End of the week digest

Well TGIF. It’s been a very busy week — preparing christmas gifts and plans on the home front, and on the work front we started official beta testing for Poker Academy 2.5. One of the big features we’re testing now is Online Multi-Table Tournaments, which are essentially massive coordinated poker tournaments (hundreds of players). They are a logisitical doozy to work through on the server side.

I checked my blood pressure today at the drug store — 115/78! That’s the lowest reading yet! I measured it twice just to be sure it wasn’t a fluke.

I’m starting to get ever so slightly more sophisticated with my supplements. Up to now, all I was doing was semi-regular use of AOR Essential Mix, which is a quality multivitamin powder for putting in smoothies. However, it’s really a shot-gun approach and only covers the basic vitamins and minerals.

My knee hasn’t completely healed since this summer’s hiking injury. Kevin suggested I try some basic Glucosamine/MSM and Vitamin D for bone health. This is good as my cronometer was showing my diet to be chronically low in Vitamin D. I’ve also started to take fish oil supplements to make sure I get my EPA/DHA dose. I just wasn’t getting enough consistently in my diet (the main sources being fish and some other Omega3’s from flaxseed oil and nuts).

I also appear to be consistently low on zinc, but I have to rule out that my cronometer isn’t bugged or that the database is just missing full nutritional survey information.

I’m quite paranoid about supplements. Paranoid and skeptical. Paranoid, because I don’t yet have the confidence in my biochemical knowledge to separate the snake oil from the science. I don’t like the idea of ingesting things I don’t understand. In a way, it’s silly, because the processed gak I ate for years, and that the standard north american diet consists of, is bloated with all manner of crazy chemicals, most of which we already know are very bad for you.

Today, dementia cases set to double in two decades. Research of late is starting to show that Amyloid Beta plaques building up in the brain (which appears to cause Alzheimer’s) is related to insulin resistance in the brain. This suggests that we may be able to characterize Alzheimer’s as Type III Diabetes. Type II Diabetes rates have been skyrocketing in North America as well. News flash: It’s because people eat too much processed crap that saturates their bodies with insulin.

Calories were slightly on the high side today as I ate out for lunch, and my greek salad was well drenched in olive oil.

Currently Listening to: Hypnotize by System of a Down