Alex_uk: 40 years in the making

Training Training Logs
4293

19/03/25 - 195

Was revisiting my post on my values and behaviours, more on this to follow, but I noticed it’s been exactly 30 days since I wrote that post and I’m down 7lbs since then. Losing just under a quarter of a lb a day, again slightly quick, but not changing anything yet.

Anyway I was revisiting my values as it came up last night at my home group, the study we’re doing asked “What do you think is the driving aim of your life? Your top goals and priorities?”

I lead the group so I tend towards facilitating the discussion (reflecting, digging deeper, drawing learning points etc) rather than giving too much in terms of personal contributions, so I didn’t mention my list of values and behaviours. I was talking about it afterwards with my wife. No one had any real solid, pre-thought answers to the question, the answers given tended to be fairly vague and sentiment based.

It’s not surprising really, because I would probably have had a similarly vague response prior to writing that out. Where am I going with this slightly aimless ramble? I suppose it’s this in general people, even those who should be able to clearly identify their driving aim and values, are generally ambling through life without a clear sense of purpose. I feel like this a contributing factor to why people often feel so dissatisfied with life and potentially why mental health issues seem to be continuously rising.

What are you living for? What’s the point? Why don’t you have a good answer for that?

So many people would say their aim and goal in life is happiness, but that’s such a weak answer, in a recent conversation with a friend he likened happiness to sex, it’s amazing, a wonderful thing that of course you want more of, but you can’t have it all the time and it wouldn’t be right to, you enjoy it whilst you have it and recognise that there is a time and place for it but it isn’t the only thing in life.

I enjoyed his analogy, maybe a little flawed but illustrated the point well. Happiness is fleeting and often depends on external factors, the pursuit of it often appears to make people self-centred and oftentimes miserable. To be clear I’m not against happiness, and am very regularly happy, but it does not define me nor drive my actions.

I’ve been rambling again, time to digress down another path.

One of the points of our latest study is to put into practice the things we study. This week’s practice was prayer, with an encouragement to make a specific, daily intentional time for prayer, by finding a quiet place, focusing and being at peace and making it the time when you are at your best (give God your best time).

Leading by example I started immediately using my daily walk (about the only alone time - sorry dog not counting you), I didn’t take headphones and instead spent the time being intentional with prayer and bringing my thoughts back to God (meditative, when not actively praying).

My daily walk as a result was slower, but even more enjoyable, 2.8 miles in just under an hour (fasted with ecgc and caffeine).

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4294

That makes me think I should read Victor Frankl again. I do not know much about Logo Therapy, but if I remember correctly it deals a lot about one’s purpose. Right now I am somewhat drifting with the tide. When I was a pup I had goals, there was purpose. Retirement is on the horizon. Do I spend my days in Palm Springs working on my tan by day, hitting the Early Bird in the afternoon, and learn to play Bridge in the evenings? Sprinkle in chess club? While another side wants to try to get into a history program and earn a Ph.D.? Upon finishing it, then what do I do? Will a 70 year old, with a new diploma, get to lecture? Of course there is then the cost. One option looks like fun (which is often mistaken for happiness…). Option two is work, but there is purpose (Looking at it from where I am now.). When my grandfather retired he bought 25 acres and started farming: hay, fruit orchards, etc. That was a whole new world for me, the suburban kid. But I worked with him everyday all summer long. That built a bond that many do not get with a grandparent. It probably kept me out of a lot of trouble. My brother still calls me the Crown Prince. We chuckle about it. I have not just walked in sometime, but Thich Nhat Hahn certainly extols the virtues of a good meditative walk. This is long, my apologies. However, it was excellent to read your post this morning.

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4295

No need to apologise, I’m (hopefully) quite clear this is more of a journal than a training record, and being public in a space, shared with a community with a wide range of people, who’s experiences and wisdom I value, is a real joy!

Option 2 could also have purpose, it would require some definition, and maybe some time off to experience it before trying to define it.

I suppose this is probably where those of a specific faith have an easier time (in theory) a belief in a higher power who gives purpose, means that whilst you always want to look at your actions through the lens of this, the purpose itself should never need redefining. For example, I might ask in what ways would sunning myself on the beach be to God’s glory, well rest (Sabbath) and pleasure are part of God’s plan and purpose for humanity, therefore in resting on the beach I am in some small ways enjoying the purpose God has for me in that moment.

