site banner
PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   1069 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for October 14, 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).

2
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I've lost about 70 lbs since January. Go me!

Some notes:

  • I never got around to buying the ozempic. Low conscientiousness strikes again!
  • I did get a metformin prescription for prediabetes. 500 MG twice a day. Very cheap; $7 for a 3 month supply!
  • I am no longer prediabetic. I hope the doctor does not remove my prescription because of this.
  • No exercise. I've been thinking of buying some kettlebells.
  • Low-carb diet. Basically the union of keto and paleo; if it's allowed on either one, I eat it.
  • No sweeteners. Dread Jim's theory that sweetness makes you fat regardless of calories makes sense.
  • After a few months without sugar or splenda, fruit tastes very good, candy and desserts taste absurdly sweet.
  • Have I changed my opinion on weight loss? No. Diet and metformin lowered set point. CICO is still garbage.

how is your blood pressure so low? mine was at 140 even at 180. congrats on weight loss . CICO is technically true in that sense that obesity reflects an energy imbalance, but also limited in the sense it's hard to predict how the "CO" variable will change.

this is a good point:

In 2025, a normal life makes you fat. It shouldn't take an extraordinary life to avoid being fat. And, for most of human history, it didn't. Sometime in the last few decades, something changed such that ordinary levels of exercise and satiety and willpower simply aren't enough anymore to avoid being fat. Since most people do not have the slack to redesign their entire lives around being thin, a realistic solution to the obesity epidemic needs to involve either identifying and removing the orange soda or inventing some kind of orange soda antidote. Telling people to just consume less calories than they spend is a useless distraction, like telling an adult who counts on his finger to just study harder for the AP Calc exam.

at least 75% of the US population is overweight through no effort. something is wrong. it's more than just "eating too much," as there is evidence people consumed similar or greater calorie counts hundred+ years ago without becoming as overweight. historically, when food was cut off during war or other famine , people rapidly starved to death , even on 1500 kcal/day like in Holland or Russia, yet we have entire Reddit subs where people cannot lose weight on 1200-1500 kcal/day (obviously, miscounting calories is an issue).

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats