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Since being forced out of my daily routine,my voracious appetite is definitely making a comeback. But fortunately,we managed to find a gym that I’ve been going to. Membership will end next week and hopefully I’ll be able to go back soonafter to finish this.
Fortunately,although I’ve definitely gained some flab back,I feel like having made sure to keep the gym routine minimized the damage. Some of the weight I’ve gained should be lean mass. People were definitely still commenting on my progress now.
I feel overtrained this week. (no,not in the strict scientific sense of the term the community likes to nitpick. I suppose I should use the word “Overreached”) I smashed it on Monday,but the rest of this week suffered as a result. But I actually feel like this is helping me minimize the fat gain in the mean time. the food should hopefully be going to recovery instead of fat re-accumulation,lol.
Alek,I think you’ve told us before that you regularly engage in intense exercise as part of your routine to keep from gaining the weight back? I feel like I’m going to be following a similar path myself should I finish my diet. Its just sustainable for me to eat low calories for the rest of my life,but hopefully resistance training in addition to sport activity will help me keep the weight off long term.
Have you checked out Jay Vincent or any of the High Intensity Training (some people call it failure training) advocates?
I’m aware of Mike Mentzer’s training approach (HIT/High Intensity Training. not to be confused with HIIT),but haven’t really read into it that much yet.
Of the little I know right now,he’s an advocate of training to absolute muscular failure (1 working set to failure?) and training infrequently (as little as once every 5-7 days I think…) as a result.
My impression of it is that the approach makes sense. I’ve been experiencing it in my own training that both volume and frequency have to go down the more intensely (how close to failure if not outright taking it there) you train. The majority of people who go to the gym don’t train hard enough. They think they are leaving 1-2 reps in the tank when really,its more like 4-5+. This blog article explains it well:
https://mythicalstrength.blogspot.com/2017/05/dont-leave-rep-in-tank.html
But it would seem I’m having the opposite experience these days. I am almost regularly (especially on the Overhead Press) hitting failure,and I suppose that explains why what I’ve just described happens to me so frequently. I made a lot of progress with this approach starting out,but perhaps its finally time I start actively making an effort to leave reps in reserve (RIR).
I feel like many Gym Beginners would benefit a lot from starting with this approach (After they’ve ingrained the fundamental lifting technique first and foremost of course). Its probably the safest time to really learn where your limits are. Going to failure Squatting lighter than 135lbs is a lot safer (I’m assuming safety racks and a spotter are in place here. don’t be stupid) than doing the same working with 250-300+lbs.
Anecdotally, the OH Press is the exercise people hit a plateau the soonest. By far. The HIT people say that it doesn’t mean the muscle isn’t growing or that you should change what you’re doing. Idk though, might be worth switching over to another rep/rest/cadence/set configuration to see if it’s useful in getting over a plateau.
RP often makes fun of HIT. Here’s an interesting video where they discuss a new study showing that perhaps we can use even more volume than we thought (at least via specialization):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8c9BPtwXMs
Channel: Renaissance Periodization
Title: 52 Sets Is BEST For Building Muscle (New Science)
I’m pretty sure its undisputed at this point that Volume becomes the most important driver of muscle growth,as long as sufficient intensity is employed. (proper RIR gauging and working around Strength/Hypertrophy rep ranges,which is around 5-30 reps if I’m not mistaken. Surely nobody here lifts weights for more than 30 reps per set? lol)
I used to hypothesize that one not need to move on from Beginner programming to truly see results from lifting,but at the point I am now,I’d say I was wrong there. My Bench and OHP eventually stalled at rather light weight on the beginner program. My Bench was around 125lbs for more or less 5 reps,and my OHP was well below 100lbs. It wasn’t until I moved on to a more advanced program like 531 that I saw dramatic improvement in those lifts. Heaviest I’ve done thus far is 160lbs for 5 reps on Bench (most likely higher now,just didn’t get the chance to properly test) and 110lbs for 6-7 reps on OHP.
The great news however is that online communities have made Spreadsheets to simplify following these types of more advanced programs. I use the 531 for Beginners Spreadsheet provided by the reddit community for example. (I run the full intermediate program these days,but I use the Spreadsheet to provide me my work set percentages/weights)
There are probably programs better than 531,but it works for me as of the moment (especially with the convenience of having the spreadsheet) and that’s enough for now.
I skimmed that Israetel video. I am slicing through plateaus on most lifts like butter using HIT (been on it about a year). OH Press, leg curls, rope extensions (Tris), and barbell curls in that order seem to give me trouble (HIT guys don’t worry about hitting plateaus, but I don’t subscribe to any specific philosophy). Been mixing in some strength training for OH Press. Will see if that helps with the plateau. If not, may take a volume approach like described in the Israetel vid.
Out of all the dumb feminist “safety” measures being implemented in AI tools, I think what I just had happened is easily the worst and most insane.
I was curious what percentage of women in the USA in that range we often talk about. So I simply asked bard “How many women in the USA are in the range of 19-35”.
