life log

12.24.24 Still here

Posted on by lionwolfbird

I haven’t written here for a while. I happen to have tonight alone and I don’t have work or an agenda to distract me. My wife has headed off to see her partner for xmas eve.

It has been a long tough year. Even in spite of the breakups from last year, I feel like this year was harder. There was certainly a lot of big changes that were well intentioned but ended up just putting me in financially hard positions. Emotionally hard ones too. I really should start doing those “Morning Pages” again, an idea I learned from “The Artist’s Way”. Artistic practice aside, I need to journal my life more because my memory is just not as great I feel. For that reason, I’m not going to try a month by month recap of what happened. It would take too long.

On the health side of things, I worked with a PT for most of the year. I didn’t really lose much in the way of weight, but I did get stronger and gained more confidence with building my workouts for strength purposes. I was able to make a bit of progress on my chest development with changes in my grip positions. Part of the financial/home situation eventually made it so I could no longer continue with PT or the regular full gym I was going to, and with the whole move and holiday wombo combo I gained some weight. I’m not happy about that. It is a vicious cycle. Maybe it’ll stop now with no more Halloween candy craziness. I’ll need a more aggressive plan for the holiday leftovers of doom though.

Home and finances have not been great. It has been a bit of a rollercoaster really. Originally, my wife, her partner (we sort of have a thing too, but I don’t feel right calling her a partner so I just refer to her as my wife’s partner), and I had this plan about combining finances to try to get a leg up on things and get into a bigger house together. The whole “poly dream” as it were. N (wife’s partner) was making decent money and stood to make even more once they moved in with us. The plan was they’d pay rent, and we’d pool down payment money and leverage our house value to move into a nice bigger place that wasn’t out in the boonies. Of course, it didn’t happen that way. N moved in, but didn’t pay anything and the communication was just shit. Their plans kept changing too, and it was rarely ever directly communicated with me but rather my wife had to be this strange in between for communication. The changed plans made it so N’s spouse would be moving in too (originally it was going to be just us 3 and they would figure out their own stuff…it was never clear if they were separating or not). Suddenly the requirement was 7 cats and a dog. Then before long, add another dog. And still no money as their partner did nothing with their home back in Fl.

I could go on for a long while on all the unnecessary BS I was put through. Oh, and my wife changed jobs…which was good originally as her previous employer was toxic and the drive was very unhealthy for her…but after the 6 month contract was up, there was no more work and she has still yet to find a new full time job. So I was supporting 2 full grown adults all by myself, and technically a proxy 3rd. This shit is getting fucking old.

Eventually, and rather quickly now that I look at what few private journal entries I wrote, I had some major anxious breakdowns. I made the choice to call off the whole group housing initiative. I couldn’t handle living with them as is, and I knew their financially situation well enough that living together would be untenable even with their selling off their old home. My wife and I took out a heloc to pay off some major debts, do a few much needed repairs on the house, and took the route of renting a home with just her and I. We are renting out the old house to N and their spouse (we did make them sign a legally binding rental contract). It’s been nearly a couple months, and to no fucking surprise they still haven’t paid rent. They do have a close date on their old house. I do expect to be, at minimum, paid the rent they owe as tenants after the close. We’ll see how that goes.

Relationship-wise, I feel like I’m in some sort of limbo. I had started dating someone new (“L”) around June. We connected a lot on mental health topics and they seemed really into me. I think I may have been operating from a place of loneliness as while I liked them, I never felt quite safe and supported around them. Maybe my subconscious recognized the controlling behavior signs before my logical brain finally did. Things were going “okay” until E came into my life. E is a great person. I do love her, and she’s one of those people I have a lot of respect for. She’s been through a lot of hardship, and has worked hard on improving her self and healing from all the trauma she’s been through. She owns her shit, and I admire/respect people that can do that. After our 3rd date, L started having problems and started pushing for some sort of parity. I went to an event with E for one thing, suddenly L had to have us do the same thing the next day. There were a lot of things she was trying to push me into doing or saying that I was not ready for. Layer that with the major home stressors, and I started having a hard repulsion to her that no amount of logic would undo. I dreaded conversations with her. I tried to push for distance and time, to see if after the move my nervous system would calm down and disassociate L with all the other stressors. But it didn’t happen, or at least didn’t happen quickly enough. So they broke it off, “I need to be with someone that wants to be with me”. I don’t blame her for it, and to be honest, it was a relief.

Things with E have been going well. Yet, I still feel like something is missing. I don’t feel supported/valued the way I did with H. I don’t feel the mind numbing attraction I had with C (or S for that matter, though S had major emotional instability issues that made it not worth it/not safe). While at least I don’t feel trapped in my home, things are still tight financially while my wife isn’t working and N’s finance situation is in question until their close date. I think I need another person in my life but I just don’t feel ready for it right now.

All I can do right now is refocus on my health. I’m planning to double down on those early morning workouts. I’m going for a 4/2 build. 4 bootcamp days, 2 strength training days (push/pull + leg/shoulders). I really need to lean down and that means more cardio (hiit really) and reduced calories overall. The more important thing about this strategy is the consistency. Plus there is a bit of community with the smaller classes I’ve been going to. I was able to gain about 2 lbs a week starting early Oct and ending today. I should be able to do the reverse of this. I have enough fat stores to be able to take it until I get into the 180s. I gotta do my own thing for a while.

Hopefully 2025 goes better. The big plan is to sell our old house. With the expected gain from that, at least my income alone will hold things together…barely.

7.31.23 Morning Pages

Posted on by lionwolfbird

How do I track 3 pages here? Maybe I should start in Word first? Google suggests it should be in the bottom left but that doesn’t seem to be true. Quercus is starting to chew on the bench again. And I really need to change the cat litter here ASAP. I’m going to make a real effort to get it done tonight when I get home from work. As I get older I understand the hate for tech more and more. Nothing just works straight through. There’s always an interruption to fix something that didn’t work the way it went.

This is frustrating. I still don’t see the count. I could guess by screen size or scroll bar I guess. But I’m also using a large monitor so that seems a little unfair. It isn’t a clear measurement. I tried distraction free mode as one search suggested…still nothing.

Ok finally found it. Apparently, I needed to click on the triple bar thing, then click on Outline. So how many words is 3 pages on average? A quick google search on using standard times new roman 12 pt with double spacing suggests 1000 words is equal to 4 pages…roughly. So my goal here will be 750 words. I think that is a reasonable start.

Anyway, for those random internet strangers that are wondering what the F is going on, here’s the thing. After my little journey into the infinite underneath, I decided to take another shot as reading “The Artist’s Way”. Part of my reasoning was the understanding that after the experience, brains are supposed to be a little more neuroplastic again. It seems to me it would be a great time to focus on the hobbies/personal projects I had intended to. I had the book from H for a while. I started on it, but once it started talking about having to commit to 12 weeks, with at minimum of an hour a day…I backed off as I knew I didn’t have that time. I still don’t know, which is why I’m typing this instead of writing it by hand. I tried writing by hand yesterday, and not only did it hurt my hand…it took quite a bit longer than an hour. I need to remember to check the original publish date of that much. I’m not sure there is a good reason to write that much by hand. It might have just been a product of the time. Nothing about the book so far suggests it is particularly modern. It does make mention of movies/shows in general, so it can’t be that old.

I want to make myself some food. I was thinking about doing IF today…but I’m not sure if I really want to do that. If I do IF and only eat 3 times in the day…then if I’m going to meet 180g of protein that’s like 60g per meal. While for lunch and dinner that’s fine, but I don’t want to do 60g of protein in protein whey format. Especially when I use the blend with creatine in it. That much creatine makes my stomach feel bad. So yes, right after I hit 750 words I’ll make a relatively quick breakfast.

