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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   2264 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for September 13, 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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After spending summer at a lower weight, I've decided to try and bulk and gain again. I have mixed feelings about it because I found bulking in the past to be very stressful and miserable, but then I also hate how small and weak I am.

I'm somehow still surprised that there aren't hoards of people who jump in whenever someone talks about increasing caloric intake in order to bulk with various versions of, "Bulking doesn't work; you'll just lose the weight again; your body will adapt; different people absorb calories differently; maybe we need to fix some chemical in the food supply before you're able to bulk; even just talking about the math of bulking shames skinny people."

It really drives home how emotionally driven their arguments are when they make them on the topic of weight loss.

Though I sympathize with your point, I find that my body very easily returns back to my 'typical' weight of 78-80kg, and staying above that requires some effort. And I could easily credit the existence of biological mechanisms that make weight easier to gain than to lose. Of course it's still possible to control my weight, but it's definitely easier in some directions than others.

I would be in complete agreement with your description of your subjective perceptions. Moreover, I think they generalize fairly well. Most people feel most comfortable in some middle range of weight and begin to feel more subjective distress as they push further into either direction. Even more-over, there is some variation in subjective perceptions depending upon baseline habits, degree of one's introspection, etc. I don't think any of those factors do much work to justify the silly things that people constantly bandy about (even in places like here) when the topic of weight loss comes up.

I'm a big fan of bulk cooking your favourite stew/curry in a slow/pressure cooker. Probably worth the couple of hours on youtube or the cooking wiki to find a good recipe made from unprocessed ingredients. Cooking from base ingredients tends to be fairly clean no matter what you make.

This really all depends on you not being a super finnicky eater though that can eat your favourite food 4 meals in a row.

I'm fine with a lack of variety, but I've always been reluctant to pick up kitchen gadgets. I would probably buy one if I wasn't going away in ten weeks.

Pressure cookers are amazing for fire and forget cooking. You just dump the ingredients in, turn it on and walk away. Even if you aren't in the market for one now I would keep it in mind for the future. I get what you mean about kitchen gadgets though, but I've gotten so much use out of mine over the years I couldn't live without one.

bulking sounds a lot more fun than dieting...

I find it stressful, it costs more money and takes more time. I'm not really a big fan of food and eating more makes me like it even less.

Only if you love to eat all day and lift a lot. Dieting is much less time consuming.

a protein drink is 250 calories. drink one an hour. how time consuming can that be?

You'll shit your guts out with so much protein in your diet. Even with 2g/kg I have to consciously prioritize fiber intake or my farts become a chemical weapon.

Are you trying to be funny?

It depends if you have the time, inclination, and knowledge to cook large quantities of food you enjoy. Trying to dirty bulk on fast food and protein is pretty miserable if you're not spiritually fat, and if you're not a cooking type the sort of diet I bulked on for busy times in college (oats, plain ground beef, protein shake with milk and olive oil) isn't very pleasant either.

Just put some taco seasoning in it and otherwise plain ground beef is pretty good

By the time I got back around to bulking again, my love of hot sauce had progressed too far for me to be satisfied with taco seasoning. I recommend Bertie's Pepper Sauce and other Caribbean sauces in particular if you like real flavour, not just heat and vinegar. Liking hot sauce (and learning how to use Asian spices) is a real cheat code for cutting, too, since it's zero calorie. Sub umami+salt stuff like soy sauce or furikake to change things up.

Ground beef is too hard to digest over multiple meals (which is what bulking is). I suggest pork mince as a substitute for any beef mince recipe (religion/culture allowing). Much lighter on the digestive system.

Is that due to the fat content?

I don't know. Potentially the opposite.

From personal experience, pork and chicken are much easier to digest (particularly in large quantities as needed for protein/bulking) than beef.

I often substitute ground turkey in my chili.

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