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Wellness Wednesday for August 12, 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:

  • Went to the gym three times last week and again yesterday evening. I can deadlift 1.62x my bodyweight, squat 1.26x and bench press 0.71x.
  • Have not consumed any pornography since waking up on January 1st.

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

I finally quit my job. There was just no hope of the business making it. Bumming around now. Think I should be studying for programming interviews.

Been trying to take care of my appearance and act like nothing bothers me. When I pull it off it's surreal how many strangers start talking to me in public and how nice to me people get. When I slip even for a second minute I become what feels like completely invisible. I really wish I understood this vibe management stuff better.

Got sick, lost a few pounds. Better again and going to the gym again. I feel like I've been gaining and losing the same weight repeatedly. Most food seems pretty unappetizing most of the time to me. I have been making smoothies with protein powder every day, so hopefully that starts adding up.

My resolution was to track calories, which I did for maybe a few weeks. I think think I'll order a food scale and actually try again now.

It's going good!!!!! Kind of. Idk I ended a long relationship / engagement and has been a bit of a mess but still. good.

I’m sorry to hear that, but I hope it’s for the best. Were you having relationship problems or just had different goals?

Relationship problems for a loooong time that she basically refused to work on.

It can be hard to see at the time but being single is vastly better than being with the wrong woman.

Hope you’re doing okay man. Sorry to hear about the relationship end!

Sorry to hear about your engagement. Hope you're doing okay.

  1. Work. Going to take a postdoc job here in Baltimore next year to give myself a bit more experience working with bacteria to pivot to industry after.
  2. Fitness. Workouts are very up and down depending on the weather, but I hit 60 miles last week and had a great long run. 9 weeks until chicago. Weekly hours: 8.1 running.
  3. Intellectual stuff: Now that I'm pretty much definitely not moving to Germany, I can really focus on Spanish. Wrote a blog post last week on my 6 years of Anki usage that got some traction. Spanish Immersion hours last week: 10.5. Blog posts this month: 1
  4. Finances: seems like the roommate isn't coming until the end of this month, so finances will continue to bad this month, especially since I bought two new pairs of running shoes ($350) and train tickets to Boston Labor Day weekend ($400). Seems like I'm going to be way over budget this month. Monthly spending so far: 2988.
  5. Dating. Nothing.
  6. Tarot. No session this week
  7. Socializing: Ran with my friend Monday morning and had a board game night with my lab yesterday.
  8. Screen time: 1.4 hours. That's more like it
  9. Meditation: 5 minutes 3x last week. Would like to make this more of a priority.

Spending is $3,956.81 lower than the same day last year. The contractor keeps getting cock-blocked by the weather, so my progress still looks good for now.

Ungodly levels of stress, but better overall. Managed some exercise.

I've continued to get good feedback from work, and my relationship with my boss is back to cordial. I've got a presentation tomorrow, and I asked him for his input. He was very pleased with the choice of case, and said he'd defend me from any serious pimping if the other seniors had had their cereal shat in. What more can I ask for?