Gnorb.NET

For those in or near Florida: It was recently announced that Methuselah Foundation (site|blog) Chair and Chief Science Officer Aubrey deGrey will be in Orlando on May 12th. You can see details (and reserve seating) at degreyorlando.com. I plan to be there, but don’t let that dissuade you. Come anyway.

For those who can’t attend: While I have my own set of questions to ask him on subjects mentioned in his book Ending Aging, I’m interested in knowing what you would like to ask him. I’ll take a list of these questions and ask… as many as I can, which may well be zero. If allowed, I’ll even record it and post it on this blog. (Probably won’t be allowed, copyright reasons and all, but I’ll try it anyway.) Posts your questions in the comments sections. I’ll update this post in a couple of weeks with questions I plan to take (if anyone asks any questions). By the way, if you’re a real hard-core anti-aging researcher (and someone with considerably more brains that lil’ ol’ me), you may want to check out his first book, Mitochondrial Free Radical Theory of Aging.

For those of you who don’t know who he is and are wondering why I’m so excited or why you should care: Click on these links and read: SENS, Methuselah Mouse Prize, Rejuvenation Research. Also, watch this (Flash) video from his appearance at the TED conference:

Edit: Here’s another video.

Finally, for those of you interested in these topics, here are a few links you’ll want to check out: Think Artificial, Fight Aging, Ouroboros, Aging Research, BetterHumans, Immortality Institute. You can also get a good number of TED videos on these subjects at the ImmInst forums. This is just a sampling from my RSS reader. If you have any links you’d like to add relating to anti-aging and related research, feel free to do so in the comments (within reason).

One of the interesting side-effects of my recent digestive troubles the complete review I had to do of my diet. This has resulted, whether I liked it or not, in a drop in weight from the 276 lbs at which I stared this year to a current weight of 254 lbs.

I’m going up to Tampa this weekend to visit family, and my mom asked me to give her a list of what I can eat. So this post is for you, mom. Read it, enjoy, and remember that so long as the rules listed here are followed, I’m not limited to the foods mentioned herein. For the rest of you, here’s my very real, healthier eating regimen. It did not develop overnight, and every day I’m making improvements based on my research. Feel free to take what you like and discard what you don’t.

Read the rest of this entry »

The medical drama continues. Sort of. Except now it looks like we’ve started to find out what’s going on with me. In short, it looks like my gallbladder isn’t working right. Not gallstones, mind you — that came out perfectly clean — but rather that the muscle isn’t squeezing like it should. (It might explain why I sometimes feel a horrible back “pain” (bloating?) in my middle back after eating, like if I’m having a really bad spasm. As it turns out, lazy gallbladder is also a precursor to gallstones, which run in my family.) Luckily, the doc pretty much discounted the possibility of gastroparesis, which is great. I’ve been reading horror stories left and right about that and scaring myself into the next life. (The people in the Yahoo Gastroparesis group are constantly in my prayers.) I’m still waiting on a few tests to verify that diagnosis, however. Anyway, that seems to be, in large part, the cause of all my recent heartburn troubles, all of which are getting better.

So what am I doing to fix my digestive system? A lot, actually, and I’ll be doing more.

Read the rest of this entry »

I gots me an air purifier. Two of them, actually. Whirlpool WhisPure 510 (AP51030S) air purifiers. Worth every penny. This is why:

Read the rest of this entry »

The short answer is I’m not really sure. Depending on who you talk to or what you read, the number of calories you need depends on things like your current weight, height, age, level of activity, metabolism rate, and usually another set of (seemingly) random numbers. The long answer is the rest if this article:

Read the rest of this entry »