) Supplements often make me queasy. It’s just me as my wife has no issue
H) That’s a low bar
I) Don’t own a bath
J) That’s where ticks live.
A. I struggle with getting more than 7, but I feel healthier if I do, so it’s a must. Sleep is the single biggest factor for me.
B. Stop drinking after supper.
C. Substitute with bicycle crunches, or whatever. I just do those 4 to work all the major muscle groups.
D. Break time lol
E. There’s no caffeine in it, if that helps.
F. Whatever intense exercise you like, or none. The nightly bit is enough to stay in OK shape.
G. There should be more liquid supplements, so they can be diluted. Maybe there are idk.
H. Lol a good doctor is a treasure.
I. I hear that more often than I’d expect. All I can say is if you ever have access to a tub/shower combo, give it a try. Hot bath seems to draw out inflammation, cold shower knocks it out. Invigorating. Always wake up feeling like a million bucks.
J. Stick to wide, established paths and avoid evergreens if you’re worried about ticks. Basically avoid deer paths and places where they bed down, and you’re giving yourself much better odds.
Having been a very heavy drinker for years a heart-attack persuaded me to stop several years ago. Can’t say I miss it but it would be nice to have something other than water and green Earl Grey to drink (don’t like coffee, fizzy drinks or juices). I came across this just today, haven’t tried them yet but will visit them next week. Maybe something for you to explore, I’m sure there are similar places near you and they do ship if you don’t have anything local. sechey dot com
As always, corporate advertising is an accurate barometer of AINO’s sympathies and antipathies. And aside from the obvious negro worship, another thing that can be gleaned from the ads is the contempt for the elderly. Although old people are the demographic with the most money to spend, you almost never see oldsters in ads unless the ads are for medicaments that treat old folks’ infirmities.
Now logically, if the primary purpose of corporate advertising was to generate profits, the ads would seek to flatter the people with the most money to spend. Alas, it is not true. Instead of focusing on old scudders with seven-digit stock portfolios, they cater almost exclusively to teenaged nuggras who live by welfare and credit cards.
This is the case because the corporations don’t need the money. Their relationship with the FedGov is entirely incestuous and immensely profitable. This fact allows the execs to pursue their pet aims such as deifying negroes, and excluding prosperous, lawful people such as the elderly, most of whom–significantly–are white. A big part of what Z terms the “youth culture” is wishing old white people, with their retrograde beliefs, out of existence.
I’m, old, they don’t target me because I only buy shit that I need.
Very well said. In saner decades, the C-suite execs were focused like a laser on their stock prices. That wasn’t all good, as it led to short-term thinking, but they never would have pulled the crap you see today. That the AB InBev and Target CEOs still have jobs tells you everything you need to know. They are much more worried about their personal social standing than their shareholders, which are primarily bundled through Blackrock and Vanguard anyway. And if the stock price drops, they just give themselves new option grants with lower strike prices.
It also would not surprise me in the least if they routinely share inside information with key congress critters to stay out of regulatory scrutiny.
When you get into your 40’s, purchasing habits begin locking in for a lot of items. So, unless the item is age related, it does not make sense to advertise to a demographic that is not going to switch to your product. Grandma buys Tide. Grandma likes Tide. After 40 years of buying Tide, grandma will still buy Tide regardless of how many counter ads are run.
Perhaps. But realistically how many black 20-somethings are in the market for a new Mercedes? How many 50-something whites who might be persuaded to switch from BMW? I think the latter, despite the brand loyalty phenomenon, would be a much more promising demographic, and yet all these luxury car ads, improbably enough, show a youngish Hutu–quite possibly accompanied by a blonde–piloting one of these high-dollar birds. This isn’t about profits.
Not only just not about profits, but down right dangerous. These ad’s showing joggers partaking of the good (White) life send a pernicious message to our ghetto rats—If this brother can do this, why can’t I? Must be discrimination by YT!
Anyone that’s a semi-serious athlete might benefit from the book, Fast After 50.
I’m not, so I didn’t need to pick that book up to understand it’s basically, “use it or lose it,” as one ages.
I’m also struggling to cut back on bread in a bottle. It’s even tougher in autumn since that is the season of pumpkin pie in a bottle. The weekly buffalo wing calorie bomb isn’t helping either.
Agree, it’s a good book especially if you’re taking up a competitive sport after your prime. After devoting my best years to the bike, I found I could be competitive until about 40. But the reality of getting a little slower each season instead of faster made me hang it up. Over the past few decades Ive struggled to find my next thing athletically speaking and have landed on a mix of weights, running, and boxing. I think the key is to do something, anything is better than nothing. For me the competition has become with myself rather than against others, it’s a tough transition mentally.
As far as diet, obviously there’s a million opinions on nutrition. What I see is that different people do well on a wide variety of diets. At the end of the day for weight loss, less calories need to go in than go out.
Walk for an hour a day-60m minutes or 2x 30 minutes. Get a good hand grip strengthener. Do 10 slow pushups a day and 10 toe touches. Buy food only from the perimeter of the supermarket. Drink alcohol without a mixer or with club soda. Take milk thistle if you really like the booze.
Yep. Get a dog. That takes care of the walking. Do some push-ups and stretches in the morning or before lunch. Nothing big, just one or two reps of 10.
Try to eat as much non-processed food as possible. Only drink on weekends.
That’ll get you 90% of the way home.
Never heard of using milk thistle for alcohol. Good idea.
“Get a dog. That takes care of the walking.”
Most people I see with dogs are just ambling along. They’re not getting any real exercise that way. Make sure that dog is as much into fitness as you are.
Or walk dogs at a shelter. They always need help. You and the dog both get exercise, you get to scoop the poop. Some dogs hang around for months and you get semi-attached to them and miss them when they part from you. Most of the benefits of ownership but with few of the costs. Depending where you can walk him, a dog is a good conversation starter and sometimes a chick magnet.
Ironmind’s, “Captains of Crush,” grippers are well made and come in a range of strengths.
Their portable squat stands/rack are nice, but on the pricey side.
A few years ago I took up your stupid regimen of walking an hour of day. Finally quit around a month later when I realized I didn’t have it in me to walk over a hundred miles to get back home.
Wright, quite right, you’re bloody well right 😁
Pushups are my main thing. Every other morning I do one set of 100 and a second set of 65. Also do two, brisk, 20-minute walks per day.
Good thing you went for that physical!
If you can get to the gym for a half hour of weights and a half hour of cardio four times a week and moderate walks or biking in between, it becomes a habit and the toughest thing is having to gaze at the nubile young beauties that make you want to crawl into a hole, the resistance to which impulse is good mental discipline.
At social gatherings, get yourself a g & t and nurse it all night. There’s an art to it that’s not hard to learn, I’ve done it, and no one will know what you’re up to.
And stay away from politics!
Heh, in the Batman comics Bruce Wayne would regularly attend parties and pass a non-alcoholic drink off as vodka.
Exercise macros:
2X per week
15 mins stretches
15 mins core
20-30 mins lifting (1 set of each exercise TO Failure, keep it in the 12-16 reps range).
2-3X per week Cardio with heart rate in age target range for 30 minutes.
Diet macros:
50% calories from healthy fats
25% from good proteins (5-6 grams per every 5 pounds of lean body weight)
25% carbs mostly veggies, a little fruit and some starches at night.
Consider swimming for exercise. There is virtually no strain on the joints. You have to find a pool, of course, but that shouldn’t be an insuperable obstacle.
All the pools here are dangerous. https://youtu.be/A3IN1QIpFT8?si=5emSzTuCswtHvq6q
I can just imagine all the fun to be had on Saturday afternoon at a Baltimore public swimming pool.
Blacks use swimming pools??
Yes. To piss in.
“Downtown Baltimore
Is covered with pimps and whores”
— X, “Whats wrong with me” (1985)
Well, okay, maybe it is an insuperable obstacle in Baltimore. Consider it when you make your move to Pennsylvania or West Virginia.