It admonished me that it cannot answer that question in order to protect the privacy of women. I asked it how the fuck that makes any sense? If I know that it’s 50 million vs 65.4 million it affects anyone’s “privacy” exactly how? Besides I could pull up the stats myself and do the calculation myself in 90 seconds, all bard does is save you time.
It then explained that if you narrow down to a narrower group with identifying characteristics, you can pinpoint actual individuals, and that’s not safe.
Mind you, the only “identifying” characteristic was “19-35”, in a country of 330 million people. That’s fucking insane. I’m sure feminists are working in overdrive to make AI tools unusable. ChatGPT has gotten insanely worse in the past months. It now just gives super vague and short platitudes and non-answers, which are very obviously due to leftie-driven demands.
Were you using ChatpGPT 4?
Version 3.5 gives out the answer but you have to specify that you are interested previous year as the model is only trained on data up to January 2022.
Also I don’t think this so called generative AI is capable of logical reasoning. Give it some syllogisms to solve and you will see how derpy it is. If it refuses to give an answer it is probably because programmers have placed some simplistic safeguards in order to protect the company from potential legal issues. I don’t think you can circumvent those by using facts and logic.
The new version of Midjourney is better than its predecessors because it produces uglier, er, “more realistic” women:
https://twitter.com/RobertRopo/status/1738320757506166977
Javier Milei from Argentina has announced that it will cut protestors welfare if they protest. Perhaps the US and Europe can learn a thing or two from Milei.
https://www.businessinsider.com/argentina-new-government-threatens-protesters-welfare-cuts-milei-buenos-aires-2023-12
This is very interesting. Let’s see if he actually follows through. By the way, a lot of the problems in the West could be solved if governments simply followed the law. Instead, they just do whatever they want. In Germany, for instance, there is currently some fake debate about illegal immigration that is based on the false premise that the country had to take in all those rocket scientists. It is said that politics is show business for ugly people. It is also apparently entertainment targeting total morons.
Have you guys heard of Erotomania? I’ve read that the majority of those with this affliction are women. (despite men being the more desperate sex in general. I don’t think I need to say more on that,lol)
Because of this,I have to wonder if this is essentially Hypergamy gone out of control. Similar to how you could say Hybristophilia is Bad Boy Addiction at the most extreme end of the scale.
I was not familiar with this term, but it seems that a lot of women suffer from it, judging by their behavior. In fact, the female delusion of being sexually attractive, despite obvious evidence to the contrary should be seen as an example of erotomania already. Thus, not only are the majority of all people who are affected by erotomania women, but a large number of women are affected by erotomania.
That brings up another subject i’ve wanted to bring up, but never did. One of the things that irks me most about women is “hallucinated rejection”. I don’t know if there is a name for it, so that’s what I came up from. And it bugs me to this day whenever it happens.
I think most guys here know you get over rejection really quickly. If you do a lot of volume when you get serious about getting laid, you can reach this point kind of quickly, and you become numb to it, I reached this point probably 15 years ago…
But hallucinated rejections still bother me, probably because it is a form of gaslighting. So what is a hallucinated rejection? It’s when a girl you have zero interest in (I’m talking 4s and 5s) purposefully misinterprets something on your part as you hitting on her, or being interest in her, just so she can reject you. Even though you have zero interest, and didn’t even make a move.
I’d want to scream “There was absolutely 0% romantic or sexual interest on my part, either internally or externally, and there couldn’t ever possibly be since you’re not even in the same universe as chicks that I’m interested in”, but then they’d just use that as more proof that I’m into them, and my emotional outburst is coz I got rejected.
You can go ahead and read some of the sexual harassment blogs by feminists where they submit stories of them beeing “stalked” or “hit on” by “creeps”, and the story is so obviously them making up interest, its not even crazy. It’s all based on mind-reading so a 4 can convince herself she’s desired.
@Aaron
After I typed that,I also began to think…maybe a little bit of projection is in play as well. Because women show interest by sending subtle signals,they must think we do it as well. (the male version of not being able to make a move is typically nice guy friendzone simping. I don’t know about you,but I wouldn’t call this subtle. When women say they mistake this for friendliness,I dunno how many of them are actually that naive or just pretending.) Nevermind the fact that most dudes don’t even have an inkling of all this,let alone think to be sending them. I can’t imagine male celebrities being unconfident in themselves that they would be resorting to sending secret messages to some mid 30’s jane.
@Alek
Feminists complain so much about guys being “entitled”,but good god,when you’re a decently attractive guy (around the more or less 7 range. 9-10/10 True Chads don’t get this I’m sure),and some 3-6/10 chick can’t nab you,the resentment/passive-aggressive gaslighting you get to be on the receiving end of can be pretty unnerving.
Good thing you pointed out that aspect to this, I somehow missed it, even though it’s completely obvious.
Yes, “Chad lights” are the perfect target for this bullshit. You’re attractive enough to where a 4 can get an ego boost by pretending you’re hitting on her, but not so attractive where she jeopardizes enraging a high-status guy, i.e. an actual 9 or 10 guy; People would call the 4 out on this bullshit. So guys who are 7s and 8s are the perfect target for this bullshit.
