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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   2674 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for October 12, 2022

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

  • Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.

  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

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I saw this https://chadnauseam.com/random/semaglutide-has-changed-the-world/

Regarding semaglutide, it sounds promising, but it sounds too good to be true given the long history of weight loss solutions eventually falling short. These weight loss solutions or miracles always have a tenancy of losing effectiveness, either due to the body adapting, side effects, or changes in user behavior. If semaglutide can keep excess weight off for years , without losing effectiveness or too many bad side effects, it really would be a weight loss miracle cure.

Is it a terrible idea for me to move to Seattle?

This isn't an optimize-my-career question. I have ADD and trouble keeping my opinions to myself. I'm early 30's with an undergrad zoology degree, but I've wound up mostly selling phones and doing nightclub security on the side occasionally. I was living in Milwaukee when my heart got badly mutilated in october of 2019, and riiiight when I was starting to recover from that, COVID happened.

During COVID I fell in with an old friend who had been somewhat-similarly dispossessed, but it turned out later it was for a reason (they were both terrible). He and I wound up in a new social circle and his behavior became increasingly manic, unaccountable, and manipulative, and eventually, violent. It was probably classic Borderline Personality Disorder dirty-bomb self-destruction, but he did it all while being woke and black-ish, so he got away with way too much. I eventually won, but it was a pyrrhic victory.

I was so disgusted with the situation, and lockdowns still weren't over in chicago itself, I took an office job in the north woods. That turned out to not go great; I got downsized in september and the town I'm in is uniquely meth-y. Most of the people I see around me look diseased, physically or mentally or both. The dating pool is so garbage there should be warning signs posted.

But my younger brother lives in Seattle, Redmond, specifically. 4 years younger, we get along very well, he's a bit anxious and un-motivated. We play video games a lot together lately, I've talked to him about the idea, he likes it but acknowledges there's lots of logistical challenges.

Pros:

This way I don't have to start over in a new city from scratch. He and his wife have friends there, friends I got along with well enough at their wedding.

He's trying to lose weight, I've lost a lot of weight in the past and kept it off and could stand to lose more, I think us paling around would further that goal.

I enjoy outdoors stuff and nature stuff. The area has that. I'm actually something of a sentimental tree-hugger at heart; it's part of why I hate faddish climate activism so much.

Since the broken heart thing, I've stared dabbling in being a shadowrunner as part of my early-midlife-crisis. One thing that enchanted me about chicago was that it was possible to have a fun side-hustle playing at being a freelance professional henchman; I really did get "I'm putting some people together for a job" calls, I really did flip hot merchandise, I really did occasionally dress like I'd gotten lost on my way to a midnight showing of Blade 2. One problem (among many) with where I live right now is everyone is either an upstanding member of society, or a meth-head; there's no cool dirtbags.

Shrooms are decriminalized. I grow shrooms now recreationally (see above) and know how to build a customer base, in theory. If I want to get my shroom-dealing side hustle going on, seattle is technically the safest place to do it.

I'll have someone there that I love and trust.

Cons:

I don't think there's much wokeness in my brother's circles, but if my goal is to stay away from wokeness, why am I moving to the west coast?

I don't want to put an unfair emotional or logistical burden on my brother (and his wife).

I don't have a career, I'd be living in an expensive city with no guarantee'd "significant" income, making me kinda out-of-place among a bunch of microsoft employees.

(I don't know enough about the area to come up with more-specific Cons. Thus the posting in the thread)

IF you plan to stay long-term and can afford to buy a home, I would move to an expensive area due to the home appreciation, walkability, and other benefits.

...Why would I buy a home at the height of a real-estate bubble? Especially when I mention that I mostly sold phones up until COVID?

You will be living in one of the top 5 most expensive cities in the United States. The floor for rent for a studio is $1500 and is still rising rapidly. The average restaurant meal for one is $20.

People in this area are very reserved and having a social life is harder. Being open to strangers is hard when there’s a high likelihood you end up engaging with a hostile insane person.

Wokeness is the least of your problems if you move to the Seattle area without a 100k job.

Redmond in particular is pretty boring if you’re used to the big city. Having access to the top tier trails in Washington is cool though. If I lived in Redmond I would hike all the time.

Is there somewhere within 20 minutes of Redmond that's particularly cheap and un-pretentious?

I'm not used to the big city, at this point, I'm used to the countryside. I just want to be somewhere that unattached women age 28-35 exist, where I can have a conversation that doesn't bore me to death, and I have pre-existing family to lean on socially. My plan is to get a quality D&D game going, and use that to network my way into selling psychedelic fungi to corpos. There's a sizable number of aspiring players but not enough DMs, and these are exactly the sorts of people who make ideal customers for shrooms. Festival kids and wooks are tiresome flakes, and overly-paranoid.

Is there somewhere within 20 minutes of Redmond that's particularly cheap and un-pretentious?

Redmond area is where Microsoft people live so it's going to be pretty expensive. To the south you can find cheaper housing in suburbs like Newcastle and Kent, and South Seattle is an option if you need to be closer to people who buy drugs but it's an awful and expensive place to live. None of these places really qualify as Big City despite the Big City prices. The closest Big City is Bellevue which is really more like a wealthy suburb with a small central zone inexplicably packed with skyscrapers, asian people and shitty overpriced restaurants.

As for dating, all I can say is that the Seattle Freeze is real. If you're on apps you're basically competing with tech worker salaries so you'll have to figure out where all the broke bitches at.

When I visited it didn't seem nearly so desolate. Can you describe Chicago? That way I can calibrate your analysis against mine.

I've never been to Chicago. I was comparing Bellevue and Redmond to Seattle proper.

First, the good news: Have made a number of concurrent improvements in my life over the past ~3 months. Went to gym or pool almost every day since late July. Cut way back on carbs, sugar, drinking. Dropped 25 pounds, BMI has gone from obese to merely overweight (goal is to lose another 25 and get ratio down to "normal" by April). Deleted Twitter, Facebook and YouTube from phone, with hard-to-quantify but palpable benefits for calm and focus.

