I think it turned into a competition in that first year.
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All therapists. Exposure therapy, and it is the approach for phobia. So good job!
My “big eater” manners confession is that I may not ever have mentioned the “don’t talk with your mouth full” rule to my children. None of us can stay quiet for as long as it takes to eat. 
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WHOA. That’s so cool! Turns out my boss is the best therapist for encouraging me to eat the protein desserts on camera. I never would’ve had the courage or desire to do that, but getting me to stretch outside my comfort zone actually paid off in some unexpected ways!
HAHAHA I love that. It’s a much better alternative to eating in silence with nobody excited to talk.
There’s this podcast called, “Were You Raised by Wolves?” And while it’s fun to hear and learn about etiquette, I always think these little rules are so silly. The people who matter the most won’t care if we ate a lot or had our elbows on the table or slurped our soup.
Exactly. I try to eat like a person (vs. starving wolf) when out with other people, but I suspect I often fail. Honestly, the two things in the world I’m most enthusiastic about are talking and eating, and I combine them joyously. I don’t have to do the kind of professional dinners that require me showing some class, so it’s just people I know. Most of them are willing to eat with me a second time, so they’re either animals themselves or can somehow ignore my famished beast mode, with food flying everywhere as I make yummy noises and/or talk.
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You are my people. 
They’re probably unabashedly doing the same! I love it when people feel comfortable enough around me to be themselves and enjoy themselves.
Yesterday’s Lower Body Workout
- Hip Thrust: 4 x failure, extended set with burnout partials
- Seated Leg Curl: 4 x failure, extended set with burnout partials
- Walking Lunge: 3 x out and back
One thing I’ve learned over the years is that the efficacy of a workout is not determined by the number of exercises I do or how sweaty I get.
It’s determined by mind-muscle connection, fatigue and fatigue-management, time under tension, technique, range of motion, and intentionality of hitting musculature that needs it versus musculature that actually doesn’t require as much attention.
So doing three exercises that target specific muscle groups and make them suffer is more effective (for me) than doing ten exercises that hit every body part indiscriminately without actually feeling a pump and a strong burning contraction in the parts I want to build the most.
There’s nothing wrong with the other approach, but if I want to manipulate my physique then that means doing the latter. And it usually includes more exercises than three, but yesterday, that did the trick.
And another lesson: I don’t do more exercises than necessary just to feel hardcore enough to reach some imaginary standard. My body tells me when enough is enough.
Lately it’s been giving me signs that my iron is pretty low, so doing less right now is not just okay, it’s actually necessary.
Signs of low iron: unusual fatigue and even breathlessness when just putzing around the house, heaviness in the legs for no reason, sleeplessness, feelings of panic when there’s nothing to be panicked over (i.e. laying in bed at night).
How do you fix that? Supplement with iron. Or eat liver… gross.
Today’s Workout
- Chest Press: 4x15
- Seated Cable Row: 4x10
- Bentover Lateral Raise: 4x failure
- T-Bar Row: 4x10
- Bottom Half Machine Lateral Raise: 2 x failure
Went lighter than usual today because I was feeling weak. Gotta get that iron up.
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Your words: they sting!
Fully concur regarding the effectiveness of a workout. I feel this is something that can only be understood through maturity, in the intellectual AND physical sense. We need enough time under the bar to LEARN how to get the most out of a set, and often, it is DURING that developmental time that we’re just slinging iron with wild abandon. It takes a long while to learn how to really control and manipulate the intended muscles, PLUS we need a certain degree of baseline strength to make the most of that. I constantly point out to people that, when I could press 265 over my head, I was doing lateral raises with 20lb dumbbells, and even THAT was on the “heavy side”. I was making the most of that weight, REALLY squeezing those side delts, and not wasting energy. When I see dudes trying to do laterals with 50s, I know they’re just chasing weight. But, in the same instance, without that baseline of strength, what ARE we gonna lift?
It’s a process. And the simpler things appear, the more complex they end up being under the surface.
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grind 2oz liver/ 1lb ground beef. You won’t be able to taste it but will get a lot of benefits
You could also buy “ancestral blends”, but grinding the liver in yourself if cheaper
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Great insights. I like all of what you said. Especially this part.
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I can’t bring myself to ruining ground beef like that. 
The iron in liver smells just like the iron in human blood. So the scent gives me a strong reminder of that time of the month. And that means, when people eat liver my brain relates that to basically eating used tampons.
I’d eat it if I were in some sort of starvation situation or on Survivor, but I’d probably cry the whole time.
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Back when I used seasonings, I’d make a ground beef and liver chorizo, which went a long way toward masking the smell/taste.
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I’ve never had cooked liver, just raw. Does any form of cooking alter the texture of it?
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I like smoking it. It ends up less mushy. I air fry it these days because I am impatient, haha.
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Enjoy your tampon meat! 
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Am I the only one who enjoys Cajun Dirty Rice?
Did I just out myself as an east coast southerner? Whatever, it’s better with ground liver and I’ll die on that hill.
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Pretty sure I read somewhere that neither of these is that good at raising iron levels. My wife suffers from low iron and does use a prescribed supplement but when it gets too low she will have to go in and have an infusion treatment. Would you consider an IV treatment for iron ?
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That sounded and looked amazing!
Until this part:
You can have that hill all to yourself.
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This actually seems like the best solution. It’s really pricey here (a couple grand) and health insurance doesn’t cover it. There are prescription supplements that I have and my doc tries to get me to use consistently, but they wreck my digestion, so I use them extremely sparingly. Like, once every few months.
My doctors have unreasonable standards for where women’s serum ferritin levels should be. I’ll never be able to get it that high, so I just roll my eyes when they say it’s too low. Their “solutions” have major consequences.
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I know my wife has also had prescribed iron injections (not from me) and they also helped raise the levels. The IV treatment here is covered but it is always the last thing the Dr goes to. I am guessing because of the cost.
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Great info! I hate that your wife has to deal with it too, but it’s comforting to know that I’m not alone. It’s such a weird deficiency because you can be a carnivorous woman and still have a deficiency.