In your options, I could do option 1 with the purpose of experiencing it, then the purpose of defining a purpose within that environment, whether that’s to build a vibrant social life within that community or beat Roy the octogenarian chess grandmaster of Palm Springs.

I guess the limitations are merely that in which you yourself find purposeful?

Lovely memories with your granddad, I aim to retire (from paid work) early, and that sort of lifestyle sounds an idyllic thing to retire to!

19/03/25 - PM

Little bit of movement:

Dips x 5
Face pulls x 10
Zottman curls: 10kg x 10

5 rounds through

Deadlifts: 60kg x 5
Dips x 5

5 rounds through.

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4296

Loving the philosophical chat in here.

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4297

I think that its an inverse relationship between frequency and importance.

If you’re getting it all the time, it’s not that important.
If you’re not getting it at all, it’s the most important thing.

I dont believe happiness is or should be an enduring state for men.
Women and children, sure.
Men dont become men without suffering.
Usually, the more suffering endured, the stronger the man.

I’m envious of your church group - and I’m not religious at all :grinning_face:

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4298

I don’t have a fully defined purpose, but i do have a general direction. We’re at very different stages in life.

At first i started with the question “how do you want your average tuesday to look like in 5 years, exactly? Be specific.”
That got me moving in the right direction with an absence of an end goal.

Other questions…
If you could do anything knowing you would not fail, what would you do?
Now the caveat
If you knew you were going to fail, would you do it anyways?

How do you want to be remembered?
What do you want people to say about you at your funeral?

I have a good bit more information on this subject - probably enough to hit the character limit on a post, so I’ll keep it short.

If these questions don’t really jive for you, there’s a book I’d recommend to read. A lot of it wont be necessary, but it goes into defining one’s mission or life goals, while stripping away unnecessarily restrictive beliefs about what goals are “acceptable” to have.
Unchained Man 2.0

Yeah, there’s a lot of red pill/alpha male stuff in there - take it or leave it. The goals and mission stuff is top notch, IMO.

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4299

I love the idea of limiting it to a Tuesday. I’m in the middle of the Dan John Goal setting course, which includes figuring out your ideal day, but it seems really useful to put some limits to make sure its reasonably normal and sustainable.

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4300

My ideal day is not compatible with the life i want to live, or the principles i want to pass on to my daughter. Trying to make my ideal day become a tangible goal would alienate me from my family, virtues, and quality of life.

But my ideal average Tuesday? I can do that without compromising everything I love about myself.

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4301

20/03/25 - 197 - solved the losing too fast thing by making fajitas and going a little crazy last night with the serving size…and cheese! (It’ll be transient gain).

Morning fasted walk 2.5 miles, 1.25 miles each way separated by a prayer meeting (caffeine and ecgc plus a coffee at the meeting).

PM
Lifting:

A1) deadlifts: 60kg x 5 x 5 sets
A2) dips: bw x 5 x 5 sets

B2) Low Inc bench (setting 1): 60, 70, 80, 90kg x 5
B2) Chest supported DB row: 30kg x 5 x 4 sets

C1) Swiss bar bench: 60, 70, 80, 90kg
C2) Chin ups: 8 x

D1) Inc DB fly: 10kg x 12 x 2
D2) Inc DB curl: 10kg x 12 x 2

Keeping some movement going in things that are good and not stressful to the back.

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4302

Cheese is like weight gain magic, as I’m fairly certain the body has no mechanism in it whatsoever to trigger satiety from eating it. Eat an ounce or a pound of it: body still wants more cheese. Make a pizza with light cheese or a pizza with extra cheese: body still wants more pizza. And nothing has ever suffered from being “too cheesy”. All of this is great when trying to move the needle the other way on the scale, and is why I don’t even both with it when trying to go the other way. My one exception is cottage cheese, and even then, I have to really limit it because I can still totally crush it.

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4303

Interesting observation, something I knew to be true, but the difference between knowing and observing in yourself are quite stark.

We lie to ourselves so much, I’m sure this is true in many spheres, but specifically for me, in today’s musing, body fat. I had way more body fat than I care to admit (and by extension way less muscle).

I’m sub 200lbs at 6’2 and I’m nowhere near what I would define lean (like actually lean). I suspect most people here would think me fairly lean by the photos I post here, but the reality is those photos are always posed/lit/angled to present the best possible view (you know without actual effort and photo editing) - and that’s part of the lie I tell myself.

