LongeCity - Healthy Life Update

What's new with me? I have a girlfriend. She's 8 years younger (I'm now 45), an impressive person with an exotic background. That she's a high energy extrovert means I need regular down time on my own. I hope she doesn't resent that. I'm still working hard towards tenure. Living in a town in which I use a car instead of a bicycle, and overwhelmed with grading, I end up eating too much and exercising too little. I weigh about 25 pounds more than I'd like to. Some of the added weight may be muscle (using creatine regularly, I'm now bench pressing 100 pound dumbells in each arm for 6 repetitions). I'm using my CPAP machine, but not as much as I should. I'd been using it an average of 4 hours a night but I need to bring that up to the full night.

I still have a full head of hair with only a few wisps of grey in my beard. When I look at photos of myself, or my reflection in the mirror, I think I look more mature now but in a good way. I see pictures of myself in my 20s and 30s and see a self a little more adrift. Sometimes may gaze was distant and unfocused (perhaps from the lithium I was taking--now thanks to maturity, the CPAP machine, or my herbal regimen, it appears I no longer need such medications). I may have a bit of a crow's foot by one eye. Maybe the extra weight, together with some aging, adds some gravitas. I think our society is more forgiving signs of aging in men than women.

My latest healthy obsession is consuming a variety of carotenes and anthocyanins. I've been drinking saffron tea regularly (it's not really all that expensive compared, say, with drinking tea at a cafe), and with the season eating a lot of winter squash and pumpkin. Studies show it's not actually being sun-tanned that's generally found most attractive (at least for light-skinned people) but a slight orange hue from carotenes in the diet. And these compounds have benefits for vision and for the brain as well as skin. Anthocyanins, which are common in berries, can be had without calorie cost by making purple corn tea, or Chinese black rice tea. I think studies show that while berries benefit the brain, eating a variety of berries is of even more benefit. So I try to get a variety of anthocyanins.

One of these days I'm going to try vinpocentine again. Looking back at the time when I took it, I realize I had some good insights then. I think someone on the forum here bad-mouthed it so I stayed away. But it may be worth another try.

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