AndyJ's Body Enhancement Thread

You can still get CRTs on ebay.

But maybe a room heater? I have one room that gets very cold and in it there’s a room heater set to the minimum I can get away with to stop pipes freezing.

In three and a half years I’ve had one ballooned vein from clamping (through stupidity, mostly) and probably dozens of blisters on my glans from the vacuum cap. Due to previous non-PE injury, my glans is very sensitive to low pressure and blisters at a hard look.

Some time last week I got a new injury. When rubbing near the base on the left side of my shaft, I felt something like a small bundle of half-cooked spaghetti. It was after a pumping session, and sometimes the veins get engorged a bit doing that, but it goes away rapidly. So I ignored it. A couple of days later I noticed again, and cut back on my pump schedule a bit. Yesterday I got to poking at the bundle, then looked up the symptom. sparkyx’s very useful thread is here.

Yep, it’s a clogged lymph vessel.

I took a couple of aspirin for blood thinning and laid the heating pad over it. Later I’ll rub some diclofenac gel in, and maybe do a couple of short pulse-pump sessions at 2"Hg or so.

I’m not entirely sure how I got the clog. But I’m an overachiever; it feels like several in a cluster instead of a lone vessel. Looking back over my logs, the only thing that stands out is that I started adding some 20-30 minute ringed edging sessions after my morning pumps. With the ring, I can get 100% erections; without, 75% is more likely, and I have to keep my attention on it to maintain it. Having the shaft full of blood and lymph and then restricting the return may have been the cause.

I had been kicking around the idea of taking another decon break. The last time was October of 2022, for 30 days. I was planning to ramp PE down in mid-January anyway, since I want my testosterone level as low as possible when I see the endocrinologist on February 2nd. Much as I hate to stop while I’m gaining, it seems like an ideal time for a decon, [sigh]

I have a spare laptop I’m going to try first; carry it from the warm house to there, plug it in, and see if the screen stays visible as it reaches ambient temperature.

Hey, at least I don’t live up north, there macho men thaw frozen pipes with arc welders…

BTW, if the weather isn’t too cold and the ambient air inside the dwelling is above freezing, you can often use a fan instead of a heater to keep your pipes warm enough not to freeze. The air the fan is moving might not be very warm, but there’s a *lot* of it.

In my case that wouldn’t work and water will start to freeze at 37° and not be completely frozen at -55°.

Well, that was one of the shorter-lived New Year’s resolutions on record. It was supposed to be 45F and sunny today, but at 1400 it was still 33F. I had to go to the bank, so I thought I’d do some deadlifts and then head out.

I opened the door, and the NOAA’s "sunny and 45" was "half-dark, 33, and sleeting." It had apparently been snowing earlier.

I got wet and cold clearing the windows on the truck, shivered all the way to the bank and back, and decided the whole idea of exercising while frozen was definitely off my todo list for today.

:)

I came across the Rockport Fitness Walking Test, which is used to guesstimate VO2 for middle-aged and older people. I’m doing good on the treadmill at the gym, and I’ve been writing my numbers down in my little logbook. So, plugging the numbers in - Age: 65. Weight: 235. Distance: 1 mile. Time: 24 minutes. Pulse: 122. Speed: 2.5mph.

Various online calculators (the formula is a morass of constants and fudge factors) return results around -1.2.

The acceptable range for ages 60+ starts at 20.5 for "very poor", to 34.5 for "good".

WTF?

Okay, lets play with the calculator. The weighting for speed is very strong. To get to "poor" I would have to trot along at 5mph.

Whaaaat?

The Rockport protocol insists on "walk" and prohibits "run." So, how fast is "walk", anyway?

At 2mph I zoom around people at the grocery store like a pachinko ball. I can guess speed pretty good for that, since I do most grocery shopping on the way home from the gym. At 2.5mph I’m lapping most of the people on the gym’s indoor track. I can do about half a mile at 3mph, but that’s up on my toes and not really a "walk" any more. I haven’t seen anyone around my age on the treadmill, but I’ve blown past them on the track as they shuffle along, probably less than 1mph.

