Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff

[surreality]

Still in one piece. I'll try to post something longer whenever I'm home, since I am still made of suck on the finger typing, but surgery #2 is highly likely today, though not 100% certain, since it's an add on to the schedule. They shouldn't need a #3, or so everyone hopes.

Really keep your fingers crossed, y'all, 'cause we did apparently luck out in that the regional Luke Skywalker best suited to take out this particular deathstar was available today and today only, hence moving it up to now at all instead of it being a week or two out.

@Derp That sounds a lot like the area where 7D will eventually live. very much awesome, but yeeeeeah that's a big trade off. The folks I would stay with in the area it was based on did similar, same reasons, though they were on one of the more 'town' streets.

[Cupcake]

Feel better, you crazy diamond.

[surreality]

Still not dead, but got bumped today. Hopefully tomorrow. If not tomorrow, within two weeks but with a more reliable schedule, since the infections are down enough it's no longer OMGWTFBBQ THIS OSHINKO ROLL LOOKIN' BITCH GONNA DIE after days of iv antibiotics and the first round of surgery.

Much to peeps. Really do eat a thing you love with an extra eye toward appreciating that you may wind up not being able to do that at any minute. (Also, somebody have a clove out there for me plz? <3)

[Auspice]

I would love to have a clove for you.

But I will eat my burger tonight in your honor. They were something I couldn't even think of touching when my gallbladder was failing me... So it's def one of those 'food you may someday find yourself unable to consume' things.

I'm glad to hear things are improving.

[Catsmeow]

I bumped up my 30 minutes of cardio by a whole speed step on the treadmill tonight. Also started easy strength training.

I really just wanted to cheer for me. Still a loooooong way to go, but faster than being on the couch.

[Misadventure]

I recommend finding an activity where your increased fitness will benefit you beyond physical health.

That could be something simple like take walks in a park or at the waters edge, or visit the zoo or whatever. Something concrete and real world.

It is the most immediately tangible reward, if you find something you actually enjoy doing. And it doesn't have to be something you didn't or couldn't do before. Just a place for you to realize you're making a difference in your life.

[Ganymede]

@Catsmeow said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:

I bumped up my 30 minutes of cardio by a whole speed step on the treadmill tonight. Also started easy strength training.

You've been at this for 2 weeks? 3? Let's say it's three.

If you started at a pace of 2.0 miles per hour, then after 6 months, you'll be closer to 3.0 miles. You will have increased your ability by 50%. Go for a full year, and you will be at 4.0 miles, which is a 100% increase.

Find something else whose performance improves by 100% in a year. It's a hard search. So, you're doing kickass. Never forget that.

-- Ganymede, the Eunuch of You Can Do Eet.

(Edited because I'm an idiot.)

[Arkandel]

@Ganymede One of the coolest thing about the human body is how newbie gains work. When you start from untrained in anything your potential is so much higher than where you are, so the capability curve goes up so fast you might as well be playing an RPG - that's how quickly your abilities scale up at first.

Although every way to work work out has its particular benefits one of the reasons I personally like lifting is how quantifiable it is; you can do pilates or yoga for example (both provide great training, by the way) but it's not very easy to tell how much better you're getting; you know it, you can see it in the mirror, you can feel it when you move, but you can't put a goddamn number to it.

With lifting, especially at first, it's addicting. You struggle to lift 20 pounds then the next week it's 25. Then it's 30. Then 35. And for the first few months it can go almost lineary like that - until you start getting really, actually, honest-to-god fit - so that what you couldn't even pick up from the rack a while earlier has magically become unworthy of even warming up with. It's amazing.

[Ganymede]

@Arkandel said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:

With lifting, especially at first, it's addicting. You struggle to lift 20 pounds then the next week it's 25. Then it's 30. Then 35. And for the first few months it can go almost lineary like that - until you start getting really, actually, honest-to-god fit - so that what you couldn't even pick up from the rack a while earlier has magically become unworthy of even warming up with. It's amazing.

I like lifting. I'm pretty good at it. It's also the most demoralizing thing I do in the gym because if I don't keep up, I see substantial performance drops within 2 to 3 weeks. That's a tough feeling.

I'm getting into cardio more these days. I do it because I know I can lift, but that's not my goal: shedding fat and water is.

But, yeah, the human body is amazing. I'm just responding to @Catsmeow to encourage her more because I'm good at workout slogans. ^.^

[Arkandel]

@Ganymede Ah, if we're going for inspirational slogans then this is my favorite.

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

Robert A. Heinlein made a damn good argument there. It's one of my all-time pet peeves when I pick up zealotry, and it happens a lot; my sister's yoga instructor scoffs at any other discipline, gym-bros of course swear by how much iron they can move around exclusively, runners only run, cyclists only cycle and so on.

There's no reason for any of that crap. People should do whatever it is that gets them off the couch and that's it; for example I find treadmills dreadfully boring but I can walk or hike for hours just because it's how I'm wired. Some folks like the social aspect of taking classes and revel in pilates or the such but others want things to be more under their control (if I want to go to the gym at 6 am I can).

What matters in the end is being more content and in better health. I want to lift but I also want to run up and down a full basketball court without my lungs giving out. I want to be flexible and not feel like my hip hinge is made of rusty iron, and be confident I can pick a pencil from the floor without my lower back's nerves simultaneously exploding. And yes, I want to look good without a shirt on.

All of those things are important to me, not just one of them. But also any one of them is better than vegging out in front of the TV.

