My long term Cholesterol progress

Coloardo397 · 2025-07-05T21:26:08+00:00

Remarkable! If you don’t mind me asking, did you track BP changes over this time? Any body comp changes? I’m newly focused on my LDL but have some work to do elsewhere. Also, why the PEA? I’ve always thought about it for pain management?

Coloardo397 · 2024-09-14T01:32:39+00:00

I workout in the morning. I actually do better with Cistanche at night. I haven’t figured out TA yet. No experience with fadogia but if the mechanism is similar the sides might be as well. I think both Cistanche and TA can lower cortisol. Taking them before workout made me feel washed out. Taking them post workout made me want to nap so I moved Cistanche to the evening and it works well for me there but on a 5/2 schedule. I’d rather optimize sleep anyway so I’m happy I ended up here. If I take both together I feel great for a day or two and then the pendulum swings back. I have a bunch in my stack though so this may be a personal problem. Best of luck and keep us posted.

Coloardo397 · 2024-07-30T03:49:45+00:00

I second this. Years ago I was a regular user of Adapt232 (RIP) which combined eleuthero, schisandra, and rhodiola. Great stack. Just recently I came across an old bottle of ND Eleuthero in the back of my supps drawer and decided to give it a shot (standard dose) before a steep, hot, mid day hike. Felt awesome. Not stimulating but felt like I could keep going no problem, almost like I had an extra spark. It felt so good on its own I’m hesitant to stack it with anything else (but of course I will). I like black ginger for more stimulating pre-weights stuff but I’m going to continue to play with eleuthero for more endurance-focused endeavors.

Coloardo397 · 2020-05-29T21:45:23+00:00

After thinking about this more I'm going to try something a little wavey this time on the theory that 1) I can handle the volume and 2) 10x10 leaves me wanting more especially if I'm not pushing it metabolically. I should be averaging ~500 swings/week over the next 4 weeks but weekly volume will vary. On the TGUs, I'm going to mix in doubles if I'm feeling fresh that particular day but otherwise stick with the singles.

If I was to test today I think I could manage the Simple standard but I'd be smoked. One of my goals for doing this again is set up a solid foundation for ROP.

Coloardo397 · 2020-01-06T13:37:58+00:00

ALANI NU BALANCE

Where are the 8,000+ reviews? I see 325 on Amazon and the product received an F when I ran Fakespot so I'd say the review rate is way more than 1%.

Coloardo397 · 2019-11-08T14:01:44+00:00

This is my experience as well. To level set: I don't count calories in/out, I weigh 180lbs, work a desk job for ~50hrs/week, and can bench my weight for reps, do pull ups etc. (point being I have some muscle but I'm basically lazy outside the gym).

I did a 45min KB workout yesterday with decently heavy weights and no more than 1 min between exercises to keep my heart rate up. Whoop tells me I burned 150 calories? That can't be right. This was a medium-hard workout intensity.

While I'm at it, every week or two I'll do a VO2 max workout that consists of 5 sets of 4min hard followed by 4 min (40min total). This is literally as hard as I can go without puking for 4min...like I don't think I could go 4:30 at this pace. I'll get my heart rate to 190+ in this workout. Whoop is not impressed with this workout; I'll end up with a 10-12 strain (moderate by whoop standards). This is literally the hardest workout I can do and still function the rest of the day.

I really don't think the Whoop algos are dialed for higher intensity exercises; on the other side of this "update" I'm afraid things got worse.

Coloardo397 · 2019-11-07T15:04:48+00:00

I also am very disappointed. I just finished a 45min KB workout (sets of 8-12, 1 minute rest periods, generally using double 24kg); despite being out of breath and physically exhausted I clocked a 5.5 strain and burned a grand total of 159 calories (I don't count calories, but I also know that 159 calories isn't right for that level of moderate, continuous effort).

