Early Retirement Extreme Forums

Congratulations Dave, your efforts to turn around your health have been inspiring! Enjoy your season at the hideout! Thanks, NewBlood. It's a relief to have made some progress, and more importantly to have maintained it over the course of 16-17 months now, for the most part. The challenge now is to...

suomalainen wrote: ↑

Tue May 14, 2024 12:16 pm

This reminds me of a few weeks ago when @gravy said she had a "self-destructive bent" and cited not doing the dishes on a Sunday and watching TV instead. Drunken sailors, the lot of you.

New belts and unwashed Sunday dishes! What's the community coming to, lol.

I had my annual visit with my primary care doc yesterday morning. It went pretty smooth. No statin discussion at all, she's happy with the two most recent lipid panels she's ordered (Nov 23 and May 24). All in all she was quite positive. My BP caught her attention, it was 106/66. I was something lik...

Those scores look much better. Congrats. ... Thanks, Scott. Yeah, they gave me an estimated average glucose number and it was 103, so it must use essentially the same calculation. I also learned that my Keto Mojo glucose readings are higher than lab tests. I checked myself right before I left, with...

Hey Dave, thanks for the kind welcome over in the introduction thread. Just catching up on your journal and getting lost in northwoods dreaming! Hey goldenpath, glad you stopped by. This particular journal meanders quite a lot. I think it might turn 10 years old this year! (curiosity got the better...

Today I got my test results from the annual tests ordered by my regular doc. They are pretty much back in the range they were last fall. Compared to what I got a couple of weeks ago through Function Health: Measure: Function (4/24) -> regular doc (5/7) Total: 225 -> 185 HDL: 41 -> 50 LDL: 158 -> 111...

Hello and welcome from another Midwesterner and part-year Minnesotan. I to have derived a lot of benefit from spilling the beans as it were, and the ensuing dialogue. I was in the salarymen cocoon for a long time and it's now been almost 3 years since I wriggled out and took flight. I started my jou...

I'm already getting there! Intellectually, I understand some of the realities of advancing age and padded my nest egg accordingly. The other way I am addressing future health is by present lifestyle (nutrition and movement/exercise). The time between the end of my healthspan and end of my lifespan i...

Cholesterol numbers aren't necessarily reflective of either diet or body composition. I have a very skinny friend who has never been obese who has had cholesterol readings in the 400s since his 20s and has taken medication for decades. No shame in managing issues with the available tools. Statins h...

I'm with you on integrating all sustainable lifestyle changes, before pulling the statin lever. Unless there's an acute risk (ie uncontrolled diabetes + high cholesterol), build the strong foundation first. Don't bury your most useful metric with a drug. Use it to learn. Backing off ketosis looks l...

IlliniDave, might I suggest you consider just taking the statins? It’s not you, it’s your genetic inheritance. It will likely slightly mess with your sleep pattern, and may cause some eczema issues. But you will much less likely be unexpectedly non-alive. That option is not off the table, but there...

Well, so today turned out to be the big day for receiving the large majority of my test results from Function Health. I'll start with the good news: My biological age is 11 years younger than my chronological age based on their calculation from all the relevant biomarkers they use. The not-so-good n...

I like this article, if you haven't seen it: https://www.levelshealth.com/blog/what-should-my-glucose-levels-be-ultimate-guide Their table makes your readings look pretty good. My doctor argues optimal is too strict: One thing the CGM made clear, is a glucose curve will show variance. It is how the...

What's the level of precision you can expect out of the meter? The shifts you are looking at above are very small. Two other thoughts: - moving raises blood sugar, they could be reasonably explained - some sources suggest you want to exercise the system a little, keeping it elastic For clothes - if...

April Update, Slightly Early Finances Financially everything is okay, stash is down some do to the vagaries of the market. I was a little loose with spending, spent a little more on healthcare than normal (Function Health membership, purchased a Keto Mojo glucose/ketone meter), and started stocking...

I've always been skeptical of cancer screening in general. Vinay Prasad does a good job of explaining why full body scans should not be done. I believe the same argument holds for Galleri. https://www.drvinayprasad.com/p/why-you-should-not-get-a-whole-body Thanks, Ego, that was a good short read. I...

The other problem with the woods is that IIRC Starlink requires a clear view of the north sky. Some of my neighbors have it and they work from their place, and have the dish mounted on their roof to get a LOS above the trees in the right direction. A suggestion besides a local establishment that doe...

Whew! You had me worried there for a minute before I read this bit. On the basis of my fairly long career of dating men approximately your height, weighing in from approximately 135 lbs to 255 lbs., with varying body fat/muscle percentiles/proportions, I believe that with this plan you will likely ...

Yesterday I finally got below 165 lb on the scale, which was my goal for 2023 that I failed to make. I started 2023 a little over 210 lb and bottomed out somewhere around 174 iirc in early May. Started 2024 in the low 180s and hit 164 yesterday. My original goal was to hit 165 while maintaining a st...

Wow, so cool. Congrats! Just snagged the ebook. I'm going to try to save it for cruddy weather days once I get up to the hideout, with the hope it inspires me to make some of time there worth writing about aside from my random journaling. But the temptation to devour it immediately will be immense.