AndyJ's Body Enhancement Thread

I seem to remember reading that being a side effect of TRT?

Thanks, Buck! If they eventually translate to erect length it’ll be Party Time!

I didn’t know that. Thanks for tipping me off; I’ll look it up.

I saw the cardiologist yesterday. This is the guy I saw in 2004 and liked a lot; I saw one of his partners in 2016 since he was booked solid for three or four months. He didn’t remember me from 2004, which I expected; that’s 18 years and a shitload of patients ago, and he’s changed clinics at least three times since then. I tried to get a copy of his report from 2004, but he’d left that clinic in 2008, and they had purged their records.

I told him I was there for a general cardiac checkup, and that his office had asked me to bring any reports or relevant information, and handed him The Folder. I expected, at most, that he’d glance at it and set it aside to look at later; he unfolded the big taped-together lab report spreadsheet, held it against the wall, and went down the columns and rows, giving a stream-of-consciousness commentary; generally, everything looked great. “Look, here’s how this-thing and that-thing changed as your weight dropped, and there’s this big step here when you went off keto last month, and…” Turned out he’s a big fan of keto and was familiar with how it can affect blood labs; he said the results that were so alarming to my GP were normal in his experience. Then he looked at the 2022 general health spreadsheet and noted how various things were changing over time. I wish I’d printed some graphs for him; that’s what started the whole spreadsheet thing. I’d printed three weeks of my detailed health log back to the beginning of the month, mostly for the raw BP readings. He said that all looked good, and asked about the “nooptropics” block. We talked about those for a while, and statistics, design of experiments, and the difficulty of getting quantifiable results. As Gary Taubes pointed out in his keto book, much of modern medicine is driven by statistical analysis. I don’t know how much a cardiologist uses in his daily work, but he hadn’t forgotten those courses in med school.

My GP wanted me to start a heavy cardio exercise program, which he said would help my LDL readings, which were just out of “normal” range. The cardio doc said that in his experience LDL was usually pretty much stuck at what it was and didn’t respond reliably to exercise, drugs, or diet, but exercise couldn’t hurt.

He felt that my blood pressure was as low as it needed to go, if not too low. I told him my GP had said that at his last continuing education course, they’d been taught that there was no real lower limit short of getting dizzy when you stand up. Cardio doc said that’s what he’d been taught as well, but he still didn’t like to see it below 100; 100-110 would be good. I’d been considering that anyway; while my *average* is just over 100, it drops down into the 80s sometimes, and a few times into the 70s. The GP had mentioned that too-low BP could cause kidney problems, as there wasn’t enough pressure to perfuse the blood through the membranes. TANSTAAFL.

He said everything looked great, particularly the data I’d brought him, and set me up for a “nuclear stress test” and an ultrasound in a few weeks. He’s not expecting anything to show up; they’re primarily his backstop if I drop dead when I go at the speed bag; “see, nothing on the images!” Just an artefact of ‘modern medicine’.

For the last few days I’ve moved from “primarily pumping” to “primarily vacuum extending or hanging”.

I have an electric pump and a timer, with a needle valve to adjust vacuum; it’s normally set to 30 minutes at 4” Hg. I don’t get a donut. I can stretch it to 40 minutes without a donut, but not 45. I can do 30 minutes, then 10 minutes or edging or 30 minutes of nothing, then pump another 30 minutes without a donut.

Moving from the extender to the tube, I get a moderate donut at 30 minutes, every time. At 15 minutes it’s OK. (the timer has fixed preselects at 15, 30, and too long for pumping intervals)

I have no idea why pumping after extending will give a donut.

The bottom half of the scar ring is completely gone now. The “dime” scar has suddenly started to fade; besides me feeling it, my wife says it’s visibly smaller every day.

The only real change I’ve done lately has been twiddling the last batch of The Glop; a bit more hyaluronic acid, some magnesium chloride, and some PABA this time. MgCl and PABA have been claimed to be good for scar reduction, and I used them with DMSO a couple of years ago, but not in The Glop.

date: 08/01/2022 - progress report
PE day: 740
keto day: cycle 2/day 53

weight: 11/2021 347# — today 277# (-70#)
waist: 11/2021 63” — today 51.5” (-11.5”)
thighs: 11/2021 32” - today 27” (-5”)
upper arms: 11/2021 17.5” — today 15.75” (-1.75”)

BP: 11/2021 140-175 — today 100-115
glucose: 11/2021 95-105 — today (same)
BMI: 11/2021 50 — today 39.7 (-10.3)
lung volume: 11/2021 2000 — today 3400
- (normal for my age group is 2600)

NBPFSL: 07/2020 5-1/2” — 07/2022 7-3/8” (+1.875”)
still can’t get repeatable BPEL measurements

prescription drugs:

Lisinopril (blood pressure)
testosterone cypionate (TRT)

dietary supplements:

[general health]
D3 (low D3 on blood labs)
zinc gluconate or zinc picolinate (beef tolerance)
copper (helps with zinc uptake)
calcium (preventive measure for osteoporosis w-aging)
iron (supposed to be helpful for low blood oxygen levels, fatigue)

[EQ]
L-Arginine
boron
celery seed extract

[nootropic]
magnesium sulfate
B12
gingko biloba
lecithin (sunflower)

unresolved medical issues:
left knee replacement (waiting for magic BMI number)
hernia repair (waiting for magic BMI number)

The data sheet for Lisinopril warns that it can cause iron accumulation and excess iron levels. However, the lore for iron says it should be helpful for my chronic fatigue problem. I’m taking a low dose until I have another blood lab done, when I’ll ask them to check. Normally they don’t check iron level.

I was clocking down about two pounds per week when I had to get off keto to get a clean blood lab. That was two weeks off, plus another 40 days before I started losing weight again. It took about 40 days the first time, too. I’m actually running more “dirty carnivore”, seldom more than 10 carbs per day, and zero about half the time. But when people ask about your diet, they think you’re some kind of nut if you say “carnivore”, so I tell them “keto.”

I’ve been slacking on the weight lifting, but I’ve been good doing the stretches and flexibility routine. They’ve helped my mobility and range of motion considerably.

I restarted the “diy cryolipolysis” thing a week ago; I did the pubic area and lower abdomen. This week I will do some upper body areas. It’s impossible to tell how it is working, but if I get 1/4” of subcutaneous fat reduction per 3-month cycle, that’s an inch a year. And even if it doesn’t work, it’s farking hot a night, and the ice packs are nice.

At 70 pounds down, my clothes are so baggy I’m starting to have trouble getting at my pockets. My pants are cinched up so much they look pleated at the top and my shirts flap about. I’m going to have to buy some new clothes fairly soon. And I still have 100 pounds to go before I make the magic BMI number.

Congrats…..hard work pays

Great news on the lung capacity improvement, very happy for you.

70lbs down calls for a new temporary wardrobe. Amazing! Congrats!

For what it is worth, my solution while I was in the process of losing 100lbs was to periodically hit the men’s clearance racks at TJ Maxx and Marshall’s for cheap stuff that fit. Goodwill for jeans.

Yeah, I remember your Sharp Dressed Man clothing thread when you did the diet/exercise thing. [grin]

I may have some ancient pants I never got around to throwing away. If I do, I save some money and clean some crap out too. Some Wal-Mart shirts and I’ll be good to go for another half-year or so. So far, the elastic in my underwear is still tight enough it doesn’t fall down.

Remember, I still have 100 pounds to go.

One thing about my shirts being so baggy and hip-hop stylish now is that I don’t have to worry about my gun printing through. I’m in one of the states where open carry is recognized as lawful, but I got used to carrying concealed back before the legislature decided to repeal a bunch of unconstititional laws.

I wish I knew what I did, or even it *was* something I did. Other than blowing into the gauge every couple of weeks I haven’t done anything!

Except lose a bunch of weight that was probably impinging on your lung capacity.

Yeah, but the weight loss has been relatively steady, and the increase in lung capacity has only been in the last few weeks. I wouldn’t have been surprised if capacity had increased as my weight went down.

It’s possible I passed some threshold for something, but I have no idea what. And to be frank, I’m not even averagely fit for my age (yet), which makes even less sense.

Last year I started building a hanging chair. It suffered from feature creep, so I started over with a simpler design. This one uses a cheap Harbor Freight furniture dolly. I built an open-fronted box that sits on top, then cut a piece of 3/4” plywood for a seat and a short piece, about 8” high, for the back, primarily for something to locate my butt fore/aft.

Then I sat on it and reached around my balls with a short pencil and marked the cutout. It was surprisingly small, probably because my fat ass makes me sit fairly far forward.

Earlier this evening I used the vacuum hanger for an hour, straight down. No problem. Well, other than my hipbones, which didn’t like sitting on hard plywood after a while. I ordered a piece of high-density furniture foam from eBay to fix that.

It’s interesting just sitting on it with everything hanging loose. It’s different than sitting on the toilet, where I use one hand to cup my equipment so it doesn’t touch the bowl or seat. It’s a rough and cobbled-up excuse for a chair, but I think it will work out well.

Sounds good enough to me! Use what ya got or what’s cheap first. If you can finalize, then do it up fancy! Great to see you’re still at it though, and a mod ~ congrats!

Yeah, but it’s not all partying and smiting. The other moderators already cleaned all the good rides out of the executive car pool, and the only thing left is a 1987 Yugo GV that I suspect used to belong to the FBI. The plates are expired and it’s out of gas.