What a Trip part #1

It was supposed to have been a fun, short, overnight trip for our 1 year anniversary. And boy, did it turn out interesting. The plan was to drive down to Salem, eat at In-N-Out burger in Keizer (Patrick is a Cali boy), do a wine tasting at one of my favorite Wineries, Honeywood (they make a lot of wine from other fruits. Very sweet stuff), and possibly ride a steamboat on the river. We were going to have dinner at The Cheesecake Factory, then spend the night near Portland, and grab some alcoholic ice cream (Spirited Ice Cream) and donuts from Voodoo on the drive home.

Instead, my car started to jerk and stutter and felt like it was not shifting properly. We were currently in Chehalis, about 60 miles south of Tacoma on our way down to Portland. Patrick was driving because I was using my bionicgym at the time, and I wasn't really feeling how the car was reacting. We ended up in a rural area off of I-5 because Patrick needed to make a deposit at a BECU branch or ATM, and the website pointed google maps to this back-asswards location that ended up being a house. And that's when my car really started acting up. Good timing, G. I had him pull over, and I opened the hood with the full intention of checking the transmission fluid level because of how the car was acting like it was shifting funny (like it was trying to shift and having a hard time doing it).

Turns out, after searching  for the dipstick for several minutes - the 2015 Chevy Sonic doesn't even have a transmission level dipstick. You can't even check the level unless you lift the car. Like, wat. So, that being the only thing I know, I was like well, let me try driving it, since I hadn't really felt what Patrick was dealing with (the bionicgym creates vibrations in my leg muscles so that's pretty much all I was feeling). We're driving back to the freeway, the car is really struggling, and I am freaking out because we're in hodunk nowheresville. I manage to make it within eyesight of the overpass back to I-5 when the check engine light finally comes on and I pull off to the side. I pull out my OBD-II reader, and it gives me a "cylinder 3 misfire" code. Was told it was dangerous to drive it in this condition and further driving could cause damage to the catalytic converter. So, I called a tow truck. Unfortunately, State Farm only covers me for 13 miles, so to tow it back to my Midas on 6th Ave in Tacoma would cost me another $160 bucks. Great.

The tow ride was certainly interesting. He came in a flatbead, and told us that there wasn't enough room for both of us in the cabin and that we could stay in the car on the drive up. We had to look it up, just to make sure it was legal. Legal yes - safe? - not 100%! But, what choice did we have? If it hadn't been raining it would have been more fun, but the windows were fogging up and we didn't really get a decent outside view. About 30 miles in I was feeling a tad carsick because I couldn't see outside. We made the best of it though by waving at all the Semis we drove past because we were at their eye level.

We knew that we could still salvage this trip. We got dropped off at my Midas at 12:30 and still had plenty of time to walk home and drive Patrick's car down to Oregon. We would just have to reschedule all the Saturday plans and do them on Sunday instead!

BionicGym

It started as an Indiegogo campaign more than three years ago. It was a novel idea... this doctor in Ireland wondered whether or not we could use electrical impulses to mimic shivering. Shivering, or muscle quivering, turns out to burn a decent amount of calories. Without going into too much detail here, after a ton of research and development, BionicGym was born. Now it is similar to those Ab machines that shock your muscles into convulsing. However, BG uses wraps around your thighs and stimulates the hamstrings, quads, and to an extent, the glutes, which are the largest muscles in your body. BG does not claim to build muscle. But when I started reading about the campaign back in May of 2017, the science seemed completely sound. Your muscles constantly twitching involuntarily due to electrical impulses (which is similar to TENS if you place it in an area that contracts your muscle) will burn calories, plain and simple.

I invested.

They touted that you could "run a marathon on your couch". Now, it was not purported to be easy. In fact, when you watch videos of BionicGym in action from Dr. Crowe himself, he was twitching, sweating and out of breath, just as you would be doing real cardio. His heart rate was elevated, and he was able to maintain it for long periods of time. He did DEXA scans, which are a lot more accurate at showing fat loss than any other method, and how the BionicGym was in fact, burning the most dangerous kind of fat - the visceral kind found around your organs.

