Stack Update for June - 2024

Just to update the stack for June, I have found some CoQ10 and started taking daily.  Found a bottle on sale for essentially $8 / month so that seemed like a good deal to start.  Early feed back seems pretty good.  I was taking separate in the afternoon, but decided to combine with my morning pills. I found out after getting it and doing a little more research that the -Xol version is the desired state versus the -none version of the chemical. 

Also I found some collagen peptides. Started with the Walgreens version and have been taking for about 4-5 day.  Found I could mix with my morning water and it was fine.  I tried to mix with V8 + EVOO and it did not mix at all.  I've also added it to my Casein shake at the end of the day.  A little early to tell if there are any benefits to the joints.  Dare I say pickleball and early morning push ups have taken a toll on the shoulder.  Trying to back down the effort on arms a little in the short term to help the recovery, but hopefully the work is strengthening things.

On a side note, I went with Sophie to the Sam's Club and they had a nice selection of CoQ10 and collegen peptides and at more favorable costs.  If this initial June run goes well, then Sam's could be the supplier of choice going forward.

 Forward looking, still eyeing PQQ and Astralagus to add.  The astralagus should be a telomere lengthener or telomerase activator.  Telomeres are essentially what determines how long we make it.  Every time a cell divides the chromosomes get a little shorter on the ends until there are just too many copies made and the cells stop dividing, then you die.  This is the Hayflick limit which is currently around 120 years, and this is based on no hard living or outside influences decreasing that number.  

Still not a doctor, so not advising anyone to do this.  Always seek professional medical advice😉

The Current Stack 5/2024

So I have been running for about 8 years now and I have gradually picked up things along the way.  The one constant is I have been taking a daily vitamin.  Yeah that is about it.  My Mom had a stack of supplements she took everyday, but I never really got into it until I came across Bryan Johnson and what he was doing and that lead me to Dr. Jeffrey Gladden and his podcast.  So I have been binging that series and listening to what the different supplement interactions are to increase longevity and general health and doing some research on my own.  Anyway at this point here is what I am doing on a daily basis.  (DISCLAIMER: I am not a medical professional and this is not medical advice, this is just a record in time of what I am doing and I hope to report later on the effects).  Current Age - 46.

1 tab molecular hydrogen - 1st thing in the morning at least 30 minutes before breakfast.

1 mutli vitamin - Still hanging in there

500 mg turmeric  - with black pepper included

4,000 iu Vit D

50 mg Zinc

300 mg ashwagandha or however you spell it - cycle 3 weeks on 1 week off, 300 mg at night too

1 Heliocare capsule - helps with sun, potential for DNA repair, made with plant extract from South America

1,600 mg Beta alanine X 2 - taken twice daily with meals during the week 

2g-3g Creatin - just started this

250 - 375 mg niacin - trying to get the flush effect 2x per week right now.

6 oz of V8 - yes the juice

15 ml Extra Virgin Olive Oil - Bryan Johnson special, but not his brand

15 ml Apple Cider Vinegar 

Also drinking 1 muscle milk per day and drinking a Casein protein shake at night on days where I did a physical activity to help recover.  I've been hitting the sauna as much as possible too, to help with recovery.  There have been some studies out of Finland that 20 minutes at ~180°F x 4 times per week would result in a large percent reduction in all cause mortality and heart related deaths.

I've been monitoring when I start certain things and how I have been feeling.  Just finished 4 weeks of activity over 500 minutes (counting vigorous activity as double effective using Garmin technology) and 5 out of the last 6 weeks with a week that was at 635 minutes of activity including everything from mowing grass to running to pickle ball and basketball and even swimming. The 635 week is probably the highest I have had in about 20 years, as is at least the highest I have had since getting the Garmin.  My physical state seems pretty good, but I may take a little time and recover some this week and keep activity down some, but still hit the sauna.

The things I'm looking at picking up are CoQ10 & PQQ and a detox / AMPK cycle.  The CoQ10 should help with ATP production and the PQQ helps to rebuild mitochondria.  For the detox cycle, looking at Spermidine, with rapamyacin, Fisetin and Dihydroberberine.  I think the Spermidine and Fisetin could almost be taken on a daily basis, but the rapamyacin and Dihydroberberine both should turn off mTOR and activate AMPK.  From what I understand mTOR is kind of a build up phase where cells and muscles are building, but the AMPk cycle is the end of cell lifetime and theoretically if you did a "clean out cycle" mTOR is off and this AMPk cycle runs to kind of clean the junk out.  I haven't tried this yet, but I think it would be bad to do during a muscle building or training cycle.  Maybe before you start a cycle of building or some type of weekly cycle where the AMPk is activated during a down period or at night after a lighter day or maybe the start of a fast.  Also on the radar is collagen peptides.  Seems like they are good for the skin and maybe some tissue issues like for ligaments or tendons.

