AndyJ's Body Enhancement Thread

I walked four miles the week before the hernia. It has been too cold to walk much lately, but I’m doing a city-sponsored 5K walk next month.

I went off carnivore about a year ago, back to keto, to let some of the slack skin shrink down a bit. It will never shrink tight, but it shrank enough that it’s time to go back to carnivore again. Poor dietary practice led to going from 235 to 250 pounds; that’s just sheer laziness on my part.

It’s very easy to modify your diet enough to start gaining again. Fat is high calorie.

Nice to hear that walking is an option now, once you’re fixed up. Even a daily short walk is great.

Last time I saw my GP - about three months ago - he recommended that I get the shingles vaccine. I finally got around to following up on that.

Back in 2021-2022 there were a number of news stories about how the pharmaceutical companies were going to mix the Covid booster vaccine into a slew of unrelated vaccines, so the "vaccine-hesitant" (I love that term) would get their boosters anyway.

I clearly remember seeing multiple news articles about that, but Google sayeth not. Interestingly, no hits on Bing or Yandex either. I would at least expect to see some hits for "nutball conspiracy sites". Interestingly, I get almost identical results from all three search engines. Hard to tell if it’s exaggerated SEO or if they’re all hiding something, but a whole lot of discussion about the subject is now unavailable.

We still have pig farmers dosing pigs with the vaxx, and a couple of states wildlife departments are capturing and injecting wild deer (!), and of course Gates has a public project to splice the vaxx into various food plants, so it’s interesting that all mention of the previous "Covid vaxx in every vaccine" has vanished.

By all accounts shingles sucks and can lead to long-term disability in some cases, but… I’m going to pass on the vaccine.

I got the shingles shot. At least the one I got is not an mRNA vaccine which I’m done with. I think you should look into it. Shingles is a bad deal for us older guys especially.

I’m generally agreeable to the idea of taking the shingles vaccine. The problem is, I don’t have any practical way to determine that was all I was getting.

Went back to the dentist today and got the permanent crown installed. The glue he used for that didn’t taste nearly as bad as what he used on the temporary crown.

It felt a bit tall, and he did a little shaping on the top with the grinder, using an ink strip and a bite patch. The crown was touching the upper tooth before the others made contact; after a little grinding, it was just a firmer pressure. I suggested we stop there and see how it works; I broke the bottom tooth years ago, and the top tooth isn’t used to having pressure on it.

After two hours, I sort of wish we had stopped grinding earlier; now the two teeth ahead of the crown are the ones that contact first. Or at least, the ones I feel make contact first. Sometimes it’s hard to tell where the sensation is coming from; sort of like when you have an itch on your back and can’t find it to scratch.

It’s supposed to be in the low 40s today. I’m going to try to get some reps in this afternoon.

It’s strange. Once you get used to exercise, you get fidgety if you don’t keep it up.

Deadlifts yesterday. Afterward I had various twinges in my stomach, probably from where the mesh got tugged on. It was rather tender a few hours later, but it seems fine this morning.

The hernia patch does not like lateral pulldowns with the cable machine. As far as I know it’s just the patch being pulled out of shape by my abdominal muscles. I’m sure I have some of those, somewhere under the fat layer. Some stinging, and residual soreness a few hours later. But no lumpy areas.

I’ve also started doing those L-twist dumbbell exercises Buckfever mentioned. I thought my shoulders were much better, but I can’t get my forearms more than 70 degrees to vertical, and I was limited to the 5# dumbbells. The 8# dumbbells were a no-go.

The main problem was the discovery of a whole new set of bone spurs in my shoulder joints, plus whatever muscles used for doing the rotations are ridiculously weak. I keep thinking I’ve found and am addressing all the spurs, and every now and then I’ll find some new movement that shows I’ve missed some. Well, the shoulder is a complex joint…

Most of the elbow and shoulder crunching from the Arnold presses is gone. I’ve been doing 5 sets of 10 with 10# dumbbells. The next larger dumbbells I have are 15#. Next time I’ll see if I can handle those, otherwise I’ll have to do it single-handed with one of my "Olympic" dumbbells. They weigh 11# each, and I have fractional plates. But they’e so long they hit each other if you try to do Arnolds. No problem with regular overhead presses, but I like the Arnolds because they engage more muscles than straight presses.

The tendon to my right elbow still complains bitterly when doing curls, even with the EZ-Curl bar. I do way better with the EZ-Curl than I do with a straight bar. I’ve wondered if a Super EZ bar, which is bent even more, would be better - [sudden insight] - I have a lightweight "Swiss" bar for the same basic problem while bench pressing; I can try curling with that.

Your advancement continues to surprise me.

"I’ve also started doing those L-twist dumbbell exercises Buckfever mentioned. I thought my shoulders were much better, but I can’t get my forearms more than 70 degrees to vertical, and I was limited to the 5# dumbbells. The 8# dumbbells were a no-go."

That’s impressive. I had to start with 1lb dumbbells.

Mostly, it’s the "keeping after it" thing. After a while it starts to pay off.

Huh. You’re in way better shape than I am, too.

I wonder if that’s common for that particular exercise, or if we’re both particularly weak in that area?

I’m getting accustomed to the clamp/pump alternation. I managed three clamps and three pumps this morning, all at 15 minutes, with almost no edema.

Generally, 45 minutes of pumping, even with 15 minute breaks, would give me substantial edema. Clamping in between reduces that greatly.

I had decided to accept a small amount of edema with the alternating clamping-pumping schedule. Edema has been gradually decreasing.

When I’m short of time or it’s cold - I do my PE in an unheated spare room - I skip the clamping. I’ve been extending the pumping sessions instead. Now I’m able to do 40 minutes at 5"Hg with no edema.

EQ has also been noticeably better in the last couple of weeks.