The Iron Will and Positivity Thread

[yung.carl.jung]

Saw a sexy lady on Facebook and tempted to fap (amazing how easily I am triggered) but resisted.

don't let the succubi get you down. good man!

 

[Narz]

don't let the succubi get you down. good man!

They're just pixels. Orgasming to pixels in the past is just sad.

I ended up failing anyway around 2am but I didn't allow myself to get in a shame spiral about it, just whatever, shower, sleep, tomorrow a new day.

 

[civvver]

I was super tired yesterday and skipped my morning workout (bad night, kids woke up a zillion times, got in a big fight with wife, don't ask) so I worked out in my neighbor's garage around 7pm instead. His setup is awesome, nice bench, squat rack, dip bar, pull up bar. You can do a lot of stuff. But it was 87f and like a zillion percent humidity. I was fine until I hit a wall near the end of the workout and got a bad headache, this was only like a 45 minute workout. I nearly died. Well not really but I was flushed red for about 30 minutes after until I took a cold shower. Literally put the shower all the way on tap cold and just sat in it for 5 mins. I want to work out there friday but it's supposed to hit 100. So I guess I'll get up at 5am and go to the gym instead. So long sleep.

Oh and I almost forgot, I had a super embarrassing moment. I was doing my heavy set at 185 lbs which is usually just fine for me, but cus it's a different bench I had the bar a little too close to the hooks and actually hit one on the way up and couldn't get the bar around it. I lowered it and tried to swing it out and around but at that point was just gassed and couldn't push the bar out of the path enough and of course my buddy had just stepped away to talk to his wife. So I had to shamefully roll the bar down my body to get it off and he came back just as I was finishing up. I told him what happened, how the bar got stuck under the hook but I'm pretty sure in his head he was going yeah suuuure buddy whatever you say lol

 

[yung.carl.jung]

im so freakin happy this thread is @ 12 pages and i hope it keeps going

ive actually managed to smoke far less for the entire week than i usually do so thats a great thing

 

[Truthy]

I'll participate.

I've been working out consistently the last few months. Goal 1 is I want to improve my cardiac efficiency. I'm already pretty ok in terms of this, but always good to improve anyway. Goal 2 is I want to bulk up a bit because it feels good and for the ladies. On this front, I'm on the skinny side. ~145 lbs (66 kg) and 6' (1.83 m). But I've been gaining 1-2 lbs a month for the last few months, which is decent progress imo.

So far I've stayed motivated because (1) working out is cathartic and (2) I treat myself by listening to podcasts and books on audible (big fan; I've listened to 6 books since I got audible in February). For a while I was gamifying my workouts by jotting down numbers and creating gains plots in python. But this became tedious and started stressing me out so I quit doing it.

 

[civvver]

Have we all burned out from summer and given up on iron will and positivity?

I know my worksout have been lax but some good news, got my cholesterol screened and it's much improved, fantastically from a year ago, and pretty good just in 4 months. A year ago total was 209, hdl 34, ldl 136. April 186/32/128. Last test 188/38/123. I'm almost to the ideal 40+ HDL range whoo hoo!

I took some fish oil supplements for a couple months in the spring, but I stopped. However I eat sardines on average twice a week. Some weeks I don't eat any, other weeks I'll eat 4 tins so it just varies. I think that combined with slight weight loss is what did it. Get your omega 3s in people!

 

[MaryKB]

I got an indoor exercise bike because I'm too lazy to get up and go out, lol!

 

[Truthy]

Have we all burned out from summer and given up on iron will and positivity?

I dunno, maybe my last post just had so much iron will and positivity that there was none left for anyone else

I took some fish oil supplements for a couple months in the spring, but I stopped. However I eat sardines on average twice a week. Some weeks I don't eat any, other weeks I'll eat 4 tins so it just varies. I think that combined with slight weight loss is what did it. Get your omega 3s in people!

The evidence on fish oil supplements seems really mixed from what I've read. But the evidence of benefits from getting fish oil from eating actual fish is strong. It's kinda strange.

I also eat sardines a few times a week. I put them on toast and have that for breakfast. This initially took iron will on its own because I thought sardines looked disgusting for a long time. But I've gotten over that.

 

[civvver]

They aren't much too look at but they taste good. Though I vastly prefer boneless skinless ones packed in olive oil. Packed in water is ok but I have to add something for flavor like hot sauce. Packed in the olive oil they have some salt and I can eat them straight out of the tin. Removing the skin and bones makes the texture less fishy, less slimy, more meaty like canned chicken or tuna. Although the boneless skinless ones are double the price, they're still cheap. I get em for $1.25 for a 3.5 ounce container vs 65 cents for the ones with skin and bones at aldi. It's worth it.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

I love how this thread is still going. I'm still on my CFC break, but can report that I've managed to do a smoking pause that I'm quite proud of. I went hiking with my girlfriend and my family for 4 days, which was nice, and am still working out almost always 3 times per week, albeit with a pretty weak exercise regimen. need to up the ante a bit. I also took up two jobs while still doing my MA degree, so hopefully I will have time for allathat.