Lol. Here’s a video of the real water park that was the inspiration of that Southpark scene. It would have been lily white when Trey and Matt were kids. Matt grew up a few miles from here. Now the blessings of diversity have been bestowed on the park. Lot’s of overweight, tatted up Hispanic moms and their white trash counterparts. Depressing to drive by, much less visit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBAz9KcW81s
Every day with a meal, take 400 milligrams of magnesium (either the glycinate or citrate kind–magnesium oxide sucks), plus a couple of omega-3 pills (Europharma’s Vectomega is the best). An iron-free multi-vitamin is also a smart idea. If you are the OCD type like me, then take an aspirin and a turmeric capsule too, because chronic inflammation causes Very Bad Things to happen to our innards.
The evils of seed oils are sufficiently well-known that I won’t mention them here, save to point out that Primal Kitchen makes a brand of mayo that tastes quite good on sandwiches and won’t kill you. (I remain unimpressed with their other products.)
And as a previous commenter points out, the Five Tibetan Rites are quite beneficial Certainly they worked great for Jerry Pournelle, who stayed physically and mentally vigorous right up until he popped-off unexpectedly during an afternoon nap at age 84. That sure beats dying in a hospital with a bunch of tubes stuck in you.
PS. Pournelle, who was a straight-up polymath, co-wrote the 1974 sci-fi novel THE MOTE IN GOD’S EYE. Ostensibly an exciting slam-bang space opera about humanity’s First Contact with aliens in the year 3000, the book sold like crazy, won a bunch of fan awards before the genre became hopelessly pozzed, and remains in print half a century later. But it’s really a race-realist tale of the inevitable clash between a K-selected society and an r-selected one desperate for Lebensraum, as well as an attack on the evils of democracy. How Pournelle got away with writing such a book I will never understand. You might want to review it some day.
“At the extremes this is obviously true, but in the main it is one of the many myths that keeps the system awash in your cash.”
Couldn’t agree with you more. I’ve never had a physical in my life and probably never will. My wife keeps pestering me to get one but I refuse. I know exactly what will happen: the physician will announce with a mournful face that my stats are out of whack or that something is seriously wrong with me. If not that (by some miracle), then he will say that my stats could “possibly be of concern.” I just can’t win.
I don’t take any prescription medicines. The only thing I take occasionally is aspirin.
Never been into alcohol anyway. Or even caffeine. I’ll be turning 64 soon. And I feel my age. Staying in shape now is about getting in an hour’s walk a day (about 3.7 miles), some yoga poses, some weight-training (nothing too ambitious), and some cardio three or four times a week (elliptic machine, even a spot of running). A common-sense attitude to nutrition and trying to get some decent sleep. The quality of my remaining days is of prime importance rather than the quantity.
remain as fit as possible to the end.
That really is the goal. The way to reach it is consistency. I am around your age, but have been playing soccer (weekly) and lifting (4-5 times per week) for going on 20 years now. Really, any type of resistance exercise – body weight, bands, etc. – is as close to a magic pill as you can get. Still play soccer with 20 somethings and can hold my own (but not for as long, obviously). No one believes me when I tell them how old I am.
But if you want six pack abs after 40, the only real cure is diet.
I want ’em, but not badly enough to succumb to dieting. I much prefer my chow to a washboard belly.
Never got into the fitness thing, but back in my drinking days I would brag I had “Abs from a six pack.” 💩
I know guys with 1/4 barrel abs.
“This not only means plenty of stress, but it also means I often stay up late getting things done. Lack of proper rest is probably the worst thing you can do to yourself as you get old.”
Bingo! Sleep, *quality sleep*, is very, very important. I’ll keep this short. Read “Why We Sleep: The New Science of Sleep and Dreams” by Matthew Walker, an English scientist and the director of the Center for Human Sleep Science. This is a fantastic—and very anointed—examination of sleep. The interrelationship of sleep to health and well being can not be overestimated. I challenge anyone to read this book and not come to this conclusion.
Sleep and exercise says it all.
At 71, my B/P, and cholesterol numbers are quite good, despite the fact that fifteen years ago I very narrowly dodged the widowmaker coronary, and have a stent in my heart keeping me alive. Despite the good cholesterol numbers I can’t get out of the doctor’s office without him pushing lipitor on me. I tried it for a while, and it leaves me feeling like crap. I got to the point where I just take the prescription, and leave the pills to collect dust.
JWM
Here’s as good a place to plug keto (Atkins). I’ve not had any health problems (“yet”) but I was eager to abandon the useless meds they had me on. Seemed the least I could do was tweak my diet a bit. Having done quite a bit of reading, suffice to say the conventional view on what constitutes a good diet may be far off the mark. In any event, the role of “cholesterol” (actually: lipids, LDL etc.) in heart disease is far from clear. I “hold” with the faction that says that high carbs are bad news, especially when they are refined sugars and flours. I don’t have exact weights, but I can tell you that my “before” readings, I was in the 210-220 Lb. range. After going keto-ish in late 2022 a bit less. In 2 1/2 months on Atkins I dropped my targeted 20 Lb with zero effort. In two months of “maintenance,” eating “too many” total calories, but keeping fats > 60%, my weight has remained within about 2 lb of my goal weight (182 Lb).
For your amusement here are my before and after lipid readings. The first is an average of 3 readings from 2017-2018 when I was on a junkier diet. The 2nd is last week’s, after 2+ months at my goal weight.
Period TC HDL TG LDL Atherogenic Index
Junk food 233 37 165 164 4.5 (problem)
Atkins 197 50 84 129 1.68 (excellent)
The above figures are the standard lipid panel. Problem: this is decades old metric, as (most likely) is your doctor’s knowledge*. Newer tests discern sub-types of LDL (and others). While it’s not yet mainstream, for decades it’s been proposed that it is the small dense LDL (among other candidates) that increases atherogenic risk. A high-carb (sugars) diet is known to produce the “bad” LDL, while high fat (NB: also with low carbs) diet tends to minimize it, while boosting the “good” fluffier big LDL. That “atherogenic index” (TG/HDL) is a novel metric: 2 or less bodes CV health, closer to 5 indicates CV risk. Even if not yet mainstream, all the above information is hardly a secret and is readily available in heart books or for free on PubMed or similar.
You’ll note in my “Atkins” reading, the LDL is still “high”; yes, by the official metrics. I’m of the opinion that the guidelines are basically bullshit (as are the blood pressure guidelines.) Your opinion may vary.
My personal experiences with the weight loss process, as well as changes in lipids or the atherogenic index, are entirely consistent with what I read in Atkins and similar texts.
Many folks have already offered similar advice, but I just want to point out what I’d hope would be obvious. That’d be that diet is perhaps the main factor in one’s overall health. People may not agree over the optimal diet. Or indeed, it may vary for different body types or life demands. But there is (apparently) very solid evidence that (say) keto diet will in most cases improve a variety of acute or incipient health issues: obesity, [pre-] diabetes, blood pressure, and many more. While I like to think of myself as being White and refined, that doesn’t necessarily that most of my diet should be the same! I rarely eat refined sugars, but I do enjoy some white bread (cheeseburgers or pizza crust.) But net carbs are about 20% of my diet, well under 1/2 of the typical. And the vast majority of the carbs I do ingest aren’t junk, but whole foods: fresh fruits and vegetables, dairy, whole grains.
Details: I routinely take extra vitamins and supplements, more or less in line with recommendations of Atkins and similar. I only take what seem the most important as preventions. Basically it’s one potent multi, 4 x 500 mg C, 2 x 2000 mg D and essential fatty acid (EFA) supplements (I rotate among fish/cod liver oil for the omega-3, and Borage or Black Seed for the others). I dabble in others. For example, I take magnesium. Problem: I’m cheap, so I’m using a 5-lb bag of Epsom Salt. It works, but since it’s a laxative, it’s been a bit of a chore find a tolerable dose. I’ve also switched to a salt substitute (potassium chloride) for my cooking and seasoning. Oddity: it was cheaper to buy in bulk on Amazon as a “supplement” than directly from a chemical supply firm.
*Outdated knowledge is a big deal. We joke about bleeding and leeches, sure. But did you know the official treatment for heart attacks until the 1960s was mandated bed rest for six weeks? That was the worst possible advice, with the added “bonus” of clots due to inactivity. Scottish cardiologist Malcolm Kendrick in some of his books speculates this bad advice may have led to millions of premature deaths in the first half of the 20th century.