All well and good. If anything it's seemed too easy at my age. What I could use advice on is how to sustain it. Work is likely to get more stressful in the coming weeks. Soon the weather will be colder outside and the sky will get darker earlier in the day. Put all these things together, and the temptation to backslide into bad habits (indulging in "comfort" food, self-medicating with beer, skipping the gym "just for today") is liable to rear its head. Suggestions to keep the momentum going?

More granularly -- any recommendations for inexpensive CGMs (Levels looks awesome but well out of my budget)? And any advice on trying intermittent fasting -- e.g. the relative merits of "16/8" vs "5/2"?

The one lifehack I can share, assuming it's real and not woo, is I've started developing a taste for apple cider vinegar, which supposedly is good for weight loss. I mix 1 tbsp into my (plain Greek) yogurt in the morning. An acquired taste, but it's growing on me. May start using it as salad dressing soon. Also finding soup is a great way to fill up at meals without overeating.

Thanks all....

Congratulations. -25lbs in 3 months is impressive progress. Don’t be disappointed if you can’t achieve that again.

I’m also looking for ways to not slip into hibernation mode in the cold winter.

oh shit it's Friday not Wednesday... sorry.

I'll be in a country where all ADHD medication and stimulant drugs are extremely illegal, so I'll probably start smoking again to manage my spaz brain. Can't vape because nicotine juice is banned too. Any recommendations on cigs or patches?

Also, please share your experience if you've ever self medicated with nicotine or caffeine.

Which moronic country is this that bans vape juices? Singapore?

Okay seems there are quite a few moronic countries. Latin America and South East Asia seems to have a problem with vapes. Big lol on Latin America (the cartels probably can't profit off vapes, half kidding) and SEA seems to be in character (children smoking is a major problem in Indonesia but I suppose thats less bad than vaping).

As for cigarettes, If you are in SEA consider trying out 'Kreteks' they are Indonesian cigarettes with cloves in them. The flavor is excellent. Sampoerna is my preferred brand.

If you are in Latin America, you can self medicate using other drugs. [Or don't, you don't want to get involved with the cartels]

Which moronic country is this that bans vape juices? Singapore?

Canada is increasingly moving in that direction -- more like "moronic government" than moronic country as hardly anyone (other than vapers) gives a shit, but I'll bet the FDA would be doing similar things if they weren't otherwise occupied.

If you're in on smoking, have you considered delivery other than cigarettes? Cigarettes are much faster, but cigars are much more pleasant and give one hell of a kick of nicotine.

As far as cigarettes go, I like menthols. The FDA is proposing a ban on them in the United States, so smoke 'em while you can, I guess.

This post raised a few interesting points for me.

  • Despite being online for many years at this point, I don't think I've ever seen a cigarette recommendation thread.

  • Nor do I ever hear people talking about the different brands and their properties. Not even smokers. People have serious preferences about Coors vs. Miller etc., and will discuss them, but I'm not sure that's the case with cigarettes.

  • I realize I actually don't have much of a vocabulary to discuss the nature of different cigarettes with. I would be really curious to know if people had better ways of talking about them 60 or 80 years ago.

Anyway, here's what I can remember:

  • Pall Mall: Seriously offensive and nasty. If somehow this is all they have, go to another store.

  • L&M: Just barely acceptable.

  • Chesterfield: Probably the best really cheap cigarette. They taste fine, but they burn very quickly, you don't get a lot out of one.

  • Parliament: Pretty harsh. The recessed filter doesn't do anything and you will quickly cease to notice it. Too expensive for what they are but I guess they do look cool.

  • Camel (Red): The best cigarette. Once I found these I stopped buying other ones. This is probably what most people do, they find the one they like and they stop shopping around. But what if there's a better one out there?

  • Camel (Blue): Doesn't taste or feel like anything. I would extend that to pretty much all light cigarettes. I suppose that's what some people are going for.

Unfortunately I can't report on the self-medication aspect. I just like stimulants.

People have serious preferences about Coors vs. Miller etc.

Which always strikes me as pretty weird, given how similar American adjunct lagers when considering their place in the overall beer spectrum. I'm not here to take shots at the style and I do have my own favorite of the bunch (PBR), but they're sufficiently similar that I'm confused by people that straight up won't drink one of them. I guess it's more about developing brand identity than anything specific to the flavor.

It didn't strike me as weird until they started putting cigarettes in featureless boxes and I saw that very few people really gave a shit what brand you smoked unless it was menthol or white ox (for the unfamiliar, it has a distinctive taste and odour that isn't that much worse than normal cigarettes, but is also the brand of choice of convicts, with associated social stigma) or one of those cheap Chinese brands that smell like an electrical fire in a peat bog. I know some people who are obsessed with status, and they still smoke benson and hedges or marlboros, but most people switched to something like chesterfields or parker and simpson to save $10.

I questioned a lot of the branded products I bought after that - does pepsi Max really taste better to me than coke zero or la ice or store-brand cola? (yes) Is xxxx gold any different to vb or coors it heineken? (nope) Do I have any appreciation for the expensive pour over coffee bags my brother sent me from the States over my breville dripper and a $5 bag of grounds? (nope). It's a good thing to do, I managed to cut about 15% out of my grocery budget with it, but I was pretty alarmed at how easily I had been led to believe branding was important.

Doesn't taste or feel like anything. I would extend that to pretty much all light cigarettes. I suppose that's what some people are going for.

Is this what they call Silvers these days? Because Silvers were the best of the lights. And the reason you go with the lights is after the first time you get drunk and kill a pack of cowboy killers in four hours and viscerally feel the damage you're doing to your chest.

I disliked light cigarettes I tried because it felt like the only reason they were “light” was because the filter was too hard to draw from.

Am I supposed to feel good after exercise?

People say things like "Every time I run I feel like anxiety doesn’t exist for awhile and just feel good." or "Does anyone know exactly why it feels so fucking good to lift heavy shit above your head?? I have never felt anything like it in a gym. It is THE MOST addicting feeling I’ve possibly ever had." both quotes from random reddit comments.