Anyhow, back to the reason behind the madness. The Morning Pages is the idea that in order to continue working on my writing, I should write 3 pages *everyday*, first thing in the morning. I can’t exactly do the first thing in the morning since I’m doing my bootcamp/boxing sessions. So I am opting for after shower after getting home. The idea is to get over “The Censor” telling me my stuff sucks and to focus on the logical. I mean, if I were all work then I probably could focus on coding stuff (he says on WordPress, which has options for that). I might sound like a child saying this…but I don’t wanna. I spend enough time at work that I don’t like the idea of taking my personal time for it. That work/life balance is extremely important for me.

I just remembered I need to check for those Heilung tickets. I believe they are doing a north american tour again. I was thinking about getting 3 tickets. 2 for myself and my wife. The 3rd will be a floater for someone. Not sure who yet. If H were still a thing I’d invite them. I’m not sure where that’ll go. I still care about them. I just don’t understand where they are at. I know the work they do now is eating at their body and soul. I think that fellowship is a 2 year process. I’m still sad that they aren’t a presence in my life anymore. That presence kept the depression away. I know I shouldn’t put any dependencies on anyone…but it sure was nice. Okay, time to make some quick food and figure out the lunch situation. I thought about a salad, but that is a more complicated storage setup. I’ll just do some protein and frozen veggies. I can do the salad tonight when it is easier to put together. And now this doc has a greyed out “Saving” and greyed out Publish. Maybe I should stick to word.

Good thing I copied this into my clipboard. Nearly lost all of this.

7.29.23 The Trip

Posted on by lionwolfbird

I tried out psilocybin this morning. I had a partner’s support and did it in the safety of my own bedroom and under close supervision. This is my attempt to capture what I saw and some of the meaning I was able to get from it.

At first, I felt tired. More so than just the relative short night would indicate. My memories are already starting to get a little hazy, like trying to capture a dream. Only this was some type of waking dream. A day dream, but only something more. The covers I was under turned into a sort of translucent space ship…space vessel? I wasn’t exactly going through space, not as pop-culture/media defines it anyway. I had the sensation I was on a journey. A guest (maybe the shrooms? Maybe something else entirely) would speak to me now and then. Short words.

Must move. Must fix. Explore. Pioneer. We fix.

But before we could truly leave, there was one hitch. My feelings around the loss of Steph came into focus. I was told I needed to let go. She was okay. She is somewhere in the place between places…where we will be going and someday you’ll cross paths again. Not in this life…or really this leg of life. I got the sensation that this reality…this timeline…is all moving in one direction. Like we’re all in our own space ships within a greater whole. Then some of us have to get off the current ride, for a bit. We float off to this side tunnel and get out. Only to get back on the great ride. We all see each other again in some form. I felt myself crying. Not that sobbing weeping crying. I don’t think anyway. I was able to move on.

I’m not sure why my trip took on this space travel trip, or relied heavily on related metaphors, but it did. I myself floating in this ship through a type of space. It wasn’t outer space, though it reminded me of it. I could see what looked like those great big nebulas and gasses in space. Only that wasn’t what they were. The entire reality was composed of sinewy like threads. It wasn’t bloody or gross. I was looking at an infrastructure. My own infrastructure. The guests in my mind were guiding me in this type of tour. I had the impression I was looking from the inside out through my own brain. The processes I was seeing was the same thing that happened every night during REM sleep. Only now, everything slowed down and I could see it all. My mind was going through a type of maintenace. All the fiberrous threads I saw were part of my reality…my memories. And they spread out infinitely. After a while of floating around this type of mother ship, I got the idea that this was the infrastructure for all of reality. The space in between, or just underneath. As my physical body moved and I felt the presence of my partner nearby (though I was blind folded, I could still “see” them as an outline in my periphreal). The process had my physical body stretch and jerk every so often. Each of those movements changed the reality around me. The music that was played in the background…soft music with choruses, also changed and directed the scene. Expansive voices would grab my reality, like hands, and spread it open more. Showing me all the infinites within the minor details of it all. This is what my brain was constantly working on. It was a miracle it worked in the first place. When the music got quiet, I could feel the space condense. I found myself in the smallest sections of whatever ship I was on. Wait here, I could feel the presence communicate with me.

All throughout this scene, I could see many colors. I could understand the joke about people “seeing colors”. My senses of touch, movement, and sound all changed what I saw. Every so often I had to go to the bathroom, which my partner helped me find. Moving around because I was blind folded wasn’t the challenge. The challenge was trying to navigate both the physical space and this mind space at the same time. There were times I could see myself from the outside. But it wasn’t me as a person. I was in this type of space suit, only the head part resembled that of a random insect. It wasn’t scary or grosteque. It just was.

My partner made mention of having epiphanies during the episode. I certainly had some. In this mindspace, I could see what felt like different dimensions. I could mainly see from one dimension, but I was aware there were more. I became aware of multiple timelines. I could not directly interact with them…but I could tap on the glass between the spaces. That tap on the glass in this reality was that 2nd guess, or gut feeling, someone else would feel in another reality. Maybe it was me reaching out to the other mes? I wasn’t sure.

My big take away was the polarity between the individual and the collective. This whole inner space I traveled in was a type of mother ship that contained all of us. Not just people mind you. All being, alive or not. A ship of our reality. It was moving somewhere as a collective. I couldn’t tell where it was going to but it seemed important. Reality as a whole was moving as a collective somewhere.  But there were always dangers on the route.  The collective could not correct by itself.  It would not.  It was in its’ nature to stay together.  Enter the individual.  The one who separates from the group.  They were the ones that would pull the collective onto the better path.  The collective fought with every ounce of its’ being.  But it was a necessary conflict.

Story tellers are those individuals. They present the other realities. The other ways. Many in our reality find that change highly threatening. But it is necessary. Not all conflict is bad. Once the individual has pulled the collective over, they again became part of the collective as it assimilated their view. The cycle would continue again and again like this.

And now this storm in the real threatens to cut off this exploration. So I’m going to take a break. I think I’ve hit the end of the trip recollection in any case.

The guest found something…fixed something within me. A connection made strong again. There are stories to tell.

5-24-23 Survive

Posted on by lionwolfbird

Before I get into my rant, some good news for me. I switched back to intermittent fasting + high protein/low-moderate carb diet at ~1500-1600 calories and a goal of 170-190g protein. I’m also focused on getting about ~15k steps a day along with my mix of bootcamp, boxing, and strength training sessions. I do seem to be making progress. I just want to say “fuck off” to those completely reliant on calculators. The 2100 calories was not working for me for weight loss. It might be a fine maintenance calorie intake at my normal activity level and might be a thing to do when I switch to a heavy strength training focus instead, but that is not my goal right now. I want to say those 2 months on the “Shed” program were wasted…but in a way they weren’t. It told me that I can’t rely on god damn groupthink. I’ve been doing this for a while and monitoring how my body reacts to different diet/workout combinations. I have to have faith in myself.

On to the rant. I’m in a no bullshit kind of mood today. I’m surrounded by a lot of “neurospicy” folks that almost constantly seem to be posting something that supports their “oh woe is me, I have this condition and it makes everything so much harder!”. I’m done with that. Your friends on X social media might jump in to agree with you, but the world does not fucking care. I grew up in a chaotic poor household. I lost my mom when I was 18. I have no innate physical talents. I have more than my fair share of social anxiety. I had all the fucking excuses in the world to be a useless stick in the mud growing up. What would that have gotten me had social media been a thing back then? I’d either be homeless or in another chaotic household as I found a way to just survive. Or maybe I’d be dead more likely the way my body was going back then. Probably at my own hand come to think of it. This is fucked up to say, but maybe depression’s result of suicide is a weird sort of mercy. If you stop trying, the brain doesn’t want to suffer needlessly anymore and so it finds a way out for no other solutions are possible. I’m either too stubborn or maybe too much of an iconoclast to want to give in now.

You gotta fight every fucking day to make it anywhere. And it’s better that way is my thinking now.

