Angry Mets Fans

http://metsmerizedonline.com/2017/12/when-mets-worlds-collide.html/

Success.

Sometimes I think I'm afraid of succeeding. I essentially gave up on this blog after I got my results last August. My cholesterol dropped from 362 to 251 ... over 100 points in just over three months. My doctor said I no longer qualify for statins because I have no other risk factors. My doctor had previously discouraged me from continuing to try but I wanted to give it one last shot and cut dairy and red meat and really restrict myself. I'm glad I did. My doctor warned that for some people, typically those who possess a hereditary component, diet may not have much of an impact. He was wrong ... he now says I am a model patient. I haven't been tested since but I am more or less on the same diet and feeling good. No diary, no red meat, limited amounts of lean chicken and turkey, lots of beans and legumes and greens, daily fish oil, some non fat yogurt almost daily, small piece of dark chocolate almost daily, 1000 mg of vit. D daily (sometimes 200) ... I also took some slow release niacin for around 6 weeks before my test and I gave blood 3 weeks prior. I try to give blood 3 or 4 times a year. I've also been exercising almost daily. I usually take Fridays and Sundays off with Judo on Saturdays and Mondays. I run and do 1 punch man (100 push ups and 100 sit ups -- I don't usually do the 100 squats because it interferes with my running) ... I run 1 to 3 miles on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and sometimes Sundays.

It's a lot I know, but I haven't felt like this since ... I can't really remember when I felt like this. Probably in my late 20's early 30's. I think I got started on statins in my mid 30's, there's that to consider. I ran a mile in 8:17 last week, I am 52 now, I'm steady at about 165 lbs.

latest BABIPY thing ...

http://metsmerizedonline.com/2017/12/the-book-on-mets-babip.html/

Core Issues ...

Rib injuries seem to come in pairs. You injure your ribs, take the mandatory 6 weeks to heal, return, then bam you re-injure. Only it heals quicker, maybe two weeks. In the current case the original injury occurred on left side #8 but this latest one feels more like #9 which leads me To conclude that the subsequent injury is an adjustment injury pushing off of scar tissue from the first, like a pile up on the highway. So just like that, back to repair mode.

I haven't been great about one punch man and that's bad. Maybe once a week I'll do it. The core work is integral to injury avoidance and I was thinking I could substitute gym workouts for one punch man. Weighted crunches and weighted reverse sit ups and oblique cable twists. This is the second time on the other hand that I've suffered a rib injury in Judo after doing the oblique twists. Reminds me of this rash of Mets pitching injuries and how a lot of sports pundits are speculating that it's all the off-season weight training. The thing about weight training is that most people who lift are on a very "results sensitive" track, flexing after every set, which is destabilizing as many of the most important muscle groups are barely visible long, flat, slow-twitch "wrapping" musculature, which isn't nearly as impressive as big biceps. 

Even for those who focus on strengthening the core, you have to consider all the different ways the human trunk can move. Unless you manage to strengthen every possible movement (and its reverse) you are creating an imbalance, swaths of muscle tissue that are stronger relative to their surrounding muscles. Happo no kuzushi -- the "eight directions" of breaking balance in Judo is a good roundabout of how the trunk can move (or be moved), Judo establishes balance by both attacking (push and pull) in all directions, and by defending where you resist those same movements. 

I think ultimately I may be better off leaving the weighted core work to the pros. Yoga has probably done more for my core than anything in the weight room. My inclination is to focus on learning the throws and drop the weights (other than some "bulk strength" arm and chest work), continue running, resume one-punch-man and yoga. That's the plan.

Beware The Mandolin

I get this thing called a mandolin slicer for $2.89 at Aldi's and I'm slicing away and the damn potato slips as I draw it back and the blade catches my ring fingertip on my right hand, slices right into the meat about a quarter inch. Bled like crazy, and this after giving blood ...
I stare at my finger, fascinated by the healing process. Would be fun to take a picture every day as it heals. I've had a week now of being off of "repair mode" for the first time in quite a while. My abdomen is just about 100% ... took almost exactly six weeks. Am finally back to doing 100 sit ups. I've been running more, 8 - 10 miles a week. It's been wonderful going around the lake in the mornings.
Weird thing is I felt some weakness and neuralgia about a week ago and I'm thinking and it is either: 1. the added miles are harder than I thought, or,  2. (more likely since I've been running more for a while now) I was having a gluten reaction. It's not easy to stay off of gluten when you are also off of dairy and red meat, and sandwich meats, and added sugar, and anything processed. You can have hummus and peanut butter but you need something to spread it on and rice cakes make me want to stab myself with a fork.
So I go back to Aldi's and found some gluten free bagels and, so far, they've been a light and pleasant substitute (unlike the potato slicer which proved to be a finger-mangling menace). The cinnamon raisin variety are legit yummers. After a couple of days of strict gluten restriction the lingering icky-neuralgic bloating dissipates.
I feel it almost right away now when I eat gluten, as if I'm becoming more sensitive to it. Subway sandwiches have always wrecked havoc on me but I figured what the hell I could try a roasted chicken breast with veggies ... boy was I wrong. Stomach ache right off the bat followed by dull broader pains radiating into my hip and down to my left knee. I could feel the immune response overgeneralizing with waves of heightened nerve sensitivity and swelling, a systemic panic or whatever it is -- appearing to attack soft tissue, its preferred punching bag.
But I've cheated with gluten before without the recent borderline acute response, so what gives?
Healing?
Injuries, almost like the flu, seem to dampen the immune response. Since starting Judo almost constant injuries have been a staple. There was an elevated marker in my blood last year that my Dr. was initially concerned about, mentioning how you see it sometimes in people who are injured, so I mentioned the rib fractures and other miscellaneous injuries and he says "ok that explains it." Really curious about what that marker was, because whatever it is, in it's absence my immune response, even down to skin irritations and joint neuralgia, spikes noticeably. Like a guard dog without enough to do who starts overreacting to anything that moves. This is probably the first time in a very long while that I've been relatively injury free and cheated on gluten. But why would my immune response be in a sense "distracted" by systemic repair? I understand illness (infection) drawing the immune system's attention, but injury doesn't always coincide with infection ... although maybe it did so more commonly in our ancestors? Especially ancestors who couldn't figure out how to use a potato slicer?

That Little Extra ...

That little extra sleep, where you wake up and go to the bathroom at your normal hour but you don't have to go to work so you go back to sleep, here's the thing about that.
My dog, has been dragging ass ... I'm worried about him, need to get him in for his annual, hope he doesn't have heartworm or anything. Anyway he's been dragging, especially on the final mile around the lake, an the pull has thrown me off a little and I have this lingering Achilles strain. So, it's fine and healing but I notice on two consecutive days a significant improvement after that extra hour or two of sleep. Also, it is heavy with vivid dreams. I was under the impression the heavy lifting of repair happened, metabolically, during the the first few hours of sleep, so is this not the case here or maybe this is a case of finishing touches, or is getting up and walking around helping the healing along? Who knows, but there's definitely a difference.
I gave dog a bath and brushed him and #3 took him out for a run and said he didn't notice anything. I also finally ran alone and felt like crap, got outrun for about a mile by an old Guatemalan lady. That's what I get for losing faith in dog. Dog must eat less also. Maybe I am too hard on dog. The floor is too hard on dog ... his bed got wet in the flood and now we let him on the couch but he still mostly lays on the floor. It's cooler i guess.

I tried drawing some after walking through the MAI on Father's Day with the kids. It was wonderful walking through the Japanese galleries. The kids' wrestling around didn't even bother me.

Whatever Doesn't Kill You ...

     Stuck in a bit of a rut. On the heels of three wildly successful lake runs, 8 or 9 falls at the dojo tweaked the ribs for a dose of nighttime stiffness slowing me down again. It's been almost 4 weeks so it's still early, but that's putting it on a "fracture or partial tear" healing schedule. Still hovering around 165 lbs., feeling comfortable and I seem to eat plenty. Could maybe drop to 158 or so ... summer camping weight ... We'll see.
     Gave blood today. I'm O-neg (universal donor) so I'm on this robo-list where I get calls whenever there's a critical need. I think they're just pandering with the, "you're special" angle, but it works ... everyone likes feeling special. 
     Been reading a lot about the healing process and the liver lately. Interesting article in the NYTimes on the liver. Never really considered what it does. Made me wonder about my mom. If she were a multi-millionaire or something could she have gotten herself on a transplant list? Who knows, but one would hope the ethics there are ... ethical. She would not have been a good candidate certainly for transplant because of her age, maybe the cancer, but so many other treatments were out of the range of "worth the gamble" given outcomes ... quite a dilemma, having to choose between months without a treatment or weeks if it goes poorly, remission if it succeeds. Sadly she never had that option. They cut you off past a certain age,  figuring, you've lived your life and your dependents are no longer dependent -- even though to your contemporaries you have barely passed middle age. But that's the Greek islands for you -- sun and earth and onions and olives and tomatoes and coffee so strong it makes your teeth chatter ... Is it any wonder they routinely live into their 90's?
     Anyway the liver's hepatocytes are something of a natural wonder -- complex, flexible genetically, adaptable and prolific, the only cells capable of regenerating. Even with more than two thirds of the liver absent, the liver can regenerate back to it's original size. The liver swells and shrinks on waves of circadian metabolic activity by up to 40%. Filtering blood, infusing it, cleansing and enriching -- the pit crew of the circulatory system. At capacity delivering bulk doses of proteins in the blood at night, while breaking proteins down during the day. The liver is the engine of recovery in a sense, a factory distribution point, and, like an actual distribution center, working feverishly to provide the raw material of healing while we sleep. 
     So the liver, and healing as a whole, is taxed proportionately to current damage reports. Kind of like Scotty in Star Trek fretting about his warp engines coming apart. The higher the damage, the greater the systemic stress in the healing circuit (as if Scotty's liver needed the added stress) ... however, the system is adaptable and  adjusts to increased stress by moving the goal posts. If an organism adapts to a high level of chronic stress, the system in a sense reverts to operating at cruise levels (when those stressors are removed) with a rocket jet repair apparatus in reserve -- perpetual metabolic overkill.
     Now recent studies are pointing to an interesting wrinkle in the aging process -- physical trauma seems to have a rejuvenating effect on aging humans. "Analysis revealed that increasing exercise intensity resulted in a linear increase in the mass of GH secreted." So growth hormone (GH) increases proportionately with exercise intensity, again, provided you avoid going off that precarious "permanent damage" ledge. With permanent damage what doesn't kill you doesn't make you stronger, it fucks you up permanently.
     I can't overstate the implication here -- if you can weather the brutal nature of high intensity training you are looking at the "HNL" of recovery ... a veritable holy grail of tissue repair. More importantly, if you can impose a chronic demand for this metabolic power pack, you raise the preparedness norm substantially ... Especially if you aren't trying to take down a Mastadon and are merely walking to the coffee kiosk (after pushing yourself on a heart-bursting ridge run).
     I believe it. I think this is why we all left boot camp feeling like we'd been pumped full of steroids ... not to say we weren't ... "8 consecutive weeks of inoculations" is a bit odd ... just sayin.
     But high intensity exercise is risky, you have to manage the injuries and Judo happens to be the perfect vessel if you're going for "perpetually battered." The sublime little truth about rondori is that all-out physical combat with another human for 3 minutes is brutally taxing (I can't imagine what fighting a chimpanzee would be like). It invariably leaves you with all sorts of 1 - 3 day injuries, bruises, scrapes, mat-burns and scratches. It establishes a norm where at any given moment any number of issues loiter on the healing schedule.

