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Wellness Wednesday for May 10, 2023

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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I'm continuing to lose weight from semaglutide (down 25lbs so far in about 3 months), these past few weeks at a rate of 2lbs/week. I'm also working out 6 times a week doing high-volume bodybuilding style training in order to preserve every shred of muscle I've built over the past 10 years of intermittently working out, and of course eating very high amounts of protein.

I'm still roughly 22 or 23 percent body fat, so not shredded by any means, but beneath the fat I have about 165lbs of lean body mass at a height of 5'9.5, and the large body frame that caused me so much anguish as a teenager is starting to play in my favour because it turns out that my shoulders are wide as fuck (21inches across from shoulder to shoulder measured on a wall, and 53inch shoulders circumference, and it turns out that girls like wide shoulders the way guys like tits?) ... so the overall figure is starting to come together, and the face has slimmed down too. Overall I look ok and muscular in clothes, but kind of unimpressive naked.

I have noticed... changes... to the way I'm perceived socially. Lots of furtive glances when I pass by (and some direct staring), lots of girls staring at my chest when I talk to them, a lot more inexplicable hair-playing and lip-licking, groups of high-school girls giggling when I pass by (which caused me a fucking spike of anxiety when it first happened, high-school-girl-giggling was not associated with anything good the last time it happened to me). I notice that people seemingly want to integrate me into conversations significantly more than before, I've noticed a subtle shift in energy when there's a casual group discussion.

It's also kind of fun to see new people I meet kind of be perplexed after talking to me for the first time. Bear in mind that my fundamental personality is that of a physics nerd (though now I do machine learning), that was the archetype that crystallised inside me during my adolescence, and getting muscles and a bit leaner has done nothing to that aspect of me. But this means that people kind of get visibly perplexed when I ask good questions during ML poster sessions, and when I don't fit their idea of a dumb muscle-bound jock. So far this has mostly amused me, we'll see how It'll get as I get even leaner.

As I get leaner the changes accelerate, every 5lbs decrease has produced more changes of this sort than the last. Overall this has been a strangely emotional experience, I'm basically in the process of fulfilling the dream of my 14-year-old self, and I don't really see any obstacle that could prevent me from getting to 12% body fat in a few more months.

I'll write a much longer top-level post with pictures and everything once this is all over.

I'm glad to hear that it's working out for you! It's not often you get to hear the outcome of both semaglutide and strength training, since the people on the former are usually more concerned with losing weight than anything else.

Overall I look ok and muscular in clothes, but kind of unimpressive naked.

Hey, if you want to get laid that's good enough, by the time clothes are coming off she's probably not going to say no ;)

Yeah, the only thing that's preventing me from getting laid a lot right now is my own internal sense of perfectionism and fairly high standards (both for myself and the girl).

There's also a strange sort of muted anger towards women that I have to work through. I don't feel like I've changed internally at all, I'm the absolute exact same person as I was 40lbs ago (I lost 15lbs before starting semaglutide), and it feels like losing the fat shouldn't make such a big difference in a fair world. Of course this is naive of me, and I'd absolutely treat an obese girl differently from a slim one, but the black pill is still hard to swallow...

the black pill is still hard to swallow

Indeed. A few years back I developed a physical disorder which caused me to lose about 50 pounds and also lose all confidence and personality. Where before I made lots of jokes, teased people, and sort of commanded the flow of group conversations, afterwards I couldn't even do bare minimum things like maintain eye contact or finish sentences without pausing to gather my courage, among many other issues. It was a transformation from maybe a 3 in looks, 7 personality to maybe a 7 in looks, 2 personality. As you might guess by now I got about 1000x as much attention from women during this period.

It really shouldn't be a blackpill; I think the issue is that we have misplaced higher standards for woman than for men, and then we're incredibly disappointed when those higher standards aren't met.

Large changes in physical appearance produce cynicism in many.

I wonder why more people aren't getting plastic surgery, to be honest. They're not exactly leaving $20s on the ground in Grand Central...but they're failing to climb the stairs to the top of the Empire State building for $1000 in many cases.