Since my last personal update published on February 19 and updated on February 20 when my father passed away, there has been a lot to do. Again, I walked that close line of doing too much and burning out, which is why I seldom waste time and energy on participating on social media or answering every single message I get, as that would take the larger part of each day. Again, if you seek my help, guidance or simply have questions or want to get in contact with me, use my website and fill out the consulting form.
Although it’s been two rough months, we’ve kept our schedule with about 4 or 5 training sessions at the gym a week, spanning 25 to 30 minutes each. If you know what you are doing, 30 minutes are plenty for rotating a push, pull, and leg split. At least for maintaining, which is pretty much what I do since I have no real desire to become bigger, not at 51-years-young anyways. With that said, as most of you probably know by now, the gym and the activity of weight-lifting is my sanctuary and one of my few passions. It’s where I destress and clear my never silent head, same as with my dog walks in nature (which are only nice and rejuvenating between May to September here in Sweden as the rest of the year sucks.) Both are crucial parts of my recovery from cancer and near organ failure in 2018.
As for my body and health markers, nothing much has changed since my last February 20 update. I had a small temporary decline in HRV and sleep quality due to all the stress, but they’ve pretty much stabilized again. And my physique is also about the same, as always. Usually I tend to be a tiny bit leaner in the summer due to increased outdoor activity, so that will likely be the same this year. Although, my body fat is already pretty low, as eating our natural diet can’t make you fat.
Below this text is a typical mobile phone capture from this Wednesday during the second day of a dry fast and after 15 minutes in a hot tanning bed (around 8.00 a.m.) This time I’m showing my somewhat lagging legs and they will likely always suck due to the previous large hip-to-knee tumors discovered in 2017 and all the scar tissue from them. And yes, I’m posing/flexing to make them look somewhat better and bigger (who wouldn’t?)
And as I often get comments about my vascularity, even when not really that lean and considering that my blood pressure is on the low side, it is something that has developed as I got older and older. Even when I was leaner in my 20’s, I did not have the same vascularity as I did in my mid-30, in my 40’s and now in my 50’s. Also, it’s only pronounced when I’m either really warm or physically active.
As a comparison I added a photo from 2008 where I was close to 34-years old and slightly leaner, but not as vascular. As you can see, legs were somewhat lagging even back then. And as a bonus, I also added a photo from post-operation in January of 2017 at 42-years of age after removing one tumor from my leg, and where I had not visited a gym in over 6 months and then a follow-up from May of 2017 where I had not visited a gym in over a year, just before my health began to really decline.
Click to open larger image.
I believe my vascularity is mostly from having severe asthma and damaged lungs for 40 years (before I healed it in 2018) in combination with my weight-lifting, which I began with around the age of 13, so I’ve been training with weights somewhat regularly for 38 years. That is why I started with weight-lifting and followed with martial arts and combat sports, as they were more explosive and I didn’t gas out immediately from lack of oxygenation.
Now, we know in biology and physiology that over the span of many years, regular exercise, including weight lifting, can induce several adaptive changes in the skeletal muscle circulation — and even more so in people with asthma who need to compensate to oxygenate their muscles.
Long-term exercise training can lead to angiogenesis, which is the formation of new blood vessels. This increases the number of capillaries in the muscle tissue, thereby improving the oxygen diffusing capacity and reducing the diffusion distance for oxygen.
Also, chronic reduced oxygenation (asthma and lung damage) and/or exercise can lead to structural changes in the vascular network, including increased lengths and cross-sectional areas of arteries and veins. This enhances the capacity of the vasculature to deliver blood flow to the muscles.
And to change the subject, it’s closing in on that time of year when I have to pay for web hosting, storage, domain names and all that to keep this website running. Unfortunately, donations have been down as of lately, but this website is too important so I’ll cover it and will continue to write and publish about 20 free articles a month.
With that said, everything is becoming more and more expensive. Here in Sweden, some basic real human foods such as red meat have increased by 70 to 80% in cost in only 3 years. Eggs and butter are not far behind with 35 to 50%. Even locally made ground beef, which is my staple as it’s fattier and more nutrient dense and should be dirt cheap, has increased from 7 Euro/kg in 2021 to 12.7 Euro/kg (14.4 USD/kg) as of this week. That is a rise of 81% in four years! Insanity! I usually eat 0.7 to 1 kg of meat, a handful of butter and 6 to 8 eggs a day on average. My daily food bill in 2020 was 8.5 Euros a day, now five years later, it’s 16 Euros a day. Even my internet connection has almost doubled in cost during the last 5 years (from 27 Euro/month to 52 Euro/month.) So, with all this in mind, I might have to increase the costs of my services a tiny bit, such as coaching and consultation. We’ll see. I might do a short and temporary price cut before that, only to help out those who have a tough time but want to learn everything and be able to flourish on their own.
With that in mind, as most of you know, I’m still healing from my brainstem tumor from 2017/2018, so my energy levels still fluctuate in the afternoons and evenings. Thus, I only have 4 to 6 hours of work-time each day, which limits the amount of clients I can have at any given time. Also keep in mind that every free article I publish takes about three hours or more, where the majority of time actually is fixing screen shots, adding keywords, metadata, tags and links, fixing a featured image, and of course formatting the text.
So, while a price cut can help out some people, and also bring in more business, it can backfire and burn me out if I’m not careful and take on too many without a break (and I seldom am that careful, as I used to be a workaholic and love to help people and see them get their lives back.)
And yes, I’m still pondering a lot of other projects as mentioned in previous updates. Hopefully things will calm down a bit now and I can get an hour or two here and there to get them rolling.
And that is all for this time. Thank you for reading and for caring enough to reach the end of the text.
If you need help with any kind of health problems or transitioning from your current way of eating to our natural species-appropriate, species-specific way of eating, I’m available for both coaching and consultation.
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