I have these Spanish tiles. Be a shame to cover them.
Also, I have this “one roof for two floors” style, so the roof closest to the current pool heater is at the apex. Means pumping the water way up there or all the way to the front of the house. (Yeah, excuses.) I’d just like someone to figure out what’s wrong with the current heater and fix it instead of defaulting to, “New heater, plus a new gas line, that’ll be $5000.” (New, fatter gas line is some regulatory thing.)
Gonna guess “less steps” on that exercise note. You can walk for miles and not get tired, but the repetition causes joint pain (possibly exacerbated by poor-fitting shoes). With stairs, you’re done in less time because it’s more tiring. I go up and down our flight a good six times a day.
I can see climbing stairs be less stressful on knees, it’s basically doing lunges. However, going down the stairs are terrible for knees, so unless you have a stairs master or use the elevator down, would not advise.
Craigslist. Always buy exercise equipment use. There’s a ton of high quality stuff cheap available most always.
Not since the pandemic. Used and new equipment for home use is rather scarce. Maybe it’s back to a normal level by now, though.
I agree with the advice, though. Used clothes dryers/hangars (unused equipment) are a good find.
Treadmills are the best piece of equipment, bar none. they are I think the most used piece of equipment. Less chance of them becoming a drying rack.
Our treadmill has well north of 10K on it. My SO and I use it almost every day, I’ve trained for numerous half marathons on it, and my daughter used to use it daily when she still lived here. We’ve replaced the deck and the belt I think 3 times.
+1 for treadmills.
They’re also just a nice break. Crank up spotify and zone out for an hour.
Not sure where you are, but it’s 77 and sunny outside right now. And the local weather expert is predicting we’ll have a drier than normal season, too. Bad for water tables, good for outdoor exercise.
If I lived in a rainier (or a Rainier) area, sure, I’d buy an indoor treadmill.
What model, now that you’ve made me curious? I expect the replacement parts are both easy to get and easy to replace?
It’s a bodyguard T260. The warranty has been outstanding, 10 years IIRC. and we used the warranty quite a bit given how much we use the treadmill.
Where I am, rain, not so much. Here’s what I see out front:
Like I said, I have no explanation, but I didn’t have any knee issues going both up and down stairs, while running on treadmill or outside in moderate hills gave me pain. I had built up to about 500m a day. Took about 45min in total. Much harder to do at home.
Could be the surface. Sidewalks, unlevel surfaces, etc. My stairs are carpeted, so much nicer on joints.
I haven’t been keeping up with exercise; I know I should be better about it. 
I was looking into what to do about a light case of Achilles tendonitis, which I got from running an hour a week and walking a bunch more on top of that. The recommendations I found were to do resistance training targeted at that joint, like calf raises. Stair climbing might be doing something similar, strengthening joints. (No more than every third day, if you’re trying to build up tendon strength, since tendons take a bit longer than muscle to recover.)
I get infusions fairly often, and working from home I’ve just been getting them while working. Interesting observations:
Going to normal doctor: Around 125/85 - a little bad but not terrible
Infusions not during work: Around 145/100 (not scared of needles but it’s still not fun)
Infusions during work: Around 155/115.
Had to get a doctor’s note to get poked at that range, it seems taking meetings while actively being stuck spikes me quite a bit.
5/1:
HDL 44 (low)
Triglycerides 114 (normal)
LDL 158 (oof 
)
Total 225 (high)
Cut snacks at work, started making better food choices at home
7/13:
HDL 45 (low)
Triglycerides 134 (upper end of normal)
LDL 122 (upper end of normal)
Total 194 (upper end of normal)
I forgot to mention glucose, since last time that was upper end of normal/borderline prediabetic. It’s interesting that my triglycerides crept up in spite of my better choices. Could it be because I’m still not consistently active?
I think cholesterol is way more dependent on genetics than behavior. Datapoint of 1 but my cholesterol improved over the last year even though I was not active at all due to chronic injury.
I feel like I read somewhere that LDL and HDL aren’t even good markers of health. Like there are different types of HDL and LDL even, like big and small particle or something. And those matter more. I can’t really remember but nearly everyone on my dad’s side of the family have high total cholesterol and live long.
Good LDL/HDL readings may not be good indicators of health, but elevated LDL and low HDL are predicitve of heart disease.
Quick google article I found. No idea how credible, apologies is I’m linking to bad science. Seems like Trig:HDL ratio is important and LDL particle size is important.
Interesting. Hope i’m not starting to develop insulin resistance. Guess i better do more to get active!
Bump.
Cuz new numbers came in.
Was on a statin. Numbers dropped. The rx could not be refilled, so i went off. And now they’re up again.
Sigh.
Back to the plan in the OP.
HDL and LDL are only important in the sense that their total level can tell you if you are at risk.
What you absolutely need to avoid is VLDL (and oxidized LDL cholesterol). Thats what causes blockages and does the most damage.
Its true that a lot of this is genetics.
Producing lots of cholesterol + bad diet = you have lots of LDL available to be oxidised due to high levels of internal inflammation.
So the optimal thing to do is to focus on making sure you have low levels of inflammation. That way the circulating LDL does not get oxidised.
Exercise-wise, I would walk a bit every day first. Then if you can, I would do a bit more strenous activity like hiking. That usually works well for most (plus being out in nature is generally good for your mental health)
Diet wise, focus on foods with polyno- and mono-saturated fatty acids (foods that generally do not promote inflammation), food rich in anti-oxidants (fruit, vegetables, etc), and a few supplements.
Supplements, standard Multi-Vit, Omega-3 (EPA/DHA standardised 3g/day), and a strong anti-oxidant (I use r-ala as its a phospholipid: both water and fat soluble) is what works reasonably well.
Drug wise, you can use statins to bring LDL down. They do work, but you will need regular bloodwork.
Your info is intriguing, and I would like to subscribe to your leaflet.
Thanks. Researching r-ala now.