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PaperclipPerfector  5hr ago (text post)   126 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for July 22, 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:

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My power went out on Sunday at about 8:30 PM and was out until 3 AM. The entire street was pitch black because the transformers in town got knocked out by a severe thunderstorm that came and went in under 30 minutes.

Lights in the house:

  • my phone (other phones were low on charge and could not be used for long)
  • two OLight Mini 2s (very useful! marginally brighter than my phone's flashlight)
  • decently bright thin rectangular flashlight
  • an oil lamp

Observations:

  • I went out to check on the neighbors a little ways in, and went along the sidewalk to look closer at a fallen tree, and unwittingly I walked in between two downed power lines. Was this a failure of situational awareness, failure to have a bright enough flashlight, or just plain bad luck? The town guys came to look at the damage, and the first guy investigating had a flashlight that was very bright and could light up almost a whole block. The OLight Mini 2 is useful, but its capabilities are limited.
  • I really could have used something that could light up an entire room in the house. If I had that, we probably wouldn't have needed the oil lamp. I consider oil lamps to be fire hazards. But they're really useful fire hazards. The kerosene provides a light for a long time.
  • Having a nice, organized room helps you find stuff in it even when it's dark. I did not have a clean, organized room.
  • The power going out is a good excuse to play card games. Or do the exercise that you were putting off, supposing the exercise wasn't with powered equipment.
  • Surge protectors are good investments.
  • It occurred to me that the house was uniquely vulnerable, and I didn't have any loaded pistols at that time, and loading in the dark would be awkward. I have a "nightstand gun" with a flashlight, but you typically don't have that in a holster. What I realized was that I could have used a pistol that had a flashlight that could fit in a holster so I could just put it on "just in case" when the power goes out. But I don't know anything about holsters. I have one holster for my CZ P10-C, but if I put a flashlight on the gun, it wouldn't fit in the holster.
  • Sleeping was difficult because they were chainsawing a fallen tree through the night and obviously the white noise fans I have need power. Also it was pretty hot and humid without air conditioning.

I watched a Paul Harrell video about three-day-survival-packs, and he showed this product, and I realized that such a device would have been pretty useful for a power outage. I'm weighing that, a very bright and long-reaching flashlight, and certain weapon attachments due to the power outage. Likely, I'll get all that and then the next power outage will come and I'll find I didn't think of something else, too.

Apparently many people just start up their generators when this happens. Meh.

Surge protectors are good investments.

Or uninterruptible power supplies.

Content warning: first world "steak too juicy" problems.

It is strange to have the opposite problem of the vast majority of people: even at age 45, I can lose weight too easily.

I recently went for a 7-day/6-night hiking trip. Due to the vagaries of national park permitting, there were 2 very short days in the trip such that my average was below 15 miles per day (for comparison, when I can hike as much as I want, I consider 20 miles the minimum for a full day). I carried as much food as I physically could. After the trip, I spent a week with family where my exercise was some daily walking, but mostly lots of eating, including plenty of meat, potatoes, and bread.

Upon returning home, I was still down 15 pounds from the trip start (210 down to 195 at 6'2"). Some of it water weight, but not much given the week of eating afterwards. It is very obvious in my suits where I have lost weight: some around the waist, but also my ass, thighs, and arms. My lifting numbers have suffered as expected.

I have another, longer trip coming up, so I am eating much more than usual. However, I don't have access to a all-you-can-eat cafeteria plan, so the Oliver Sacks 5 double cheeseburger/6 milkshake per day option is not available. Some bonus photos here.

I am curious to see what the trip does to me. I'm guessing I'll be under 190 by the end.

I can no longer stand catching the reflection of my beer belly when I walk past a window in the street, so promised my better half I'd commence a diet the Monday after I returned from our holiday. Since Monday the 13th my regimen has consisted of the following:

  • Intermittent fasting (only eating solids between 4pm-midnight)
  • No snacking between meals
  • No fried food
  • No fast food
  • Only one caffeinated beverage with milk per day (e.g. if I have a cappuccino in the morning, I cannot also have tea with milk that day)
  • No fizzy drinks (with the exception of sparkling water or mixers like soda or tonic water)
  • No drinking alcohol on school nights

I grant myself one cheat day a week. The two bagels I ate on Saturday morning may have been the subjectively most delicious things I've ever eaten.

If my bathroom scale is accurate, I've lost 3.5kg so far. Will post here every week to keep myself honest until I've met my target weight or something approximating it.

That's a pretty good amount of weight! I posted my beer belly in other avenues and was told that I actually didn't need to diet, just exercise, especially resistance training would help shed the ~10 lbs I want to lose. Thus commenced my effort to do 100 kettlebell swings every day, plus push-ups and bent rows for A days, pull-ups and push-ups for B days, plus half an hour of walking every day (at least), plus the complete cessation of the 2-4 hour naps I was taking all the time, plus no coffee after 2 PM (generally drinking about 32 fluid ounces of standard strength black coffee before then), plus eating fruits, vegetables, and (not so highly processed) meat.

I honestly think that the sleep was the best outcome from all this. The naps really were wasting a lot of time and not actually improving my restfulness, and now I feel awake all day until it's bed time. I should have known that would happen; the times I give up eating at lunch, I stop getting hungry at lunchtime. But the regular exercise is pretty great, too. I used to feel like a block of wood on some days, or earlier this year I felt like I couldn't use all of my lung capacity to breathe, but now I feel pretty mobile and my pulse was even under 60 the other day when I measured it. If my left knee didn't hurt after a couple miles, I'd try jogging even longer. I'm wondering if I should increase the kettlebell size, since doing 5 sets of 10 bent rows with 16 kilograms is kind of easy. Overhead pressing 16 kilograms is a bit more difficult, but generally I get a couple sets of 8 in before dipping down to 7 for the remaining 3. I guess swings with 20 kilograms would be better cardio than with 16 kilograms.

Fair play to you!

The frustrating thing is that I do shitloads of cardio, but apparently not enough to offset my poor diet. So diet it is.

I'm just starting to add consistent cardio, so it might have a decent effect on me in combination with the other stuff I'm doing. But be proud of your shitloads of cardio! I donated blood the other day and my blood pressure was 114/68, which is slightly better than it usually is. Do it for slightly better blood pressure!!

Now I'm curious what my blood pressure is. Must check the next time I go to give blood.

Funnily enough, one time I went to give blood and they checked my iron levels beforehand, and told me they were too low. The nurse explained that this can sometimes happen owing to recent intense exercise. I texted my brother "tfw pumping so much iron that I don't have enough in me :("

New Year's resolution check-in:

  • Went to the gym three times last week, only doing cardio. Went again yesterday and got back into strength training, bench press and deadlift.
  • 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?

Spending is $3,033.98 lower than the same day last year. The weather continues to delay the expensive home repair.

I went to the Philippines last week. I was invited to speak at a university function, and did. Positives: they paid for every damn thing, including the minibar. There are many many people who speak excellent English even in the most unlikely places. Negatives: wow, it is not Japan. Beggars, general dirtiness, garbage, slums (at least in parts of Manila, where I was only briefly.) Cheap shit everywhere. Rain and heat.

Contrary to numerous warnings from Japanese friends, I enjoyed all my meals. Lots of meats. At least two dead animals per meal, actually. (I love animals.) There was one Mexican place in Manila that had the most amazing Tacos al carbon I've had outside the US. A grungy place where i had to walk down the road to buy a beer, then bring it back to the Mexican place. The young guy behind the counter helpfully pried off the bottlecap (I had left my keys and keyfob with bottle opener in Japan.)

In the spirit of the thread, I'm fine. Recently had bloodwork done and my liver function is surprisingly normal, my kidneys, weak as they are, haven't deteriorated, and have in fact bounced back a bit. I still love my wife and my sons beyond measure. And at my job, the surgeons and dermatologists who work on my same floor have started acknowledging me in a quasi-friendly way. In Japan, the secret to human interaction when you yourself are not Japanese is: Be predictable.

Donald Glover once quipped that Filipinas are the black women of Asian women. Did that jibe with your experience?

I find Filipinas almost unfathomably beautiful. And for some reason, 100% of those I've met have been either accountants or nurses (or some profession extremely similar to nursing).

I am not sure what Childish Gambino meant, but there were many very very pretty girls in my audience. Not quite Olivia Rodrigo level but close. I was stricken by their educated, articulate English, but that's probably my Japan experience.

For me, a thoroughgoing attractive Japanese girl with typical Japanese behavior is well nigh unbeatable in terms of attractiveness. That's probably a product of time on task. And of course for me any woman is only as beautiful as much as she resembles my wife.

Not quite Olivia Rodrigo level but close.

TIL Rodrigo is half-Filipina. I thought she was Hispanic.

You're welcome.

The global Latina belt strikes again.

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