Blog

Short blog posts, journal entries, and random thoughts. Topics include a mix of personal and the world at large.

Save the elbows

I recently added a barbell back squat to my weightlifting routine, and I couldn’t figure out why the inside of my elbows were sore afterwards. Kind of doesn’t make sense for parts of the arm to sore for what is a lower body exercise, right?

At first the soreness only occurred after a session, so I figured it was simply delayed onset muscle soreness. Those typically go away with enough squatting sessions in the log book. Well, wrong. During today’s workout, the inner elbows started to hurt during my warmup set. The general rule of thumb is: if something hurts during the exercise, then it needs to be addressed immediately.

Intuitively, I moved my grip on the bar further outwards. Because if the elbows are hurting during the squat movement, then it’s got to be the position that I am putting them in. And what do you know: it absolutely worked. Zero elbow pain on my working sets simply by widening my grip. I guess how well(?) our limbs can contort is highly individualized.

I’m just glad I don’t have to give up the barbell squat movement entirely. Like I had to do for the upright row, because it was hurting my shoulder. Once you get past a certain weight point, it’s difficult to progressively overload the lower body using dumbbells. Holding a 100 pounder to perform a goblet squat is not feasible, because my grip would give out way before my leg muscles do.

The price of protein

I shop at Whole Foods because I’m buying produce for just myself. So what if the stuff there is more expensive than less prestigious(?) grocery chains? I alone can’t possible eat enough food for the extra cost at Whole Food to add up significantly. Besides, as an Amazon Prime member with an Amazon Prime Chase Visa card, I get 5 percent cash back. (Spend money to make money, am I right?)

If I were grocery shopping for a family, that changes everything. No more organic eggs from free-range chickens. No more organic milk from grass-fed cows. Paying for pre-cut fruits would be an insult to the ancestors. Food for the family will be purchased as cheaply per weight as possible.

I recently noticed how vastly more expensive beef and fish is compared to chicken and pork. Pork chops are something like three times less expensive per pound compared to the cheapest cut of steaks. As a frequent lifter of weights, I need to eat a lot of protein. Because I only shop for me - and lucky enough to make decent money - I have no qualms springing for the more pricey steaks and salmon. If this were me 10 years ago (read: much poorer), it would be chicken and pig meats only. Cows are a delicacy.

Same is true if I had a family to feed: fish and cows are very occasional treats only!

While I do lament not starting weightlifting in my twenties, at least in my thirties I don’t have to resort to chicken and rice for my staple nutrition. A gram of protein is a gram of protein for sure, but I much rather eat salmon sashimi than pan-fried chicken thighs (bone out, of course).

Chicken and Accutane

The rotisserie chicken at Costco remains one of the best food deals on the planet. Six dollars for two pounds of cooked chicken meat. Weightlifters looking to gain mass on the cheap should move next to Costco just for easy access. Have a hot dog and soda while you are at it, too.

It is somewhat bothersome that the chicken is put into a plastic bag. A piping hot roast straight out of the oven and into something entirely plastic. I’m no evangelist against polyurethane, but that cannot be completely healthy, right? I’ve stopped heating up food in the microwave with any sort of plastic container or wrapping a long time ago, and so should you.

Costco should use a paper bag alternative, or a compostable container. Raise the retail price slightly if you have to. I’d gladly pay for more for zero heated plastic.

Two months into the Accutane treatment for my chronic acne, and a new side-effect has materialized. Accutane causing intense dryness for the entire body is well-known and par for the course. I’d thought that meant my skin would become dry and cracked like on a cold winter’s day. I was wrong: my dry skin is showing up in the form of tackiness, a mild stickiness to the epidermis. Crossing my legs would cause the thighs to adhere to each other like velcro.

The skin is also fragile, too. Not just towards sun exposure, but impacts. Small abrasions that usually wouldn’t amount to anything can now wound the skin. I am definitely not going on mountainous hikes wearing shorts during this Accutane cycle.

We have food at home

You know you’ve had a good workout session when you wake up the next morning - after a solid eight hours of slumber - still tired as heck. That, or you’ve overworked yourself. That, or you did not eat enough the previous day to recover from that much output.

It could be all three combined for me today. That’s how tired I was for all of it. Accutane medication has got to be detrimental to recovery from weightlifting. I need a lot of water during normal times; the intense dryness from the acne medication just exacerbates that need. Who knows if the water I am drinking is even contributing towards muscle protein synthesis while I am on Accutane.

I can’t wait to be done with it by the beginning of next year.

With restaurant prices remaining high after the inflation of the past few years, the mantra of “We have food at home” is ever salient. At least it is for me. Even buying ingredients at Whole Foods (read: expensive) to cook is cheaper than eating out. (I can give myself the tip.) What I’ve been doing lately is expanding the repertoire of dishes I make. Trust me, the bar is extremely low. As of this writing, the only seasoning in my cupboard is: salt, pepper, sesame oil, and olive oil.