[Cupcake]

@Arkandel said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

I actually loathe this quote. For a long time I couldn't put my finger on why, but I think perhaps it has a lot to do with being as equally judgmental in its own way. The problem is neither the choice to be a generalist nor the choice to adhere to one specific course, but the judgment that either choice is less than optimal or somehow beneath the other. Fuck unnecessary binaries.

[Arkandel]

@Cupcake I like it because it speaks of potential, not necessity. I don't know how to do most of the things in it. But I could.

As for judgment, I reserve 100% of it (and it's all harsh) for myself.

[surreality]

I agree with some general premises I extract from the quote: "don't specialize yourself into such a corner you can do nothing else", "people should be encouraged to know how to handle a variety of life skill basics broadly to at least some extent", and "don't hesitate to learn something just because its outside your area of focus," -- all of which I think are useful concepts that people sometimes struggle with.

Beyond that, any relatively arbitrary list is still precisely that -- arbitrary-- and we need specialists in the world, period.

I tend to take this view: Don't hyperspecialize to the extent that there's no room in your brain for how to prepare yourself some kind of basic meal/know how to apply basic hygiene/etc. because it is very unlikely that hyperspecialized understanding of popular clam preparation methods from the 1890s is going to be in such high demand that you can hire a full time cook/asswiper in modern society.

In gamer terms, 'be careful about min/maxing your life to extremes.'

Which is pretty much the useful version of 'if you can't pull off my arbitrary human swiss army knife list, you are less than human', which is not so useful.

Also: OMG home tomorrow night probably. Well, not home home until thurs night/fri, but omg out of HERE.

[Ganymede]

@surreality said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:

I agree with some general premises I extract from the quote: "don't specialize yourself into such a corner you can do nothing else", "people should be encouraged to know how to handle a variety of life skill basics broadly to at least some extent", and "don't hesitate to learn something just because its outside your area of focus," -- all of which I think are useful concepts that people sometimes struggle with.

I got a simpler message: humans have the capacity to be many things, so you don't need to specialize. Also, in the context of fiction, I believe this is the trope of the competent man/woman.

[GangOfDolls]

I'm going through the most severe bought of insomnia that I think I've had in my adult life. It's bad enough that this morning I was a little concerned that I might fall asleep while driving to work.

Valerian and other herbal remedies don't work great or at all. I have positional vertigo that's attributed to a head injury I got in high school and Valerian specifically sets it off super bad and I get the barfy room spins. Super hot.

Ambien works on me, for sure but I'm also of the number that does things that I shouldn't do and can't remember: eating, cooking, fucking, buying $200 worth of the same goddamn digital album on Amazon. My GP put me on Doxepin after my last badish bought, which is a very sedating early generation anti-depressant that they just give to people to help you sleepy now as I guess it makes you so sleep you don't have time to think about being sad. This knocks me out but then I'm a drooling, non-functional mess while the half-life works its way out of me and that takes days. Nyquil and OTC sleep stuff puts me out for a couple hours and then I'm wide fucking awake.

My lifestyle in general: I work out a couple times a week and I eat a fairly healthy diet. I'm an unintentional vegetarian, I eat some chicken and fish. I don't like the texture of meat and I don't like deserts or chocolate except in small portions. I will however dump a salt shaker into my open maw if you let me, but I'm pretty good about not inhaling fried shit. I drink socially but only rarely outside of work. I travel/interface with clients a fair amount and there's a lot of social drinking in my job so when I'm on my own, I don't drink much at all. I have a caffeine problem (coffee/tea only, I cut out soda some years ago and I rarely drink it if ever) but I'm impervious to coffee after 4 p.m. as a thing that might keep me awake without trying.

So, does anyone have anything they'd recommend that I have not tried?

[Ganymede]

@GangOfDolls

Might want to think of eating not-chicken and not-fish meat. I'm not joking.

See if your doctor will put you on trazodone.

I surmise you have probably tried melatonin.

[Sunny]

@GangOfDolls

Talk to your GP. Again. Try something new. Try another something new if that doesn't work. There are other medications. We went through a million things and finally landed on a nausea medication with an off label use that works like a dream for me during my bouts with sleeplessness.

In my case, I'm actually wired nocturnal. So insomnia rears its ugly head pretty regularly. We just had to keep trying different stuff.

[Auspice]

Having been on trazodone for insomnia two separate times in my life... It can be very hit or miss.

The first time, it was amazing. Mind, I would be hella drugged as it was kicking in (I had friends who would call just to talk to me; never remembered the convos, but apparently they were hilarious).

The second time, I'd still stay up all night... but spend the following day feeling drugged (like that 'just woke up from anesthesia' type of drugged).

I wish I could offer advice, but I usually end up finding myself on ambien when the insomnia cycles get real bad. When they're only 'mostly bad' (like usual), I find that puzzles help. Sudoku is my go-to. It keeps my brain occupied with something positive and sleep has a better chance of sneaking up on me.

[Derp]

@GangOfDolls said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:

Ambien works on me, for sure but I'm also of the number that does things that I shouldn't do and can't remember: eating, cooking, fucking, buying $200 worth of the same goddamn digital album on Amazon.

My s/o is like this too. He got so bad that he walked to his dad's, took his dad's truck, wrecked his dad's truck, and didn'the remember any of it. Ambien is kind of the devil for some people. He hasn'the found a good alternative, either, so if one works for you, let me know! I'd kind of like him to be able to sleep again.

[Sunny]

If someone reminds me I will try and find an old pill bottle at home to remember what it is. I have the same crazy ambien reaction, though nowhere near as bad as it sounds like other folks do.