It’s probably why I’ve always struggled with trying to get lean, because in my mind it’s always a few weeks away and not actually months and months of work, I’ve got 65 days left until my cruise and I’ve been fairly confident that I’ll obtain the level of leanness I want by then, but actually I’m wondering if that looks is further away and my lying to myself was clouding that. Lying to myself by intentional delusional.

I think part of it is also where we view “fat” and where the body views fat, my legs have gotten leaner, I’d guess (but never really paid any attention) my back has got leaner, but I’ve never even thought those areas had any real fat stored there, shock horror they do and my body would rather lose that before it loses abdominal fat. Lying to myself by ignorance.

It’s not going to change my course and it won’t ruin my cruise, at the end of the day it’s a minor vanity, but it’s just been interesting observing this, in this one small area of life, I wonder where else I will encounter this, do I even want to uncover it, or is ignorance bliss?

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4304

The common quote that always holds true, self included, is “take your initial weight loss estimate and double it”. When we think we only have 10lbs to lose, it’s really 20, and 20lbs is really 40. But a big part of that is that “weight” is probably the least meaningful metric for evaluating body composition. “Weight” can be gained and lost in minutes with water manipulation, and in the quest for FAT loss, we tend to see a rapid weight loss at the start just from shifts in glycogen and food mass in the guts, and we forget to factor that into our equation of how much “weight” we have to lose, because we just think in terms of losing pure fat weight, which never happens.

And, of course, all the horror stories of dudes that lost “TONS of muscle” trying to lean out, for just the reason you mentioned: they didn’t realize how much muscle they DIDN’T have to start with, and how much of their WEIGHT was just water, glycogen, food, and fluff.

This is why, unless I have a competition coming up, I don’t step on a scale. It doesn’t tell me anything meaningful. We look how we look.

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4305

You know this reminded me a lot of the food used by the frontiersmen and trappers of the 1700 and 1800s. I have a big fascination with wilderness survival from that time period and cheese is always a staple when it comes to survival food and the lengths they went to stuff calories into as SMALL a container as possible is interesting

Another thing that reminded me of what you said was the Roman Legions. So much freaking grains and cheese. Keeps you chugging along. I really love food and I really love the history of food and how it’s been used.

Just a random thought lol don’t mind me

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4306

Haha absolutely, if it’s not science, it should be, maybe a random bodybuilding coach can claim it’s science and then others will read it and claim they’ve read a study on it!

Agreed!

Yup, will definitely be around that judging by what I’m observing.

This is the fun thing, no doubt in my mind I’ve lost almost zero muscle, I’ve done this thing with really high compliance and I’ve avoided the general pitfalls that would cause muscle loss (not done any cardio at all despite doubting that it really is catabolic, particularly at my stage in weight loss). That means everything I’m losing is a good thing, that goes someway towards feeling better about it, but there’s still an element of getting smaller that doesn’t sit well in my psyche! I know though that the end results will reveal what the foundation is, and where I am and then I get the real fun of trying to grow again! (Rinse and repeat ad infinitum!).

Mine told me I ate a lot of carbs, fat and salt in combo late last night!

Always welcome!

Those dudes knew how to do it, no freeze dried, dehydrated ration packs! Cheese is all you need (just don’t tell @QuadQueen if you’re doing the only cheese diet).

I think I told another lie earlier…

Because I finally got the lamb out of mother’s freezer and it’s glorious:

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Quite literally the best meat I’ve ever cooked, just slow roasted it. I keep picking at it as I walk past and find myself eating chunks of fat and it’s just as delightful as eating the meat. This is going to be served as a roast dinner, it will be big, I make no apologies.

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4307

I am almost certain that the constipation this results is will have you rethinking your strategy. lol

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4308

Oh damn, I’ve been traveling and have missed a ton! Lots to say here.

First @Koestrizer dude, one of the things I love about this community is the amount of help I see members giving one another, and it’s awesome to see you reach out like that. Much respect, I’m glad we’ve got guys like you around

In terms of the back injury, im FAR from any sort of expert, but I read somewhere a long time ago (maybe Wendler? Not sure) a quote that essentially said “the best way to prevent a back injury is to make your back strong as hell” and honestly, it’s worked for me. I’ve always hammered rows, erector, and low back work. If you see me every do squats (especially SSB), I use my back a ton. I know a lot of people say to prevent rounding, and I do emphasize it by any means, but in my case study of one, making my back muscles strong has led to me getting away with quite a bit and never being any worse for where. (There’s a decent chance the above paragraph is a horror story to @Koestrizer , and for that I can only say I’m sorry lol)