I can't embed Vimeo videos into my blog, but here is a link to a user's experience with BionicGym

I was really excited for this technology. It was perfect for someone like me; someone that just can't be convinced to do any kind of exercise outside of walking and the occasional hike. It is also great for those that have injuries or conditions that prevent them from doing regular exercise. Also great for busy people always on the go or are at the office all the time. Super perfect for people like me who are stuck at a desk they can't leave because they're checking patients in and out all day. It might even be something that is viable for people in space to help maintain their muscle mass.

It took 3+ years for the product to start shipping. There were a lot of bumps and hurdles, including people getting theirs outside of the USA first because US backers had to wait for FDA approval. But this also meant that US backers were able to watch Beta testers of the product and see if it actually worked. They had to build a facility in California for US backers so they could ship from there. And finally, last month, I received my BionicGym.

Now, it's certainly not a miracle cure. There is a weight limit on the device (which I can't remember off hand, but I think it might be 20 stone - or 280 lbs) if you carry a lot of your weight in your thighs, because the electrical impulses need to travel through that fat layer to your muscles, and it's just not as effective otherwise. (They are, however, working on a version that can accomplish this.) But I can tell you, it definitely works. I'm wearing it right now in fact, at work. You can kinda tell it's on me, as my pants are not super baggy, but it's not ostentatious. I'm running it at a lower setting because otherwise I'd be visibly shaking. So, in the case of wearing it around the office, it's a low-intensity, long duration type of situation just to help you burn a bit while sitting at your desk. 

The benefits are pretty obvious, but there are also some drawbacks. The wraps have to go as high up the leg as you can possibly get them, so depending on how many fat rolls you have, this can be a tad uncomfortable. It also makes it hard for us females to use the restroom (obviously while not on!! You can pause the program), which can be an issue if you run the BG for more than 2 hours. The battery will last for probably 6-7 hours total, and it's totally do-able as long as you're reasonably comfortable. Walking is awkward. Although the wraps aren't super bulky, the controller unit is nestled on the inside leg, which I think is an odd choice for placement. The wraps also stop you from bending your legs properly, so this isn't something you should really be walking around town with (you also shouldn't be driving with them on, for obvious reasons). Also, peeling off the electrodes when you're done can be kind of painful, especially on the underside of your legs.

It's something you have to build up tolerance for. You can't just shoot it up to the highest setting on your first go, even if you're already fit. The electrical impulses can be uncomfortable, and when the setting gets high enough you'll have to stand, and can't do much else. It might even take time for your heart rate to increase. Last Sunday, I ran the program at level 49 for probably 20 minutes (out of a high of 100), I was shaking pretty good, standing the whole time, and my heart rate never got above 90. Yet, I got DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness), which to me is a great indication that it's doing something.

I'm hoping that when I include this along with my generally healthy eating habits, I can finally get some weight loss. Also hoping for a V02 max increase eventually to help with hiking. A lot of the time, I stop to rest not because my muscles need a break, but because I need to catch my breath! I've only been using it for a month so we'll certainly see!

Raising Awareness of BAM

To be fair, I haven't done a ton of research because honestly, there isn't a ton out there. BAM is not a condition that gets diagnosed very often and is overlooked by even gastroenterologists. I'm also not 100% sure that I suffer from it.

Let me start at the beginning. As most of you know, a few months ago I got my gallbladder out. I was blessed with not having any issues or side-effects from the removal. But then I decided to start fasting twice a week with the 5:2 diet. Never having had any side effects from fasting prior to my surgery, I didn't expect this.

TMI

Every morning after my fast, I have a single bout of diarrhea. (My old PCP told me that it "can't be diarrhea because that would infer more than one instance in a day" ; not an exact quote but I digress). So, I don't know what you would call having watery stools only once, but that is what happened - because the day before I had only ingested roughly 500 calories, most of it in my dinner that I'd had about 14 hours prior.

I couldn't attach it to anything specific. I could change my dinner, I could skip my coffee, I could eat breakfast before coffee - it didn't matter. About 98% of the time, twice a week, I would have this issue. I tried Imodium first. Once. When that caused more problems than it solved, I researched. I discovered a condition called BAM.

Bile acid malabsorption (BAM) is a condition that occurs when your intestines can't absorb bile acids properly. This results in extra bile acids in your intestines, which can cause watery diarrhea.

also:

In other cases, BAM results from an underlying condition. For example, it’s been estimated that about one-third of people with irritable bowel syndrome and diarrhea (IBS-D) have BAM. 

