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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   1520 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for January 7, 2026

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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Could anyone direct me to some good posts about antidepressants? Effortposts about their efficacy, personal experience, I'm not picky. I tried to find some but Google wasn't much use and I can't figure out how to search the site specifically (permanent lurker here, sorry).

I was on Bupropion for 2 years about a decade ago. For the first year it was helpful in managing a depression that manifested with lots of fatigue. It gave me the energy to make lifestyle changes that improved it long term. During the second year it began causing unmanageable anger issues and I eventually stopped. Ever since then my lifestyle changes and talk therapy have managed it reasonably well.

Lately it's been getting worse and I'm considering going back on antidepressants. The main issue is that unambiguously good events exacerbate my depression and that has historically led to me sabotaging myself. I have some major life events coming up in the next couple years and would like some emotional stability. I have a psych eval in two days and before then I was hoping for some advice, feedback, pointed questions to ask the psychiatrist, stories, anything really. Do I even need antidepressants, or is this some weird Pavlovian issue that I can work on without them?

Content warning: excessive amounts of degenerate TMI

Today I went to the sex club I patronize for what might or might not have been the tenth time. (The reason for uncertainty will become clear shortly.)

Over the years I had a few sexual firsts there, many awesome experiences and many barely mediocre ones. Two times I got turned away at the door, the second one for simply being too ugly for the standard set for the night, the first time under the pretense of me being high. Don't get me wrong, I was on benzos that night, but I'm on them every time I visit, and nobody said anything before or after, plus, @self_made_human, are there even any telltales in a stranger whose baseline behavior you don't know?

In this occasion a first was a woman initiating a conversation in the bar area, carrying it on for a minute, and taking me by hand into a room to give me head without reciprocation or anything else. Previously I would have called this sequence the golden standard of genuine attraction, the only kind of attraction that is not some other consideration disingenuously called attraction to muddy the waters, like when they put out because of your personality. I'm eager to find out how my mind will rationalize that this still doesn't count and I'm definitionally unattractive.

Having started on a great note, the evening quickly went downhill. You see, when you attend as a single man, you either need two heaps, of natural or augmented charisma, and of luck, because single girls are almost non-existent, and girls who are a part of a couple are almost always interested only in other couples. So by default you prowl and prowl and prowl between areas, constantly bumping into the same set of other beggars, trying to be in the right place at the right time to have something exciting include you. It generally works, but it's a depressing and shameful process, and with a low turnout today I thought it'd finally fail. (I made this sound too miserable. You see lots of hot live-performance porn in the process.)

(One time I attended with a girl. When I pointed out that while yes, I had previously said that just chilling for the entire duration in the bar area is an absolutely legitimate option, I had honestly assumed it would be Plan B in case she decided against engaging in anything despite her stated interests, not Plan A&Only, she started crying. It was not the same girl who cried for the Na'Vi.)

Still, it finished great too. Right by the closing time I had an interaction with a girl which situation was nothing like came in the fluffer, but in my degenerate broken psyche registered as a cute interaction, and the most positive emotions I felt towards a non-relative member of the opponent sex for a long time.

Being barred out can be obvious, but only when someone is fucked. Otherwise it's similar in presentation to someone being drunk: slurring, swaying, staring at you blankly, taking ages to respond. But less agitated (usually), not flushed. If you can't smell alcohol coming off someone like that, benzos are the safe bet.

Thanks for the info. Fairly sure it was not that, because I definitely was not in such a state, having taken only a doctor-prescribed dose (admittedly for purposes other than being able to pick up deviants in a deviant place) and having the judgement on me made after maybe one my line, maybe before I said anything at all.

Okay so this is interesting. Am I reading this correctly you are hoping for a meet cute with a woman at a sex club and from this…a relationship? What is your relationship history like? How often do you attend sex clubs? As a single unaccompanied male, what percentage of your visits result in any sexual activity with a woman? Are you bisexual? Do you use prostitutes?

Hope, no, have an absurd unrealistic fantasy, yes. Though, as it turned out, not entirely unrealistic. With once to twice a year over a handful of years, 100% of results so far. The rest of the questions go into general interrogation rather than the concrete topic, so I'll leave them unanswered.

Creatine is a hell of a drug.

I stopped taking creatine a while back because it didn't match my goals at the time, but now I'm back to bulking and lifting heavy. And I got back on Creatine and, poof, in a week my muscles have inflated a good ten pounds. My understanding is that is more like water weight than it is like muscle fiber, and it will mostly disappear when I hop off creatine again in the spring, leaving behind whatever real gains I've made in the meantime. But man is it weird how well it works. My mirror selfie has changed completely in a month. I don't have good numbers to track its fitness impacts, I'm in kind of a chaotic place right now.

