I'm going for my annual blood test tomorrow and I expect not great results so I will definitely get a bit of a lecture from my doc about exercising more, losing weight, and eating better. The good news is that I'm actually going to address all of that this year versus just letting the results get worse (my A1C last year was 6.1 which he felt was borderline and my cholesterol was getting to the high side too).

Are all you 45+ guys getting annual blood tests?

Been getting annual blood tests since I was 30. The more data the better to see what your body is doing imo.

One thing I’d recommend with blood tests is making sure you’re hydrated when you go. I’ve had a couple in the last few years that I went on a Monday/tuesday after a big weekend of drinking or just eating poorly and was dehydrated. As a result my kidney function numbers were just out of range.. so then I think fuck is this actually something and I want to do another test to follow up

So then get hydrated over the few days before and go again and it’s then well within range. Just an annoyance in having to go again and all that involves

5'8" Started my current bulk at 158lbs back in September. Currently at 171lbs. Will see what I get to in March or so and then start a cut.

There's multiple factors in that though. If you are 210 and 35-40% body fat yeah it's going to be rough, but at 20% body fat, the extra muscles help support your joints.

The other thing is whether if you are hypermobile. I am and it's annoying AF sometimes. I am super flexible for my age and can easily out stretch girls 10 years younger than me. Sounds amazing, until you learn that your joints can't hold their position well and and you overtax your muscles easily. Also due to the more unrestrained movements, it's harder for me to lift heavier weights as my muscles also have to work harder to regular my motion.

When I was fat (200lbs probably 30% bodyfat) I had a lot of knee problems. I still have knee issues here and there but when I got it down to 180lbs and something like 20%, most of my issues went away unless I was doing a 3+ hours of downhill hiking.

Are all you 45+ guys getting annual blood tests?[/QUOTE]

No, didn't know you can do that. Is it covered by MSP?
Which test/categories would I be asking for?

^If you have a family doctor or a clinic doctor for that matter, you can ask for a physical or to be referred to lifelabs for a blood test anytime you want... that's what I used to do... at one point like 10 years ago I was having some issues and I had like 3 blood analysis tests in the span of a month all on doctor or clinic referral... then analyzed the results myself online through their portal

I'll report back after my skii trip in Kelowna / Japan. Gonna be the first time being this lean and being active.

I've been actively tryna incorporate as much exercises for ankle / knees and hip mobility to reduce soreness and joint pain.

Specifically jumping and getting into a ready position puts so much pressure on my knees that it gets fatigued extremely easy, it's probably cause I'm weak? I can't single leg pistol squat nor have the mobility.

Unless you are squatting a considerable amount more than double your body weight, you ain't doing single leg.

Back in grade 8, I biked to school everyday, so I was doing 30mins easy everyday on a bike. Going to school was downhill and I got it down to about 5mins pushing hard. Going home was a slog and the end of the day. Probably got it down to 15min going home.

On the leg press at school I could leg press the whole stack. Wish I could tell you how much it weighed.

SO the moral of the story is, go bike? And when I say bike I mean actually go at it instead of leisurely riding around.

I see so many people at the gym stacking that machine up to 400/500+lbs... and then they push the weight, but they just slide it back and forth like 2 feet repeatedly with legs at near full extension and jump off like YAH wooo!

If you are bringing it all the way down almost to the stopper when your knees are getting up by your ears and then pushing out doing a full press, you're doing well to even do 1.5x your weight... I'm at 300 doing that right now on 3 sets and my legs are jelly after.

Always, also recommend getting testosterone checked regularly.

I swear to god it's the modern diet. All my friends that go to the gym, not overweight, are in good shape seem to have their A1C or LDL values out of the normal, my last A1C was like 5.8.

Guess we're all gonna be on Metformin and Lipitor one day :lol

Check your liver as well, there's a rise of fatty liver even for non-alcoholics/obese. All the processed/salty/sugar foods in our modern diet is taking its toll.

My squat sucks (like 1.2x bodyweight for reps to parallel) and I can do single leg pistol squats for reps from full bottom :fullofwin:

It's all in the hips and glutes.

Have a good friend who is on statins now (he’s 55 I believe) and a big thing with him is that there seem to be more and more studies of statins having a direct correlation to dementia as you’re taking away the good cholesterol from your brain which effects function, memory, etc.

Haven’t really looked into it myself but my friend there is very well educated, very healthy person and that’s his main concern in taking these long term

Got my blood test results in and they're not bad - A1C is down from 6.1 to 5.8 so I'm almost in the normal range. Bad cholesterol is creeping up a bit and already high but otherwise everything else looks good - clean piss, good ECG, no thyroid problems, etc.

Remind me again though - who said there was some older hottie lab tech at Lifelabs? Next time I'll book my blood test there.

Weighed in at the gym today, which is where I can get a good comparison every week

76.6kg. I was 75.5kg before Christmas. Let's bring it down to 73 with higher weights for my workouts

*Edit* It was mikemhg. Link to original post.

I think it was MG1. If I recall, it was the one on Hastings/Kensington location.

Yup Hastings/Kensington location, older Asian gal, super chatty and nice.

You can tell she was a baddy back in the day.

Her IG oddly popped up in my algorithms a few months back, very odd.

a GP can do it as part of annual checkups. there may be push back on what you do as i think the gov pressures dr's to not check off every box to test. there usually has to be a reason (eg check cholestrol due to family history of being high, etc)

any reason i can give my GP to add testosterone to the list in case he says 'no' or 'why'?
actually, why do i want/need to check testosterone levels? i'm not vitor belfort and need to go on TRT do i?

Easy, tell him/her your libido has been down and you've been having erection issues, or simply you've been feeling fatigued and foggy headed in the mornings over the last while, and you'd like to check your testosterone levels just in case. Simple.

Honestly, you shouldn't even have to give a bullshit excuse, it's not unreasonable to want to know your T levels once you're in your 30s, specifically after 35.

Annual blood tests? :heckno: maybe back in the day when i was slaying wh0res

The real question is, how long do you keep up good eating / staying active, until you forget / revert back to your usual habits

On a side note, wasnt there someone on here asking about like full blood / body analysis for like 3-5k or something, who was it and what was the results?
If i recall, most people simply did not even want to know, as it opens a rabbit hole

i believe it was HEHAW, who said you can go to asia and get the whole shabang done for 3-5k. specifically tawian, or, as I like to call it, separatist rogue province china.

Some buddies of mine from university we been talking about going to Korea to do it, one of them is Korean and group of us thinking to do a trip together with part of it being for the full med report lol

alot of activity on here. you January gym guys, good job.
i havent done shit yet hahaha

My buddy did this in Korea with his family and he found out his liver was close to failing in 3 - 5 est. years. He had to cut out drinking and stayed in Korea to recover. He's only 26/27 but binge drinking 5+ drinks, 2-3x a week for close to a decade.

Staying in Korea to cut binge drinking sounds to me like staying in Vegas to get over binge eating. :whistle:

Hope your friend got back on the wagon.