But mainly, I think it's due to the combination of not having a gallbladder and not having food to digest. See, when you don't have a gallbladder, your liver trickles a constant stream of bile into your small intestine. Generally, this wouldn't be a problem if you're constantly in a cycle of eating or digesting food. But when you fast, your small intestine is empty. If I'm not properly reabsorbing the bile that is going unused, it could cause diarrhea when I finally do eat a meal. 

I had read that a cholesterol-lowering medication could help with the condition. The medication binds with the bile acids in the intestine, forcing the liver to use cholesterol to make more bile (sounds like a vicious cycle to me but okay), which in turn lowers your cholesterol. But because of how it functions, it could also potentially be used to treat BAM. So, I went to my PCP, who promptly gave me an incredulous look and said it probably wouldn't work but prescribed it to me anyways.

Guess what? It does.

That's right, bitches. I diagnosed and cured myself. I mean, I needed the script from my PCP - who is no longer my current practitioner, but whatever. Do your research, even if you don't understand half the words you're reading. I obviously don't have a medical degree, but I know enough about basic biology to make some educated guesses. And if your PCP doesn't agree but doesn't offer up any other possible solutions, then get a second opinion. Advocate for your health.

Pain Tolerance Level: Epilation

I'd been considering epilation for a long time, but due to being a scardy Kat, I never pulled the trigger. The cost of epilation is not that cheap for starting out, and with millions of comments out there saying that it hurts like a %$&#&* and "you will bleed and be swollen but it'll be worth it", I felt like I just needed to back away slowly.

Don't you just love that it looks like she's epilating something 

that's already been waxed?

But after years of shaving my underarms almost daily (due to fair skin and dark hair), the whole idea of it was getting on my nerves. Even after shaving my arms would not be smooth because my skin is not flat and taut in that area. I needed a better solution.

So did I finally take the plunge and buy an epilator? Nope. I tried waxing first. Or, to be more specific: sugaring. It is fairly easy to make your own "wax" at home, melting nothing but sugar, water, and some lemon juice. I made a hard wax on accident by cooking the mixture too long. So instead of it being pliable and pulling off with strips, I had to wait until it hardened and straight pulled it off by itself.

Advantages of sugaring:
1. Basically free
2. Quick pain and then it's over
3. Only have to do it once every 3-4 weeks

Disadvantages of sugaring:
1. Messy as heck
2. Don't heat the sugar too hot or it'll take forever to cool before you can apply it
3. You have to wait for it to cool completely before you can pull it off (this can be a problem if it is humid or hot where you are - it may never harden properly)
4. Only can do it once every 3-4 weeks. Sugaring requires a decent amount of growth before it can stick to the hair in order for you to pull it out. Which means you're running around with hairy underarms, and that kind of defeats the purpose. Especially for me, where you can see even 2-days growth.

The cons outweighed the pros here, so after a few months of trying it out, I decided to buy an epilator. The plus side of doing it this way is that, now that your hairs have been traumatized by being pulled out over and over, epiliating will be less painful. And it was certainly less painful - and a flip-ton easier to do. No fuss, no mess, just epilate and move on with your day. Plus you don't have to wait as long to do it, which I definitely need.

Now I can't wait to try this on my legs. Wish me luck!

5:2

Pretty ambiguous title, huh? What I'm referring to is the 5:2 diet - but I hate calling it that, it's more of a method; an anti-diet, if you will. The 5 and 2 correspond to days of the week. 5 days you eat normally, and 2 days a week of your choosing, you fast by eating 500 calories or less.

I know how you're looking at me right now. I got that look from both my co-worker and my boyfriend. Look, I get you 100%. It sounds miserable. I thought I would be miserable. And I've already done diets like this before. I tried the alternate-day diet, which is fasting every other day. I tried it for about a month but gained weight on it, possibly due to the fact that I was forced to eat an entire day's worth of food in an 8 hour period and then not eat the whole next day. It was tough with my schedule. I also did hCG, which is 500 calories every day for 42 days.