There are some charts for "average walking speed by age" online. Whoever came up with the original charts was smoking crack. An example:

age 60 to 69: 2.77 to 3.0 mph
age 70 to 79: 2.53 to 2.82 mph
age 80 to 89: 2.10 to 2.17 mph

Riiiiight. I doubt many 69-year-olds could manage 2.77mph if they were being chased by wolves, much less for an "average walk." And certainly not for the full mile the test requires.

The Rockport number is theoretically used as a guide to general and respiratory fitness. Though I find its expectations for speed to be completely unrealistic, I routinely collect all the information its formula requires, so I’ll do a calc and enter it on my spreadsheet every month or so.

Bonus factoid: what’s the difference between "walk" and "run"? That turned out to be surprisingly hard to tickle out of search results; apparently it’s so obvious it’s seldom a question. The most likely definition seems to be that walking always has at least one foot on the ground at all times, while running means both feet are off the ground sometimes.

I went back to keto on 01/01. On 12/28 I weighed 235 pounds. Today I weighed 242 pounds. I know from experience it might go up a little more, hold steady for four or five weeks, and then start dropping.

Changes in type of food cause similar reactions to reductions in calories; the body holds on to whatever it can, in case there’s famine. [sigh] Even though it’s perfectly normal, the upward swing after starting or resuming is annoying.

Four days of aspirin, Diclofenac, heating pad, and gentle massage. I’m down from a "bundle" to just one clogged lymph duct now.

I don’t know the technical definitions. It’s like horses walking, trotting, loping or galloping. Walking is walking, no matter how quickly you do it.

My experience on flat ground:

20 minute mile walking speed is slow and goofing off.
18 minute miles are moving along at a steady pace without slacking much.
17 minute miles are perkier speed and not wasting time. I usually average 17 or a bit under per mile if I’m not deliberately trying for faster.
16 minute miles require speedy walking with an intent to go quickly to make the time.
15 minute miles or under are a challenge. This is speed walking as quickly as you can move - racing speed. You really want to break into a jog, which would be easier (and more efficient) for the speed you are moving, but you don’t. I’ve done slightly under 15 minute miles this way on flat ground for a few miles several times just to see if I could. I find walking this quickly is too taxing to do regularly. A few miles of it really beats me up. I’m better off sticking with 16-17 minute miles for walking.

Another exercise to consider is step ups. I did them a few years ago when I couldn’t do anything heavier due to damage in my foot from a blood clot in my leg. I have a solidly made stool about 17" tall. Step up with one leg, tap the other toe on top, step back down and repeat with the other leg. Continue. This can actually provide quite a cardio workout. It’s like stair climbing or hiking a steep trail. When I last did these I had worked up to sets of 20 step ups followed by walking 2 laps around my yard. I repeated this for 10 sets and worked on improving my total time. My heart rate was usually 160ish when done. Granted I was pretty out of shape, but simple exercises like this can be useful.

Sorry to hear about that slight weight uptick. Keep in mind, too, this is the worst time of year for losing weight. Everybody’s iced in. More importantly, it’s just fricking depressing and not conducive to slimming ourselves down to thong-ready shape.

Down to one clogged lymph vessel now. Aspirin, Diclofenac, heating pad, and occasional gentle massage. I can trace the vessel down into the ligaments, the clog is probably down where the pump tube sits.

I have really bad knees. As in, on the X-rays, you can see where the bone ends on the left knee are worn, because the cartilage departed long ago. That’s the main reason I was using a cane and (occasionally) crutches.

The weight loss has helped that, but I think most of my mobility improvement has come from the squats. Which were [censored] murder to start with. I started shallow and worked my way down. People assured me that squats don’t load the knee in the same way, and it turned out they were right. I’m still amazed I don’t just fall to the ground, whining in agony.

But stairs are still a problem for me. And my left knee used to just give way sometimes, for no particular reason. It hasn’t happened in a while, but that’s why I waited until I could get a cage and proper safety bars before I started using the barbell. The wimpy weights I can handle probably aren’t that big a deal if a knee folds under me, but I work out by myself, and it could be most of a day before Mrs. Andy started wondering where I was.

That said… hell, I’ll try almost anything. I’ll put that on the exercise "to do" list.

Outside: Cold. Snow. People. Mosquitoes. Direct sunlight. "Do not recommend."