I've tried both running and weight lifting in the past, and never got a huge positive psychological effect. Mostly I just feel slightly content, or just plain tired. Do some people just not have a strong positive response?

I feel much better during months when I'm exercising a lot than during months when I'm not. Less tired overall, even accounting for the more-tired periods right after a workout. But that's a long-term effect, takes a week or two to kick in when my exercise schedule changes.

I feel mildly good showering off the sweat after cardio, and mildly good in general after weightlifting, but never any feeling strong enough for the possibility of it being addictive to cross my mind.

I don't feel anything from lifting or running or swimming, but I do from high intensity whole body activity shit.

Like, running just makes me tired and grumpy but doing heavy bag sprints or rock climbing at high intensity does give me a tingle.

Running is a chore for me but I still do it to warm up. But weights feel really really good for me, even while I'm doing them (Maybe I'm not doing enough?). Afterwards, I feel really good and accomplished. I even feel more attractive afterwards (like, my face), my guess is a brain chemical tricking me. As another poster mentioned, I kind of enjoy DOMS, although the very first week I ever went to the gym, the soreness was a little too much.

I find myself somewhat enjoying the sensation of DOMS after lifting. The mild pain reminds me that I did at least one constructive thing yesterday.

The actual process of exercising is just painful and unpleasant. I have never experienced “The Pump” the way Arnie talks about though. I wish lifting was an orgasmic experience.

I have the same experience. Exercise actually makes me feel very anxious, but I still do it every day. It's just a totally sucky thing that I have to get through.

I do it because I want to continue to be able to do everything else in my life for a good long time.

I feel good but also way more irritable and annoyed after doing cardio. Kind of a weird mix of feelings

Lifting on the other hand makes me feel really good only for the first few weeks, then the feeling stops or is only very mild.

Yep. Never got a genuine good feeling out of plain exercise (running, lifting etc). I just treat those things as a good time to listen a podcast episode and get my actual physical enjoyment from more competitive sports. Used to be club volleyball, lately I got into fighting sports. The joy of outplaying an opponent in a ball sport and getting celebrated for it or just plain landing some good punches and dominating a sparring partner is quite amazing.

Do some people just not have a strong positive response?

Yes. I've spent my childhood and youth hating physical exercise. Today when I go to the gym I don't get a lifter's high either. What I do get is a sense of accomplishment: the goal is in front of you, you don't need to manage other people to achieve it and you reach it in minutes.

I don't know, I'm a pretty obsessive runner and love the sport, but I don't really get the same feelings that other people describe with any regularity. I can definitely get into a meditative state, but I usually don't. I do occasionally feel the classic runners high, but I usually don't. I pretty much never suffer from the "running sucks" sort of thing that a lot of people seem to experience. The main thing I'm addicted to is the satisfaction of building and improving, especially when it's validated with actual race performance. To that end, I love hard workouts that require discipline and fitness, but not because I actually enjoy the workout - it's the satisfaction of a job well done.

Lifting always just feels like a chore that I should do. I don't mind it, I know it's very good for me, so I make sure to fit it in, but I feel nothing about it emotionally.

When I started, I got nothing out of it for quite a while other than sore. Over the course of several months as I kept lifting and running and got healthier there were substantial psychological benefits (my anxiety has been gone for years now), but it wasn't until I was really pushing myself and seeing continuous week-over-week improvements to stamina, strength, and the scale that it became an activity that felt great and that I craved more of. It may be that you need to see some results before you get those psychological benefits, or it may just be that you're not pushing yourself hard enough to get a runner's high.

Best of luck, and keep at it.

Hay bales were only 130lb instead of 140 this year, and the load was only 50 ton, but they felt heavier than last time. Hopefully just lingering effects of that flu, but I obviously need to get back in better shape.

Also hopefully not totally knackered tomorrow; never been able to keep proper lifting form with this stuff.

Back in my day, we were skinny kids that got tired from hucking around little two-string bales.

Man, I feel like "light" bales are the worst because people expect you to throw them around so casually all day. At least with 3-string nobody makes fun of you for rolling them up the stack lol.

How long (generally) are you contagious with a cold or flu? I just came down sick yesterday and was thinking of maybe trying to sleep on the couch so I don't get my wife sick at night. But if I do that, I'd like to know when I'm no longer contagious and can stop worrying.

My kid's school nurse informed me that they are back to "24 hours after the fever ends". You can probably be marginally less careful than that.

Symptoms ∝ contagiousness, is a good enough heuristic. Despite what the entire medical apparatus propagandized over the last two years.

I wrote before on Reddit on the WW threads about negative thoughts and lifting (under a different username). I thought I might continue here.

I have switched to 5/3/1 programming over the past few months. First doing Original, then Forever-style programming last month. I haven't really progressed at all though. It's been very difficult for me to gain weight. Since starting my new job, I have eaten more than ever in my life, but weight gain is still very slow - I have ramped up from eating about 3000 calories a day at the start of June to over 4500 now and only have 2kg to show for it. I still freak out every time my scale gives a lower number, and I am still paranoid about not gaining any muscle. Over the past month I got frustrated with the lack of progress on 5/3/1 and decided to push it a bit further. I am now doing FSL for supplemental work and have cut out rest days nearly entirely so I'm in the gym every day. This is basically the opposite of what Wendler counsels... but I'd rather err on the side of doing too much than doing too little.

I think we generally need a bit more data to tell you anything substantial, like experience (you mention five years downthread), bar weight, and your size. Depending on your experience and the weight you can lift the advice can change pretty drastically. Newer lifters (read: squatting <225lbs) can put on 2lbs of muscle a month, whereas experienced lifters (read: squatting >300lbs) will be able to put on maybe a quarter of that mass if they are lucky. Be patient with yourself and focus on the basics: form, diet, and consistency. What I have to say here you may already know, but might be helpful to anyone reading so I'll say it anyway:

I have ramped up from eating about 3000 calories a day at the start of June to over 4500 now and only have 2kg to show for it.