This, however, is a lot simpler. There are two rules:
1. Eat whatever you like 5 days a week (try to keep it healthy and reasonable, but nothing is off-limits)
2. Eat 500 calories (600 for men) or less 2 days a week. Technically, nothing is off-limits here either, but you want to ration your calories carefully, as you will be hungry, so you should eat foods that will help best with that.
3. Keep your 2 fasting days separate. It's not really a rule, you CAN do them consecutively if you want to, but it would be a lot of unnecessary suffering.

Basically, this diet achieves a "calorie restricted/reduction" diet without actually restricting calorie intake 5 days a week, which can be easier for some folks who have a hard time with the broad scope of "daily calorie restriction" (like me). I like to follow rules, I need structure, so just saying "hey, eat less every day" doesn't really work for me.

There are apparently a bunch of researched benefits of fasting (and busted myths, like "starvation mode") and you can read about them here. But I wanted to focus on the lifestyle benefits of fasting; the things that most people don't realize.

1. Cost savings. You're not eating 2x a week!!
2. Sleep in!! You're not making coffee or eating breakfast. Take more time for yourself
3. Ketosis, or something similar. I've read that it might take a day or two to kick your body into ketosis, but if your 500 calories includes very little carbs, you're essentially doing Keto for a day and possibly burning fat instead of glucose.
4. Flexibility. Have dinner with your parents on Monday? Change your fast to Tuesday. Free surprise lunch from your boss? Eat it today and change your fast to another day.
5. "You can have it tomorrow". This is basically the clincher. Unlike a typical calorie restricted diet, you are not restricted every day. Those cookies in your cupboard are easier to ignore if you tell yourself that you can eat them tomorrow. It makes a ton of difference.

I wanted to give you my personal experience with 5:2 so far. History: I've always struggled with keeping my calorie intake reasonable because it's really hard for me to say no to extra sweets (like in the break room) I kind of go overboard. I don't exercise besides walking and sometimes hiking, and it takes real effort for hunger not to control me constantly.

So here's the gist: it's not as hard as you imagine it to be. It sounds completely undo-able, but I choose days that are the busiest for me to keep my mind off of my stomach. 90% of it is probably psychological; but hell, if it works then great. The hunger can spike from time to time, but it does go away within a few minutes. If not, then I make some tea. (Morracan Mint - the warmth and the mint help with hunger pangs). I have nothing for breakfast, a hard boiled egg for lunch, and save my calories for dinner when it's the hardest to avoid my kitchen. I've been told that it gets easier with time, as well. The craziest part is that I go to bed not hungry and I don't wake up the next morning with ravenous hunger. And the next day, when I can choose to eat like a pig, I just don't. I'm not any more hungry on my off days.

It's kind of amazing. And I can't wait to see my progress on the scale with my nutritionist!

Unintentional Computer Upgrade

I used to rock an Intel core i3-8750K with a Gigabyte Aorus Z370 Gaming 5 motherboard. I had full intentions of upgrading my PC recently but when repairing the heated seats in my car was going to cost me $600, (which is roughly what the upgrade would have cost including a new case), I decided that a warm toosh for winter was more important.

Then my computer had other ideas. Without going into too much grisly detail, my NVME m.2 (SSD) decided it didn't like Windows anymore, was spitting out BSODs, and finally tossed a boot error that I couldn't even fix with a format/fresh install of Windows. Buying another NVME drive did not help, as all it did was throw me into a Recovery screen or boot with a black screen of nothing. The errors were so bizarre that after two frustrating days of trying to fix it, I figured something must be wrong with my motherboard and I needed to pony up to upgrade my computer now instead of later. Just to make sure I was dotting my i's and crossing my t's, Patrick and I took the whole system apart and looked at the motherboard with a flashlight for any burns, scrapes or leaks. Nothing; it looked pristine. So, I ordered a new motherboard and CPU.

I was not at all excited for this. The unexpected nature of this upgrade dulled my enthusiasm due to having paid $620 for heated seats and then another $400 for my upgrade when I wasn't ready for it. And to make matters even more annoying, while I was waiting for my upgrade to arrive, I decided to "test bench" my system, which basically means I put it together outside of my case, with an old laptop HDD to see if it was the NVME slots that were causing the problem.

And it booted up. I was floored. And to add icing to this bitter cake, I unplugged the HDD, put the new NVME back in, and it booted up just fine, again.

