site banner

Wellness Wednesday for September 30, 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:

  • Fell slightly behind my posting schedule. Planning to knock out a quick blog post today.
  • I had a headcold last week and didn't manage to get to the gym until Thursday. The plan was to go on Saturday and Sunday, but after running a half-marathon on Saturday morning (with a respectable time of 1:57), I couldn't summon the resolve to go to the gym as well. Instead, I went to the gym twice on Sunday. I also went to the gym last night, and am planning to go this evening. I can deadlift 1.82x my bodyweight, squat 1.33x and bench press 0.82x.
  • 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: nothing new to report.
  2. Fitness. Still feeling a bit off and a bit pessimistic for Chicago. Hoping for under 2:40 still but workouts have not been very promising. Depends quite a bit on the weather I guess. Last week: 60 miles in ~8 hours.
  3. Intellectual stuff: Wrote a third blog post about my Oura data (sleep doesn't seem to matter, at least not in my very consistent 6-8 hours). Reading Turchin and various Spanish books.
  4. Finances: Sat down with Claude and figured out from my budget that the main things I can save money on are unnecessary subscriptions (I hardly use Netflix right now for example) and eating out. That being said, I still managed to save about 15% this month, which is not terrible. Spending so far: $3425.
  5. Dating. Hung out with the girlfriend twice last week, things are going well. Masturbation and porn continue to be an absolute non-issue now.
  6. Tarot. No session this week.
  7. Socializing: fantasy book club on Sunday, science expo for the youth of Baltimore City, and hanging out with my girlfriend.
  8. Screen time: 1.5 hours phone
  9. Meditation: 5 minutes every single day last week. Now trying to get an evening and morning session in before extending the duration.