Funnily enough, I have a situation with a friend currently that’s like this. After some conversation about another friend, she goes “oooooh so that’s what all of this is about, you’re interested in [mutual friend]”. And I actually had to shut her down and explain something like “I don’t do subtle, if I was interested in [common friend] I would have told you, I am not a chick, I don’t do that roundabout shit”.
A public example is Chiquita Krushchev, who is loudly worried that all Republicans want to bone her.
She was also very upset about a very-well made meme, so I heard, that shows her eagerly going down on Trump. In her mind, this constituted “sexual violence”. Unfortunately, this image seems to have been scrubbed from the Internet. It would have been a very important artefact of contemporary political life in the United States.
“Unfortunately, this image seems to have been scrubbed from the Internet.”
– There’s the saying that once you put something out in the open on the net,consider it permanently etched there. She should consider herself very lucky in this case.
On Epic Games you can currently get Ghostwire: Tokyo for free:
https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/
This game got pretty good reviews, but perhaps this was partly due to the designer being a woman. I recall that Shinji Mikami was a big supporter of her, but as he has lost his mojo, this is probably not much of an endorsement.
Hope you guys managed to nab Fallout 3,which was the free game for giveaway before this. I did. Its the Game of the Year Edition,which means ALL the official DLC’s.
I can’t believe they’re giving away games like this nowadays. Hopefully I’ll nab Fallout New Vegas (superior to Fallout 3 in my opinion,but I suppose its only fair I re-evaluation after another run) as well sooner rather than later
Fallout 3 is already 15 years old. I find it more incredible that a game this old is still relevant today. This may say more about the quality of today’s games, though. Also, unlike retrogames of the past, Fallout 3 has still mainstream significance and gets referenced a lot online, even outside of niche communities. When you compare this to, for instance, the Nintendo Wii offering classic SNES and NES games as downloads in the mid-2000s, it is quite obvious that games have become much more ingrained in popular culture.
Mary Xmas my true pilled friends! Or as they say in Clown World, Happy Holidays!!!!
Aaron,
Are you familiar with the tales of Krampus and Christmas? I just learned about it.
Yes, of course. This is a folk story originating from the South of Germany and Austria.
Harvard is dismantling itself:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12881249/amp/Harvard-President-Claudine-Gay-DEI.html
These people really thought they could put an incompetent diversity hire at the top of this university while keeping up the pretense of excellence.
Here is a great lecture on human progress, or its lack thereof:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSRHeXYDLko
In particular the elaborations on the decline of software quality are quite worrying. If you work in this industry, you can probably relate to that.
Rockstar is not having a good year. Recently, the entire source code of GTA V got leaked. Granted, the game is a decade-old, but this is nonetheless a serious issue as it shows that arguably the top Western game studio is unable to guard their most valuable property.
A good friend from school days avoids socializing. He rarely or never calls back, and when he does meet up, it feels more like a mandatory homework assignment.
In addition, he always becomes a total simp as soon as he is in a relationship. He is currently in a relationship and neglects most of his long-term friends.
He has also changed and become snobbish since he became a civil servant in Germany. He feels superior to his friends and does not tolerate any criticism of German state policy.
I don’t want to “chase” after him anymore because it makes me feel stupid, but it’s a shame that a longtime friendship just goes to sleep like that… Not sure how to act.
This is not at all uncommon. Don’t chase after him. Chances are he will not even reach out to you anymore.
Probably. Still… it’s sad.
If he at least had the balls to say: “Hey Gerd, we were friends for a long time, but it’s no longer a good fit. From now on we go separate ways”
I find myself in a rather unusual situation right now. Currently seeing a girl that’s more in the “new stages” and it appears to be going well but….this girl at the gym in the mornings is definitely very interested. I was thinking this was the case a couple weeks ago with the “eyes” she was giving and then last week she working in so close to me and locking in eyes intensely and not even looking away when I caught her. I would rank her a 9 overall. She has a hot face and basically prefect gym body. The strange thing about this situation is that she also lives in the same condo building as me lol. I’m not sure what to think. Could be awesome or could be a disaster if things went bad.
Even if it goes bad, if she is not one of those Cluster-B women, the negative consequences should be quite limited. After one or two weeks, she will likely simply ignore you in case she accidentally bumps into you. Also, how often do you bump into your neighbors anyway? When I lived in apartment buildings, there were people I ran into less than once in six months.
That’s true! I’ve only ever bumped into her three times in over a year at building. A positive way to look at it, too, is that she’s obviously very into fitness, a morning person like myself, and super attractive. Plus, living in the same building could be good as no driving is involved to see each other and nice and easy for booty calls. Only thing is, I would have to get rid of other girl I’m currently seeing who seems like a good catch. Wouldn’t be a good idea trying to see them both at same time. Would be the one I’d bump into her on the elevator lol.