Good Morning, Gents!

Not another new one, but one you haven't seen in a while. This one took about 22 hours to make.

Ordinarily I put in about 5 hours per week drawing at work in my car on my breaks. It's kinda nice. However, in the summer, it's incredibly difficult to keep my paper clean from my sweat, oils, & the medium. The heat & humidity does things to the mediums that I don't enjoy, making it hard to work with. So, I've mostly taken summers off or relegated my work to the weekends.

A couple of years ago, I worked for a place as a proofreader. I meant for it to be my summer job, but they never paid, of course, so I quit. It was a pretty meaningful summer though, as I read several really great books that had just been published or were close to being published. And I find that I miss that a lot. Almost would've overlooked their not paying me for continued access to the books. I took last summer off, & did some more reading, & I find myself doing the same this year.

I just finished reading 1984. Not the worst read ever, but certainly not the best. I can say that I read it at least, but if you haven't yet, you're not really missing much. I had planned to read the Aubrey/Maturin series by Patrick O'Brian, but as you'd probably expect, I can't access them. So, I'm going to read Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers or Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. I've never read Tolstoy before. I've never read either one, but if the former turns out to be like every movie I've ever seen, then I'll probably go with Tolstoy. At the moment, I'll read each until one of them takes me captive. And if there's enough summer left, I may get into Moby Dick.

Beyond summer, I'll probably throw myself back into drawing, but maybe not. Maybe there will be some time to read. Maybe this year I'll succeed in carrying reading over throughout the year. We'll see.

There has also been an uptick in discussions on blood pressure lately. I too had higher blood pressure elevations. They were not high by some of your standards, but mildly high, even moderately high, & moving towards high blood pressure. I recall it being in the 130s, even 140s/90s say 4ish years ago (I can't access my records, because I've changed doctors). But I was able to bring it low & keep it low & I just wanted to share with those of you who may want to know, maybe searching for answers, like I was not so long ago. My health journey started with about a 2 inch kidney stone & a surgery. I did quite a bit of research on kidney stones, kidney health, nutrition, & overall health. Not a doc, but someone who's put in dozens of hours of research, tested things, suffered through the trials & errors, & gotten results.

The number 1 thing you're going to hear that's inaccurate from a doctor is to cut down on your salt intake. The reason this is inaccurate is that we need salt to survive. Any time a doctor tells you to cut back on something you need to survive, you should scratch your head. Just a rule of thumb. From my research on kidney function & what not, eating carbs causes your insulin levels to increase, which signals to your kidneys to retain water, salt, other minerals, & substances like uric acid, preventing them from excreting these things, keeping them from functioning the way you want them to by filtering & excreting things. Your body is actually designed to take in things like salt, figure out how much it needs, & get rid of the rest.

The same is true with uric acid, but there's a twist. Uric acid is a waste product. Except the body will also reabsorb uric acid (somethng like 80% or more) & use it as an anti-oxident. We make our own anti-oxident. There are pills that can help you excrete excessive uric acid, but what's excessive? Your body knows. You don't. I don't. They don't. I don't want to get rid of uric acid, because it seems as though the body uses it for beneficial things. I'd rather the body produce whatever amount it wants, retain whatever amount it wants, & get rid of the rest. Hoarding it, leads to kidney stones, which in my case resulted in surgery. Dear God, you don't want that. You don't want them to perform a procedure to go in & get the damn thing. You want to pass it, but that hurts like hell.

So, the thing keeping your body from functioning properly, taking in or making whatever it needs or wants, & more importantly getting rid of whatever is in excess (say salt), which it's designed to do, is insulin. Insulin comes from eating carbs. Maybe cutting back on carbs helps. I went full carnivore 20 months ago to reset my metabolism & restore factory settings, if you will. I have not eaten a plant (aside from a cup of coffee) for almost 2 years now.