As you can extrapolate from that, the variety of food I cook for myself has not been very various. I am not a picky eater in the slightest: I’m perfectly fine eating the same damn thing every single day of the week. That said, with outside food being so expensive, if I want fried chicken, I’m incentivized to start making it myself.

And that means getting an air fryer. (I don’t even have a toaster oven.) No way I am frying chicken the traditional vat-of-oil method in a tiny studio apartment. The room would smell of chicken for the next week. Black Friday is coming right around the corner…

This might be it

I think if something unfortunate were to happen to my BMW M2, I would probably replace it with something tame and economical. (The refreshed Tesla Model 3, rear-wheel drive with the long range battery is looking good.) The new enthusiast car market has gotten so expensive that the logical brain side of me doesn’t want to pay for something that largely sits (I don’t have a commute). The new Porsche 911 GT3 starts at $200,000 now - $40,000 more than the previous model - which is absolutely insane. Makes me feel slightly better about paying $126,000 for a 2015 model back in 2019.

Even the cheap end of the continuum is in the mid $30,000s (Toyota GR86, or the venerable Mazda Miata). While that is somewhat affordable for me, what isn’t affordable is the insurance costs for enthusiasts cars. I would know: it’s quite expensive to insure the BMW fully. Again, logical brain is working overtime to convince me that maybe this whole love of cars is getting defeated by monetary mathematics.

But we’re suppose to spend a high proportion of our money on hobbies, right? I can’t be looking at my vehicle situation from the lens of a regular person. In their case, yes, they should limit the spend on what is the second biggest money purchase (first would be the house, if anybody can afford one around here). It makes zero sense to drop extravagantly on a depreciating asset. To do it financially responsibly, people should buy a brand new Toyota Corolla and drive it as long as possible.

Because I like cars, and have liked them since I was a kid, I get to spend more of my adult money on them. But these days the adult brain is cautioning loudly against the inflated costs of vehicle ownership. I actually paid off the M2 earlier this year. I certainly feel more carefree with that monthly car payment now extra cushion in my savings account. It’s a very good feeling. The 10 years ago me would have already used that freed up money to buy another car.

Either I have tremendous self discipline, or it is indeed true that there are seasons to life. Perhaps I’ve outgrown my car enthusiasm…

It's not for me

Have any of the presidential candidates said anything about ending Daylight Saving Time? Whoever promises to abolish the abomination gets my vote. My expertly calibrated sleeping schedule does not wish to be arbitrarily interrupted twice a year. Recalibration always takes a week, if not more.

I am enjoying the autumnal flavor of early dark evenings. In combination with the lower temperature, it makes for a cozy atmosphere at the home. Don’t you dare string out the Christmas lights already, though. Have some respect: absolutely nothing Christmas-related until after Thanksgiving.

Human anatomy differs from person to person. Certain exercises is fine for some, but may cause pain for others. For example: I am Asian, so I’ve zeros issues with squatting deeply (Asian squat joke). Ankle mobility is just fine over here. Some are not so lucky in dexterity, so their knees might bark loudly in anger in every attempt.

The exercise I’ve encountered thus far that creates pain for me is the upright row. After I increased the weight to 50 pounds, my right shoulder cannot take the load. Afterwards, anytime I raised my arm above shoulder height, pain shoots from the shoulder joint. I thought not raising the weight above my chest would alleviate the issue, but no. Upright row is simply not in my exercise repertoire moving forward. At least it’s not a big three compound movement!

Perhaps it’s unavoidable, given a long enough timeline (and actual progression in weight), that I will eventually injure something while lifting these damn weights. I’m trying to avoid it, obviously. Primarily by not adding on weight that quickly. Apparently, even if the muscles are ready for more load, the tendons and connective tissues might not be. It’s safer to progress slowly.

Cheap Chinese food

A friend told me his favorite Taiwanese restaurant is closing down. The owner couple are retiring, and there’s no one to continue on the legacy.

This is similar to the story of Sam Wo, the restaurant in San Francisco Chinatown operating for over a century. It is also closing down by the end of the year if no buyers can be found. The owner is retiring, and his children wants to so something other than working long days serving up food.

It makes sense, right? Parents start a humble restaurant to provide their children with a better life. Because their children got a better life (they are Asian, failure is not an option) as white-collar workers, there’s no one to take up the wok and spatula once the parents are of retirement age. Another friend of mine, his parents also closed down their long-running restaurant upon retirement. The friend and his siblings all have successful careers, far from the physical toil of the kitchen.

I think Chinatown is going to look very different in the coming years. Lots of restaurants there are run by the older generation. I suspect many will close down soon enough, because my generation are either unwilling or do not need to take up the proverbial mantle. The margins are too low, and the hours are too long.

I hope I am wrong about that projection, and there is an unknown cohort out there that’s going to step up and take over running these legacy Chinese restaurants. Because we cannot let Panda Express win the cheap Chinese food game!