You would be like me, keto-lite. Hard-core keto maniacs limit to 20 grams of carbs per day.
Z, I had a beer 🍺 or two for you last night while playing darts 🎯 at a brewery.
Yeah, I have the same issues as you while having high blood pressure baked into the genetic cake 🎂. First showed up in my late 20’s when I was still (relatively) skinny and an occasional tippler. Problem is I like the beer 🍺, the bourbon 🥃, the vodka 🍸, and the vino 🍷.
I like your idea about the “Over 55” gym but since it is based on logic and honesty it will never fly.
Take care of yourself. And if you ever open that gym and make a mint, good on you.
I like watching the young women work out, its motivational.
There’s this one exercise they do where they get in the smith machine and pelvic thrust into the barbell. I like watching that one.
I’ve said this several times before, but since this is the topic de jour, I’ll repeat.
Doctors—especially family physicians—are in the main, technicians. As such they have a tendency to “treat the numbers”. Of course, their treatment regimen being determined by medical “Boards” and especially the pernicious influence by Big Pharma on those Boards. The lawyers and judicial system also contribute in a major way through lawsuits given that these medical Boards issue/create what is considered the “standard of care” and to treat—or non-treat—outside those “standards” is grounds for liability and/or censure. Proof of this assertion was made quite apparent during the recent Covid scamdemic where physicians were threatened with license removal for not supporting/questioning CDC and WHO recommendations.
The best advice I ever picked up—from a Swedish physician—was to challenge your physician whenever he attempts to prescribe “treatment”, such as regular medications for cholesterol or high BP. These prescriptions have become almost automatic in the medical field based on blood work and a 95% confidence interval being automatically shown on the report. Ask one simple question: “What is the pathology caused by being outside this CI”? Then, when told (if told, most physicians really don’t have a good answer) ask that we now look for this pathology in followup testing.
For example, cholesterol is said to cause “hardening of the arteries”, particularly narrowing of the heart arteries which cause heart attack. Based upon my challenge, we followed up with a CAT scan and injection to “light up” the arteries. Result, negative, or normal for age narrowing. Case closed.
Similar concerns apply to BP and other continuing measures of “good health”. Now nothing here says that measures off the chart—like a BP of 180 over 100 should be ignored. Those are critical and deserve a trip to the ER, PDQ. But as I write, my BP recommendation, for a 70 yo, was recently changed to 120/125 over 70/75 (IIRC). That’s plain BS and for most of us only possible through constant medication—which seems the whole point of the new recommendation. Exercise not withstanding, which is always a good thing.
There might be a reason for the 12x/7x recommendation, @Compsci. Even the government has now accepted the fact that the jab did in fact compromise the integrity of endothelial cells. That is, the vessels themselves can no longer handle the pressure they did before the jab. And rather than tell the jabbed they are screwed, it’s “best” for all involved to just lower it for everybody.
Tell me about it. Is there anything that the jab did positive?
Not gain saying you, but if I recall, the recommendation to lower BP “norms” came before the jab. Nonetheless, prior to the introduction of the new BP “norm” I distinctly remember that old folk like me were considered “normal” or perhaps “high normal”at 130/135 over 80/85. I also remember in my 30’s-40’s having readings of 120/125 over 70/75 for insurance purposes.
I really never paid attention until retirement and concierge medicine enrollment. Of course, at that point I had a stake in my own care as *I* was paying for it. 😉
The recommendations have been dropping my whole life. When I was an orderly at a 24 hour assisted living facility, 180/100 was nothing to get excited about. There were pts whose doctors’ orders were to call the doc in the morning for a systolic over 200, and call his pager if it was over 240. Most of them made it into their 80s or 90s anyway. If it didn’t kill you before you were 70, it probably wasn’t going to be what took you out.
So, the docs don’t care all that much about the diastolic?
Also, learn the difference between relative and absolute risk reduction. My doctor pushed a statin with a 38% relative risk reduction for cardiac issues, which sounds impressive. But the absolute risk reduction is only about 1/1000. For example, if you have a study with 1000 patients on a placebo who have 3 cardiac events, and 1000 on the statin with 2 events, that’s a 33% relative risk reduction but only a 1/1000 absolute risk reduction. That math kept me from signing up for a lifetime of drugs with minimal benefits, but not minimal side-effects.
You’ve may possibly the most important point here. Changing your life around. Making yourself miserable in your declining years for perhaps a change from 1 in a thousand to 2 in three thousand is perhaps not a worthwhile trade off.
I have a small substack, much of which deals with today’s topic. Nothing original there, but in my own words, part of my self education.
https://satansdoorknob.substack.com/p/different-views-of-the-truth-drug
Good link. This is a great example of my point on relative risk: “Buy two tickets to the lottery and you improve your chances of winning by 100%.”
Actually in his example, Kendrick for some reason uses a 50% value, and the lottery ticket is three tickets shared between two friends 😎 My ego informs me that my example, being simpler, is superior. I’ve found Kenrick a very readable author. He has a fairly extensive website at:
https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/
I agree with most of what you say. My introduction to skepticism came from a different angle. I was curious what the actual benefits were (stations, BP, aspirin). I found out and that’s why I dropped them. Medicine does offer some valuable service, but alas they also peddle a lot of snake oil.
Compsci: “Based upon my challenge, we followed up with a CAT scan and injection to “light up” the arteries. Result, negative, or normal for age narrowing. Case closed.”
Can you look back through your records and find the total cost for that workup?
Not the deductible that you paid, but rather the total amount of money which was paid out [mostly by the insurance policy].
Thanks.
1) Always check thyroid first. Everything else depends on thyroid to work right. Full panel, not just TSH. T3 needs to be in the upper third of the “normal range” for the rest of the body to work properly. Generally T3 declines with age because T4 to T3 conversion declines (or why treating with T4 alone often fails, but T4+T3 or natural thyroid works), which does not affect TSH levels, which therefore makes that a bad test of health. A good article for the layman:
https://hormonerestoration.com/files/TSHWrongtree.pdf
Note: underdosing or “supplementing” will make you =more= hypothyroid, not less. It needs to aim for optimal and full replacement.
2) High blood pressure is not due to weight gain; rather, HBP and weight gain are typical co-symptoms of age-related thyroid decline. (Which also makes you munchy for carbs, because the brain is hungry for glucose.) This is well documented in the literature but apparently has not filtered down to common medicine.
3) Other than normalizing thyroid, a single OTC potassium supplement daily will do more to control blood pressure than all the drugs at Walgreen’s. Potassium is what they give you for BP medical emergencies. Also, don’t skimp salt; just use a normal amount. They need to be in balance. (The mortality tail is actually worse for low salt diets, if not as steep as for high salt diets.)
I read the research literature from sheer self defense, because doctors evidently do not (and my background is biochemistry, so I actually understand it).
What about kelp tabs for Thyroid function?
I saw Kelp Tab for Thyroid Function open for Death Cab for Cutie in Cincinnati back in ’04. Pretty good show.
When you run out of tablets, you’ll be utterly kelpless.
Regularly consuming kelp can overdose you on iodine, which can cause irreversible thyroid damage.
If you’re using ordinary iodized salt at a normal moderate level, you get the right amount of iodine. Be aware that it doesn’t keep; over time iodine tends to sublimate out of the salt (so a tightly-closed container is a good idea).
However, craving iodine-rich foods (eg. shrimp) can be a symptom of low thyroid.
Careful with the statins Z-man. I know some people who got very sick taking them.
To add to what is stuck in moderation, high blood cholesterol is another co-symptom of age-related thyroid decline.
Statins horrify my inner biochemist. They can cause what amounts to multiple sclerosis, because the sheathing on the nerves is based on cholesterol, and if you reduce that, what have you done??
Also, turns out high blood cholesterol is =protective= against dementia (which itself is typically an end-stage hypothyroid symptom) — doubtless because if there’s more of it in the blood, there’s more available to repair failing neural structures.
Arterial plaques are not due to high blood cholesterol; they are due to gum disease (mouth bacteria getting into the blood and walling itself off against the various cells that eat invaders). This has been known for decades, but again seems to have mostly failed to reach common doctors.