5.15.23 Fitness journey

Posted on by lionwolfbird

I decided to add long distance walking back into my program. I walked 7 miles yesterday afternoon. I need a better strategy for socks, that’s for sure.

I still need to check the data, but going by memory I do believe my leaner periods were associated with intentional walking on the regular. In particular, I keep looking back at Dec 2021-March 2022 when I broke my plateau and hit the leanest I had ever been. The weight started to creep back up once the Cicada swarm got so bad that I couldn’t walk without being regularly smacked in the face/neck, and I just lost the routine since. I also think back to 2019 which was another successful period in dropping my weight. Back then I was in the office 4 days a week and made it a point to do regular walks on my lunch break (~20-30 min). That and walking to and from the metro added to my steps, plus the bootcamps I did at night (when I had more time to do so consistently) contributed to an average of 15k+ steps a day. I only did the 1 heavy strength train session a week with a PT (who had a background in heavy lifts and training them). My protein wasn’t high enough at the time to capitalize on the muscle gain was the only issue.

The added bonus of the long walks is my disconnect time and/or focused time listening to my audio books. When I was in my 20s and lost that first large chunk of weight (80 lbs), I had spent 30 min on the elliptical and read a book at the same time. I linked my love of stories with a lot of steps, effectively. I also had nothing else going on in my life except work so it was easier to be consistent. Sadly, I had no access to the information I do today in regard to just how important protein is and how to really work rep schemes.

5.9.23 The Journey

Posted on by lionwolfbird

Today’s sleep wasn’t great. I went to bed earlier but remember waking up sometime around 3am. My wife had trouble sleeping again and came to bed sometime around then. Wonder if it is the adderal the doc put her on. Fitbit says i got up at 4:30. My plan was to wake at 5. Maybe starting to go to bed at 9 isn’t cutting it and I need to start going at 8:30.

Side bar, sitting on the metro and hear the driver announce that we are holding due to an “unruly customer at the next station”. Dc is getting nuttier.

On the diet front, I’m going back to the 1800 cal build with 200g protein, 80g carbs, 60-80g fat. While I know trainers on this trainerize app can see when someone isn’t “adhering” to a given diet plan, I honestly don’t believe this one truly gives a shit. Maybe I’m being a little passive aggressive but I’m focusing on what I know works for me and minimizing my communications. The only thing I’ll try are the workout builds themselves but I’m going to be much more liberal on using substitutes. It acts like a program for newbies but then throws in the more complex exercises with barely a few lines about how they work. It isn’t safe.

There was a guy on their group chat the other day celebrating after a year of being on this program that he lost 5 lbs. That is tragic. I half wonder if the guy running it doesn’t really just want a cult of personality. I think by week 8 I’m just going to ask to cancel.

5-8-23 fitness journey

Posted on by lionwolfbird

It’s been what, a month since my last update? My mind is still a little bogged down with the breakup. It might be in part my anxiety around the possibility of having to confront them later come ren faire season. While I know they didn’t super care about my fitness level, it still matters to me and it serves as a sort of bulwark against the mental anguish. It isn’t so much just the aethestics but rather how I’m able to take this goal many people struggle with and accomplish something. To show that no matter what bs gets thrown my way, I find a way perserve and get better than I ever was before.

Right now I’m doing that shed program. It’s been a little over a month and I am not impressed. I’m taking what little bit of knowledge I’ve gained from it and going back to my own thing. Upping my calories to 2100 just showed me what my maintenance is. I have a deadline to meet. The guy running it seems to be focused more on body count than quality. I get he has a business to run, but I don’t have to settle for a shitty product in return. I’m going to drop my calories to about 1800 with a focus on high protein. And put more time into the kickboxing classes I’ve started on.

3.14.22 Diet Journal

Posted on by lionwolfbird

Today’s entry will be a bit of a quickie as I wait for my coffee protein mix + 800 ml of water with BCAA mix to run through my body before I walk to the metro. Even with getting up at 4:30 am I don’t feel like I have enough time in the morning to ever make it to the office at a “normal” time. Thankfully it hasn’t been an issue in a long time, but I still feel a little guilty about it.