First make sure you are consistently getting enough protein. About 50 grams per meal is the max you can metabolize for muscle gain (or, at least, that's the number I keep hearing Peter Attia throw out, ymmv), so be eating protein throughout the day. For those that don't the bare minimum is 0.8g / 1kg, so for myself at a little more than 100kg I need at least 80 grams per day. I've heard that actually hitting somewhere near 1.2g / 1kg saturates better. Good protein sources are best found in animal products, which have nearly all of the necessary amino acids your body needs. Whey protein is a good supplement, but iirc it lacks some key amino acids that you need so be sure to eat a variety of sources to saturate your body's requirements.

Also, don't do any weird, crazy diets. You can avoid processed foods, but be sure to eat a decent amount of fruits and vegetables. The sugars give your muscles the extra zing they need to really push past plateaus and lift heavier over time. A balanced diet of good, unprocessed foods will probably improve your PR by some reasonable margin (5-10%). Also, Creatine works wonders if you aren't using it. 5g a day will improve your power by 10% across the board with zero drawbacks or downsides. If you are new to Creatine, overload it for the first week (20g/day) to really saturate your muscles, and then drop down to 5g a day for an easy increase in strength. Anything else outside of this is a fad and probably wont work (outside anabolic steroids), so the rest is built in the gym.

I am now doing FSL for supplemental work and have cut out rest days nearly entirely so I'm in the gym every day.

I think this is a bad idea. On top of hitting all your macro and micro nutrients, your body needs plenty of good rest to repair, rebuild, and replenish the proteins expended during your workout. The purpose of rest is to allow your body to make the necessary improvements to your musculature, which takes time and sleep. While it is technically locational (doing arms won't improve legs by much if at all) it does take time. This process is also different for stronger lifters, as the more stressful weights take a longer time to recover from. Because powerlifting routines rely on constantly increasing the weight and lifting as close to max as possible as much as possible, you need to give your body the necessary time between sessions. That said, active rest > sedentary rest, so cut back on off days and lift really heavy during your on days.

Out of curiosity, what were you doing before 5/3/1? I do essentially the same thing at the gym but a 5x5 focused around squats. What I read about 5/3/1 is that it does the main powerlifts (DL,SQ,BP) with added mili press. You might want to consider adding a row in to your movements, like a barbell row or something to hit your upper back a little bit.

Also, in regards to volume, if you really feel the need to be moving throughout the week then just do calisthenics during rest days. Heavy weights trigger muscle growth, but training body weight exercise over a wide range of motions can really help improve general fitness and even help with recovery through increased blood flow. Capillarization is also a really useful bonus that volume at lower weights can provide, where capillaries grow and expand within your musculature improving blood flow and giving your muscles better endurance and recovery. If you have specific weight/fitness goals it would be pretty helpful to have them in specifics so that we can help you figure out your path to get there.

Lifting about five years - started with the popular Reddit PPL, tried NSuns, messed around with PPL-style programming, didn't really train over lockdown, did Jeff Nippard's Upper-Lower split when I came back, started 5/3/1 in spring of this year. Started with original 5/3/1 with BBB sets, then did a 5/3/1 Forever mesocycle with BBB sets.

Currently my highest lifts are four reps with 100kg on bench press (which I did a few months ago), 155kg on back squat (again, done a few months ago before I started getting back pain) and 190kg on deadlift (done about three years ago). I currently weigh about 84kg, up from about 77kg this time last year.

Yes, I eat lots of protein. Not hard when you eat over 4500 calories. I don't track it but when I do it is normally about 250 grams or more which should be more than enough since most recommendations go up to 2.2g/kg. Admittedly I do eat a fair amount of processed foods, I'm not much of a cook and I don't really know how to make or grow things from scratch and I often have to eat out when I'm working. Honestly I don't understand what people are getting at when they criticize processed foods. Lots of people have gained weight and muscle drinking milk, eating pizza, and using processed supplements like whey protein and creatine (which you yourself recommend). I don't believe it's somehow necessary to cut all those things out of a diet. You're also wrong about whey protein - it has a complete amino acid profile.

Because powerlifting routines rely on constantly increasing the weight and lifting as close to max as possible as much as possible, you need to give your body the necessary time between sessions.

5/3/1 isn't a powerlifting program and I'm not really interested in powerlifting.

What I read about 5/3/1 is that it does the main powerlifts (DL,SQ,BP) with added mili press. You might want to consider adding a row in to your movements, like a barbell row or something to hit your upper back a little bit.

5/3/1 has assistance work, and I do some sort of row or pulldown variation every day, including barbell rows on press day.

Also, in regards to volume, if you really feel the need to be moving throughout the week then just do calisthenics during rest days.

Sometimes in the evenings I go for a run and do some pullups/burpees/dips in an outdoor gym. I'm not that consistent about it, I need to fit it around my schedule, but I usually aim for going twice or three times a week.

I think this is a bad idea. On top of hitting all your macro and micro nutrients, your body needs plenty of good rest to repair, rebuild, and replenish the proteins expended during your workout.

Well, in the past when I've trained with rest days, I didn't get any stronger. I've read the best thing to do in that case is to train harder or with more volume or great frequency, so I chose greater frequency.

I've been lifting for 8 years now and one of the biggest mistakes I see people make is having the wrong mindset. They think they signed up for a sprint when in actuality its a marathon. My suggestion without even reading further simply going by my priors is, "lift for a bit longer and then come back".

So you are not gaining any "weight".

  1. Looking at your weight over a short timeframe is a bad idea because;

    • It varies based on waterweight.

    • You can't delineate muscle gain/loss with fat gain/loss.

    It's a low resolution way to check if you are making progress.

  2. Check your calorie intake. And fix this. Looks like you have this covered.

  3. Are you lifting more weight (or more reps, or shorter rest) ? If you are not getting stronger, your muscles will not get bigger, regardless of calorie intake.

  4. Are the other variables in check? Adequate sleep? Adequate PROTEIN?, etc? Control for all the variables otherwise your conclusion will be useless.

  5. Wildcard: Are your hormones in check? Failing to put on muscle despite tremendous effort might be a symptom of low testosterone.