I have wondered about the gum disease/dementia correlation. The cynic in me always questions correlation vs. causation that the media so often doesn’t understand. In other words, is someone with dementia more likely to develop gum disease due to similar reactions to some other underlying issue?
Guess what else is a symptom of low thyroid?
1) Bleeding and receding gums. Reverses very rapidly with proper thyroid treatment.
2) Dementia. However, hypothyroid dementia takes about ten years for the damage to become irreversible.
3) Per a cardiac pathologist, who had quite a rant about it, about half of all fatal cardiac events are the result of “flabby heart syndrome” which is directly caused by low T3 (and again, is reversible for a long time). He also pointed out that since it is unethical to deliberately induce fatal illness, this will never be formally studied. If you experience shortness of breath and/or “pounding heart” from mild exercise, such as climbing stairs — that’s a good marker for this.
4) Obesity can happen with even very slight thyroid decline. It too reverses easily with proper treatment. (However, catastrophic thyroid decline can cause anorexia. A negative response to fluctuating hormones = anorexia in teenage girls. Nothing tastes like food.)
Look up “300 hypothyroid symptoms” for a partial list of other often-vague symptoms. Thyroid affects =everything=.
“Long covid” is due to thyroid damage. (Histology exams on covid patients found damage at the cellular level in about 30% of them.)
Side note: testosterone (and estrogen) and thyroid have a symbiotic relationship. If one declines, the other will too. This is why neutered dogs get fat and lazy, and age poorly compared to intact dogs; they are all somewhat hypothyroid. Being made into failures is known to suppress testosterone in human males (see research by Dr. Gad Saad, who found that success increases testosterone), with similar results.
One serious difficulty with treatment is that the “normal range” typically used is actually not adequate for consistent good health. T3 needs to be in the upper third, not hovering near the bottom.
I read very broadly on the topic, and have the background to understand it. What I’ve observed from the literature is that about half of all “chronic conditions” and 90% of what we think of as “symptoms of aging” are in fact caused by thyroid decline, but the symptoms are so varied (probably due to the high variability of human genetic load) that this is simply not recognized, and instead doctors treat individual symptoms with a plethora of drugs, when fixing the base problem would eliminate all the symptoms too. This is fairly obvious from the literature, but only rarely filters down to the medical profession (not even to endocrinologists).
What was the question? 🙂
My mother was on every statin at one time or another and every single time, at some point, she would have great pain in her thighs and weakness and it was because the statin was destroying her muscles and she would stop taking it and a couple days later she felt better but then they would put her on a new statin at her next Dr appointment. It got to the point she’d say oh my legs hurt so much I’d ask if she was on a statin again and yeah she was. We repeated this process probably like a half a dozen times. After she got her last booster and then had a massive stroke despite the fact that she was on a bunch of blood thinners, her doctors were all just amazed she could form a blood clot in her brain, and ended up in a nursing home for 6 months before they she died, they kept trying to put her on statins. Just freaking madness
Yeah, my mom would still be around today if instead of listening to doctors she just had gone low carb 10 years ago and stuck with it. Fucking assholes with their “healthy grains”.
At one point she was injecting insulin because the doctor said so, then having to drink apple juice to stop the low blood sugar attack that happens when you inject insulin you don’t need.
Sorry for you loss.
My brother was bed ridden for a week after taking statins. His muscles, mainly in his legs, simply stopped working. One of my other siblings had a friend who went to the ER because he was in so much pain. The doctors at the hospital said it was probably due to the statins.
Muscle tissue has a lot of CoQ-10, which statins deplete.
Which explains why the two are often prescribed in tandem.
Big Pharma can’t be bothered to tell people CoQ-10 might prevent side effects like muscle pain and brain fog in customers who take statins, more than they can be bothered to tell customers who take cancer drugs like Adriamycin that CoQ-10 can prevent heart failure.
And an astonishing number of doctors are too pig-ignorant to know. And of the ones who do know, many of them don’t realize CoQ-10 doesn’t get work unless it’s taken with fat or oil. If Stalin managed to shoot all the doctors, then he would have gone down in history as having saved more lives than he took.
“Brain fog” is a very strong marker for low thyroid, which over time does the same sort of neural damage as statins do.
Among other things, statins induce a deficiency of endogenous Coenzyme-Q10, which is vital because it acts like a spark plug for the energy-producing mitochondria in every cell of your body. The most energy-intensive organs in your body, your heart and your brain, have the highest levels of CoQ-10. The so-called brain-fog that some statin-users complain of possibly results from this.
For this reason a certain pharmaceutical company once considered adding CoQ-10 to its statin products, but their lawyers pointed out that this would amount to an admission that customers had been harmed by the earlier version. Plans for the improved drug were quietly scrapped, of course.
Anybody on statins should take 100 milligrams of CoQ-10 with a fat-containing meal daily. Arguably it also has benefits for people not on statins, so I take it too.
In any case, there are a ridiculous number of natural ways to lower your cholesterol, ranging from regular use of niacin (start off low, say, 50 milligrams with each meal to avoid the harmless but annoying histamine flush), then gradually increase intake to 50O or 1,000 milligrams with each meal. For most people, carbohydrate reduction works fine. I once met a woman with hypercholesterolemia who lowered her blood serum levels by 200 points that way, all while eating lots of eggs, butter, cheese, steak, etc.
Your advice is consistent with what Kendrick (and no doubt, others too) describes.
It’s worth mentioning that statins are designed to reduce cholesterol synthesis. Unavoidably, they also impact a long list of other critical substances the body needs to make, CoQ10 being only one.
Although I suffered no ill effects I’m aware of, my doctor never told me that I should supplement during the three years I took a statin. Yes, that’s a black mark against him, and I’m going to let him know so.
I find the topic fascinating, especially all the holes in the received wisdom. Kendrick provides his own hypotheses, but also subtitled his latest book “The enduring mystery of heart disease” so one might conclude he’s not claiming to have all the answers. I admire his dry British (ok, Scottish) style, a wry look at the history of the conventional wisdom. For example, first it was cholesterol that caused heart disease. When it was determined that France and Switzerland had the highest cholesterol readings, yet the lowest incidence of heart disease that hypothesis was quietly jettisoned and the culprit became saturated fat. Eventually that was discarded and it was LDL. That’s had a good run, too. The major problem with all of these is that there is often directly contradictory evidence disproving them. Nations with broadly similar populations (e.g. UK/France) may have widely divergent heart disease rates. What, then, causes heart disease? Lipids do seem implicated, but (perhaps) not remotely in the way The Dogma would have it. For example, there is a little-known one called lp(a), which is basically a mutant LDL whose primary function appears to be to make blood clots extra durable. There’s an evolutionary explanation for it, too. I’ll let you research it if curious. It seems highly plausible. Other candidates, not covered much by Kendrick, include the various things that go awry with the lipids: oxidation, glycation. These (and many other factors) can irritate/damage the artery lining which leads to problems.
Statins lower lipid readings yes. But is that important? Maybe not. Did you know that earlier drugs also lowered the levels? Problem: often, heart disease/deaths did not improve, or even got worse. Statins were such a big deal because they were the first drugs that actually gave results — even if relatively small, in absolute terms. They were praised to high heaven, and produce(d) billions of dollars in profits for Pharma. Kendrick believes their benefits may be due to other factors than their impact on lipids.
My first inkling that cholesterol was important for brain function came when I glanced at the nutrition facts label for a can of pork brains in the grocery store and saw that a single serving contains an astonishing 3,000 milligrams of cholesterol per serving. No wonder the death rate from things like homicide, suicide, and accidents climbs if cholesterol levels drop too low.
Except the entire premise is wrong. High blood cholesterol is not damaging, it is protective, especially against age-related dementia and… guess what, heart disease!
But as noted… this should be regarded as a symptom of low thyroid, and that should be addressed instead. Cholesterol will then normalize (to your level of normal, which may not match the doc’s chart — I know someone whose normal gives the doc a heart attack) without further treatment.
CoQ10 also has an inverse relationship with thyroid, indicating that if the body can’t make enough of one, it tries to make up the difference with the other.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16873947/
Is it possible their metrics on blood pressure and cholesterol are completely bogus? Does cholesterol have anything to do with heart disease?
Lifted heavy, drink whiskey, spend time outside, do the thing with your wife often, and take naps.
The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was getting people to eat margarine instead of butter.
The annual PC physician checkup is a joke. Really, almost everything they do only requires bloodwork. But, I ran into a problem recently where my PC wouldn’t see me because I had not been in in the past three years. It has become a money sucking enterprise.
Every Autumn right before the annual increase in my medical premiums, I am “suddenly” inundated with reminders for this test or that test, the real reason is that the “system” wants to record your new data so they can justify increasing your annual medical premiums. I never subscribe to this and avoid providing all medical data to anyone until at least February. If you have to fill out any annual forms to get coverage, I just say I am 5 pounds lighter and any RX’s I have to take are 5 mg lower.
There’s a pretty good guy focused exclusively on senior barbell-based training. He started in the Rippetoe/Starting Strength crowd, but now does his own thing.
Book:
https://aasgaardco.com/store/books-posters-dvd/books/the-barbell-prescription-strength-training-for-life-after-40/
He owns a gym called Grey Steel.
Youtube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/greysteel
Great book, it’s my Bible for training.
I’m DIY and lift 2-3x/wk religiously. I got ideas from his crowd years ago, also from Barbell Medicine, on the more science geek side. I don’t have great genetics or impressive performance, but my goal is to postpone morbidity. I started working construction recently, but I still do 2 hard workouts per week and try to keep my DL up to 300 and squat in the low 200’s. I know several of people not much older than me who are weak, hobbling around, near to retiring on disability. Lifting heavy is the closest thing we have to a fountain of youth.
I am back doing a basic 5×5. I have another new rule and that is I no longer do anything I do not like. When it comes to weight training, I like deads, squats and the bench press. I can tolerate curls, but I hate the overhead press and rows. I have shoulder issues from paying sports as a kid, so these make me miserable.
You might want to consider reducing volume on low rep/high intensity work as you age. I’ve moved to a pattern of doing 1-2 heavy low rep sets per week per exercise, then doing the rest of it as back off sets in the 8+ rep range. This seems to reduce wear and tear and soreness. I also work construction, so it’s a balancing act.
I’m surprised you like BB Bench press if your shoulder is messed up. It’s a shoulder wrecker – so much so that most experts prescribe prophylactic rotator cuff exercises and face pulls to counteract the intrinsic problems. I prefer db benches with elbows much closer to the body and dips/weighted dips for heavier work. Elbows out to the sides like that builds mass, but I never liked it for shoulder health.
OH DB Press is also a way to accommodate shoulder problems. I have to do them now because my ceiling is too low for overhead barbell anything.
I think it is due to where the problem is in my shoulder. For some reason, the overhead press results in pain in my right shoulder. Rows leads to right elbow agony. I could probably spend time and money finding out why or I could just avoid those lifts.
“that my blood pressure was out of whack and my cholesterol was getting high.”
Dr. Lexus: “Right, kick ass. Well, don’t want to sound like a dick or nothin’, but, ah… it says on your chart that you’re fucked up. Ah, you talk like a fag, and your shit’s all retarded. What I’d do, is just like… like… you know, like, you know what I mean, like…”
Though not quite a bodybuilding sage, Oscar Wilde is quoted as saying, “Everything in moderation. Including moderation.” I embrace that advice and do not set rigid rules for myself. But I lift, I hike, I garden, and I watch the carbs. Unless you are such a social butterfly that you find yourself at gatherings five days a week, I’d say have that beer at the barbecue and damn the calories.
I watched my 80 year old diabetic mother-in-law adhere to the draconian diet she was prescribed by her endocrinologist for the last 6 years of her life, and she was miserable. All the things she loved best were verboten. After a lifetime of centering her world around family meals, she was reduced to eating plain Cheerios with unsweetened almond milk and skinless chicken breast until she was sick of the things. And sick of life. I think she should have accepted a shorter horizon (if indeed, that would have been the case) and tucked into a juicy steak now and again in those last years.
As for cholesterol meds, drop that shite. It’s a money grab between doctors and pharmacists, and there is more than adequate data proving their ineffectiveness. Your labs only detail HDL and LDL, typically, without breaking LDL out into its two different kinds, only the smaller, stickier, denser of which is concerning. Your doctor may well not know anything at all about that. Mine laughed when I mentioned “fluffy” LDL as the benign kind.
I can’t think of a more unhealthy, and unappetizing, diet than what your MIL was prescribed. She would have been far better off enjoying a grass-fed steak 3 or 4 times a week. And a nice big pot roast. Whatever the standard MD tells you to eat, do the opposite.
I have to say, I was surprised to read that. There’s no reason you should have to spend that much time or effort justifying yourself to others. A simple “No, thank you” should suffice for friends and acquaintances. If you have to go into more details, you might be in with the wrong crowd.
Personally, I do not worry about cholesterol whatsoever. The first complete and comprehensive metabolic panel I ever had occurred about 20 years ago, at one of those free health fairs sponsored by a local network news affiliate. My total cholesterol was about 200 (high, supposedly), and my LDL was much higher than my HDL (bad, supposedly).
But here’s the thing. I was a young kid in my early 20s. I didn’t smoke, didn’t drink heavily, got plenty of exercise, and at 6’2″ and may 165 lbs. soaking wet (at the time), I had no BMI issues.
Every blood panel I’ve ever taken since then shows exactly the same pattern, so I just figured that’s the way I’m built. Since your body manufactures 90% of the cholesterol it uses and only absorbs 10% from your food, it seems futile to try to lower cholesterol by dieting.
In any case, it’s been a longstanding open secret within the medical community that serum cholesterol levels really have nothing to do with heart disease, anyway. They keep blithely plugging along with the same talking points year after year, because they want to sell statins and they don’t know what the real answer to heart disease is, so they go with the theory they have even though its garbage. It’s a scandal, and it’s one of the reasons I don’t ever trust these people.
“They keep blithely plugging along with the same talking points year after year, because they want to sell statins and they don’t know what the real answer to heart disease is, so they go with the theory they have even though its garbage.”
That is because it IS the standard of care. You do not want to be hauled in to a malpractice hearing and have to explain why you, and not the prosecutor’s world renowned witnesses, are the real expert. It WILL be found that you refused to treat the patient in the accepted standard of care, and are responsible for his death, and the best you can hope for is living out your life in a refrigerator box under a bridge.
I’m a bit surprised that none of my providers have asked me to sign a waiver or whatever. Which I’d gladly do, by the way. They are aware that I no longer take the prescribed medications, and also why.
I’m saving up to get one of those fancy gym ellipticals which have always given me the best workout with the least amount of soreness (biking makes me in sore in the very places I have no desire to be sore). I gave up my big lifting routine some time ago after I’d found that later in life that it was crippling me more than keeping me from getting crippled. However, I do need to get back into “core” exercises where the benefits were more immediate and noticeable, yet with a much lower degree of soreness/exhaustion.
Recommend that you do some critical research on elliptical trainers before investing. They get a pretty bad rap from most fitness trainers for a variety of reasons. Most end up collecting dust or functioning as a clothes rack in the bedroom before being relegated to the basement or garage.
I was an endurance athlete in my youth–distance runner. I went through all the typical phases of long-distance running, cycling, triathlete who can’t swim, mountain biking, and spent about five years doing obstacle course races until a couple herniated discs took me out of that game. Getting old sucks.
I’m mostly a gym guy now. It’s absolutely imperative to force variety into your workout, especially as you age. This is one of the main reasons not to buy a dedicated piece of equipment like an elliptical–better to join a gym. My gym is a typical storefront chain gym that costs $25/month, which gets me access to a ton of great weight and cardio equipment, fitness classes, tanning booths, steam room, sauna, hot tub, pool, massage chairs, etc. It’s my primary social outlet–most of my friends are gym buds.
There are lots of great videos on varying workouts at a gym. I workout intensely for 60-90 minutes, working two or more separate muscle groups in each set, with no rest between lifts to keep my heart rate up. (Example: alternate incline press and curls during the same set.) I do cardio 1-2 days/week. I am roughly the same age as our esteemed host and I am more fit, stronger, and better built than most of guys there who are thirty or forty years younger than me.
Lots of beautiful women at the gym, which is always fun. Also, I really enjoy meeting some of the younger men who are focused on self-improvement. It’s a very refreshing change that gives me some hope for the future.
Whatever your choice, good luck in your fitness quest. It’s a never-ending battle against age, and one we are of course destined to lose.
Most end up collecting dust or functioning as a clothes rack in the bedroom
—
That is a concern of mine. I used to own a cheap consumer model that I used quite frequently until it succumbed to some failure.
For reasons I won’t bore you with, going to a gym isn’t very workable for me now unfortunately.
During the plandemic when all the gyms shut down I bought a used Total Gym for $200 and a used rowing machine for $150. I am impressed with the variety of workouts one can do on a Total Gym. My only disappointment was that, per my previous comment, I am pretty strong and the Total Gym doesn’t offer enough resistance even at the highest incline, so I wound up doing ridiculous numbers of reps to compensate. Definitely worth looking at a used one to see if you like it. I bought one for my dad, who is in his 80s, and he uses it every day.
I got less use out of the rowing machine. Just too damn boring. I had some success with workouts that shifted back and forth between sets on the total gym and rowing.
I am 63. My routine is one hour on the treadmill, set at the steepest incline and highest speed that still permit me to “walk”. I spend the first ten minutes working up to those maxima, allow myself five minutes of reduced intensity at the 30 minute mark, shoot back up to the maximum levels, and finish with a five minute hard jog. I typically burn 1100 calories per session, and do this four times a week. In and out of the gym in 75 miutes. No muss, no fuss.
My diet is a combination of the OMAD/LCHF with some mineral supplements. In one year (2019) I reduced my weight from 239 to 175, my high school weight, and maintained between 172-180 since. Last BP was 105/64. I am never hungry, never lift weights, and couldn’t care less about my cholesterol.
Oh, and nookie. Gotta do the dirty 2-3 times per week. My wife would like to increase that to 3-5 but a man my age has his limits.
Sadly I still smoke; over forty years now. I have never figured out how to deal with that. Giving up beer and other adult beverages was easy and I thought at the time that smoking would follow. Nope.
Yes strength training seems to be the way to go. I took a gander at old people a couple years ago and also made the same assessment that it has a better chance of leading to vigorous old age and I’ve been lifting weight since then and I got to say, the last hike I went on, which I do several times a year, 8 mi Backcountry hike, I bounced along all the way through it. I had so much more energy and I’ve done that hike many times, younger and thinner, so it’s got to be the weights. My blood pressure is always high at the doctor’s office, I assume it’s because I’m terrified of them. I take it at home it’s sometimes high, not awful, but sometimes really low so I don’t worry about it. I won’t let them test my cholesterol because I’m not taking a statin so it doesn’t matter. And you don’t have to tell people you don’t drink, just order a club soda with lime. They think it’s a cocktail and don’t bother you. But none of this changes the inevitable.
Have one for me too lol
That guy..
Get busy living or get busy dying, I suppose.
Just had a nice lively interaction with my new doctor (not having one for a long time.)
Cholesterol questionable even though most show in normal range but wanted to start on anti statins. Told her will visit that later. Blood pressure up to 160 over 80 from 130 over 80 a month ago. Called bullshit, take it again. Ten minutes later it’s 135 over 80. How serious are these people, they want the worst info and want to run with treatments that they are itching to prescribe.
Get a home blood pressure machine and check your blood pressure while seated and rested, no physical activity for at least 20 minutes. Put another way, when it occurs to you that you’ve been seated for awhile reading email whatever that’s when you check your blood pressure. Roll your sleeve up if in long sleeves, or better yet take your shirt off. Apply the cuff as high on your upper arm as possible with the cord aligned with your pinky. Support your arm with a pillow so that your arm is level with your chest. Place both feet flat on the ground. Now do the same using the opposite arm and average the 2 readings. Do this every few days for a week or so. That’s your blood pressure.
Pull the cuff snug but not too tight: should be able to slip your finger easily under the snug cuff.
I do the home one, that’s why I am not concerned when and if I blow a high one one at the doctors office.
Here is a trick: STAND UP while the BP is being taken. This reduces pressure on internal organs, which in turn lets BP fall to whatever it actually is, and reduces “white coat high blood pressure” (the stress you feel upon seeing the guy in the white coat approach with his arcane instruments).
If we are talking “tricks”. Here is a trick for “passing” BP, but you might not be able to get away with it if they are watching.
Inhale mightily. Hold your breath. Press hard internally for 30 seconds or so. Breath easily, relax. Repeat it again for perhaps two more times. Then relax and have the cuff take the reading.
Whenever they use the newfangled blood pressure machines it comes out high, but with the old-fashioned hand pump it’s just exactly perfect.
I have always had a sneaking suspicion that those BP testers you see in the corner of the pharmacy have been deliberately set to give a higher reading..
Nice change of topics and a great post.
As for this:
“It can also drive up your cholesterol, which was the other issue from my physical. I need to lose weight anyway, so dropping alcohol was the obvious first move.”
To my knowledge, there is no proof whatsoever that consumption of dietary cholesterol has any effect on cholesterol levels. That was debunked years ago right along with the ridiculous “food pyramid.” Am I misreading or is beer an exception for some reason?
No, you are absolutely correct, at least it’s consistent with what I’ve read, and I’ve read a bit on the topic. 🙂
The consensus seems to be that alcohol in moderation is beneficial for health, including cardio-vascular.
Since I’m a reformed alcoholic who wishes to remain that way, however…
Metabolism trivia: did you know that alcohol is metabolised in preference to even glucose? So if you get trashed every night, as I did until my early 40s…my daily intake was about 8 beers or so. That’d be: 8X12 oz = 96 oz ~= 2841 ml; assume 5% ethanol:
142 ml ethanol ~= 112 grams. @ 7 Kcal/g -> 784 Kcal. That’s 1/4 to 1/3 of an adult male’s daily caloric needs, from the ethanol alone. All that gets burnt off before the body even attends to glucose or fats. No wonder I peaked (porked?) out around 240 in my 30s.
I’m 56 with congenital high blood pressure exacerbated by alcohol. I take 10mg lisinopril PO for that. My semi-exercise is the Five Tibetan Rites, which I picked up from Jerry Pournelle.
My cholesterol is slightly elevated but as a pharm tech I know statins are neurotoxins and drs who proscribe them should be shot.
Good luck. Our side needs you.
Does alcohol effect your blood cholesterol, though? From my understanding, dietary cholesterol has no effect on blood levels.
I really don’t know as I’m not changing my lifestyle. I’ll die with whiskey on my lips and red meat in my gut.
The only concession I made, over a dozen years ago, was to switch from beer to wine with meals. Carbs, again.
I’m with you although I still consume beer during hot weather.
I would recommend people read the medical lit about dietary cholesterol. Claims about its effects and the promotion of the related food pyramid may have been the biggest medical frauds outside some of the Covid nonsense.
My mother was obsessed with reducing cholesterol in the diet, thanks to her family doctor and to the propaganda (inspired by Ancel Keys, the Anthony Fauci of the 1950s) promoting ‘healthy fats’ – aka Crisco, Blue Bonnet, and seed oils. Fortunately she let us boys drink whole milk but she never touched the stuff herself. I hardly knew what butter tasted like until I left home.
Her parents were raised on things like butter, heavy cream, tallow and lard. I remember grandpa refusing to eat mom’s pies because they were made with Crisco, which to him didn’t even qualify as human food.
She died at 72 of pancreatic cancer; grandma died at 87 and grandpa died just shy of 90, and then only because of a freak accident.
In my opinion. the USDA pushing that shit, with the blessing of Keys and eventually the McGovern commission, while suppressing dissenting voices within the research community (sound familiar?) gave us the catastrophic levels of obesity, type 2 diabetes, and god only knows what other inflammatory illnesses we see today among “our fellow Americans”. Yet another crime against humanity perpetrated by our betters.
The problem with booze is not just the carbs. It messes up all your hormones because of its impact upon the liver, the largest gland.
Speak for yourself. The liver, what remains of it, is not my largest gland, cough. Have a great weekend my fellow Z men!
Dietary not only has no effect, reducing it will cause your liver to produce cholesterol as fast as it can, because it is a fundamental building block and your body NEEDS it.
High blood cholesterol usually means you have low thyroid (commonly age-related loss of ability to convert T4 to T3). This is consistently documented in the research literature, but unknown to most doctors.
I had yearly checkups for probably 15 or so years and, at least in my case, diet and exercise had zero impact on my cholesterol numbers. I will note, this varies wildly between individuals, generic health advice in this regard (and probably many others) isn’t all that helpful unfortunately.
Since I began taking Atorvastatin approximately 10 years ago, my formerly terrible cholesterol numbers normalized and are now, according to my cardiologist, perfect. Whether normal cholesterol levels are really that important, I do not know, but I do know Atorva kicked cholesterol’s ass.
I know a skinny active guy (now in his 70s and still healthy) whose cholesterol made the doctor nearly expire from shock. It was like 4x “normal”. This was back before the devil entered the market in the form of statins, so … change diet. Do all the dietary things you’re “supposed” to do to reduce cholesterol. No change. Doc finally flung up his hands and said evidently that level is your normal.
Before I quit drinking, my cholesterol was around 400. Triglycerides were 1900.
That’s impossible: Triglycerides are a portion of total cholesterol. Did you mean 190, perhaps?
Or are we being humorous? 🙂
Building upon what was already said, I don’t blame the front line doctors nearly as much as I do the medical boards and especially, the “guideline” setting bodies like the NCEP (part of NIH) et al, almost always personnel with blatant conflicts of interest, some disclosed but many probably not. The entire system, from research to the guy who hands you the bottle of pills, has been 100% captured by Pharma. Even Federal agencies directly profit sometimes due to owning patent rights, as well as collecting fees from industry! And campaign contributions to congressmen, funding of non-profits, etc. Jeez, what a racket. All this spending is about 20% of GDP, is it any wonder that all the rice bowls are held out, waiting for the handout? Sorry boys, but I have no magic solution. Mine is to minimize my contact with the medical-industrial complex as best I can.
Taking an ACE inhibitor is probably worthwhile- high blood pressure does cause a lot of long-term problems once you hit the late 50s and the drugs actually do work to do what they claim to do.
When it comes to no longer drinking alcohol, here are a few suggestions from one who stopped drinking many years ago. First, as Don Cherry says, don’t complain and don’t explain. If pressed there is always the usual truth of I’m driving. If pressed some more ask them why it’s so important, have they got a problem, I know some people in AA who can help them. If they still persist, tell them it’s private, none of their business, and that they are stepping into the realm of fighting words.
Stick to your guns.
Yeah, I always wondered about people who press this issue. I know women watch other women of child-bearing age to see if they inexplicably stop drinking, especially at social events where they would normally drink. But for others, it really doesn’t matter why they choose to imbibe in one thing or another, from time to time.
Post college, I have never been in a social situation where simply saying “nah” for beer wasn’t sufficient. I’ve also never been to a gathering where a guy feels like he can’t drink if no one else is drinking. Do these guys still think they’re in a frat party where it’s only fun if everyone is drinking?
What, they don’t serve soft drinks—like a Coke for a mixed drink? I never was at such an event. One can easily camouflage oneself. Oddly enough, I sort of self limit at most all family/friends gatherings. Few people are drinking in my family and friends these days. This makes my downing a few stand out. Damn bunch of Puritans. 🙁
That works when you’re at a party with basic strangers, but if you were having a beer with your buddy last week and this week you’re not then saying “none of your business” is going to sound like there’s court case you can’t discuss. Previous times when I’ve taken a break from having a drink:
1) Allergies (alas, true, there are only a few straight liquors I can drink without getting congested with hops in particular being not very kind)
2) Weight (unfortunately I never have to explain this)
3) Insomnia (alcohol generally causes sleep issues)
My go-to non-alcohol beverage is soda water with lime which has a taste almost as “foul” as booze and looks like booze to an observer.
Hops are known inflammatories that tend to stimulate a range of auto-immune conditions, like arthritis.
Yeah I like the occasional IPA but my body feels like I ate a bowl of cat hair afterwards.
Hops are also one of those phytoestrogen plants that turn you into a hucow.
Before and after? 😀
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12467071/Trans-teacher-Kayla-Lemieux-MAN-no-breasts-scruffy-beard.html
You think America’s public schools got problems? This guy teaches in Canada’s.
As people get old, the ones who make an active effort to stay healthy usually go all-in on either becoming thin cardio guys or massive weightlifters. I still remember going on a bike tour in Colorado during my 20’s and a group of 60 year old guys blasting past me up a mountain at 11k feet as I was gasping for breath. Then there’s was the 65 year old guy in my gym who couldn’t have weight more than 170 squatting 400+ pounds with perfect form.
The truth is, I doubt these guys will live much longer than the average couch potato, maybe giving themselves a few extra years, but they are far less likely to waste away from chronic diseases that make every minute misery, or spend their final years a zombie due to all the dementia medication.
It sounds morbid, but a good reason to stay exercising is to allow your body to just say enough is enough when the time is right and keel over dead after gardening, biking, or whatever and just being done with it.
I dunno. My father is 80 and is a competitive body builder. To say he looks good for his age is an understatement! That, combined with his respectable retirement income and he can easily attract much younger women. He may not live too much longer than his peers, but I’d say his quality of life is significantly better.
> He may not live too much longer than his peers, but I’d say his quality of life is significantly better.
That’s what I’m getting at. You’re not staying healthy for more time left, but better time.
Dag Aabye is an 82-year old Norwegian that still runs ultra-marathons:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dag_Aabye
I believe at least one 100 year-old woman has completed a marathon.
The human body really does have incredible potential.
Pretty Daggone impressive…
I have an older brother like that. He’s 79 and he’s a stud. Well, kind of.* He plays in senior softball tournaments out of state, just tore out his old deck and is building a replacement, re-painted his house last year, much of it off a 28-ft ladder. Still gets his deer every year. He’s a normie griller in many ways (still listens to talk radio religiously, which I hate). All this after a knee replacement, two new shoulders, a snapped arm tendon (fixed). Dude is a cyborg. I am almost seventeen years his junior and he’s my inspiration.
*I am a terrible person, because not infrequently people mistake him for my father, and I get a dopamine hit when that happens in his presence; because it pisses him off. He’s kind of vain about how he stacks up against his (surviving) contemporaries. But 79 is, alas, 79…
He could probably land an attractive early 60ish type woman, except (a) he only cares about baseball, (b) deer hunting, and (c) politics (of the normie Limbaugh variety). Any effort to talk to a possible lady love would be doomed by his complete uninterest in everything else.
“ The truth is, I doubt these guys will live much longer than the average couch potato, maybe giving themselves a few extra years, but they are far less likely to waste away…”
I second that. All the above discussion is best seen in terms of quality of life, rather than length. That’s what keeps me going. Best result is keeling over from an unexpected cardiac event.
The heart attack is your friend! As I lose people I know, I see that most everyone has a lingering end. Operations, chemo, debility, bed ridden, etc. All horrors I’d not wish on my enemies. There might be a reason to survive a bit longer at that point, I can’t/won’t judge—but it’s not for me.
Bing Crosby drank heavily, smoked, and keeled over dead from a heart attack on the golf course at 73. Can it be done better than that? I doubt it
And Bing had *2* complete families!. He got middle age second thoughts, divorced his first wife, and started another large family. Aside from the (poor) moral aspects, he sort of crammed in two lives into one.
Yeah. Drinking and smoking heavily and the plotzing into a bunker stone-cold dead at 93.
There’s always the .357 sleeping tablet if it comes down to it. Of course, some people believe taking one of those is a mortal sin.
I’m with you there, but one recommendation—do as women do—shoot yourself in the chest, directly into heart. If you’ve any loved ones, do not let them see you with your face blown off. This would be cruel and unworthy of your efforts—as in sparing yourself, but inflicting needless pain upon others.
No pain, the shock takes care of that. Perhaps a moment of realization, followed by light headedness, then unconsciousness. All accomplished in 5-10 seconds.
Well you dont wanna pull a Count Vronsky.
My observation with crippled old people is that by the time killing themselves is preferable to going on, they’re too incapacitated to do it.
Although my experience has also been that if the old person is in bad enough condition the doctors will start pushing you to off them with hospice or withholding care. Which is extremely creepy if you actually care about the person.
A cousin of mine sold all his rental propertiesin NY, retired to Florida at the age of 61, and died within a month – sitting in his favorite chair after a good lunch, watching the Yankees on TV. He never made a peep. Sounds perfect to me, except the 61 part (I am 63)…
Walks man… walks. HIIT is great. Weightlifting is great. But for stress, clearing mind, and blood pressure, long, long walks are the best. The physical and cognitive benefits are well documented. Further, make sure you are unplugged during this time – no music, no podcasts, nothing. See greenery and let the mind wander. I workout, and just a month ago put down the bottle completely (I was a heavy binge drinker), and have dropped the extra weight. I was always active and ate well, but the booze. But going for long walks (often over 6 miles) has been something I have been forcing myself to do, regardless of schedule. And they make me feel great.
Of course, I don’t know your neighborhood around Lagos. The only green you may see is weed. I live in the country. Your mileage may vary.
I have been doing long walks once a week the last couple of months. I want to get back to cycling, which is also a great stress release, but that requires driving to somewhere safe. These days around here, riding on the streets is a good way to die.
I got back into cycling about four years ago, after a break of many years. It’s been awesome, not just for the fitness benefits, but for the mental aspects. I don’t wear headphones, or travel with a boombox (believe it or not, this is a “thing” where I cycle.) I ride on a rails to trails conversion, which is mostly wooded. (Like you, I live in a city whose streets are not safe to pedal.) The drive there, as well as the trail itself, are through pleasant scenery, and conducive to letting the mind wander in and out of a meditative state. Highly recommend! Good luck on your journey to better health, Zman.
Rail riding is a lot of fun. I did that a few times when I visited my son in Indiana. Come to think of it I think it’s illegal to do there. Dunno. Sure see some beautiful scenery.
A couple of cycling things I learned through experience. Don’t cycle a week before a PSA (prostate test). I had my physical the day after a strenuous ride and my PSA spiked to worrying levels. A retest was normal. Also, get a good commuter type seat that puts more weight on your butt than your balls. I love having some hills that I have to stand up to climb, and then can get over 30 mph on the decline, which is fun. Fortunately here in suburbia, I can ride out of my garage and have a good 8 mile trek.
I don’t know your exact locale Z, but the greater DC area is blessed with an abundance of bike trails rarely equalled elsewhere in the country. I certainly got my fill of them from age 30 to 42, before I left the area. I was never the spandex clad racing bike rider doing a 100 miles per day either. I was the 220 Lb. guy on a cheap mountain bike who couldn’t quite keep up with the racers, but on the other hand I had no trouble riding sidewalks, gravel, going off road, and so forth.
I usually take my bikes with me on vacation, and have come to realize that I need to check myself when tempted to go off-road. In Florida once, I went off-road in search of a street I’d somehow missed, and went some way through brush before recalling that they have rattlesnakes (SNAKES!) there. Another time, I took what I thought was a bike path amended to a roadway, a popular “improvement” here when rebuilding after storms. It turned out to only be wide enough to function as a walking path, with unswept debris in the roadway, which steadily rose to a great height as the bridge it became passed over train tracks. About as hair-raising as its ever gotten! I need to keep reminding myself that I’m not twenty anymore when I’m tempted by these “adventures.”
I will not do road cycling for three reasons: (1) it is dangerous as hell, especially in our area where the back roads have no shoulder at all; (2) in my region we have a great network of well-maintained railroad trails (plus a canal trail), so with a suitable trail bike you can select from hundreds of miles in quiet, idyllic countryside; (3) bike enthusiasts strike me as total assholes. I despise their Lance Armstrong outfits, their little fanny packs, their energy bars, their helmets, their water bottles, and above all their self-awarded ‘asshole licenses’: eg., when two or more of them are riding side to side, it is you – the driver – that must slow down, watch for an opportunity to get by, while they – they of the asshole license – talk at the top of their lungs about investments, portfolios, the best Thai restaurant in town, their latest rounds of golf, shit like that, making no effort to form a file on the edge of the road.
And even the trails, though. Nowadays it’s families and couples riding at 9 mph on balloon tires with luminescent helmets and vests, like they’re doing moto-cross on a public highway. Seriously, I can’t take it. I took up running after my 3-4 year stint as a trail biker mainly because I gravitate toward dirt people stuff and just couldn’t take seeing these people. A five-year-old on a dirt and grass trail riding on a training bike with helmet and vest?
There is an image of a society and people that have lost the mandate of heaven.
I completely agree. The human body is specifically designed for walking. Walking is better than jogging even…less stress on your joints, and it has a pastoral and meditative quality about it. It’s the exercise that was touted by great men throughout history, and they attributed their longevity, both mental and physical, because of it.
As for drinking: I was a daily drinker, Kingsley Amis-style, until fairly recently. I have really cut down and may even quit the stuff. Not because drinking is bad – I think the danger of it is overhyped – but it encourages empty calories. Also, it’s terrible for sleep. I’ve gotten all I can get out of it, and maybe it’s time to finally cut that old friend loose.
I posted in another, and I will write again. The problem with drinking is the effect upon the liver. Heavy drinking heavily impacts your hormones. Just from the month of non drinking, I can feel my testosterone levels elevating. Drinking, for men, indirectly elevates estrogen, which of course inhibits testosterone.
I’m 47, but I got back into training with dumbbells ( despite a lot of sports injuries from my younger days). I also walk 3 miles five times a week. Like Eloi said, amazing for your mental health, not just physical.
Tired. Your age is a *good*one to be at. You are young enough to change, improve, and hold it into old age. That’s exactly what I did around then. Didn’t realize what was going on then, but is was life changing.
Another walking believer chiming in.
After my office got sent home in March 2020 and it became clear that it might be a little longer than 2 weeks to, y’know, slow the spread, I started walking an hour a day, which, for me, is about 3 and a half miles. I do it every day, and on the treadmill only when it’s really raining or snowing hard.
I lost 45 pounds in 9 months, I’ve kept it off, I sleep much better, my lovely wife says I stopped snoring, I have more energy and, unaccountably, food even tastes better (that’s prolly just weird mental stuff). Walking works.
I got a fitbit maybe 10 years ago and have committed to the 10,000 step thing ever since, and I hit that 90% of the time. So, you do the math and I have taken millions of steps that I would not have otherwise. In many ways I plan out my day to make sure I can take enough time walking to get to the 10,000 when it is not automatic (for example, on a vacation, I’ll get it without trying).
Obviously, I have no way of knowing where I would be health-wise without that, but I am so glad that this is a habit and a routine I fell into and I plan to keep doing it for the rest of my life.
The ages 50’s and 60’s is when things really start to separate. I have friends in those ages who are very fit and active, along with some who are about ready to need one of those motorized carts for shopping.
I met a couple of former co-workers for lunch recently who are about my age (59). I was amazed at how slow and physically lethargic they were. They both advanced higher in corporate grindville than me, but the cost was their physical health. I would not trade their C-suite success and declining health for my middle management ceiling, but great health and energy. You truly do use it or lose it.
I’ll drink to that! Yeah, pretty much the same thing happened to me recently. The labs were ok, but the bp was running higher than in recent years and the cholesterol has been creeping up, though imo it’s an overhyped risk. I’ve been walking two hours at a stretch several times a week for the past three years but haven’t really lost any weight to speak of, so have decided to cut back substantially on the booze. I figure it can only be a positive thing. Salude.
Walking is a good in and of itself; it’s not meant for weight loss. In fact most exercise can be seen this way. Exercise is for keeping the mind and body sharp.
To lose weight, just consume fewer calories. Or do the Keto thing. Or become Vietnamese. What enters the mouth is the #1 and only reason people get fat.
You should take a look at P.D. Mangan on Twitter (or X or whatever it is these days).
https://twitter.com/Mangan150
Excellent advice on exercise and aging. He links to to the original research so you can read it yourself.
Have a great weekend.