Less than a month ago I finally topped the 160 mark and have been on a slow, steady rise since then. This morning I came in at 162.2 and my body fat is now up at 16% from a low of around 12%. It looks like the weight thing is really behind me and that I’m holding my own now in that department. I’m trying to make sure any new gain is in the muscle department so I’m trying to get in the gym and lift regularly during the winter. The good news is that I’m still fast, I just had my second fastest 5-mile time this last week and overall my running is getting back to a more normal schedule though still lower miles than what I used to run but that is on purpose. Zero SIBO symptoms the last month too which is great even eating a much more varied diet and it has now been over 7 months since I stopped actively treating!
Sleep-wise I’m mostly back to normal after a bit of middle of the night insomnia crept back. I did sleep restriction for 3 days and that seemed like enough to re-boot my sleep cycle. I’m back to sleeping 7-9 hours a night and even though I often wake up I go back to sleep quickly.
I had a bit of a scare this last few weeks when my prostate got inflamed and angry again. Since antibiotics for a prostate infection started this whole mess I wasn’t about to go there again. I started taking Prostate 5LX again which seemed to stop the last bout of inflammation in its tracks. This time after about 4-5 days I just wasn’t seeing much improvement so I did a bit more research. Turns out anti-inflammatory/anti-microbial herbs work well so I pulled out my reserve AlliMed and Berberine Complex and started taking 2 each 3x a day on Monday. By yesterday the burning in the crotch was gone and I’m feeling quite a bit better. How did this happen? I’ve got several theories. One was inflammation caused by jumping into too many nuts. I started eating a big handful of walnuts every night and maybe that was too much since I started having some weirdness in my right arm too. Other theory is some tainted berries. I had a batch of raspberries that gave me mild gut upset and diarrhea when I ate them, makes me think they may have had low dose of e.coli on them and that could have been enough to settle in the prostate and cause inflammation. Regardless, I seem to be on the downhill side of this one.
In traction
My biggest issue now is my left leg burning due to the lack of a real disc left between C6-C7 in my neck. I’m trying chiropractic and get some relief for a few days from traction but still, if I sit too long, especially at the computer, my left leg is in bad pain. Luckily when I’m in motion I’m fine so I guess I’ll just try to stay moving more. I’m installing a stand-up desk at home to see if that helps so I can at least still get some work done and not be in pain. I’m experimenting with CBD to help deal with the pain when it comes on. So far high CBD/low THC strains seem to work well, also mellow me out some and so far have not impacted my gut motility since I don’t have to use it too frequently. Thanks to The Novel Tree for carrying a lot of CBD strains, this is unusual for a recreational dispensary. They have everything from AC/DC which has effectively no THC to some 1:1 ratio strains that are not too strong. A good mix of hybrids, salivas and indica too so good options for daytime and nighttime.