Man, this hits home. I’ve said for a long time that I value doing something “purposeful” over doing something that makes me happy, in a hedonistic sense anyway. My last 6 years of career have been insanely demanding, and while I rarely felt “happy,” I would always say that I was content with my choices, because even when life kind of sucked, I felt like I was going through this suck for a greater purpose. I’m at a bit of a transition point in my life right now, and I find myself considering this more and more. On the one hand, I have a few VERY lucrative options in front of me that would guarantee a comfortable, fairly relaxed lifestyle with plenty of time and money to pursue hobbies and entertainment. On the other hand, I have options that will be stressful on a personal and professional level, will pay less, will be difficult logistically for the family… and will absolute let me feel like I am spending my time in a worthy cause. It’s a tough decision to make, and I think finding a balancing act between the two is really the goal people should find. Being the martyr (from my experience) seems to be more noble in idea in practice, but I also can’t imagine a life where I wasn’t doing a job that had some type of impact. I don’t have the answers to any of this, but it’s a fascinating discussion.

Fantastic recommendation. One my list of books I think everyone should read. It’s short, but impactful. I’m assuming you are referencing “man’s search for meaning,” but if you liked that, I would recommend “the doctor and the soul” by him as well. That is the book he was actually working on when he went into the concentration camps, and he recreated it after his release. Longer, more in depth, and dives more into the philosophy of life, but it’s a great read.

Mines also long, but I’m not apologizing haha

Interesting thought here. I’m not entirely sure if I agree, but I think it’s a little situationally dependent.

Maybe a little TMI here, but from teenage years up until fairly recently, I’ve never had any sort of dry spell. Then I had a roughly 18 month dry spell. Not continual, but military had my wife and I on opposite coasts, except for when I deployed and we were on opposite hemispheres. We had visits every few months or so, but definitely a drop in frequency. I won’t say my inclinations changed at all throughout that time, but it also never became something I was rabid about. Sure, I would absolutely love to be with my wife in that way, but I can’t right now, so that sucks and back to the rest of my life. I don’t think I thought about it any more or less, just was sort of a “yeah I still have these desires, but I can’t act on them at the moment, so oh well.”

Granted, we just changed duty stations and are together again, and I am VERY much enjoying the… ahem… cohabitation, so maybe I was just in denial before. And there may be something to the fact that I was choosing to be in that situation, rather than being in a situation where I wanted sex period and just couldn’t find someone willing to reciprocate. (Which also, look at my log. I’m not winning any beauty pageants lol. But still, I’ve never in my life had a situation where I wanted to date and wasn’t able to, and I have always punched far above my weight in terms of my partner haha. I’m convinced that most guys honestly are single solely because they never actually take any actions to attract a partner, but I feel like this is opening up an entire new can of worms)

Many life problems can be solved with cheese. Remember this.

Man I love where your head is at in these talks haha. I say that without a hint of irony, I’m a total history nerd and have often found myself thinking similarly. Just this week, I made a pot roast of chuck steak, potatoes, and carrots, and was musing “my German and Irish ancestors are smiling at me right now”

That’s why you have the cheese attached to Taco Bell. Cheese blocks you up, Taco Bell clears you out. It’s an efficient system.

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This was a pretty common German Meal during World War Two or at least some iteration of it . The meat was a little hard to come by

The Germans where actually really well off ration wise even up until like… The last year of the war, but I mean at that point, when your entire country is literally collapsing, you can’t ask for much. From everything I’ve read or heard, the germans had relatively good food security for a majority of the war, which is amazing in itself for how small the county was and also how strained the logistics where. Easily outpaced the British and French

For a country with a population of 70 or so million with about 20 million of that fighting across 3000 fronts… damn.

Another big thing that always interested me too was how they managed to maintain such good cohesion among the military even when the entire chain of command was dying. Literally fought to the end and it wasn’t a super disorganized type of fighting either.

Now the opposite end of this would’ve been Japan. Holy fuck.

Sorry I totally went off the rails with this , I’m gonna leave it here. Sorry for hijacking your log @alex_uk :rofl:

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4310

#science :laughing:

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4311

@KonsuTheTraveller don’t wanna clog this log, but dude I 100% always welcome this discussion in mine lol.

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4312

I feel very flattered by that statement, thanks a lot for the kind words! :blush:

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