 

[Narz]

I'm pretty depressed but I saw a pic on my FB feed from 6 years ago and I looked way more depressed then (tho less gray hair on my face).

I feel very stuck but I'm less self-judgemental than I used to be with slightly more hope but still pretty bored w life.

Don't really have a clear plan towards success. I hate my job & don't have a path towards an actual career. My mood varies quite a bit day to day.

Cheery right?

 

[yung.carl.jung]

For the last few days I've been working out every day. Smoke far less, drink almost nothing. Been on a very heavy diet. Have spent extremely little time in front of screens, PC and Smartphone and Kindle. I read for hours every day. Never feel bored. Time goes by much slower, everything feels more meaningful. I feel as if I've been reborn, I hope it lasts. I'll be posting very little from now on, only dropping in every now and then. I was sure that I'd be overwhelmed with quitting/doing so many things at the same time, but it's working out.

 

[Narz]

Signed up for 52 weeks of personal training.

 

[dusters]

I'm 60kg and 1.87m, dad said I have to work on getting to be able to do more pushups (I understand it that way).

Well, with near zero testosterone in body, that's quite a feat to do 10 pushups (this could be my goal). But I will work on this.

 

[Narz]

For what its worth my new trainer is female (and can deadlift almost double what I can )

 

[civvver]

I had a setback cus stupid taco bell came out with a nacho cheese wrapped taco... for ONE FREAKIN DOLLAR so of course I had to try it and pounded four of them for lunch yesterday. Back to chicken and vegetables today though and life finally calmed down enough that I could get to bed early and do my 5:30AM gym routine. Man I lost a ton of strength taking two months off but it should bounce back quickly.

Btw, taco review, imo they are not as good as the old double decker tacos, and really if you just put some nacho cheese on regular crunchy taco it'd have the same effect. The cheese obviously didn't coat the entire soft shell like in the pics but it was adequate and that's basically what it tasted like, a crunchy taco with nacho cheese added. Honestly the main appeal is the price cus I think a regular crunchy taco is almost $2 now? Three taco supremes combo with a drink is something like $7 which seems excessive for what you get.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

I'm feeling incredibly tired and exhausted to the point where it's difficult to keep my routine up. I get much, much more sleep than I usually do (8+ hours compared to my usual 5 to 6), but to no avail. Getting up early is almost a guarantee for feeling terrible throughout the day. Working two jobs plus university plus all the voluntary work I do is sucking me dry. I can barely muster up the creativity and energy that I felt flowing through every pore of my body just days ago. Just thinking about working full time in my semester break, while simultaneously doing exams and writing papers, makes me feel physically ill.

I'm still keeping both my diet and my exercise up, still reducing screen time, but I feel more and more that when I come home from work, or from university, I simply go into braindead-zombie mode, turn on the PC, sedated by the promise of not having to think, of the infinite autoplay feature, and just consume whatever TV series I feel like until I get tired. That's not relaxation, that's hardly even being alive. I dread it. These last days I've managed to actually do a small workout, give myself piano lessons and read something, even after coming home from 9 hours of uni. But it wasn't as fun or satisfactory as it usually is.

Maybe at some point I will have to go full @Mouthwash wrt screens. Trying my best to stay strong, but I can already feel things starting to slip.

 

[Synobun]

I don't really see why you think screens are the issue here, and not the complete schedule overwhelm you're subjecting yourself to.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

Yeah, maybe I worded that poorly. It's not really about screens per-se. Being exhausted makes me seek brainless entertainment a lot, and doing that doesn't really reduce stress or relax me much. I don't know why. Reading a physical book, listening to music with the lights out, really playing a game, those things relax me and are a lot of fun. But I've been substituting these for scrolling on my phone and clicking through YouTube tabs, which in some cases even makes me more stressed out. I miss my six-hour Civ binges

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Well so far I'm absolutely failing at both my new years resolutions. I had planned to set aside 2 days each week to learn - one day Spanish, another programming - but I have not done it even a single week. To be fair to me, I went from part-time to over-time in the space of 1 week but still, I never even tried to get this going. I'm pretty mad at myself for this. Usually when I make up my mind to do something, I do it, but I've been trying to learn Spanish off and on for a decade. I should start recording Spanish soap operas or something. Really at this point anything to get me moving. If someone wants to PM me in Spanish that would be awesome to attempt to translate and respond to.

I have at least kept up with my exercise routine, so I'm happy that has stuck for another year.