It's amazing how when something works, it works.

I'm also frustrated that they don't make Cosequin for humans. My dog has completely turned around since I put her on it.

I'm also frustrated that they don't make Cosequin for humans.

It, uh -- doesn't look like it has anything in it that would hurt humans, and it says that the chews are tasty?

I want my glucosamine Beef flavored, but the corporations just won't do that for me! I want a glossy smooth coat just like my hound!

Seriously, her joint problems have disappeared, her coat is softer and glossier, she's regrowing hair on her stomach that's been bald for years, and she's shedding much less. It's WILD.

Glucosamine and collagen supplements are great for cartilage. Helped me out so much with recovery from running. If I get back into lifting heavy I'll take it again.

Real talk, is there any quality evidence (e.g. a blinded RCT) in favor of collagen supplementation or even a plausible mechanism given that proteins are not metabolized whole?

I don't have a reference, just saying I felt that it helped my recovery. YMMV etc.

Huh. Before this conversation I would've confidently said that Costco sells it in the pharmacy section. I must be thinking of CoQ10.

I thought they did too! Imagine my disappointment!

I mean they must have some way of confirming that it's tasty, right? They can't just say that!

I will caution that what's tasty to humans and what's tasty to dogs (or, worse, cats) are very separate fields. There's an ongoing joke/bet/trial thing in the furry fandom where people will try to eat dog treats, there's some that are 'just not great' and there's others that are 'I hope you have a barf bag nearby'. No idea where this would fall.

We got into the Milkbones as kids once -- as you might expect they are pretty dry, but more bland than anything else. Maybe with some dip?

I think once dogs get the idea that something is a treat they will consider it to be so whether it's truly 'tasty' or not.

My dog considers it a treat, but she's so stupid that she'll eat pills directly out of my hand. My father is constantly worried he'll drop one of his medications and she'll eat it.

Update on my poker tournament from two weeks ago: We ended up being only 5 players, so decided on a two-winner (70/30 split) tournament mode. I'm not a great storyteller nor claim to remember it perfectly (especially not exact cards, as I noticed while writing, sadly), but I'll try to roughly give the outline of the evening. I hope it's interesting. Thanks for the help, in particular @FiveHourMarathon!

It was more fun and went better than I expected. At first I played very conservative and simple rules (fold pre-flop without a face card, only raise post-flop with at least double pair, get out if anyone is raising too much), allowing me to watch the table closely. We only had one guy at the table I didn't know, so I tried reading him in particular. Two of my friends (let's call them the host and finance bro) mostly played tight which was unsurprising because that's what they're like in general, and another one was a bit more loose (let's call him gym rat), which again wasn't surprising too me, either.

The newcomer turned out to start very aggressive, and I happened to sit right behind him. He constantly raised, often even pre-flop, though only ever the minimum, and collected a lot of blinds that way. I, on the other hand, was mostly bleeding money slowly. I got him once with decent cards staying in and raising a bit up to the reveal, not a super large amount but enough to be even again. Rinse and repeat a bit, but overall I'm losing more than winning. The host is doing even more poorly, also bleeding money at first due to conservative play, and then in addition even losing a high-stakes table to the newcomer. Shortly thereafter he loses another high-stakes table going all in to finance bro, both having a full house, which was perceived by the rest of the table as very lucky. I also don't think the host really played badly, he was very low on chips at that point, had already invested most of it, and full house was pretty much the best hand with those community cards. Just plain bad luck.

The general situation at the table was now finance bro in clear first, gym rat and newcomer pretty close, and me last. The newcomer plays increasingly aggressive pre-flop, and after calling pre-flop, post-flop I get into a similar situation as the host: Going all-in against the newcomer with a pair of some number in hand, and a third on the table, because my chips are getting too low and the community cards overall didn't seem too threatening. Fortunately, the newcomer only ends up having a double pair, and I get my big break. The host - now out of the game - notes my behaviour over time and comments that I'm a mathematician and probably playing better to the odds than him, but that I'm also quite predictable. The rest of the table immediately agrees, so at that point I started to realize that I need to change my behaviour a least a bit to capitalize on that impression, instead of being drowned by it. Ironically I don't think I was better, but it's of course the impression of the table that matters at the moment.

When I had a decent starting hand (I think it was jack+10 or so), I try a small experiment: I double the newcomer's raise pre-flop. If it got too much, I'd get out, but I wanted too gauge his behaviour. He stays in. Post-flop I get nothing, he raises, I immediately double his raise again anyway. He folds. At that point I feel a psychological edge. He gets less aggressive, and I continue to now bleed him instead with a mix of bluffing (being careful to eventually fold if possible to avoid people seeing my cards) and just plain good cards, and he also loses a high-stakes table to gym rat. In fact he's getting very low on chips (less than me) and plays even less aggressive, so I eventually play more conservative again. There is another event, where I call a lot of finance bro's raises with a good-but-not-great hand, which the host yet again comments on: Finance bro raises fast and confident, I call only after thinking a lot. Finance bro has not yet been shown to bluff, and is generally not the kind of person to do so. I agree, realize my mistake, and fold instantly. But it hurts, and it is another lesson to try and be less obvious to read, or to ideally even capitalize on it.

It's now the newcomer's turn to go all-in to finance bro, both show their cards and finance bro thinks he has lost with only a double pair or so ... until someone else at the table points out that by only using one card from his hand he can have a flush. Everyone else at the table gets pissed, but this cements his lead.

The state now is finance bro in near-unassailable lead, gym rat in second, me in last place again. Since we're all nerds, we openly talk a bit strategy, where finance bro admits that he plans to mostly play very conservative now since his stack is larger than mine and gym rats combined. He keeps true to his word, and I stay out of his way; He folds a lot, but if he does raise, I fold fast. Position-wise I'm behind gym rat now, which is to my benefit. In general the dynamic has changed substantially since the blinds are getting high and the low number of players increases the winning chances. Both me and gym rat play very similarly now, frequently staying in up to the reveal with some raises here and there, but rarely too much, and mostly treading water (this unfortunately also means that people also start to catch on that I do occasionally bluff now, especially pre-flop).

Unlike me, gym rat does get into some (bad) fights with finance bro, since he has some hopes to switch places. He's bleeding, but still has more chips than me. I finally get an amazing starting hand, while also sitting in last place: K+K. I raise only the minimum pre-flop, which at that point I had done regularly, even with bad cards, and gym rat calls without thinking twice. Flop is king, queen and a low number, gym rat raises after thinking for a moment. I pretend to also think a long time, and then call. Turn comes, it's another low number. Gym rat raises again. The pot is getting close to the size of my own chips. I think again for a while, but decide to go all-in, since neither straight nor flush are possible yet with those community cards, loudly commenting that my stack is getting too low. Gym rat thinks and is clearly somewhat unsure, but not terribly long, and calls. River is ... another queen. I show the full house, and gym rat complains how lucky I got, but elects to not show his cards. I'm pretty sure the full house was irrelevant, since there really aren't that many possibilities to even beat just the triple king with those community cards.

Now the placements are reversed, me in second, gym rat in last. He's bleeding blinds for a short while, especially since I continue playing rather aggressive pre-flop, and he's getting low on chips. He completely stops picking fights with finance bro as well, who still elects to mostly just give his blinds away anyway. But then gym rat suddenly reacts to one of my pre-flop raises with an all-in, almost taking no time to think. I have Q+9 and genuinely think a long time, since his stack is still large enough to reverse the roles yet again if I should lose. But I remember the last time, that pre-flop is sufficiently random - even against most starting pairs I'd have something like 1-in-3 chance to win I think? - and that I had been waiting for the chance to kick him out and secure second place, which is the best I can reach anyway. So I call. He reveals a surprising ... 9+7, commenting that at least he's going out with a stylish bluff. Pretty lucky for me, not only a bad hand but also the matching number means even less outs for him. I reveal my cards, and the table is surprised yet again, since despite my small early bluffs that got caught, they expected more. Gym rat probably also just thought he could scare me off.

The community cards come in, and reveal pretty much nothing except one queen.

So second place it is. I'm pretty happy, obviously with the place, but also with most of my game. I think it was smart to play it simple early, since it made it easier to read the table. I also had pretty terrible cards for a long while at first, and bluffing "blind" is really not my strong suit. The first all-in I'm somewhat unsure about, but it did get rewarded. It also opened up the possibility to exploit the newcomer, which worked pretty much exactly how I wanted it. But again, there was some luck involved in that I never got forced into actually revealing a bluff. Of course I was also often easy to read, and I really have to thank the host for pointing it out that second time against finance bro; I might have just lost then and there.

And I'm most proud about how the play went against gym rat. He probably also got tired and careless so I shouldn't attribute too much to myself, but I have the feeling that especially for the K+K hand it was my exact play that lured him in, and if I had done it differently he wouldn't have gone along. On calling his all-in I'm also feeling quite comfortable that I had decent odds overall, though I didn't expect such a hard bluff.

Overall poker is still not really my kind of game - even with decent play there is a lot of luck involved - but I held my own, and even made some money (though not much, the split sucked pretty hard).

So you made like 50% profit? Nice.

Great work! Sounds like you had a good time!

Poker is fun, but it's one of those games where I find the advanced strategy kinda lame and boring. If I could find a regular table where I was neither the fish nor the shark, I'd probably want to play more regularly.

There's something about people from warm climates and their relationship with cold weather. My dad lives somewhere where winter means 25°C. I live somewhere where 14°C counts as reasonable t-shirt weather. On our October video calls, he'd be bundled up in a wooly hat and scarf, looking at me like I was insane for wearing shorts.

This extends to dogs, apparently.

When my German Shepherd was born in the middle of winter, my parents insisted he needed a coat. He was maybe two weeks old and had barely figured out walking. With the coat on, he could manage about two steps before toppling over. It was devastatingly cute and completely unnecessary.

I showed them pictures of other German Shepherds the same age playing in actual snow. They had a theory ready: "He was born in India, he isn't built for this climate."

-_-

I want to emphasize that we are talking about a German Shepherd here. Germany, famously, gets cold. The breed standard does not include a clause about thermal sensitivity based on birthplace. And yet.

One of our current dogs is a Golden Retriever who's undersized for his breed, over a year old but unlikely to get bigger. He was born without testicles, which might be related. In winter, at 14°C, he shivers. So he wears a coat now.

The coat used to belong to our first dog, a rescue who was the mother of that German Shepherd puppy. She's been gone for over a decade. The coat is still here, still doing its job, just on a different dog with different-colored fur that it happens to complement nicely.

I started writing this as a joke about my parents' temperature anxiety, but I'm not sure where I ended up. Maybe something about how we take care of things we love even when it's slightly ridiculous, or how objects persist and find new purposes, or just that dogs are great even when they eat your shoes.

The German Shepherd did eventually learn to walk in the coat. We never threw it out. I guess that says something.

As far as I know the research suggests that humans, at least, can become very used to cold.

The original L'enfant sauvage Victor of Aveyron (one among several documented feral children) was reported to like the snow, even when wearing very little clothing:

Bonnaterre reported that one morning, after a particularly heavy snow storm, Victor of Aveyron looked out his bedroom window and with a cry of joy, ran half-dressed into the garden, where “giving vent to his delight by the most piercing cries, he ran, rolled in the snow, and gathered it up by the handful, devoured it with incredible eagerness."

Acclimatization to cold weather is probably the first step @SkookumTree should take if he ever does the Hock. From a brief bit of research on the issue, apparently a German Shepherd is more likely to have a problem with heat than with cold.

I soloed Mt. Washington in NH in January of 2024; for much of the climb I only wore light wool gloves. My hands were cold, but nothing I hadn't experienced a hundred times before. Snow stuck to my gloves, meaning that conditions inside the gloves were cold and damp. Also, I had been using Italian military surplus liners for my boots (Scarpa Nero) and these too were fairly cold.

I wound up with permanent but mild NFCI, nonfreezing cold injury, on three fingertips and my right big toe. I learned that vasodilation in response to cold was a problem. If you know of any way to deal with this other than warmer clothing on the extremities, please let me know.

N.B: this was NOT frostbite. At no point was there any visible tissue damage.

@self_made_human have you noticed your extremities got cold when your friends' didn't? I've read that much of that depends on 1) ancestry/genetics; there is a higher incidence of NFCI and cold injury in people whose ancestors hailed from tropical climates and 2) acclimatization/behavior; a dude from Alabama might not grok how to keep your hands warm in the cold the same way a North Dakotan might.

My whole life I had problems with cold hands until about a dozen years ago when I switched to mittens. After that it's been a complete non-issue, even when skiing in -10 F. For boots, just make sure they're reasonably waterproof and not too tight. There's a temptation to load up on socks for extra insulation but this just makes matters worse; the lack of circulation is what kills you. In ski boots I don't really have that option so I just have to live with cold toes and the pain of the circulation returning when I take them off, but getting more comfortable ones would cost money and performance, so I just use boot warmers and deal with the tradeoff. To illustrate how big of a deal having extra space is, last year I went skiing and after several hours outside my feet were freezing. We were tailgating in the parking lot at the end of the day and I changed in to the tennis shoes I drove up in, thin mesh ones that I was sure in the ~20 F weather would let the wind in and make my feet even colder. But once I was moving around in them my feet actually warmed up significantly, at least after the pain of the blood returning had subsided. Now, I'm sure that if I had been out there longer than an hour or so they would have gotten cold, so insulation is still important, but don't make the mistake of loading up on insulation at the expense of breathing room. I'd prioritize the latter over the former if you have to make a choice. Also, modern toe warmers last about 6 hours and aren't expensive.

Well I happen to be a dude from Alabama so my hand warmth advice may be less than compelling. Good to hear you've pushed through some preparatory climbs.

I can't really say I have? I know I am comfortable at temperatures where many Scottish women (natives) are freezing, but women feel colder more easily. With the dudes, I don't recall touching tips to see if I'm cold and they're not.

That being said, they probably are better able to tolerate it than I am, it's just rare for it to get cold enough for that to be obvious. Nobody there really wants to hang out outside on the rare occasions it dips below -5° C. Yet I know a dude who did a charity swimming thing when the North Sea was about 2°, which you can't really pay me to even contemplate.

My core has always run fairly warm, but my extremities run cold; before Mt. Washington, I thought that "I run hot" extended to my entire body. Not so. This is why I'm after aerogel insulation for my boots. Don't suppose you've got any connections.

but women feel colder more easily

I thought this sounded fishy but looked it up and you're right! So I guess all the Japanese high school girls showing far too much leg in 34F temperatures are just slaves for fashion. Or for something.

showing far too much leg in 34F temperatures

You get this in the UK for both men and women: Geordie of the Antarctic. (Geordie means someone from Newcastle up north.)

Prolonged exposure to cold produces brown fat, which makes you more resistant to cold. I'm much more resilient in that regard after my stint in Scotland.

Still, that only goes so far. Even Eskimo children bundle up, they don't play nude in the snow for prolonged periods.

In my experience, German Shepherds hold up surprisingly well to the local heat. Sure, they won't enjoy the odd day when it reaches 40°, but at that point they're finding refuge in the same place the humans are: in an air conditioned room.

OK. I have a heinous clavicle fracture from exactly what you'd expect, with surgery scheduled 2 days from now. I'll hold my rant on being unable to price this surgery out after 2 straight days on the phone because I'm just bored of how shitty the US healthcare system is at this point.

I'm interested in reducing recovery time as much as possible. I'm starting from zero on Peptides essentially, but I'm interested in leveraging them. I'm willing to pay a premium to get more likely quality and to get the process started faster. I've seen peptidesciences .com mentioned after a search, and checked around the site a bit.

My first thought from basic research is to utilize a KLOW blend (BPC-157, TB-500, KPV, GHK-Cu), but Reddit has essentially banned most of the discussion, and Anthropic's safety team has fucked me yet again. I don't even know where to procure / how to load subcutaneous needles!

I'm talking with someone in meatspace who has more experience and will respond more on the journey here, but I wanted to open the floor to discussion and see if anyone wants to offer help.

I was definitely thinking it was from a ladder fall.

If you are interested in optimizing your recovery start with actual common sense things first. Follow activity instructions. Seriously engage with any PT/OT. Sleep. Avoid drugs/alcohol/smoking. Eat healthy.

Almost nobody actually does these things but doing them results in a massive decrease in recovery time.

Do the hard stuff.

I'm asking about this because the stupid basics are already taken care of fwiw. I'm not interested in sabotaging my own recovery since I'm already on mental pins and needles

Fair enough - just keep in mind if you actually do those basics you'll already be doing much better than the average person (who does not).

I have a heinous clavicle fracture from exactly what you'd expect

Is there something obvious that usually causes those? Football, rugby, lifting, trying to saddle a bison, manually stimulating a horse?

Well, yofuckreddit already answered your direct question, but clavicle fracture is one of the most common semi-serious cycling injuries. You instinctualy try to protect your head when you fall. Some combination of the angle you fall from a bike from, the fact that your arms are already in front of you, and you often have a bunch of forward momentum means you normally break your fall with some part of your arm. Compare to when running where rolling, sliding, or diving lets you land on something with more cushion. Under compression the clavicle is normally the weak link.

Both types of football concussions are probably the most concerning long term. For women specifically, they should learn to cut in a way that reduces stress on the MCL as tears are extremely common due to the higher Q-factor. Rugby you should probably watch out for concussions as well, though cauliflower ear can be unsightly and a risk.

Lifting of all sorts is statistically very safe. For olympic style lifting learn to bail, and bail if you are going to black out or hyperextend something. Keep a neutral spine when pulling from the floor. Statistically most importantly, never bench without either a competent spotter or full coverage safety arms.

For tying to saddle a bison watch out for getting gored. While manually stimulating a horse try not to get kicked, which is mostly a function of not surprising the horse when approaching from behind.

Sorry - I'm a cycling nut and so it's from a failed mountain bike jump.

I'd recommend supplementing with calcium, vitamin D, and vitamin K2 (mk7) if you aren't already. I've been regrowing some bone myself lately and it does seem like it's improved my recovery.

NB: I live in an area that gets basically no sun 9 months out of the year, so it may be more that I was deficient than anything.

@yofuckreddit: Ask your doctor about dosages, too, when you go in for the surgery. When my son had a broken bone healing, the osteopath recommended levels that, although sold over the counter in the vitamin aisle, still had "don't take this without talking to a doctor about it" in the fine print on the jar. Unless you're super prone to kidney stones or something, long-term concerns about hypercalcemia can probably take a temporary back-burner to short-term bone healing improvements.

Any tips on getting over a cold? Have had this chest cough/sore throat/congestion since Christmas Day that I cannot seem to kick. Think I got it on the Madrid Metro.

Take Sudafed daily. Eat something spicy with every meal. Best way to delete congestion. I find curing congestion often helps with getting rid of coughs.

Old Eastern European method - the two two two program. Two blankets, two space heaters, two glasses of hard liquor. You will sweat it out during the night.

Nasal saline rinse. Flush out any secondary infection hiding in your tubes.

(Not sure you can do much about the chest cough though).

New Year's resolutions check-in (mainly just to keep myself honest, but feel free to post your progress as replies):

  • Posted my first blog post of the year on Monday, about what the recent Bondi Beach shooting implies about the efficacy of Australia's gun buyback programs in preventing mass shootings. One down, twenty-five to go.
  • Went to the gym twice last week and on Monday, going again at lunchtime today: can deadlift 1.68x my bodyweight, squat .77x and bench press .64x.
  • Have not consumed any alcohol, fast food, fizzy drinks or pornography since waking up on January 1st, although I did unfortunately snack between meals on Sunday and Monday.
  • Have completed the first of 11 modules in the SQL course.
  • Have practised guitar for roughly one hour every day since January 1st.

Went to the gym twice last week and on Monday, going again at lunchtime today: can deadlift 1.68x my bodyweight, squat .77x and bench press .64x.

And I thought I had a weak bench press. My 2RIR is 2*0.84x. My deadlift is puny in comparison, 2RIR is just 6*1.1x. I think I could go to 1.2 if I did fewer reps and dropped the bar, maybe 1.25.

I've been deadlifting a lot longer than I've been bench-pressing. I recently realised that I'd been doing Romanian deadlifts rather than actual deadlifts: the real deal is significantly harder, but I can still reliably do 5 reps at 1.68x bodyweight. (Hoping to do 1.7x tomorrow.) I'm really struggling to make progress on the bench press though, and the less said about my overhead press the better.

I recently realised that I'd been doing Romanian deadlifts rather than actual deadlifts

I had wondered along these lines when you previously posted your weight/reps on deadlifts.

Bench press is weird. There's a lot of delta that depends on training it specifically.

I rolled at BJJ with a random kid the other week, and I was tossing him around pretty good all round, and after he asked me how much I benched. I told him I could do 225 (1.1bw for me) for maybe 3 reps, and I could probably do 235 if I tried, but I hadn't trained bench a lot in a while. He looked at me stunned and told me he just did 225x10 for multiple sets.

Like cognitive ability, so much of this is innate. e.g. Ratio of fast/slow twitch muscles, the strength of tendons, CNS drive, limb length etc.

innate

I'm not out to claim that "genetics don't matter" or something, but off the top of my head at least two of those attributes sure seem trainable.

Fiber type: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30006671/ (and see the fairly extensive animal literature as well e.g. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s004410050647)

Tendon strength: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18556433/

I am pretty sure "CNS drive" is also fairly trainable, but my eyes glaze over every time I see the phrase and I'm not sure it's terribly well-defined.

I'm quite far away from pressing 100kg. I got to around 80kg 1RM after concentrating on it, but right now it's probably 70kg.

It helps that I'm like 10kg heavier than you. Anyway, the whole point of the story was that bench isn't that predictive an exercise anyway.

Which SQL course are you doing?

It's just a free one on a website called Simplilearn.

My goals are about the same as last year:

Do a spring hiking trip around 100ish miles (about a week)
Do a summer hiking trip around 200ish miles (around 2-3 weeks)
Read a bunch of books
Do a trail race in the fall

Right now I need to work on putting some weight back on, which, despite being in my 40s, is harder than it seems since I can't have lunch. My chicken and rice lunches were very good at adding some pounds.

I'm not one for New Year's resolutions, though I think they probably serve a useful function in terms of signaling (but not costly enough) and as a form of pre-commitment.

The important things I have to do? Those are already on a schedule. Can't afford to fuck those up. Everything else? Buddy, I'm drowning, the last thing I need is a regimented swimming lesson plan.

My only New Year's resolution is to save more money in 2026 than I did in 2025. So far, I'm about $125 under last year's total spending.

It's not much, but it's a start.

I wrote my resolutions in a Discord server. I'll post them here first, and then my progress:

  • this has already been ongoing for a while but I'd like to continue lifting and gaining muscle mass in 2026. overhead press for reps over 100 pounds would be awesome, and 10 chin ups in one set would also be great (current OHP is 85, current chin up record is 5)
  • I want to lose at least 25 pounds. earlier this month, the scale measured 200 pounds for the first time in my life (I am 6'1.5"), however lately it seems to trend around 196.8 pounds. I aim to get down to 170 pounds. I am on a diet between 1700 and 1800 calories each day and I am trying to get either weightlifting and a small amount of cardio or a big amount of cardio in every day (30 minutes or more, mostly zone 2 bpm stuff). will have to see how my weight is trending in a couple weeks, but I aim to lose about 2 pounds a week. the food scale and XL air fryer have been VERY useful in this regard.
  • I want to learn more japanese, putting in at least 4 hours per week on this between flash cards and actual practice, plus reading grammar explanations when I find new grammar. previously I'd been doing easy "comprehensible input" content, but if I clean up my anki cards, I hope to start reading actual native level news articles, mining every word I need to to be able to comprehend the article.
  • probably a bad thing that this is so low on the list but I want to get a new job.
  • also probably a bad thing that this is so low on the list but I should probably get a girlfriend if I ever want to get married. part of that means that I have to take some good photos somehow.

for some less big picture stuff

  • I want to finish The Brothers Karamazov
  • I want to start and finish Dark Souls III
  • I want to try at least one pick up game of badminton or tennis. I know of a couple indian guys at the gym who play badminton that I'm going to try worming into, putting on my best social autist face. there are also tennis courts all around town that I can hang out at and practice my swing while I wait. never played tennis before, HAVE played badminton before and liked it.
  • I only did one lifting session last week, but I've done one this week and aim for one more. Switching to dumbbell bench press has made me lose a lot of pounds on bench press, but it feels safer. I haven't really had an opportunity to test my pull-ups, but I am mostly happy with not having lost any strength from the weight loss yet.
  • The scale yesterday read 192 pounds. That could be an aberration, but it was trending downward before, seemingly. I need to measure consistently; I think I will always slip off my shoes and take my keys and wallet and phone out of my pocket before weighing. I've already had some hiccups with the dieting; I got a lot of food for Christmas, and I spent one cheat day finishing the worst of it (spicy Thai chili crisps are high calorie but low satiation). Aside from that, I also have difficulties when I'm with family and want to eat at a restaurant. One day, I didn't do too badly; I fasted all day and then had an order of fajitas. The day after, I donated blood and ate a bunch of stuff, to the point of satiation but not to the point of feeling full. That will probably have to be good enough for days when I am eating with family and can't track calories with my food scale. As for the cardio, it's going pretty well, actually. I find cardio easier to do than resistance training, and it's been nice spending more time in zones 2 and 3 instead of pushing myself through zones 4 and 5. I feel good after doing these workouts. However, I have failed at doing them every day. On weekends, it's difficult to motivate myself to leave the apartment/house when I'm home.
  • I've caught up on one Anki deck, but the other one is proving more difficult. I guess those kanji haven't sunk in enough yet. I am mostly failing to practice on native language articles every day, though I did learn the word for "drug cartel" last week thanks to Trump. 麻薬組織！
  • Nothing for the last two yet, predictably. I'm coming to realize that I have pretty cripplingly low self-esteem, which makes these two much more difficult. I'm not even sure if I want a girlfriend anymore. I had an embarrassing online relationship last year (she was a real woman, I promise) and I found that my anxiety was significantly increased about all kinds of aspects of her. I still have a huge amount of mixed feelings about relationships. I guess that that won't change until I interact with women romantically more, but the fact is that it's going to be painful and I wish I could just avoid everything.
  • No progress on Karamazov yet. I stopped shortly after the time skip after the arrest of Dmitri.
  • I can't start Dark Souls III until I beat Metro 2033; I'm on Chapter 5 out of 7, I think. I haven't been playing much because I typically spend too much time either studying Japanese or putting off studying Japanese. Or playing Caves of Qud mindlessly.
  • I've decided I should probably take up tennis, not badminton. I'd want to play with other white people, and there's a lot more tennis players in America. Just anything other than pickleball. I need to buy a racket and practice my swing, but it's cold out and rackets are expensive. Hmm, do I need to be a member of the tennis club to attend their social events? Getting some tennis friends would be nice.

I feel you on the romantic front. I'm a little more self-confident than you, but have found dating to be absolutely soul crushing. I need time to get to know a woman before I am attracted to them but by the time I do that it's the friend zone for me. I'm not a shut-in: I have social activities almost every night (dancing, run clubs, language happy hour, hanging out), I've continually compromised on my standards (veganism, environmentalism, religion, wokeness) and still nothing seems to work out, although tons of women seem to want to be friends with me.

I've continually compromised on my standards (veganism, environmentalism, religion, wokeness)

Do you mean your ideal woman is vegan, environmentalist, the same religion as you, and woke? Or am I misinterpreting?

Vegan (or vegetarian/pescetarian, basically don't care too much as long as they don't demand we cook meat for dinner every night), environmentalist, tolerant of many religions, not woke. Of course #4 doesn't go with 1,2,3 and unfortunately I can't stand woke because it usually means there can be no compromise in the relationship. Hence the compromising.

I hope to start reading actual native level news articles, mining every word I need to to be able to comprehend the article.

Me again but how would you feel about doubling up on this? Maybe having a mini discussion group or swapping points on a Google Doc or something? I've been meaning to read the newspaper more (I tried reading Yomiuri a couple of times) and it would be great to have a buddy.

Sure. I'm not very good, mind you. Google Docs could work, Discord could work, mini discussion group somewhere else could work, any of those would definitely be motivational to me, too. Feel free to send me a message. My main goal is to find actually interesting stuff to read. There are so many NHK articles that are like "bad weather incoming" or "oh no! earthquake again!".

I need to measure consistently; I think I will always slip off my shoes and take my keys and wallet and phone out of my pocket before weighing.

Strongly recommend doing it completely naked first thing in the morning when you wake up, before you eat or drink anything. That will give you the most accurate reading, uncontaminated by water weight.

Nothing for the last two yet, predictably. I'm coming to realize that I have pretty cripplingly low self-esteem, which makes these two much more difficult. I'm not even sure if I want a girlfriend anymore. I had an embarrassing online relationship last year (she was a real woman, I promise) and I found that my anxiety was significantly increased about all kinds of aspects of her. I still have a huge amount of mixed feelings about relationships. I guess that that won't change until I interact with women romantically more, but the fact is that it's going to be painful and I wish I could just avoid everything.

Strongly recommend reading this book. I found it very insightful and helpful.

Re: scales, make sure you use something does a rolling average e.g. Happy Scales app. The measurements jump around day by day due to changes in water + feces etc. and the only time I ever lost significant weight it was by being laser-focused on the downward progress of the average even when there were big day-by-day spikes.

  1. Work: Have been working since Monday and feeling on the upswing. Raw hours still aren't there, but I think I will get there much faster than expected. No longer feel stressed, but rather excited!

  2. Fitness: hit 7 hours last week, and am track for 9 this week.

  3. Intellectual stuff. First blog post of the year is up and I finished Harry Potter 6 in Italian!

  4. Finances. Lots of unexpected subscriptions this month, but planning ahead for the Boston marathon has saved me a bunch on travel.

  5. Haven't looked at porn or had sex, but have masturbated two times. These have both been because of times and situations that exposed me to softcore porn (instagram) at times when my willpower was low (early in the morning/late at night).

  6. Tarot is going well, breath work hasn't happened yet.

  7. Phone screen time is down under 2 hours again!

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