Why has the gas gone out of the EV movement?

Fun with titles, huh? Turns out the EV movement is slowly losing steam.  In my opinion there are multiple reason for this.  Turns out the cost effectiveness of driving an EV is probably less than most people anticipate.  If you can't home charge, owning one is even more inconvenient.  It could take 15-45 minutes to fill up at a charging station and the price per mile is eerily close to regular combustion vehicles.  I think the early adopters were kind of sold on the idea that this was 100% the future and oil was going away, but here is the thing - oil and its derivatives are used in lots of stuff.  Most projections had the peak of oil productions hitting in 2027, but after Covid it looks like the peak may have gotten pushed back.  I guess at that point there would be some alternative technologies that had matured to the point they could compete economically with oil and eventually oil would be pushed back.  Here is the thing though, there are a lot of businesses that depend on oil for their success.  So as much as the EV cars wanted to end oil, turns out you need it for tires, plastics in the cars, roadways... and all the sudden the need for alternates beyond cars becomes a little more obvious.  Also the infrastructure of the country is not centered around EV's, so you have to change all that as well.  The early adopters were willing to fall on the sword so to speak to be at the tip of the spear and drive the change forward, but now the EV's look like more of a novelty act and less sustainable.  Part of this is due to the pandemic.  The inflation that happened during the pandemic and directly afterwards having driven (no pun intended) car prices through the roof and consequently insurance.  Insurance has gotten completely out of hand because people are driving around houses that you have to be insured against incase you get into an accident.  And if you have one of the cars that is priced like a house, your insurance is even higher.  So the EV's kind of fell into this trend, instead of being the new technology that weasels it's way into the market by being affordable and pulling the masses into the tech, they have been leading the charge (pun intended) in raising prices.  I think the legacy car makers in the U.S. kind of detected this market shift when they were jumping in with both feet and have quietly gone back to focusing on ICE based cars.  For makers like TESLA and Rivian and the like there is no other option.  They have to produce electric vehicles that can compete with ICE cars and be more affordable.  If they are just a niche in the luxury car market, which is kind of where they have ended up, there will be no wide spread acceptance.  The only way for electric car makers to push the issue in the future is to come up with an affordable version of there vehicles that can get in the market at less that $25k new.  If they can't touch that market then they are just a novelty at this point.  And novelties are not going to shape a movement. The 1st quarter of 2024 was the first quarter that Tesla had year on year quarterly sales decline.  Partly an indicator of the market, but also an indicator of how the love for EV's has waned in recent years.  Oh there are issues in cold weather, and charger accessibility, and range anxiety, but the pricing has now greatly outpaced the benefits of the car and the negatives of ownership are more pronounced.  It has resulted in a general feeling (imo) that the EV revolution won't be ready for 2027 and probably not 2028 either, at least not in the U.S. In the emerging markets of China and India the EV is almost more feasible because they don't have the existing infrastructure of combustion vehicles so no great change over.  

So what is the path forward?  Well people have to be interested in the EV.  This change can't be driven (pun also not intended) by the manufacturers or the government.  I mean if this is the future it would make sense if the government switched to EV's. State vehicles, maybe even cop cars and what not.  They could install charger stations at the base, save on fuel charges and help develop the market by being an advertisement everyday.  Unfortunately politics are at work here (not really a pun, but kind of) and the government will never adopted a non-union made vehicle even if it makes total sense and is for the betterment of society as a whole.  And that is the impasse we are currently at my friends. Either someone takes the hit to develop the infrastructure, lower the price of the vehicles, or makes the vehicles so mainstream they are unavoidable or the whole thing limps along at the 10-15% market share that it has until change is forced by a lack of oil.  But here is the kicker, as long as these other countries opt for electric, we can push out the combustion engine life and oil will still be needed for the other products. If we only had "flying EV's"...