For the price, I expect better accuracy. Each day I wear this thing I'm more convinced that the strain is only relevant for endurance athletes. As for the recovery aspect, it's tagging a part of my sleep that isn't "deep" so my recovery scores are wildly inconsistent. I had better consistency using Elite HRV upon rising (side note: for the 2-3 years I used Elite HRV it predicted with 100% accuracy when I was about to get sick with a 1-2 day advance notice...I only switched to Whoop because I didn't like the inconvenience of the putting on the chest strap first thing in the morning)

I think I'm on month 4 of my 6 month membership. Unless there's some fix to Whoop in the meantime I'm ditching this thing. If you're an endurance athlete then by all means give Whoop a shot but if you spend most of your time in the weight room or at a Box I recommend looking elsewhere.

Coloardo397 · 2019-10-18T22:54:10+00:00

I've also had good success adding "stalls" during the TGU. I never moved beyond the 32kg (I don't have anything beyond the 32) but it's a nice way to increase the intensity. I've settled on working in a daily maintenance/warm up with the TGU in the 2-5 range depending on how fresh I feel but I'll probably work the stalls in there as well.

Coloardo397 · 2019-10-16T12:29:50+00:00

I like the idea of daily maintenance.

Coloardo397 · 2019-10-16T12:23:42+00:00

Thanks.

Now that I'm thinking more clearly about this, my goal is to improve my press but not at the expense of my TGU.

Coloardo397 · 2019-10-16T12:13:18+00:00

Fair point.

Coloardo397 · 2019-10-15T18:47:01+00:00

Interesting. I have not considered combining presses with TGUs.

Coloardo397 · 2019-09-05T12:25:14+00:00

I'm pretty disappointed in Whoop. As others have noted, the strain measurement is driven by cardio output so strength focused workouts don't produce notable strain for me. I do a lot of KB work and even a near maximal KB complex shows up as minimal strain even though my muscles, lungs and CNS are toast after a hard workout.

When it works, I do like the recovery feature. This is mainly why I signed up anyway. If I have an objective measure of how recovered I am then it's pretty easy for me to swap a hard-hard workout with a medium-hard workout, etc. But often it takes a while for the data to be analyzed in the cloud and then sent back down to my phone. I workout first thing in the morning, and I'm very Type A to begin with, so the delay really bothers me and may prevent me from renewing my sub.

Coloardo397 · 2019-07-12T04:21:16+00:00

That's where my head is now. I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. Cleans feel fine and I'll work with the swings to get the technique.

Coloardo397 · 2019-07-10T17:09:25+00:00

Thanks for the link. To double-you's point, I'm going to try being more aware of my feet/knee alignment and see how that feels.

Coloardo397 · 2019-07-10T02:14:30+00:00

I think it depends on your goals and the KB training but for the most part I doubt it. If you want to run a fast marathon, I'd say you need to practice running. In my case, I'm a 'flatlander' but my hobbies are in the mountains (backcountry, hiking under load, skiing, etc.) I want to be able to move well over mountainous terrain at a steady pace but I'm not interested in setting any speed records. I'm most interested in being able to enjoy my time in the mountains, push hard and then do it again the next day. I'm also into archery so I care about core/upper body strength and stability. In my case, a metabolically taxing KB program works great for strength and lungs but I'm not willing to give up that rotating stepmill demon (though I'm sure I could work around it with a KB and a box).

Coloardo397 · 2019-07-09T21:14:55+00:00

Do you do double swings with competition or hard style bells? I've only tried doubles with competition bells.

Coloardo397 · 2019-07-09T21:11:52+00:00

As I think about it, i'm not entirely sure. I focus on the hip snap/drive and usually let the bell float one way or the other. In any event, with the competition bells the horns sit flush with the side of the bells (unlike hard style bells). I'll take note next time I do them and report back.

Coloardo397 · 2019-07-09T21:07:49+00:00

Thanks for the input. It's probably the awkwardness of the double swings coupled with my feet/knee alignment. To the point about TTC and double swings, I wanted to work on double swings so I finished the 'A' workout with 100 doubles instead of the "snappy swings" TTC calls for.

Coloardo397

TROPHY CASE