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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   1206 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for July 8, 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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New Year's resolution check-in:

  • Still on holiday and so haven't been to the gym. Can deadlift 1.84x my bodyweight for 3 reps, squat 1.28x for 6 reps and bench press .87x for 6 reps.
  • Have not consumed any pornography since waking up on January 1st. Nearly at the halfway mark.

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

I've barely been drinking, I went out twice in June and not at all so far this month. I moved into a new apartment and work is picking up so I've just been too busy and it's way too hot in France to get away with a hangover at work.

The physicality of working in a kitchen is getting to me a bit, I'm decently fit so there's no joint pain but I'm going to go to the doctor and buy new shoes because when I get up and take the first few steps in the morning my feet feel like they're bruised.

Long term things are looking good. I'm working at a high enough level now that I'm pretty confident I could ask for a better wage soon, the head chef disappeared for a month to cover for an emergency at the owner's other restaurant and me and the sous-chef are managing just fine.

When I worked in a hotel, rubber or gel insoles were a godsend.

Going great. feeling motivated to work out more. Porn is down hallelujah!

I saw a physiotherapist for the back pain, and he told me I had been handling it reasonably, and that my stated suspicion that I should go to the gym more and not baby it overly was the correct insight. Converting that into action? That's another matter. I have a lot on my plate. At least I only had to take a single day off sick, after hitting the daily limit of ibuprofen without making the pain manageable. It's better now. It'll just take longer to heal than I'd like. And I might have to do lower back exercises and fight the hoes for the leg press machine.

Anyway, I did push-ups last week, and I'll do more at some point. I'm surviving on cocodamol and the knowledge that I've got annual leave ahead of me. To be spent drinking and driving (not at the same time) and seeing the country properly while being the reasonably assimilated/integrated and wiser older brother.

Work hasn't been too bad. It's a wonder what mostly adequate staffing, sigh peers and seniors who like me can do, in terms of moving a bad workload somewhere to the vicinity of bearable. I continue not writing about the people who have asked me not to write about them, I continue being charming at pubs and making friends by engaging when attacked by feral extroverts. I have been kidnapped (with consent) in the middle of the night and driven to cities across the country on a weekend. I've made sure some very faded women in the back of an SUV driven by a bipolar gay man just barely processing heartbreak drank enough water - while making sure I sat behind an airbag. I continue, in other words, to have as much fun as a recently badly depressed and overworked psychiatry resident can have during an Indian British Summer.

At least I only had to take a single day off sick, after hitting the daily limit of ibuprofen without making the pain manageable.

Next time, I recommend looking at a cheap personal TENS machine. Like mine cost about 50 dollars off of Amazon, is as big as a walkman and the consumables are cheap (wired self adhesive electrodes and a 9V battery). Don't expect it to miraculously heal your back, but it's essentially "free" pain relief, at least during usage and sometimes longer. Having spondilitis, I'm on a steady diet of ibuprofen for back pain and inflammation reduction in general, but that machine permits me to give my system a break.

That sounds very interesting. I'll look into it, thanks. Though I have to concede that looking at the internals doesn't cure back ache.

  1. Work. At a class in the UK for the next two weeks, then vacation in Germany. Travel to the UK was a bit of a shit show (cancelation, missed connection, and finally a lost bag). Research environment in Europe is much more chill, but also very inferior to the US.
  2. Fitness: Did 2x tempo sessions again last week and 60 miles. Weight is continuing to drop as I have kind of lost my appetite with the heat.
  3. Intellectual stuff: finished a blog post for this month, and working on my Spanish/Italian as usual. Almost done with Blood Meridian, but it's like pulling teeth.
  4. Finances: Not even thinking about this until the end of the month.
  5. Dating. My roommate convinced me to redownload dating apps, which I think was a mistake.
  6. Tarot. No session.
  7. Socializing: nice change of environment has got to me excited to socialized and meet people!
  8. Screen time: 1 hour!
  9. Mental health: Pretty good, although lots of anxiety on this travel trip

Spending is $2,916.38 lower than this day last year. Once the home repair bill goes through this month, I'll probably be even. I hate that I keep losing progress, but at the same time, I've dealt with some very expensive medical bills, home repair costs, and travel due to illnesses in the family without having to cut my savings. I guess I can call that a win.

It might help to think of the net spending tally not as "progress", but as "a (rough) estimate of progress". There are enough significant one-off events that the error bars are likely larger than the expected savings on timescales shorter than multiple years. As I see it, you're likely to be in one of two scenarios (which one is TBD):

  1. This year's expenses are anomalously high -> Spending carefully will reveal its fruits in future years, and it's just by chance that they're not visible yet.
  2. This year's expenses will be typical going forward -> Spending carefully allowed you to weather them without tapping savings, which under this scenario would be ruinous in the long term.

Either way, you're better-positioned than you would've been in the counterfactual world where you hadn't adjusted behavior, and I would concur with your gut that it is quite the win.

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