The carbs are what gave me high blood pressure & kept pushing me in that direction. Coincidentally, they're probably also responsible for my kidney stone issues. Getting rid of them brought my blood pressure back down to normal & has kept it there. I went in about a month or 6 weeks ago & my BP was 126/80. Kinda elevated, because I had an ear infection, so otherwise normal. The trip before that was probably 2-3 months ago & my BP was like 119 or 120/79. This has been my tendency for probably close to 3 years now. Around 119 or 120/79 or 80, unless I'm sick or in pain, then closer to 125/80, maybe pushing up to 130/80, due to the illness or pain.

Right now, I'm about 270-275, so still overweight. (20-25 lbs from where I'd like to be, a million lbs from where the medical establishment would like me to be, because they're standards are unreasonable -- gee, I wonder why). No pills needed. No exercise needed. I'm not saying exercise is the devil by any means, I'm telling you that I didn't need exercise to bring my BP down to normal or to lose the weight that I've lost. If that's your holy grail, you're probably going to end up like me & be disappointed.

I was told that meat was the cause for my kidney stone. (Remember that if your doc tells you the problem is something you need to survive, then scratch your head?) However, the more fruits, vegetables, grains, etc that I ate............it didn't correct any of my issues nor bring my BP down. I went from a normal diet, 3 meals a day, maybe 2 or 3 snacks (cereal in the morning, maybe a donut if they were provided at work, leftovers for lunch at work [pasta, casserole, meat & veg, whatever I made the night before], something when I got home, while I was making dinner, then dinner [chicken, rice, veg; pizza, Chinese or other take out; fast food; steak, potato, & broccoli; whatever], then something for dessert, usually) & slowly transitioned to keto (meat & veg) & intermittent fasting 2 meals a day, to finally beef, butter, bacon, & eggs, & one meal a day. The weight came off around keto, the BP started coming down then too; but everything else has normalized in the last 20 months (probably the first 6) & has stayed there. Keto had done diddly to my uric acid levels for more than a year, so my doc said he wanted me back on a plant based diet (more normal). But I was so close to carnivore & the journey had been perilous getting here, that I said how about we do a 90 day all meat & egg & see what happens. If meat is the cause, we should see proof of that. We saw the opposite, with my uric acid levels falling nearly 20% almost back to normal. That's insane! No drugs, just a diet change. 20% drop.

So, not telling you what to do, just telling you what I did, how I researched everything, tested everything, & what worked for me, & what didn't work (false hope). Because I've been in the position of wanting to change & wanting to heed the warnings that my body is giving me, but not knowing what to do, who to listen to, etc. This transition is hard enough without people lying to you, manipulating you, trying to fleece you, etc.

I made a rookie mistake on keto that almost everyone makes & I'll spare you that as well. I would cook my meat, usually beef (steaks, burgers, something), bacon, & I would drain the fat & throw it away. The result was pretty severe constipation & some other problems. I chucked the fat, because we're brainwashed to think it's bad for you, but it's not. It's essential. And eat more fiber to get regular. How much more fiber do I need to eat before, you know what, you don't know what the hell you're talking about. Fiber does nothing. It adds bulk. It makes everything a lot more difficult & painful. Fat requires bile to absorb & you only make so much (about a pint to a quart) per day. If you somehow eat more than what you have bile for, it'll just go through you. The fat in your body doesn't ever harden, so no more constipation.

I have also starved myself, by not eating any carbs or fat. Your body needs a source of energy, whether carbs or fat. At that time, I was avoiding carbs & still under the impression that fat was bad for me. The result was pain, severe fatigue, & other problems. You can still be eating, but starving yourself. I've done that.

So, now you don't have to. You can read this, learn from my mistakes, & hopefully avoid them yourself. And that's the point. Hope this helps. It's Saturday, so I'm going to make breakfast, because I like to eat a couple of meals on Saturday to keep my body guessing. Two meals isn't a bonus or a treat though. It's work. Eating lots of fat keeps me not feeling hungry. I'm not hungry now. But it keeps your body guessing & doesn't affect my weight. It might even be contributing to my weight loss (bizarre, but possible). On the menu is probably 6 eggs with some salty ham & cheese (an omelet), a couple of sausages, & probably 2-3 cups of coffee with a tad of cream. Yum!