Worst Coach of All-Time

I know what you are thinking and no, this is actually reserved for the coach that I had my senior year of high school.  I use the term senior year here loosely as I could only manage being part of the team for 4 games.  Gather around kids and hear the tales of de-motivation, lack of organization, general incompetency and nepotism.  So it started back in 8th grade when I experienced the worst teacher of my academic career (this dude flat out hated me from the jump for some reason, I mean I'm a likeable guy, right?) in industrial arts.  Industrial arts you say, that must have been a sleeper class for an A, huh?  Not exactly.  You basically had to copy drawings with an industrial layout, that had dimensions and different things, think your basic floor plan, and that was the class.  Literally nothing to this class, and I end up pulling a D.  No idea why, don't remember, just glad to be done with that class and this moron forever.  Well as luck would have it the head coach of the basketball team, decides that he is going to go to another school to coach one of the good players from our team that is transferring.  Don't blame him, he had made a really deep run into the playoffs before and Beallsville was about to experience a serious drought on talent.  So we get new coaches for Freshman year and guess who gets named to the reserve coach role... yep you guessed it the one guy I thought I would be done with.  Fortunately freshman rarely played JV and mostly just played Freshman team.  So that is what I did. Nothing spectacular about the year.  Sophomore season starts and reality hits home. Now that Freshman year is over the only option to play is varsity or JV.  Well the varsity team is pretty well set with seniors and juniors and maybe one guy from my class getting some reserve run and that is about it.  I'm buried deep on the JV bench and am not enjoying the game at all.  Now a little background here - my parents were waaaay older than most peoples parents, at this point 62 and 69 years old and they were not athletic and never really cared about sports, even when I played when I was younger.  My Dad did make a basket for me when I was in second grade though, and when I say "made" he literally went into the woods, cut down a tree, and built the backboard out of wood with home made supports and put it in the ground next to the car port.  This was awesome by my Dad and something I was shooting around on as much as 38 years later, but that was about all he could do for me, he couldn't teach me fundamentals, couldn't coach a team couldn't even play me one-on-one really.  So now that I'm deep on the bench with no way off and no real way to improve I faced a difficult decision.  You see I had always liked basketball, enjoyed playing with my friends, enjoyed shooting at home (because during the summer there was literally nothing else to do, I would just practice for an hour, come in the house to cool off, then go back out for another hour later), but now it was unenjoyable to do. I don't remember the specifics, but I would say I was pretty out of shape and about the height I was in 8th grade.  Side note: I was always tall for my age, but I hit that last growth spurt early and now everyone is catching up, also I was the youngest in my class, so even though I'm a Sophomore I started the year at 14.  That's right go ahead and project that out.  Side Side note: Mom started me in school early (I believe because she wanted me out of the house ;) j/k ). 

Ok, back to the story.  So I quit my Sophomore year.  I don't remember how many practices or games or if I played any games, but I remember coming out to the truck after practice one day and telling my Dad that I was going to quit.  He did not put up a fight.  Like I said my parents weren't into sports, so not having to pick me up every day was probably a blessing to the them.  Anyway I came back out for my junior year.  I broke my wrist fairly early in the season, running a sprint retreat.  A sprint retreat is one of the worst drills I have ever done and couple it with a dusty gym floor it is basically the perfect recipe for me to break something.  I was out for the requisite 6 weeks before returning to play JV. I don't remember much about this season other than at one point on the road at Hundred High School in WV (it's named Hundred because that's how many miles it feels like you drove to get there) at the end of the game we won and I asked how many a player from the other team had because I felt like I played good D.  The coach said 6, and that it was a good idea to keep track of who we played against to keep track of such things.  This was the coach I couldn't stand BTW, but that did seem like an obvious thing that a coach would do, foreshadowing perhaps. The rest of Junior year was uneventful until tourney time and the final varsity roster was put together, me being a junior I figure I would be added for deep bench duty, but was passed over for a freshman that at that point hadn't played a whole lot of varsity if any, but was a golfer so the JV coached liked him better automatically since he was also the golf coach.  Now to be perfectly fair, the kid was probably a better athlete, but that really stung.  I shouldn't have had any lofty goal of playing after that, but I was dumb and didn't understand the system, also no one told me anything to work on or what my game was lacking.  But that is likely due to them not knowing what my game lacked either.  