Well, I've been lifting for about five years and I'm still pretty weak. And I think I am gaining weight again now that I am eating more calories. I don't know if I'm necessarily stronger. Obviously switching from lifting four or five days a week to seven days a week is going to reduce how hard I can push when I am in the gym. My current 5/3/1 template doesn't program AMRAPs for the leader cycles, I'm using 5's Progression instead.

I eat plenty of protein, and though my sleep isn't perfect, I think very few people have perfect sleep. I also have had my testosterone tested and though it was below-average it was still above what people describe as the low range.

How has your progression been through these years with PRs for the main lifts? That is a very long time. Much longer than I have been lifting (with bad discipline and a lot of lockdown induced breaks) in fact and I have seen some pretty decent gains in this period. But the visible gains came much later and were smaller than how much I was progressing with the number on the bar.

I describe my lifts and progression here. Admittedly I didn't really train at all over lockdown, which adds up to maybe a year out of the gym with two months in October 2020 where I was in the gym (which was actually a pretty good two months of training).

If you have been lifting for 5 years its likely that you might have hit your genetic limit, or physical (current level of sleep,nutrition, hormone) limit.

Do you have a time delineated data of your lifts? If the plots look logarithmic, then you probably hit some limit. What makes you believe that you can possibly get stronger?

I think it's highly unlikely that I am anywhere near a genetic ceiling, and if I was that would be extremely depressing. In any case lots of people continue to gain muscle and strength after five years.

You are not giving us much to work with.

What are you numbers and what does the progression look like? What are the variables you tried changing, etc.

I described my numbers and lack of progress here

Currently my highest lifts are four reps with 100kg on bench press (which I did a few months ago), 155kg on back squat (again, done a few months ago before I started getting back pain) and 190kg on deadlift (done about three years ago). I currently weigh about 84kg, up from about 77kg this time last year.

These numbers are totally plausible for genetic limits to be of concern (That's not an insult, these are good numbers). I would say the median male would achieve these numbers after 4-5 years of lifting. So there is a 50% chance that these are the highest numbers you will achieve.

These numbers are in the 40-50th percentile., of serious lifters. I'm quoting the 83kg weight class.

My question is what makes you think you can lift more than this? Compare yourself to the average lifter not people on youtube and instagram.

Because from what you are saying all the other variables minus hormones seem to be controlled for. Only hormones and genetics are left.

With these numbers, assuming all else is in order. If your progression has been logarithmic over time, you probably hit your genetic limits. If its been linear, there is more room to grow.

Which is the reason I am saying that its hard to answer without knowing what the trend of your progress looks like.

Adequate sleep?

Really impossible to overstate the value here in general across a ridiculous number of dimensions. Strength, cardiovascular fitness, mental health, mental sharpness, digestive health. Just everything works better with good sleep. People have different patterns, so there's no one formula, but I am absolutely only operating at my best if I'm going to bed early enough that I wake up at dawn without an alarm. If you're not waking at sunbreak, it may well be time to check on what's going on.

You talk about the numbers on the scale, what about the number on the bar? Are they going up?

Also, anecdotally, if weight gain is the goal, I've been running super squats the last few weeks. In six weeks I've put on 12-15lbs, without trying at all. No really serious changes in diet, just lifting different. My weight has held steady between 185 add 195 for years, six weeks of 20 rep squats and heavy pullovers and I'm much bigger.

I'm not sure. My current 5/3/1 template uses 5's Progression, not AMRAP sets. I will start doing AMRAPs again soon when I start the anchor cycle. I have considered Super Squats. Right now I'm avoiding back squats due to lower back pain and doing front squats instead. But I don't know how different it would be. My current program already has me doing FSL Widowmakers, where I use rest-pause to always hit 20 reps, so if this fails I don't really know what to do.

If the numbers on the bar aren't going up, there's something wrong with how you're doing it. Either some form of "overtraining" and lacking adequate recovery or too low intensity/fuckarounditis; or some deeper hormonal/stress/diet.

Well, like I said, I don't know if this current training cycle is working until I finish it. I agree there is something wrong if I do not progress, and that makes me anxious because I don't know what that is. I would assume it's not overtraining but undertraining, and that I just need to add more volume and intensity. I don't know if the problem is fuckarounditis. What would that mean? That I should just continue to do something that doesn't work?

I don't know if the problem is fuckarounditis. What would that mean? That I should just continue to do something that doesn't work?

The opposite. I would define fuckarounditis in themotte-ish terms as getting stuck in a training cul-de-sac where you're working out fairly hard, but the stimuli aren't sufficiently novel and your recovery isn't good enough to progress, so you're just doing the same thing over and over, and it's hard and it feels subjectively like a good workout, but your body isn't replying by building new adaptations to it, so you keep doing the same things a little harder, but never break out of the stimulus-recovery equilibrium you're in. So for me that was the year I was 23, when I'd been lifting a little bit, and I got really into a bastardized version of Bulgarian daily max training advocated by Chris Thibadeau (Sp?). I cringe at myself writing this. I'd go into the gym most days and hit a daily 3rm ramp in the push press or the snatch grip high pull or the power snatch or the front squat, followed by some more rep work, and the smallest amount of assistance. It was SO FUN, because every day I was trying to put a big weight up doing lifts I really loved, but my maxes barely moved for like a year, because the equation of novel stimulus and adequate nutrition and recovery was in a stasis (grad school played a role in the bad nutrition/recovery). I needed something new to break out of it, getting into rock climbing actually increased my deadlift and squat and helped me hit my first bodyweight snatch within a month when I returned to lifting.

I'm about to drop some serious bro-evolutionary-science here, but the way I think about it, if you do a big workout and then you eat a big meal and sit around, your body "interprets" that as killing a big animal in a successful hunt and then hanging around eating it. And your hormonal system says, great lets build muscle so we can do that again but even easier and better, then we'll get to sit around and eat for a bit. So high intensity followed by adequate rest. From a novel stimulus, if you can already do that your body isn't going to respond by building expensive adaptations. Westside does novel stimulus by constantly varying minute styles of three basic lifts, Crossfit does it by constantly varying exercises performed. Rest and recovery you already know what you need.

I have tried different things, and my current training where I train every day is different from what I've done before - before I was training four or five days a week, and now I am doing seven days a week. But I'm also unconvinced. Lots of people go into the gym and progress just by adding weight to the same lifts every week, and progress far beyond where I am now.

Well hope you find a solution, gave my guess

I'm sorry you feel like your advice is wasted. You're probably right. From what I read getting big and strong isn't about finding One Neat Trick, it's about working hard... So if I'm failing it's just because I'm lazy and need to work harder. I do want to do super squats, but I don't know if it will make any difference. What matters is hard work and effort, not programming.

More comments

As a running hobbyist, I've wanted to be able to run more, run faster, and run healthier. I picked up running in my mid-20s, was pretty decent within a couple years (3:08 marathon about 18 months after I'd run my first half marathon), but my progress stalled out not much later and my marathon PR is one that I ran back in 2015. In my late 30s, I figure that if I want to accomplish some of the fitness goals I have, I need to put some serious effort into them and I'm fortunate enough to be in a financial position where I can finally take some time for myself to do that. To that end, I left my software job in August with the intention of taking a few months away to focus on my fitness and some optimization projects for a small business that I co-own.

After 7 weeks away from my old job, I can happily report that this mission has so far been as successful as I could reasonably hope for. I set a new personal high for miles in a week by capping a 76 mile training week with 20 miles at a 7:03 pace. I ran a PR for a 5-mile race last weekend, my first PR since 2019. I'm on track to run 80 miles this week. I'm lifting weights more frequently than I have in years. I've been able to complete projects around the house that I'd been procrastinating on, keep things cleaner than I ever have, and cook for my wife and I most days. I've learned more about my business and have continued to increase profits there. Basically, everything's just going great at the moment.

I would strongly recommend this sort of refresh and reboot to anyone that's in the position to take it. This is the longest time I've taken away from working in about two decades and I don't think it would have even occurred to me to try it out if I hadn't seen some successful friends and family step away from the workforce for awhile before returning. We don't have to be in always-on mode, especially if your job is just a source of money rather than your identity.

This may be an annoyingly vague question, but is there any consensus in the running/fitness world as to what the 'minimum viable distance' per week for running is, in terms of improved mood, better sleep and other health benefits?

At the moment I'm managing to fit in around 3km on a treadmill 2-3 times per week after my resistance workout, and I'm wondering if this is enough.

Unfortunately, I have no idea. I would tend to think it's going to be so individual that it's hard to sort out and I don't think there's anything special about running relative to other cardio-intensive sports. I guess I'd just keep doing more until I felt like I was getting what I wanted!

That's so awesome. I hope one day to be able to do similar. Hopefully before I'm too old to make use of it.

Does anyone here have any experience with psychiatric drugs like ambien, prozac and axepta with viviloref. My skin doctor makes me consume finasteride, fish oil and biokap for my hair (I have decent hair but was thinning, the thinning has stopped now so I am glad I took action on this soon as now I will not lose hair). Obviously minoxidil plus fin solution twice a day too.

The main aim this week is to keep both my workout and study journal handy and update them honestly daily. Ambien does cause some issues but imo is it more of my fault as I take it at different times and hence also have little consistency with my axepta and prozac (take both in the morning).

Anyway, will refrain from long rants. Measured my 1rpm today and shall begin 531 from tomorrow. I still have urges to not study, be lazy, surf the internet all day or to check the ig of my oneitis but at least I do something daily. Tracking it would give me more accountability so should be a good exercise. That way I can pinpoint what causes inconsistency and modify that behavior.

Obviously there is some pent up frustration within me. I have a lot of advantages over a lot of my peers simply because I have competent people irl guiding me, I still feel bad at times about my oneitis. I hate grinding, being alone and having to work but on the other hand, this is what makes you aryan. Life will always have these issues and running away never helps with that. I just needed to vent that. I do not tell my friends about that girl, it is kinda silly but I do not want to lie, at least not on the only place where I can be honest.

The greeks worked out not just because it made you look better and higher class but also it makes you better on the inside, the main reward hence is the betterment of who you are. Physical culture makes you better inside with the muscles just being a side effect of a better mind. This may also be why even today, Greek or roman sculptures are more pleasing to the human eye than anything else, Not only can you look like them (the later stages did see the statues getting exaggerated to a point of absurdity) but they also showcase bodies that are capable and I genuinely find that appealing. All my mockery or low thoughts about others get washed away after I take an objective look at my own performance after a hard day in either of these two.

You have to get used to pain and learn to develop an instinct for finishing tasks, I would justify stuff by telling myself that since I am trying my best, I do not need to track things as the day to day inconsistency would make me feel bad. Progress however is consistently positive and tracking helps you visualize that. If you track things, you know if you are failing or not, there is no vagueness to it, an objective review of three months of daily review will take one further than working till you cannot anymore without tracking.

Definitely learnt this and the part about having a killer instinct the hard way. A good person or rather those who do well get disproportionally more for just being slightly ahead of those behind them, similarly, doing slightly more work each day so that you actually hit targets does more than just leaving something at 90 percent. You get 100 percent rewards at 100 percent and 0 at 90. Sure it is good practice to do 90 over 0 but at this point, I should be able to know what realistic goals are, what my daily and weekly work capacity is and how much I can expect to improve.

I am glad that I know this now lol. Just writing it down since I will read this post later in the future to look back on the time when I started tracking things. It takes one action to have massive impact on you, visiting a decent club did more for me than many months of reading or texting so I expect much from tracking stuff transparently and consistently.

Have a great week!

I think Psilocybin mushrooms work well as a "Have you tried turning it off and on again?"-style solution to mental problems. (no, it won't fix everything, especially not just doing it over and over, but it's worth starting with [before you call IT support], and something you should probably do once every couple months anyways).

  1. The novelty and adversity of a mild trip is enough to give you that sense of crisis you need to begin crawling out of your depression pit.

  2. This is going further out on a limb, but I think they give you a smidge of the ole' neuroplasticity; not enough to learn five new languages, but enough to notice you're being a sad-sack.