     Fascinating stuff to be sure, reminds me of Conan, no not that Conan, Conan the Barbarian, or maybe Nietzsche.

MN State Judo Championships

Participated in my first Judo tournament this past weekend. Got my but kicked. I think my ribs perforated the muscle wall near my stomach but I don't think they're broken or fractured. I need to focus maybe a little less on conditioning and a little more on the Judo. #3 Brought his A game, took home silver. Problem for me was fasting trying to make weight I hit that starvation level soluble fat level in my blood which triggered the statin response. Still recovering from that (the fast) which is bizarre. And in the end not only did I not make weight (161 lbs -- missed it by one lb), but it didn't matter because I was the only masters category (old guy) so they lumped me in with the seniors (18 - 49). Anyway, vision blurriness, joint pain, aches, pervasive widespread stiffness, fatigue, it all came roaring back. Crazy.


Updated 5/20/17. The statin symptoms are resolving slowly. Healing is lagging and lingering stiffness. I believe myself to be rock bottom metabolically in terms of intake. Protein is barely there, healthy soluble fats are always a struggle, so fasting pushes me over to dangerously low levels. I can find an equilibrium using tuna, avocado, daily yogurt, and lots of olive oil, but with the fast I scraped bottom so to speak and my body responded with a deleterious shut-down spiral. Sensei Carey admonished me today in his own way for not focussing more on Judo and learning the throws. Muscle memory, repetition. He's right. It's great that I'm fit, but strength, agility, speed aren't much use if they are misapplied.



Updated 6/14/17. Convinced I suffered from a bit of the "no mas" effect on my first tournament. Lost way too much weight way too fast in the lead up. Most likely contributed to injury and general weakness.

Baked Eggs and Tripe

Niacin at 250 mg/daily causes greasy poops but no bleeding clotting issues. Dreading the return of the fish oil from the sea from the bottom of a barrel of mackerel to your local GNC, it'll give ye the fishy burps for hours aargh. Sister thinks it's the aspirin and of course she's right so aspirin will be the last to be introduced. I don't even know why I'm doing this ...

Greek Easter was difficult with the diet and all. I had a bowl of the mayirritsa, a porridge of tripe and pigs feet and beef stock thickened, if that can even be imagined, with an egg lemon dill infusion. It is, quite possibly the highest cholesterol food imaginable. I had a small bowl and felt like I'd just been injected with steroids. I also had a baked egg, baked eggs are nothing like boiled eggs for those who haven't had them ... Anyway, carry on.

Updated 5/20/17. Definitely the aspirin, not re-introducing it since it is clearly the culprit. 

The Spin On Spin Rate ...

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Meh Detective Work ...

Three days off of everything. Fish oil, vitamin D, niacin, baby aspirin, all dropped for three days. Gum and cuticle bleeding has completely resolved. Should add that the finger bleeding is greatly exacerbated by the judo, fingers take a horrible beating.

Played some basketball and very sore the following day. Granted it was 4 - 5 hours worth of basketball (forgot how much fun shooting hoops can be). The soreness is a bit on the severe side though ... The diet, and I should clarify, this is a severely restricted diet -- no dairy, no red meat, no processed meat, no processed anything, minimal gluten -- may be behind some of this lagging recovery. It's basically a rice and fruit and bean and nuts and non-fat yogurt diet with mad avocados and 6 oz. of lean fish or chicken every other day. So although I do eat lots of olive oil I think I'm running a "starvation level" deficit in the soluble fats
dept ... I need to find a good source of frozen mackerel and stock up on those oily cans of sardines. I love those ... Anyway, so the diet is fairly stringent and it's triggered a kind of induced myalgia similar to the statin side effect, but it is more acute (24 hours or so following rigorous activity -- which one could argue is normal "at my age") as opposed to the chronic persistent statin myopathy.

