Old and invalid? You needn't be! Amazon e-books.

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I've written so many comments on the question of muscle building that I though I might as well write the book!

Don’t let the “OLD” in title put you off, that’s just a hook for the potentially most interested audience; it works at any age, and is simple and easy enough that even the most determined couch potato could manage it.

For those without access to or desire to visit a gym, then a bar of some kind is required, and some weights, but that’s it as far as special purchases are concerned; the rest uses things that most of you already have at home.

I would like to have provided a link, but this doesn’t seem to be an option any more. Perhaps some of you more up to date could do this, or explain what I have to do? There’s also the question of region (why?) and you might have to order it from a French or UK site.
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On another issue; I’d like to make this a permanent fixture of my profile, as many of you do, but again, I can’t find any way of doing this, so a little help with this would also be appreciated.
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I’m sorry the book is so expensive, but that’s the lowest Amazon will allow (of which they keep 70%!) but you can read the first two pages for free, to see how it goes.

The signature line is a useful place for advertising a link - it will appear automatically below every post you make, like mine does.

1. Click on "My Account" at the top right of any page.
2. Click on "Edit signature" in the "Options" list appearing on the left.
3. Type what you want to appear in the signature, entering a URL as-is - eg: https://wrongplanet.net and it will become clickable.
4. Click on the "Submit" button.

Please make it as brief as possible - a single line should suffice.

There are other ways, but the simplest way to include a link in a post is to just type it as in the example above.

If you get stuck then PM me with the details of what you want to show and I'll add it for you.

Meanwhile I've edited the thread title to make it LESS SHOUTY, and moved it to Random Discussion (it will still be accessible from Parent's Discussion as before).

My thanks, but what's this "URL as-is -"? I've followed all the other instructions, with "Author of OLD AND INVALID? YOU NEEDN'T BE!" (which is the book title, shouty or not) but nothing's happened.

The phrase "entering a URL as-is" means typing it just as it appears in (say) a browser with nothing added or removed - I then gave an example using the URL for Wrong Planet.
"as-is" means "as it is" - that is, as the URL appears.

Apologies, I forgot to mention you should check that the profile option Attach my signature by default: is set to "Yes".
It was set to "No" which explains why your signature didn't appear so I've changed it to "Yes"; the signature should now appear with your next and subsequent posts. (as indeed it has)

Your signature is currently "Author of OLD AND INVALID? YOU NEEDN'T BE (Amazon ebooks) https://wrongplanet.net ".
Are you sure this is what you intended? It's just that a URL of the Amazon page for your book would seem more appropriate than a URL for Wrong Planet.

Also I notice your time zone is currently set to an Australian one - is that what you intended?
Your profile location is given as France.

Here’s the URL for the book. I’m listing two options because I wasn’t sure which one you wanted.

US Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0FBMGDGR3/
UK Amazon:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Old-invalid-ne ... 0FBMGDGR3/

Thanks.
I trimmed each URL to remove 30-odd feet of Amazon tracking nonsense.

Thanks! It looks much better. I don’t know about any of that stuff. When it comes to URLs, I just copy and paste.

My thanks!

The "Australia" bit is just the sort of messing around I've been subject to for years (not that I'm too bothered about time zones).

An observation: the "submit" button is currently invisible, unless one scrolls for it, being below the visible page. Perhaps if you got rid of some of the spaces? They don't seem to be doing anything useful.

Last edited by gwynfryn on 06 Jun 2025, 8:07 am, edited 1 time in total.

Many thanks to you, too, TwilightPrincess, I've no doubt they'll both prove useful, as I'm not at all sure how this Amazon zoning works. It would be so much easier if they just went by the language!

No matter; I can now spread the word, and hopefully help many to an improved quality of life in their twilight (oops) years (or at any age, really). It would help if you and others did so too, on other sites you visit.

No I'm not being greedy; I enjoy a comfortable pension, ample for my current council flat existence, so unless I make enough to buy a place of my own (which I very much doubt) this income will have little or no impact on my life style.

Well Ok, it's not important and won't affect operation - but the date/times of posts will be meaningless.

I think I might purchase a copy.

Best news I've heard for a long time, and very timely as I've just spent the best part of a day adding page and chapter numbers to the original, and it did my head in! I'm sure there's some automated way of making headers and page numbers match, but I've not found one. Happily, the original reads just as well without them!