Do you think I'm sad? Or am I sad for real or what? Because I am on Prozac right now so can't tell.

I don't know your adhd drugs (I was only ever on adderall), but I am absolutely blown away by your motivation and drive given you are taking prozac and ambien. It also sounds like you don't need them any more, and I think you would have a much easier time bettering yourself without them.

I don't like anti depressants or anti anxiety meds, but it is more about the way they are pushed than their actual efficacy - to many doctors it seems, prozac and ambien are now a part of your life, as necessary as water and sleep. But they don't help you to better yourself - they make you feel better when you are depressed, but when you are depressed you are so low that you can't be normal.

The way I look at it, they cut off access to the utter depths of misery you have been feeling, but they do so by lopping off the ends of your emotional range - so the lowest you can feel is a general pervasive sense of 'fuck everything' (which is much better than 'fuck everything but especially me, God send a semi-trailer to this red light so I can climb out of my car and put my head under a wheel') but the highest you can feel is also neutered. And because you are depressed you don't even notice it - it's better than the low isn't it?

And yes, it absolutely is better than the low, but you are past that now, you beyond just trying to make it through the day without breaking down or worse, and you are trying to better yourself. And from the way you talk about time, this is a long term project, I don't think this is just a temporary high. So at this point, I think you should talk to your doctor about dropping the ambien and prozac. There are cleaner and more enjoyable ways to quieten the never ending cacophony of modern life, namely alcohol and weed. Which have their own problems, absolutely, but come with the additional benefit of not being controlled by the pharmaceutical industry.

There is also the substance free approach, but it is a lot harder, and I think it takes a particular mindset to get by exclusively on the warmth of self righteousness. At any rate, even a step down the pharma ladder would help you I think - I assume you have trouble sleeping, but it's hard to think of anything outside of xanax that is harder on your body and mind than ambien. That shit fucks you up in ways you don't even notice. Even valium is better for you I reckon. If you don't feel ready to stop taking them that's fair enough - you know what you can handle, but please consider it, as it will definitely help you improve yourself.

I have been on it for three months now and it does help quite a bit. I will do as the psychiatrist says. I tell him what i feel and he gives me prescriptions. The prozac is more for my adhd than anything as I am not someone who is very depressed.

but I am absolutely blown away by your motivation and drive given you are taking prozac and ambien

lol thanks pal, I got super lucky in life and will fucking kill myself to get better. The only way I can be a good devotee is by good actions, if by next year, same time, I have all that I want or rather have genuinely done all that I can, then maybe I think I would be worthy of any praise, not till then. People go through much worse than me and still succeed, I can do that too.

Oh yeah man, I'm not saying listen to me over your doctors lol. But I didn't think I was giving you any praise, more just encouragement.

If you want to look at it as praise though, it's still for something you have definitely done, something you have handled better than others, but more importantly it is something you have done to improve your life. You deserve praise for that, because it is literally the hardest thing a depressed person can do. For it was said: it is easier for a depressed person to jam a camel up their dickhole than to decide they are going to do anything to stop being depressed.

The biggest issue with that level of scrupulosity though, is that it gives you a reason to give up when you fail. You fail and you think to yourself "of course I failed, I'm a failure, I fuck up everything and never do anything right even though I have it so much better than others, I shouldn't have tried in the first place."

If you are in a place where any praise feels like a lie and just makes you hate yourself more I apologise (and I did mean it as encouragement), but it is something you are going to have to get used to now you are on your way out. Whatever happens, don't let it become an excuse.

If you want to look at it as praise though, it's still for something you have definitely done, something you have handled better than others, but more importantly it is something you have done to improve your life. You deserve praise for that, because it is literally the hardest thing a depressed person can do. For it was said: it is easier for a depressed person to jam a camel up their dickhole than to decide they are going to do anything to stop being depressed.

Thanks a ton man. They say that a crackhead would rather spend 20 years in misery than 3 weeks in hell and maybe something similar can be said for those with depression. A lot of it is genetic but I am responsible for a lot of my issues, I just do not know. At this point I do not know what will help.

The biggest issue with that level of scrupulosity though, is that it gives you a reason to give up when you fail. You fail and you think to yourself "of course I failed, I'm a failure, I fuck up everything and never do anything right even though I have it so much better than others, I shouldn't have tried in the first place.

But I have only failed all my life.

If you are in a place where any praise feels like a lie and just makes you hate yourself more I apologise (and I did mean it as encouragement), but it is something you are going to have to get used to now you are on your way out. Whatever happens, don't let it become an excuse.

Yeah, actions lead to actions, excuses lead to excuses, each have their own momentum.

A lot of it is genetic but I am responsible for a lot of my issues, I just do not know. At this point I do not know what will help.

What you are doing will help. Genetics is why I don't think you should use privilege as a metric for success. From the outside, it can pretty objectively be said you have it better than some, and worse than others. You weren't born to addicts, or in a mud hut in Africa, so you have it better than them, for sure. From an outside view. But you don't get to live outside yourself, and on that plane we are all equal. We all have to live the lives we have, and they are exactly as hard and easy as they are. The idea that someone else in your position could have done better is false - they didn't have the same genes as you, or the same parents, or the same traumatic and triumphant experiences. If they did, they would have done exactly the same as you - otherwise they weren't in the same position.

My biggest objection to thinking like this is that it sounds like cope. What a philosophy, you have absolved yourself of all your fuck ups, and of any need to take responsibility for your actions and their consequences. That is not what I'm saying, but if it's cope it's cope in the same way striving for objective journalism is cope. It doesn't matter if it is possible or not, the world is better off when we act as if it is true. I'd say you don't want to absolve yourself of anything, because we learn from mistakes, but we both know you aren't going to do that anyway, and anyone who doesn't isn't paying attention.

I have about a dozen other objections to that worldview too, most of which boil down to 'that's not how truth works' and 'you have to admit that you failed to learn from your mistakes', which are both true and beside the point. You do not have a problem with acknowledging your mistakes. You have trouble seeing your successes. But if you can't learn from your mistakes without acknowledging them, the flipside holds true too. You are doing yourself a disservice by discounting your successes, minor though they may be. I know I'm just repeating myself, but thinking you only fail becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. You have succeeded in something most people fail at, so even if that's your first success, it is still a success - think of it as the first of many. You probably shouldn't go out and get a plaque made celebrating it, but you should feel pride in it, and even though you are still going to fail countless times, you are going to succeed too.