So I'm going to slowly reintroduce the above supplements starting with the vitamin D (which I do not suspect at all as I've been on it before without the weird bleeding) for a few days, then the baby aspirin, then the niacin, and lastly (my prime suspect) the fish oil. I'm like Sherlock Holmes.

A Happy Wolf Can Still Be Run Over By A Tractor Trailer

I came across a depression study involving mouse drowning. What I didn't realize is that drowning mice is quite a thing in the behavioral sciences. There is a whole, how shall I say, tradition, of mouse drowning. I imagine there are schools where you have to take mouse drowning 101, held in the old gymnasium with the leaky roof. And it's so deviantly easy to "accidentally" drop a mouse in a bucket of water and watch what it does for the next 20 to 30 minutes or however long it takes.

And what does all the mouse drowning get you? A loose fitting mammalian paradigm? More questions? Mice on anti-depressants showed increased intervals of "escape behaviors" during the first 5 or 10 minutes (of said drowning) than mice who were not (on anti-depressants) ... arguably. So the take-away I guess is that depressed mice tend to give up easier, which is quite the epiphany from a bunch of guys in lab coats shooting rubber bands at drowning mice ... It works for the drug companies who pump out more anti-depressants for all the human equivalents out there. People who suffer from being chronically thrown into the deep ends of swimming pools by a giant hand.

No, I think more significant are the questions these studies raise. Like "who came up with this?" And  "why didn't their parents teach them to be nice to poor defenseless animals?" And "why are there persistent contexts within said paradigm where the non-anti-depressant mice survive longer than the anti-depressant mice?"

By entertaining this question of course you perpetuate the mouse drowning game. It's like trying to convince a neighborhood bully to stop throwing rocks at a chained up dog and as you talk to him you throw a few rocks ... Anyway, so it turns out that the Prozac mice fought to escape longer and in doing so exhausted their poor little life-stores faster. I know, another bombshell revelation ... Apparently they deduced in their mouse drowning observations that quitting the anti-depressant-fueled "escape behaviors" delayed the inevitable drowning because they survived longer just floating there with just their little noses above water.

Now if we can put aside all the "what kind of person does this for a living?" questions, it brings up all kinds of possibilities ... If you are depressed because an invisible free floating hand hovers around your head slapping you hard every time you blink ... and someone says "why don't you go have some fun instead of complaining all the time?" You can say, "I am going to quit this mind-drowning conversation so as to entreat with imbeciles another day!"

Who knows, with a little polish and panache "quitting can save you from imminent death" can be the new "hard work and perseverance can make your dreams come true."

But the really really important question in all this carnage is weather a predisposition to depressed state can confer evolutionary benefits, i.e., can depression itself be an advantage? We are so quick to denounce depression as a disorder ... a sickness you address with pills, strong mind-altering and personality altering pills ... But depression may simply be a natural rest and regeneration phase as we see with the drowning mice. A wounded wolf will hide and sleep a lot to presumably effect healing -- does a moth messenger fly into her den offering her wolfie-Prozac maybe causing her to cheerfully and prematurely leave her den and die? Of course not.


So then, why do we stigmatize depression? Why is it ok for a wolf to be depressed but not a human?

The Hermit Diet

I read this story about a guy who wandered into the woods and lived there for 27 years. Now I grew up in NY in the 70’s and 80’s and this dude basically sounds like a homeless person. He’d walk around and pilfer camp sites and refuse bins … How is he not just another homeless guy? See when you’re homeless and lucky enough to be living in rural Maine, they write stories about you in GQ.
Now I want you to notice something about the picture above, look at how trim our wilderness vagrant looks in his prison scrubs compared to just about everyone around him. And they’re accusing him of stealing? So you have this community of over-eaters who don’t get enough outdoors exercise and they arrest this poor guy living in the wilderness who’s only trying to save them from their penchant for marshmallows and pop-tarts? Sad.

This supports my theory about optimal body weight. Your body naturally wants to be at that range of no visible body rolls to carry around. It reminds me of a conversation I once had with this obnoxiously condescending bicycle-shop owner who went on for about 10 minutes about guys who’ll pay an additional thousand dollars to trim 6 ounces from a bicycle frame and meanwhile are 30 lbs overweight. He had a point. There is a reason why every couple of pounds in carrying-weight trimmed from a 4 man tent (below the 15 lb. Walmart behemoth weight) comes roughly with about a hundred dollar increase in price and even more when you get down to those “elite" equipment snob weights. There’s a difference between weight that you can drop and not worry about (like firewood) and weight that you have to carry around, that’s why people will pay $500.00 for a four pound tent and eight grand for a bicycle and even more for a divorce!

