#83

I wanted to correct a couple of errors I’ve made. The first one is that my 6 months on rapa was 7/6 and in June I had mentioned it being 6 months when it was actually 5. I also realized recently when I was looking back through my smart scale reports that I haven’t gained any weight on rapa like I had thought. In fact I gained the weight just prior to starting it in December of 2022. Here are two screenshots comparing about 12 days before starting and 13 days after the 6 month mark of taking it. They are literally identical which is crazy because there are so many different measurements!
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I’m honestly not sure if it’s good, bad or neutral that there hasn’t been any changes whatsoever. I just started getting serious about my fitness routine again in June of this year after having a crazy work schedule since early 2020. At least I know it’s not impacting my ability to maintain the modest muscle mass I currently have.
Everyone in my family is still doing well on rapa. My dog of course seems to have had the most striking improvements. He’s still running, jumping and is very happy these days. My husband and I have no complaints but we were already decently healthy for our ages. I do sometimes feel like I’m handling things better (like working 14 hours yesterday) that would have been more of a struggle last year. That’s subjective of course. I’ll be repeating my labs in September.

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#84

I have a feel good story from work yesterday that I thought I’d share. I was at my station charting and 3 coworkers were nearby chatting. One asked me how many steps I had in for the day on my Fitbit and if I had to increase my calories to compensate for all the walking I do. I replied no and that I feel like the biggest boost I’ve gotten from walking was when I started wearing a weighted vest. She replied that she could never wear one due to her age and the condition of her joints. I told her I wasn’t exactly a spring chicken myself and would soon be turning 54. She was visibly shocked and said she would have guessed me at 40. The two other people nearby agreed with her and seemed genuine.
I’m not personally not seeing it but we are our own worst critics. I do notice I’m always functioning better than most of my peers which is a little sad. Until I was about 45 people always thought I was younger than my age but that stopped quite a while ago. In February of this year I started getting the comments again from people at work thinking I was in my 40’s. Perhaps everything I’m doing is starting to make a difference. It’s not much but it was a really nice compliment.

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#85

“Perhaps everything I’m doing is starting to make a difference.”

Makes me wonder what you are doing and what you recently have done?

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#86

@Curious, the only difference in my regimen lately is I’ve upped my fitness routine to include weight training, slightly lowered my dietary fat, added 5g creatine and increased dietary protein (which I understand is controversial here). I started slight CR only in the last 3 weeks. Other things I’ve done for quite sometime are methylene blue, melatonin and taurine. I started rapa in early January and by mid February I was getting comments from people at work about looking younger than my age but that was probably from carrying myself more energetically from feeling a bit better. In the spring I made a topical rapa spray based on the instructions here and also started OneSkin. I’ve always considered my skin to be genetically pretty poor so I’d eventually like to do more but so far I find both of those topically very helpful. In early July I started chewing Falim gum 2-3 hours per day to help keep my facial bones and muscles strong but it’s probably too soon for that to have any impact (if it even does on appearance). I also work with a lot of unhealthy people so compared to them I might look fantastic! Lol
That’s all I can think of right now.

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#87

Impressive results from great work.

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#88

Thank you @Curious. In my opinion nearly anyone could have similar improvements as those I’ve experienced. In general the only difference between me and the people my age that I interact with in everyday life is discipline and dedication. I’m a really average person in every way that’s just chosen to focus on being the best version of myself.
The weird thing I’ve run across is that people assume I must have been born with good genetics or something when in reality it’s plain old effort. There’s an abundance of things like obesity on both sides of my family tree for example and I just decided one day that I didn’t want to be on that path so I decided to make changes.
Of course I feel rapa is helping me quite a bit but even prior to rapa I was able to make a lot of improvements with ordinary things widely known and easily available to everyone else.

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#89

blsm, I notice you’re taking methylene blue. I tried it at a dose of 8 mg in the morning for a while, but noticed no benefit. How do you take it and do you notice any type of energy increase? Thanks.

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#90

@Jay, I use a pretty low dose of 1-2 mg in water because I don’t have any major issues. In the beginning I noticed it gave me more energy but I think I’m used to it by now.

#91

Labs are coming soon but I wanted to share my smart scale reading from this morning fwiw. Maybe rapa is helping after close to 8 months. I have had increased energy to work out more and I’ve also been paying closer attention to my diet.
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#92

What brand of smart scale are you using? That’s the kind of information I’d like to have. Thanks!