My next session, will be for the french version (I'll charge them more; just as an experiment, of course) and I hope my enthusiasm will have improved by then.

Here's a rum do: The last thing I did on a recent visit to the Quora site, was to PM this book link to an acquaintance. Yesterday when trying to log in, i was informed I'd been barred! No reason was offered, so I can only speculate, and I can't think of any other thing that might have provoked this.

Could it be that trying to help seniors to get more out of life is now considered subversive?

It's another site where some comments of mine (usually with reference to General Relatiity) dissapeared into the aether, and when I enquired, I was informed it was just thread authors exercising their right to delete any responses, but why would individuals care about my views on this subject? It's not as if I'm the only one who thinks it's invalid!

The one genuine deletion, as described, was when I pointed out that the two heads of the biceps could be maximally exercised with a decline curl, contrary to his advice to "attack"(?) it from different angles (whatever that means; the muscles don't care) with multiple techniques. The things people get worked up about!

Just as things seemed to going smoothly and running my way, I once more visited the Doctissimo (health issues in general) site, and found my old ID and password didn’t work (which I may well have misremembered, as it’s been a long while) so I rejoined as gwynfryn3 (will they guess it’s the same me, do you think?).

The last time I logged in I rooted around for anything about weight loss and weight training, and found the usual dozen or so fancy regimes which boiled down to calorie reduction by one means of another (one needs a PhD to come up with something of that kind?) but freshened up by trendy labels.

Astonishingly, I found not a single mention of resistance training of any kind!

Many years have passed since I read an article in Time magazine about some American based diet “experts”, which suffered the same lack, prompting me to send an e mail, which got published (my moment of fame!) and unaltered, which I suspect is quite rare? These experts had noted that their victim’s metabolic set point falls while dieting, but didn’t recover afterwards. They were apparently unaware that this was determined largely by lean body mass!

At that time, I did opine that this may have been deliberate, to ensure their own prosperity, as ignoring the need to protect muscle would mean they’d never run out of clients. So what should we make of the fact that nothing has changed? Could my observations, printed in an internationally sold magazine have completely escaped the notice of this profession?

Here’s where it gets more worrying: Hoping to spread the word to boost sales of my book (showing what an unrepentant capitalist I am…) I also took another look at my old Alumni organization, and Seeking Alpha, hoping I could at least plant a few links, though SA refused to publish an article of mine. I tried to visit earlier today, only to find that my login information was invalid for each site! A coincidence, do you think?

I’m quite used to having my stuff messed around with on the web, no doubt due to my unfortunate habit of pointing it out when people make “misleading” statements, but why would such entities take offense of my suggesting a method of weight training suitable for the elderly?

There’s a deeper aspect of this which offers a more credible explanation; it’s Big Pharma ar work again, trying to ease the way for sales of more diet pills!

Nothing new here; ephedrine was proven effective in promoting fat burning (especially when taken with caffeine) and was thus banned, reportedly because it could be converted into amphetamines (another of those rare substances which boost fat burning, but I wouldn’t suggest you try this). Given how most ephedrine was fabricated, what’s to stop anyone sufficiently adept to make their own? As an excuse for banning ephedrine it’s unconvincing, to say the least! There ar many such examples of stuff being unjustifiably withdrawn, usually as their patents ran out. Why for example, are anabolic steroids no longer considered for strengthening old people? Sure, they have undesirable side effects when used excessively by bodybuilders, over decades,but why should that stop smaller short term doses being available for people trying to strengthen heart tissue,for example? After all, the kind of guys who mandate these restrictions never hesitate to slap on their (more dangerous) testosterone patches to supplement their Viagra!

So what is happening here? Could it be that those dietitians who proved too effective, by incorporating resistance exercises, have been “leaned on”, perhaps being reminded that their research grants aren’t guaranteed? Anyone of my experience knows such things happen, at all levels of life; for certain types, it’s a legitimate business tool. Inshort, all the actors here stand to gain something from discouraging errmm, I can’t use that word, apparently… maybe the “abundantly present” from actually getting off their duffs to work out.

Will they try to ban my book? That would mean reducing profit for Amazon too; it’ll be interesting to see how that turns out...