So your body wants to be where you don’t have this very expensive weight hanging off your belt. And while an Italian bicycle designer isn’t going to track you down and write you a check for three thousand dollars every time you drop 8 ounces, the motivation is clear. I still brace myself for pain that isn’t there every time i stand from a sitting position … that’s motivation. I end up wondering whether I should go off into the wilderness like this guy. Being homeless in Northern Minnesota would be a lot easier than being homeless in Manhattan …… lots of lakes to fish from … And, you don’t have to worry about pizza stealing subway rats, or the C.H.U.D. threat, or sharing your steam tunnel with a cat lady. I’ve heard grouse is delicious and not that difficult to catch. I’d have to wait for the kids to be a little older, and with my luck the wife would tag along and convince me to stop at the IGA convenience store for jerky (she’ll never admit she likes the stuff so I have to buy it) and corn nuts.

You can call it “starvation weight” or your personal “cave-dweller” weight — that optimal efficiency weight where you are not carrying around any excess baggage, a boxer’s weight.

In getting there (lately) my energy has been down and I’ve been bleeding more from my gums and cuticles but I’ll get my cholesterol tested in a couple more weeks and I’ll know more. I will at least have a true baseline reference. Getting as close as possible to my homeless-person weight should hopefully help get my cholesterol numbers down as I don’t think the homeless suffer from hyperlipidemia any more than the normal population, at least those not residing near major pizza establishments. I figure once I get down to 160 or so I’ll get my blood drawn and then I can hopefully start packing on some pounds. I don’t like how it appears to be a lot easier to throw me around in the dojo compared to when i was 185 or so … Ideally I’d like to pack on 10 to 15 lbs of muscle, which is not easy without the aid of steak and cheese …

Steak and cheese … mmmm …

 One punch man is still going two or three days a week (although I’m limiting the squats to once a week) … The foot injury is all but resolved, running pretty much free, which is nice. Noticeable disadvantage in some aspects of ne-waza (groundwork) at this lower weight but am quicker on my feet and far less prone to injury. Been having some distorted thinking but nothing out of the ordinary … the squirrels are still monitoring my movements.

Opening day tomorrow!
Atlanta Braves @ New York Mets, Monday, April 3, 1 p.m., ESPN (Julio Teheran vs. Noah Syndergaard)
HAPPY THORSDAY EVERYONE!

Meh Injury Update

My ankle is refusing to heal. I think it's just a sprain but in my disastrous ideation it's the beginning of the collapse of the Roman Empire. After a run last Thursday I was walking down a flight of stairs and I feel a pop in my foot. It aches a bit, not too bad, but the ache sets in and I remember how in baseball a pop coming from inside your body is never a good thing.
The ache worsens into an arthritic nag ... How? I think the initial injury, which wasn't that bad, heals slowly because I'm drained utterly of soluble fats (because of my almost zero fat diet). The injury triggers an inflammatory response which in turn sets off a generalized autoimmune reaction that I feel primarily in my joints. I suspect the low fat diet may be interfering with protein metabolism. I'm healing almost as slowly as I was when I was on statins, which was not fast enough to keep up with my injuries, which was a problem.
In one recent study there was an association between low fat diets and increased risk of injury in female long distance runners. So I'm eating lots and still losing weight, down to 171, but I'm creaky and stiff again, tired, more early morning blurred vision, my gums hurt, and minor cuts are taking forever to stop bleeding. Oh and I'm having some warped "end of the world" thinking where I finally succumb to a slow painful death after a few miserble years as a broken down old man -- all from what amounts to a sprained ankle ... SMH.
I managed to hobble through Judo on Saturday but bowed out of the partner leap-overs and no rondori. I ran a mile on Monday and it hurt like heck afterward but (strangely) not during the run. I've also been doing one punch man three times a week on average. Ran again yesterday (Wednesday), 1.5 miles and again ok during the run but sore afterwards (and before for that matter). So I'm pulling out all the stops. I've added a half an avocado a day, boosted my olive oil, took a bunch of calcium today and an extra dose of vitamin d to see if I can kickstart some decent recovery. I also consumed 30 extra grams of protein via some nifty Garden-of-Life vegan protein powder from Mississippi Market here in Saint Paul. I also had a six ounce serving of white meat chicken, a second weekly serving. I'm even going to see if the old ball and chain might be so kind as to show me some of her magic healing yoga tonight. Fingers crossed that after a decent night's rest the foot will turn a corner. A cock will crow at dawn reckoning nothing of wizardry or war and the horns of Rohan will ring out and I shall walk with pain no more! Or it may take a few more days ... Which is also ok ... Perspective right?

Brain Infused Baked Alaska ...

So I get into an argument over the phone with my daughter about who is the bigger narcissist and she mentions that we’d been talking about my shoes for the previous 10 minutes. I concede her point with “well, as an artist I kind of have to be something of a narcissist, aren’t all artists somewhat narcissistic?” And she walks right into it with “Oh give me a break you’re not an artist … “ So naturally I retort “Yeah but I pretend to be one … it doesn’t matter, It’s all a farce -- we’re just two no-consequence carbon based life forms on an insignificant little planet in the middle of a vast nowhere universe! BAM nihilism!” After a pause she says " ... I would literally rather talk to anyone other than you right now."

Anyway, that’s how these “will you at least buy me a pair of Rockport shoes if you ever strike it rich as an eco-lawyer?” conversations usually resolve. And I would never wear Rockports, it would just make me feel better about my selfish self because all I ever got my dad was a size 10.5 EEE pair of Rockports … that’s how much of a narcissist I am. Ha HAH!