Sorry it took me so long to reply, I have written and rewritten this post a dozen times this past week, and hating everything I wrote. I hate what I have written here too, but at least I have narrowed it to specifically the things I believe helped me when I was in a similar position. I don't know if they will help you, but I do know I am better off believing them than when I didn't.

I appreciate it quite a lot. I see dating and other things as thing I used to suck at but always thought that I would excel in, that it was inevitable and I just needed some time.

You are correct in your assessment, I never honestly did think about this in such a way. I do feel a tad lost given I need to get a job and do a bunch of stuff, it gets overwhelming and I end up not doing as much as I need.

How did it help you exactly and how long did it take you to not feel bad or fix your life?

It took about a year before it started being automatic, but once I got over that hump it became so much easier. Because once you get past that it becomes about motivation, and you strengthen your motivation significantly through the increases in confidence and resolve you gain in the process. It's not just an impossible slog for that year though, you should start seeing some of the benefits of doing it consciously in about a month - I thought I saw the benefits after two weeks, but I'll say a month because it is not easy distinguishing hopeful thinking from wishful thinking. I like your addiction analogy, the process is similar in a lot of ways - it feels miserable and is quite difficult to quit smoking at first, but it does get easier, and while you will still find yourself getting cravings/depressive thoughts even years later, you are much better equipped to manage them.

Echoing a thread from /r/slatestarcodex:

https://old.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/y1b4wj/how_are_you_optimizing_your_home_for_health_and/

How are you optimizing your home for health and wellness? What initiatives constitute the best bang for your buck?

I particularly feel curious about peoples' thoughts on HEPA air filters and water filters: do you think the current research supports the purchase and continued operation of a HEPA filter at home? Does a HEPA filter's operation become more viable with infants or small children in the house?

Not much, really, because I focus my well-being energy on eating, sleeping, and exercising.

But the few things I'm optimizing for specifically are:

  • Bright lights. I got high-CR Cree LED bulbs and put the equivalent of 100-260W in each room (these are very small rooms btw). I'm not sure of the effects, but it's more comfortable for me to do anything in those rooms. On the flip side, whenever I go to others' house, I'm surprised by how dark it is.

  • Keeping my bedroom cold before sleep.

  • Keeping my bedroom free from electronic devices. It's mainly a reading, sleeping, and exercise room. With carpets and blankets, it feels very safe and cozy.

  • Keep myself from buying snacks. If snacks aren't home, then I can't have them, so I will force myself to make a proper meal. Even a shitty sandwich is better than most wheat-and-salt snacks, which are already on the healthier side of the spectrum. (I'm trying to limit sugar intake and increase protein, fat, and fruit/veggie intake).

I try to arrange my surroundings thoughtfully, like I'm making an enclosure for an animal I want to keep healthy and happy.

Decorations everywhere. An easy trick I found is that costco and walmart will print any damn JPEG you want, and most craft stores have a 40% single-item coupon for a basic black picture frame. The wall behind me includes: The God-Emperor (Of TTSD fame) Enthroned, a map of Middle Earth, some Arvalis Realistic Pokemon Reconstructions, and that scene from the Twitter Hearings with Jack Dorsey, Alex Jones, and Google Glass Guy, touched up with filters to look slightly Rembrandt-y.

Separate sleeping room. I've previously put my bed inside (ventilated) walk-in closets, so I have the entire room to myself, as it were. The bed is ideally in a small dark room with your clothes and valuables and nothing else functional, just a few soft decorations. No TV. The bedroom for sleeping, dressing, and fucking. Your actual room is more like a study; desk, computer, books, small couch/loveseat, hobby stuff.

Water availability. For whatever reason, you need water accessible in a way that feels "special." Just a pitcher of tapwater in the fridge will do the trick; it's more important to drink lots of water than to drink filtered water (unless there's lead in it).

My priors tell me all of this is worth nothing if your health is otherwise not in pristine condition from eating,sleeping and exercising well.

A lot of these are putting the cart before the horse.

Placing things for accessibility, whether vitamins or a laundry bin or cut veggies or a notebook or etc, has always worked well for me.

I bought straws for my coffee (which I have room temperature) and place them near my mug to minimize future oral complications from daily black coffee.

I always make sure my room is dark and cold before sleeping.

Made a makeshift white noise machine with a box fan and a towel.

A smoothie maker is cheap and useful.

Just teeth enamel harm afaik, as it is acidic

Placing things for accessibility, whether vitamins or a laundry bin or cut veggies or a notebook or etc, has always worked well for me.

On this note, I keep a blanket ladder in the hall/spare bedroom (depending on where we were living), with my workout clothing hung on it. So when I get out of bed between 4:30 and 5:00, I go out in the hall (so as not wake the wife) and get dressed for my workout. Just one more thing to get moving.

Something like this: https://www.amazon.com/RELODECOR-Leaning-Blanket-Laminate-Construction/dp/B07XNQB6VT/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?crid=2SPKHDQO4GHJQ&keywords=decorative%2Bladder&qid=1665594988&qu=eyJxc2MiOiI2Ljg4IiwicXNhIjoiNi42OSIsInFzcCI6IjUuOTgifQ%3D%3D&sprefix=decorative%2Bla%2Caps%2C416&sr=8-1-spons&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUExS0lKNkRETlkzOUU5JmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwNDg4Nzg1MUtVN0lSR1dHSlZWMCZlbmNyeXB0ZWRBZElkPUEwMTA5MzI5Mk1GT1hSUDNNTjFIMSZ3aWRnZXROYW1lPXNwX2F0ZiZhY3Rpb249Y2xpY2tSZWRpcmVjdCZkb05vdExvZ0NsaWNrPXRydWU&th=1

But I just use an old barn ladder. All depends on your/your spouse's aesthetics.

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