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Wellness Wednesday for May 20, 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).

Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

New Year's resolution check-in ( @thejdizzler posted in last week's thread by mistake):

  • Had an idea for a blog post which I intend to write the first draft of this evening.
  • Went to the gym three times last week. Yesterday I did a 5k run on my lunch break, then went to the gym in the evening. I intended to do deadlifts, but found my lower back was bothering me too much, so I did bench press instead. After years of my herniated disc bothering me on my lower right side, the pain now seems to have migrated to my lower left side. Then on other days (like today) it returns to the lower right. Very strange. I need to get into the habit of doing lower back stretches several times a day even when I really don't feel like it. Can deadlift 1.84x my bodyweight for 3 reps, squat 1.22x for 8 reps and bench press .87x for 6 reps.
  • Have not consumed any pornography since waking up on January 1st.

How goes it @self_made_human, @thejdizzler, @birb_cromble and @falling-star?

I know I replied to your comment. I remember writing it and hitting submit. I can't see it on my profile. The universe is gaslighting me, or I've gone past pleasantly drunk into Korsakoff territory.

Oh well. It might just be user-error or shit wifi. I said that the Paper B gave me a cardio workout that met my annual quota, even before the fire alarm went off. We can ignore the day spent wandering Glasgow, or the very, very long trek home.

I also remember typing out that your reminder prompted me to go do push-ups till failure. The only reason I don't feel like a failure is that I did well over double-digits. If I haven't gone to the actual gym (which I've been actively paying for) by next roll-call, I authorize anyone and everyone to call me unkind names.

Current spending is $665.18 lower than it was on the same day last year.

I have two big expenses (car insurance and the second half of my home repair bill) coming up, so I expect to overshoot again in the next eight weeks. In the meantime, I'm going to try to keep spending down to mitigate that.

Just to jump in on you guys, I didn't make a resolution but I've been very happy with my own Substacking / writing this year. I'm coming up on three years of actively posting and I've got 71 published pieces, with a bunch more written. I feel good about it!

I like that y'all are doing this too it's inspiring.

Want a ping going forward?

Sure!