Now getting back to me.

I’ve managed to drastically cut cholesterol from my diet because I really would like to not be on medication. Especially since statin medications make me feel like I should be suspended in traction in some 50’s black and white hospital ward listening to Metalica.

Things were going swimmingly with running and my One-Punch-Man workouts and judo until a couple of weeks ago when I was walking through the market with my wife. I had to restrain myself from taking a bite out of a raw brisket. 

My wife says, “that’s like the wife from Santa Clarita Diet,” and for a second I wondered if I was turning into a zombie. That would explain a lot of other stuff … like my toenails and my media preferences. But no I still had a heartbeat and brain matter would only appeal to me in some sort of baked Alaska infusion with layers of butter …

Eating all these grains and greens I start to feel like some sort of vegetarian goat-monkey being led around the supermarket on a leash. Only I’m NOT a vegetarian goat-monkey, I WISH I could have that slab of liver or some tripe to chew on. This can’t be normal, I thought, why would God make all this delicious stuff and then make it so if you eat it, it will clog your arteries and cause horrible pain and death? This must be some sort of test maybe. Like maybe God noticed I’ve had things pretty easy so far and figures he’d mess with me. Like Job only with food … Cream-of-wheat made with whole milk and butter for instance, most people love fancy desserts and delicate meats ... not me, one of my absolute favorite things in the world is a little cream of wheat with a tab of melted butter mixed in. Well wouldn’t you know it, at some point in my middle age it became about as toxic to me as the tomato soup Top Job mixture from The Sixth Sense. Why does cream-of-wheat do me like that??? I haven't the faintest.

So I’m starting to fall apart and I think it may have something to do with cortisol levels and the absence of soluble fats in my blood. You need cholesterol, not only as a catalyst in protein metabolism and tissue repair, but in the production of cortisol -- the hormone that manages blood-glucose concentration … cortisol is like cholesterol on steroids, or I should say cortisol is a steroid. The odd thing about cortisol is its immunosuppressive effects and its inhibition of muscle repair mechanisms … it’s initial punch in effect reconfigures body systems to function optimally in a fight or flight response with repair and storage systems relegated to back-up. Blood pressure, high glucose levels in the blood and a litany of other changes to effect a quick motor response to a perceived threat.

So the reduced cholesterol in my blood disrupts protein metabolism and repair mechanisms, this results in a “pop” in my foot after a run the other morning (which has been killing since), the pain sends messages to the brain which dispatches cortisol which pumps glucose (energy) to the affected area and constricts blood vessels and further impedes repair mechanisms (and immune function). So when does the repair happen? I hope soon because between the lame foot, the hand injuries the increased blurry vision creaky joints and an overall ornery disposition, I keep wondering about the zombie thing …

There’s a stabilization period after cortisol spikes where the repair apparatus comes back on-line. I feel as if that stage is slow to trigger in my body and for this reason is failing to properly assimilate the raw metabolic materials to enable repair fast enough to keep up with damage (largely incurred at judo). So, I need, desperately, to eat more healthy soluble fats, and maybe scale back on the exercise? It’s just that healthy fats are so damned hard to come by, you can only drink so much olive oil before you start to gag.

Oh, and HAPPY HARVEY DAY METS FANS!
I know it's early in spring training, but Mets look scary AF. 

Immunesystem's Quarterly Review

Immunesystem is like a big loudmouthed bouncer at a trendy club who makes a habit of turning away just about everyone and for different reasons.  He parades up and down the sidewalk outside the club ogling potential patrons for defects or weaknesses or any trace of impurity or shopping network.

“Hey you, starchy pilaf, where do you think you’re going? Not in my club smelling like curry … get the fuck-outa-hee.”

“And you, Belvita … get your tryna-be ethnic too-big-to-dip-ass off this line ok?”

“Oh you’ve got to be kidding me Oatmeal? Again? Does this look like a club for old people man? No it does not Oatmeal, we’ve been over this … “

And Immunesystem is really distractible …

“Oh My God! Processedmeats … you mind-erasing piece of shit get off my STREET … 100 feet Processedmeats!”

“Shellfish? Dude, I let you in last time and your girlfriend Mayo used up all the Kleenex in the BUILDING … wth?? I don’t know man … and those shoes, damn. “

“And Bubble-tea girl, I love you but the boss said you and your cosplay anime-nerdies are bad for business …” (Thick condescension) “I’m SO sorry.” FSF (fake sad face) 😞

The way Immunesystem acts you’d think he’d be beyond reproach ... 

“Keylimepie! OH NO! Not again, get your raging reflux big-ass gluten load from my … (Keylimepie slips Immunesystem some white chocolate lime-zest shavings).

“But I tell you what, just this once maybe ok?“

Anyway. As owner of the establishment I’ve given Immunesystem a lot of gruff over the years. I’ve even threatened to fire him and let lymphatic system take over his duties (I know it wouldn’t work but he doesn’t know that). I mean I like that he takes his job seriously, really I do, there’s a lot of riff-raff out there. There are syndicates and mobsters always trying to muscle in and Immunesystem packs quite a wallop at the door, but did he really have to turn away that hot Greek chick Melomakarouna?

To Immunesystem’s defense, it’s not an easy job, like that time with Phil.

“Look, Phil-o, I know you’re the big guy’s cousin and all, but your not on the list … what am I supposed to do? I’m sorry Phil.”

Sometimes, even good loyal customers like Cream-of-wheat get crossed off the list for good -- DEAD to us ... So yeah it’s not a walk in the park with a waffle-cone.  

But then there are all the new customers … good paying new customers, who’ve lodged TONS of complaints about Immunesystem. And he wonders why he doesn’t get a holiday bonus? LOL! He punched flaxseed the other night because Immunesystem thought he was assaulting Yogurt when flaxseed and Yogurt have been together for months. Oh and just yesterday he completely mistook Avocado for Butter, walked right past him.

And why does Immune system have to dress like the butcher from Texas Chainsaw Massacre? I get casual Fridays and all but the gauntlet and mace-club are a bit much.

I think overall I’d have to give Immunesystem an M grade, for “a mediocre meddlesome maybe ok job considering we are even still alive after letting Processedmeats in …” And no bonus, not after the Keylimepie fiasco.

Preseason final: Mets 3 Red Sox 2
Chechinni and Conforto go deep. Lugo with 2 innings for the W.

Pigeon Droppings

Trying to delineate, systemically, the impact of a single complex compound across a vast web of interfaces in the body’s metabolic pathway system, becomes, especially in it’s more diffuse trace reaches,  almost impossible to demonstrate in broad comprehensible terms. There may simply be too many variables and too much variability over time. You might be able to if you could conduct a study across a really big and diverse sample with really controlled and specific dietary guidelines with almost constant blood-work, but good luck finding volunteers. Touching one spot on a web, targeting it and blocking it the way statins block cholesterol, doesn’t preclude that reaction from having other chains of effects in other pathways -- and to a remarkable degree individuals can be remarkably different in these pathways. I’d wager we are as individual in our body chemistry as we are in our fingerprints.

So summer comes around and it is now a year and a half ago. We took a vacation to South Dakota. Climbed Bear Butte with my son. I ran out of my statin medication and by the time I finally got more a month had gone by. I was also diagnosed with Sarcoidosis, which is a bummer because no one seems to know what it is or what causes it. Maybe mold? Spores? Alien radio transmissions? With my latest batch of rib fractures they noticed nodules in my lungs, an inordinate number of them. They are scar tissue caused, usually, by “irritants.” Maybe whiny youtube gamer videos? Also during this time they scheduled me for a CT scan with contrast dye which they pumped … into my blood.  What the fuck … This stuff gives me a Paris Island CS gas chamber flashback bigtime, snot everywhere. They had to "monitor" me.

The Judo (indirectly) reinvigorated by the trip to South Dakota, found another weakness – the sarcoidosis, more indication that I am allergic to A LOT of stuff. Bird droppings maybe … there was the war (and eventual sad departure) of the pigeons. But that’s definitely another blog entry. It may have something to do with a fungus that lives a few inches under the earth's surface in the great plains. So sarcoidosis can sometimes kill you or it can just go away. It's like Kafka's The Trial only instead of some nebulous charges brought by a secretive government bureaucracy it's nondescript scarring on your lungs where some unkown irritant met with your raving lunatic immune system ... Symptoms which, like bill collectors or Kafka's inquisitors, can leave and never return. Go figure.

Long story short, they finally refilled my Statin prescription. 

I was feeling pretty good, surprisingly so considering I had lungs full of nodules, but I chalked it up to it being summer and having just returned from South Dakota. Boy was I wrong. I started taking the statin again ... and wouldn't you know it I reacted to it. At first I thought I had the flu, then I realized ... the joint pain, the aches, the muscle weakness, this was winter me ... and it dawned on me, without the statin it was all gone, poof. More significantly I noticed my hand injuries (a constant annoyance in Judo) were healing in almost half the time. So I told my doctor, we tried another statin which was even worse then he advised a trial without any medication. 

Over the past two years I've dropped 65 pounds but half of that is since I came off statins. I’m running 3 miles in mid 24 minute range, I'm doing 1 punch man once a week, got my yellow belt, oy. I've gotten better at avoiding getting my ass kicked and avoiding pain. Wife came home ... Made it through a Minnesota winter depression free.

My therapist keeps asking me how I did it. 

My response? 

I don't really know. 

Matts(Modified)OnePunchManDesperateToFigureOutWhatWentRightSelfDiagnosisMetsJudoBlog

Teamwork

My immune system is paranoid and confused. It doesn't understand the concept of "this is oatmeal, oatmeal is a friend, we like oatmeal ..." No sir, if I eat oatmeal my immune system will attack it like it's a salmonella-bar. My immune system thinks this is funny. It will wink knowingly at me as I ingest a slice of key-lime pie (forgetting there is gluten in the graham cracker crust!) and then reject it like some poorly grafted gangrenous limb coming out of my shoulder. Oh, that immune system of mine ... The stories I could tell you. 

When I was a kid my parents took me to visit the homeland -- Greece, in all her sunny glory. To a kid from Queens, it was a dream come true. When we returned to NY I got sick, then I got sick again and I didn't get better … permanently sick. So the parents took me to some doctors and in the end they put this plastic box about the size of a hot dog -- whose push-down inner housing was lined with tiny needles dipped in potential toxins -- on my arm and pushed the needles down and guess what? 10 minutes later I had a rash. I was "allergic" to stuff like cat dander that lots of people are allergic to, but also things that are hard to avoid, like dust and leaves and tomatoes and corn and new world vegetation ... I had to take shots. On Saturdays I'd walk down to the doctor's office for my shot of stuff my immune system was confused about. Somehow they'd rendered irritants via injection "tolerable" and would slowly increase the dosage every few months. It reminded me of "mediation" sessions when I was a kid where they'd make you wipe cafeteria tables down (or re-arrange orchestra seats or rinse out frog bins in the science lab) with a kid you just had a fistfight with. You don't want to be their friend, you don't even like them, you were just in a fistfight with them for crying out loud! 

Anyway, what does this have to do with joint pain abatement during illness? Well, I've always wondered, what if my immune system was right all along? Some of this stuff that I'm allergic to has strange properties. Like wheat, which is like wood pulp, if you try to eat it. It tastes like plywood. If you have to grind something, powder it, mix it with far more palatable substances to create a blob of dough, induce fermentation and bloating in said blob, then bake it in a stone oven for hours just to make it edible. I mean, that’s an awful lot of trouble when you could just pick a grape. And why do we drink the milk of another species as adults of our own species? And cheese? Really? Do you know how cheese was invented?  Alcohol -- alcohol can clean paint off your hands – it comes in a bottle that’s been sitting around in a cellar for 12 years ... and you're going to drink that and cough and say stuff like "whew, smoooth." 

I guess I question the autoimmune “disorder” designation. It’s hard to pigeonhole broad genetic predispositions as favorable (or not) to current conditions. Where one’s immune system might be a pack of marauder cells attacking their own tissues for lack of external threat (the way the ancient Greeks would just fight among themselves if there weren't any Persians around) in one condition, it could prove beneficial in any number of other conditions, and conditions change. Hyper-vigilance is not necessarily a bad thing if you are being relentlessly attacked by invisible assailants ... that's what I always say.

Jeez I hope this doesn't turn into another desperate self-diagnosis blog. 

NeekerbreekersModifiedOnePunchManDesperateSelfDiagnosisJudoMets.Blog

Mets bullpen

A hidden gem?

LGM!

Mountain Punching

Here's the thing, I've thought about starting a blog for a while and for that while I've thought about how I'm not particularly keen on it. While it might be a good way to keep track of observations on the "One Punch Man" (fitness) side of the spectrum -- with perhaps less emphasis (at least initially) on the "Mets" side -- It is self indulgent drivel of the worst kind. Nevertheless, here goes, and, as life may collude with reality, content will of course be subject to incidental Mets flotsam.  

The One Punch Man thing. Hear me out -- It's not like I'm expecting anyone to read this -- I'm not even sure how this blog thing works. I imagine there’s some secret pipe system like from a church organ with tiny moths flying messages up and down the tubes ... something like that. Anyway, I was rambling to my sons one morning about how after several months I was finally able to do 100 push ups without stopping. So my youngest, the brain of the outfit, is like "hey that's like One Punch Man." I'm like "who is One Punch Man?" He says "Its this anime guy who can defeat any monster with one punch because of this workout he does." Naturally my curiosity was piqued, a guy who can defeat any creature with one punch? Because of a workout? "What about Godzilla?" I ask, "He's physically incapable of losing Dad, that's part of the character." Whatever.

The workout itself is simple, 100 pushups, 100 sit-ups, 100 squats, and a 10K run, every day, for 10 years. At the conclusion of this plan you should be able to move mountains with one punch. So I figure, what better way for me to prepare for my inevitable confrontation with some former version of myself sent ahead to kill me (besides maybe Judo) than trying the One Punch Man plan? I figure I'll still be fairly young in 10 years and I've already got the 100 pushups ... Who wouldn’t want to chop mountains down with a punch? That’s some Jimi Hendrix voodoo shit right there.

Anyway, some history ... Three years ago I was was obese, smoking, unable to limp/run more than a few hundred feet maybe, I couldn't do a squat because of a bad knee. My Mom had just died … I was diagnosed with osteoarthritis, hyperlipidemia, and (eventually) sarcoidosis … My daughter was institutionalized for harming herself, my wife served me with divorce papers. I was depressed, missing time at work, in constant pain, constantly sick, sore throat, colds, on and on. Everyone was like, get used to it, you're old AF ... pretty soon you'll be dead. So I tried to get used to it and it sucked in a major way.

Things are a lot different now. Not sure how things changed but my therapist thinks I should figure it out ... Maybe bottle it. It kind of started with the Judo. After the wife moved out I decided to do something I've always wanted to, I enrolled us in Judo classes at our local Dojo.

Maybe this should be "Neekerbreeker's (Modified) One Punch Man Mets Judo Blog" ??

LETS GO METS!

Welcome home Jerry Blevins.