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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   474 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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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).

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.

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 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?

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.

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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