Wut.

So now I had a system that was once again running smoothly for no discernible reason, and I just spent $400 I didn't have on a new one. But the problem is that I don't know what to do with this one, now. It seems to be unreliable. I wouldn't even want to give it to anyone for free as a primary machine because of those weird issues.

I also miss my RGB. I switched over to a Ryzen 5 3600 with an Asus X570 wifi motherboard (I had a choice between Gigabyte and Asus in my budget and seeing as how Gigabyte soured me with these weird issues, I went for Asus) and not only do the X570 motherboards not have flashy RGB like my old board did (I mean, look at the glow on that thing!) Asus's "aura sync" software is buggy beyond usable and what RGB it does have either doesn't work or can't be controlled. Yeah, it's a first world problem but dammit.

On the plus side, after receiving my new supplies, I was able to set up both NVME drives in a Raid 0 just because I could (so two, 250gb drives now become one blazing fast 500gb drive), and I decided to run some tests on my new CPU, which I bought specifically for rendering/conversion over gaming. So rendering an episode of Good Eats: Reloaded (my original test here - which also explains what m.2 and NVME is) was 7 minutes faster. And converting a batch of RAW files (620 - for a time lapse) took only 30-45 minutes. On my old machine, a batch of 1200 files took 6 hours to complete, and I couldn't even use my computer at the time because it was using every available resource. So yes, besides the lack of RGB my new system is pretty bomb and I am really happy with it. I just wish I didn't have to go into debt to make it happen!

When it Rains, it Pours

It's been a long time since I got visited by the 3 amigos (when shit happens in threes), but it has never been all in one day, before! The last time was in 2012 that I remember - I posted about child #3 here, and Children #1 and #2 here.

Child #1 is my computer acting up. For a few days it had BSOD'd a couple of times due to software/driver issues, which I think started after the latest Windows update, most likely. I pretty much ignored it until yesterday when...

Child #2: Odin, my gerbil. I'd had him for almost 3 years. Yesterday morning, he looked dull and sick, and I figured it was his time. (Gerbils live 2-4 years on average). He'd been getting slower with age. Not nearly as energetic and annoying as he used to be. I told Patrick that he was probably dying. I told him not to mess with him or his cage that day and I would check on him when I got home from work. When I got home yesterday evening, he was pressed up against the glass. His eyes were closed and he was barely breathing. I didn't want to move him or anything for fear of making it worse. He was still hanging in there, though, that little trouper.

That's when Child #1 reared it's ugly head: I got a BSOD that was fatal. After backing up some of my files, my SSD finally went kaput. There was nothing more I could do but try to wipe the drive and start over with a fresh copy of windows.

In the meantime, Patrick and I watched as Odin took his final breath. He was gone. Knowing that I would be inheriting Patrick's cat in the coming months, I wasn't planning on replacing my gerbil with another, so Patrick got rid of his home and toys as we set up to go bury him at my parent's house, where the Pet Cemetery of my past animals resides. I set up my computer to install Windows, and we left for the burial.

When we got back, I decided to check my mail. Oh child #3, I thought you'd never come. While my surgery bill for my cholecystectomy was only $580, turns out the anesthesia bill is much more. $900. Damn. I'm looking at this bill while seeing PC death on my computer screen because the boot sectors of the drive have apparently been corrupted. And although I try a few fixes through Command Prompt, nothing was working. So I resign myself to spending $70 on another SSD in order to get my computer up and running again.

I called the anesthesia people today, and they accept Multicare's financial aid, so there is a silver lining to all of this, at least. My bill should be reduced greatly, and I'll find out within a week or two. The other bit of good news is that I purposely have my boot drive as pretty much just that - a boot drive. Nothing of value resides on it, so it's no big deal to lose it (although come on - it was only a year old!!) so, there's that. And regarding Odin... I knew for the last couple of months that it was coming. Isn't it strange how you know your animals so well that you can just tell when things change or don't seem right? Odin lived a long, healthy life and died of old age. That's the best any momma could hope for. So of course I'm sad that I lost him, but I'm also glad that he lived as long as he did.

I'm also so incredibly glad that I have Patrick's support and that he happened to be there that evening with me. I might have broken down without him. He's so amazing and I don't know what I'd do without him.