On to Senior year and the redemption arc... or not. My high school was very limited in sports offerings for kids, for fall it was Football or Golf, Winter was Basketball or wrestling and Spring was Baseball although they did start a track team my Senior or Junior year.  Anyway since cross country didn't exist (I feel like I could have been decent at this in High School) my friend and I did some running before school a couple of times to get into shape for basketball since we didn't play fall sports.  Granted we played as much as possible for being in a rural area without a whole lot of opportunities to just go play, and in all honesty I was probably in the best shape of my life up to that point.  One other thing to note in this story is that I was 16 at the very beginning of my senior year of school, and there were actually about 3 other people that were in a similar situation, I turned 17 in the first month, but by Ohio rules I could have actually played high school sports for another 2 years.  Not that it makes a difference in coaching, but in the timeline of things, being a young senior isn't optimal for sports success.  So the season starts and I don't remember the exact time frame (sorry it's been 30 years), but me and another guy were brought into the coach's office.  He sits us down and proceeds to explain to us that we probably aren't going to play.  Actually matter-of-fact that we were not going to play.  Now this is a small school (~45 kids per class), so cutting kids is something that is almost unthinkable, but making it miserable enough for people to not want to play is completely an option.  Didn't say it was a good option, but yeah as a coach you could do that if you were so inclined, and this guy was definitely inclined.  Keep in mind, this is his first head coaching gig in basketball at the high school varsity level and there are no guarantees that this team is going to be great or how many games we should win, so why just tell 2 guys who have played basketball for 10 years and are hungry to get on the floor that you don't need them?  You don't know if you need me.  And that is the crux of the whole thing, a coach that comes in with that much hubris, with exactly 0 wins to his name is basically doomed to failure.  I realize this now, but it took a while then.  So even though I was told I wouldn't get in, I still remained optimistic that if I got in a game I could show something and then the PT would grow.  Well after 4 games I had gotten in about 2 minutes of a 40 point blow out (scored 2) and that would be the extent of my varsity basketball career.  "Okay", you say, no big deal, what was the record after 4 games...0-4.  At one point one of my buddies and a couple of football players got to be on the court together, as the "hustle team".  Unfortunately they never told the guys that was their job to run around and cause turn overs and run outs, so they didn't do that, they just played normal basketball.  It's one of those things you think back on and wonder why they even said that out loud after the fact it didn't work.  Would I have made a difference in those games... short answer is no.  I was no where near good enough to make up for the train wreck on the bench, but I could have at least had fun.  

 So after 4 games me and my other friend (not the one who was told he wouldn't play, one that actually played some) decided to quit.  This was actually the point were pay-to-play had to be paid, but since I wasn't actually playing and $45 seemed like a lot back then, it seemed like the perfect time to cut bait.  And since my friend was walking out at the same time it seemed right.  At that very moment when we walked out and declared to other people we were done, something happened that I'll never forget.  The head football coaches son told my friend that he should not quit, but that I - "Yeah you should quit". And the delivery was even more heartless than it reads.  Here was my interpretation of this exchange - here is someone who played wide receiver for his Dad and got all the recognition in football because he would run the deep patterns and my friend would run all the short patterns and take all the hits over the middle, and this coach's son who had been coddled in football, and given a starting spot in basketball was telling me I wasn't good enough.  GIVEN A STARTING ROLE.  Little emphasis there.  There was no try out for starters there was no shuffling the starters around to jump start the offense/defense - nothing, and this guy didn't have to earn anything.  It was disheartening to say the least but indicative of the kind of person he was and the kind of leader he was - aka not a leader.   Okay, so you had a coach that didn't like you, never gave you a shot and made you want to quit, that doesn't mean he is a bad coach.  No that alone would not him a horrible coach, the fact that he would not win a game the entire season (0-21) and lost to an 0-8 team at home kind of seals his fate as a horrible coach.  Needless to say this guy was one and done, but it just so happened that the one corresponded to the one year senior year that I had.  

It was incredibly disappointing from an athletic standpoint, but I have always enjoyed basketball, still do.  I fixed my shot after high school and have become pretty decent at diagnosing shot inefficiencies and how to correct them.  I also understand defensive positioning now and help coach in the church league for K-6.  Would I ever tell a kid "you can't play"? No.  One you never know what a kid is capable of truly until you put them in the game situation.  Two, that sucked horribly when I was in school.  I don't know if it was personal or not, but it became personal.  I would rather build a kid up and even if I thought someone was terrible at the sport and I eventually got them to the point they could play in a Varsity game, then I would have really thought I did a good job as a coach.  Not this guy though, oh and one time he brought in a rope that he used to string up deer (still had blood stains on it), to illustrate visually ball-rim-you principles and how it always made a triangle. I remember this because he put the rope through the hoop, but the concept makes no sense, which makes all the sense now.  The actual concept is called Ball-you-man for off ball defense, and positioning your self between the person you are guarding and the ball, while keeping your back to the basket, but that was well beyond this guy.  Think that's all for this one, hope you never run into anyone this bad both tactically and as a person.

20 Years Already

Hey, blog's been around for 20 years already, pretty sweet.  Be sure to like and subscribe.  Sorry wrong app.  Be sure to click on adds and leave comments 👍.