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#93

@DeStrider, it was just an affordable entry level one I bought last year to track trends. I don’t think it’s the most accurate on the market so I might eventually upgrade.
Limited-time deal: RENPHO Smart Scale for Body Weight, Digital Bathroom Scale BMI Weighing Bluetooth Body Fat Scale, Body Composition Monitor Health Analyzer with Smartphone App, 400 lbs - Black Elis 1 https://a.co/d/38hFoDa
The navy method based on measurements for example puts me at about 17% body fat. Here’s a good write up on different smart scales.
The Best Smart Scales of 2023 - Biohealth

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#94

I went to the doctor today for a follow up and the flu shot. I thought he’d order most of the labs I’m wanting to monitor but he said let’s wait until January. I’ll just order them myself next week. He did comment that I look vibrant, my hair and skin look great and I have an aura of radiant health so I guess it wasn’t all bad.

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#95

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Here we are at the end of October so closing in on month 10 of rapamycin. Husband is 50 and I’m 54. We are just two ordinary middle aged/middle class midwesterners with no cosmetic interventions whatsoever (as you can probably tell). I was trying to get a decent picture but since I don’t really like any of them much I chose this one since we were dressed up a little for a wedding. Husband came down with Covid on 11/15 (his symptoms were mainly resolved in 2 days) and I followed suit last night so I’m now trying to figure out how long to hold off on the blood work I had planned. I’m thinking at least a couple of weeks but if anyone is up on the latest feel free to share.

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#96

I agree with you, with regards the E500 watch, I managed to get a refund over its ‘glucose measuring’ capability
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imo I think it’s generating glucose data from an internal reference table, with the user able to alter the baseline up or down.

I did a test where I gorged myself on chocolate, donuts, pies etc for a day and fasted the next day. The peaks are the same in terms of timing and magnitude.

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#97

Your charts are the same as mine apart from when I told it to actually measure glucose in which case it comes up with another number not as far as I can tell (and I wore a CGM at the same time) anything close to what it should be.

IMO its a con.

#98

I got my labs back. There’s good news and bad. My cholesterol/lipid numbers improved (perhaps ldl not enough) but my blood glucose and HbA1c are both significantly higher. I did change my diet to be less fat and more carbs though so I’m going to have to rethink this situation since I’m now uncomfortably close to pre diabetes. I still generally eat less than 100g/carbs per day but perhaps that’s too much for me personally. I have to eat something to keep weight on though. Some things that could have impacted my results were working out before the blood draw, taking the tests too soon post covid (within 2 weeks) and apparently from what I’ve read tetracyclines can impact blood glucose. I had just finished DAV two weeks prior as well. My hsCRP improved though.
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#99

Are you doing something specifically to reduce LDL-C? It is quite a big reduction from your previous result… your apoB is probably still above 80…
Do you take anything for sugar control? Acarbose? Your insulin is low but glucose seem high, I would not worry yet about diabetes. Maybe it is just stress, poor sleep? Or maybe it was working out prior that raised glucose if it was resistance or high intensity training. But I would keep an eye on this.
Tetracyclines make your sugar control better if I remember correctly not worse. But I might be mistaken…

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#100

Thanks for your reply @scta123. I dramatically lowered my dietary fat. I think my glucose might have actually been impacted by dehydration (BUN/Creatine ratio). I’m not a doctor though but I’m going to recheck it soon. If it’s not improved I will definitely follow up with my doctor. I do not use anything for blood glucose management but I’m definitely open to doing so if needed. I’ll add an apoB test when I recheck my glucose. My finger sticks are normally in the 80’s premeal and low 100’s post fwiw.

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#101

Can we talk numbers? :sweat_smile:

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#102

Certainly sir! I used to eat mainly keto (animal foods heavy) and as an example looking back in cronometer from six months ago I was averaging about 150 grams of fat per day. I’ve gradually transitioned to about 50 grams per day on average and some days lower (yesterday it was 26.4g). I’ve added quite a bit of fibrous vegetables as well. I loved keto and did it for about 4 years but it ultimately didn’t agree with my cholesterol/lipids so faced with the choice of trying to lower them via lifestyle or medication I decided to try fine tuning my diet first. I may still end up needing to take something but my experiments aren’t over yet. :slight_smile:

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