Diet still needs some retooling. I hate to do it but I think I need to simplify things a bit and keep my lean meat servings to 125-150 grams. Maybe 125. Twice a day, + the morning protein mix. I’m clearly doing the workouts regularly. I’m even going above and beyond with the extra cardio. Yet my weight/body fat keeps right around 208. I can’t reasonably sustain 2 a day workouts. Hell, even 6-7 days a week is a bit much considering the writing goals I have. While my current diet is fine for when I’m more focused on strength training (seems to be roughly maintenance at this rate), I really want to drop the body fat by ren faire season. As they say, can’t outrun your diet. So I’ll keep it simple during the week

  • Morning protein (coffee or smoothie mix).
  • Lunch is 125g lean chicken + ~150-200g veggie mix + some light sauce.
  • Afternoon fruit at the office (they seem to be packing these regularly now, which I appreciate)
  • Dinner is 125g lean chicken + 150-200g veggie mix + some light sauce + carbs (beans or sweet potato) at 150g

It’ll be boring but I don’t really care about that. Resisting the unexpected temptations is the real trick. Let’s do this.

Stats:

3.11.23 diet journal

Posted on by lionwolfbird

Doing okay today. I didn’t do the extra bike cardio like I had planned (it was raining outside). I thought I could do it after work but I’m just too mentally tired to do it. Now that I think on it, this is like a variation of the idea of “Your body is only as strong as your mind”. That’s a motto I picked up a long time ago at an internship that stuck with me. It was one of those phrases I held onto the first time I lost a lot of weight. I remember watching a Big Think video by Penn (of Penn and Teller) and he was talking about how he lost weight, and how much he had disagreed with the mind-body connection…until he lost the weight. The more surprising revelation to me was anyone believing that the mind could operate independently of the body. I suppose you could try to argue for Stephen Hawking as an example for this, but that is the rare exception and TBH, imagine how much more he could have done if he didn’t have that health struggle. Anyway, all this to say is that I’m not a big fan of how corrupt the “health at any size” movement has gotten. Yes, it is absolutely possible to be at a higher BMI or even body fat % and still be able to do a lot with your body. The fact I can still do clean pushups at my current weight (something I could not do the last time I was at this weight) is testament to that. However, joints and tendons longevity are a function of the amount of force you put on them over time. I’m certain my foot bone spur issue is only exacerbated by the amount of weight I’m dealing with. You don’t get to be obese or morbidly obese and not expect to suffer quality of life consequences for it. I’m not a fan of that magical thinking. You shouldn’t get judged for that, I’ll agree strongly with that. On the flip side, I do strongly agree that a person’s social worth should not be tied to their weight/fat. Just don’t complain about your inevitable physical and mental pain that’s tied to that. I don’t have enough emotional labor pool to handle that.

Anyway, after that digression. The diet’s been mostly on point. I did have some mission BBQ yesterday instead of the planned chicken thighs/rice/beans/veggies. I went with their normal sized salad, took some lean brisket, some honey mustard and some of their smoky mountain bbq sauce and mixed it all together. I also had a small cornbread. I was still within my cico goals. My protein might have been higher than I planned though. I’m going to try capping my protein to 160g for now. I might not be measuring cooked food correctly. I know calorie stats for my meat-based proteins are based on their raw weight. When you cook anything, some of that total mass is burned away (especially with the air fryer or oven). That makes the food more energy dense. So I might be taking in significantly more calories than I thought I was. Rather than try to figure out the stats post cooking, which is hard, I’ll just lower the values a bit and observe the data. As long as I keep doing everything else I’m doing. The running has been helpful when I do it. I’m going to add post strength training cardio (30 min) for Sunday as well. I’m hoping to make quicker progress through all of that. Hell, not even quicker, positive at this point is good. Anyway, here are the stats: