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Wellness Wednesday for September 23, 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:

  • Didn't go to the gym last week as I was on holiday. Annoyingly, on the last day of my trip I woke up with a sore throat which developed into a headcold which has yet to clear up. Haven't yet been to the gym since I got back. Determined to go three times this week, even if I only end up walking on the treadmill for an hour. I can deadlift 1.82x my bodyweight, squat 1.33x and bench press 0.82x. I'm on holiday this week so won't get to the gym.
  • Have not consumed any pornography since waking up on January 1st.

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

  1. Work: working on the figures for my paper.
  2. Fitness. Had a half marathon this past weekend and ran what I was hoping (1:19), but it did not feel as easy as I was hoping, as this was supposed to be a marathon-pace workout. Foot feels better but I'm still feeling a bit tired.
  3. Intellectual stuff: Two blog posts still, got another paid subscriber which was nice. Just finished Lenin for philosophy book club, and we are reading Peter Turchin next who should be super interesting.
  4. Finances: This should still be a net positive month, but I've still spent way too much. Need to sit down with the budget next week and figure out how I can do better. Spending so far: $2970.
  5. Dating. Met my girlfriend's sister at the race and hung out with her (the girlfriend) almost the entire day Saturday. It's difficult for us to meet up during the week, which has had the effect of making me more productive and more willing to do chores during the week so I have more time to spend with her over the weekend. Also have continued to be porn and masturbation free. Who knew it would be this easy all along.
  6. Tarot. Talked about meditation and my friend's job situation.
  7. Socializing: called my friend in Florida, went to run club friday morning, and saw both my friend Adam and my girlfriend at the race.
  8. Screen time: 1.2 hours.
  9. Meditation: 5 minutes 5x last week. Would like to make this more of a priority, although this week was significantly better.

1:19 is incredible. I'm doing a half-marathon by myself this weekend, and I'll be chuffed to bits if I can do it in 1:50.

For context my PR is 1:12 from a few years ago. I'm hoping to do under 2:40 at Chicago in a few weeks, so this result was a little scary.

Good luck with your own half!