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Wellness Wednesday for July 16, 2025

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 hate cutting weight. My lifts (never impressive to start with, but acceptable) have gone to crap and I feel tired all the time.

215-220 lbs (at 6'2") overall felt great. My lifts were decent, I still had abdominal definition, and running 2-3 times per week (where my long run was probably 6-8 miles) felt pretty good. Some health numbers were trending in a way I didn't like, though, so I signed up for some trail races and have been working on getting my weight down.

I'm now around 195. My health numbers have shot back down to what they were a few years ago, my running distances are up, and I have way more definition, but as I said, my lifts are now terrible and I'm tired all the time. I'm still 3 months from the first race and having another 5-10 pounds gone would make a marathon much easier, but I'm already wishing I could go back to being heavier.

Im currently dieting around similar numbers as you are. IMHO you should invest more energy of your process into the mindset. Why are you dieting in the first place? It seems you are training towards a marathon whilst also lifting? Things that people usually enjoy in a diet:

  • better sleep quality (unless you are deep into a cut and go to bed hungry)
  • performance in calisthenics - pullups just feel amazing for me in a diet
  • enjoyment of food
  • looks when naked (at least after this first 'flatness' hump)

IMHO you should invest more energy of your process into the mindset.

Probably a good idea and something I should work on.

Why are you dieting in the first place?

To see if it's still relatively easy for me to lose weight. To see where I lose that weight from. To see if it positively effects some health numbers. To make distance running easier.

It seems you are training towards a marathon whilst also lifting?

Yes. For much of my 20s, I was strictly endurance training with no lifting, and I'm not going back to that.

better sleep quality (unless you are deep into a cut and go to bed hungry)

I'm not deep into a cut and going to bed hungry, but sleep quality has gotten worse.

performance in calisthenics - pullups just feel amazing for me in a diet

Bodyweight/calisthenics exercises have certainly gotten easier.

enjoyment of food

Unchanged.

looks when naked (at least after this first 'flatness' hump)

Not to be too vain, but I looked pretty awesome at 215. I'm far more defined now, but feel too skinny (although I recognize I'm not, and I'm still too heavy for comfortably completing a marathon or longer race).