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.