Hello comrades and welcome to the first improvement megathread of February! 
A whole month in front of us to conquer.
Some discussion ideas:
+ How was your January?
+ Do you have some plans for February?
Poster caption
I drive a forklift for the revolution
我为革命开铲车
Wo wei geming kai chanche
Good luck in February! 
roll call
@SeventyTwoTrillion@hexbear.net
@TraschcanOfIdeology@hexbear.net
@LGOrcStreetSamurai@hexbear.net
@Tomorrow_Farewell@hexbear.net
@anarchoilluminati@hexbear.net
@WhatDoYouMeanPodcast@hexbear.net
If anybody else wants to be added to the roll call, just let me know
Stickied good luck
One day of dry February down, 27 more to go. Very close to employment, which should help with the boredom but will reintroduce some stress.
Congrats on the first day and good luck with the rest of dry February!
We are looking forward to your next update
Had a good Jan overall. Finally quit booze for good this time, have almost two weeks now (as of this Saturday). Went back to only eating fruits & veggies, feeling great physically and getting my sleep schedule back on track. Kicked energy drinks the past couple of days too, was getting too much anxiety, switched to tea and feeling much better now.
Been sticking to a daily routine of getting up early and hitting the local trail with the pup for a couple of hours, feels good to be able to enjoy little things like that again after not being able to while I was drinking. Going to be looking for a new job soon, which will help my financial situation tremendously and definitely my mental health with not having to scrape by, what I have now isn’t cutting it by far.
Also working on studying up on addiction and the SMART recovery program, planning on becoming a SMART Recovery meeting facilitator and possibly a recovery coach at the local mental health clinic down the line.
Overall, things are getting real positive for me, it has been a long time coming and I couldn’t be happier at my progress. Only thing I need to get better at now is making a daily writing practice a habit, I want to become a professional writer but I have to really commit to taking the time to write for more than just short bursts. Other than that, things are awesome ;)
This week I went running on 5 days in a row. Last year I went running on 50 days, my goal for this year is at least 100 days.
My January stats:
- Reading: 20x
- Meditation: 15x
- Running: 6x
In February, I want to continue with reading/meditation/running and also focus on socializing.
nice – what are you reading? any subject matter goals in particular or just generally trying to get reps in?
My goal is to have a regular reading habit since there are a lot of books that I want to read. I’m trying to read a balanced variety of genres from novels and non-fiction to theory.
I am currently reading How Not To Age by Dr Michael Greger, it’s an evidence-based book about healthy aging. The TL;DR is that we should eat as little saturated fats and dietary cholesterol (aka meat and dairy) as possible and as much fruit, vegetables, whole grains and legumes as possible (aka plant-based).
I highly recommend the book How Not To Die by the same author. It’s the only book on health and nutrition that you will ever need. You can find all of his books and cookbooks on Libgen/Anna’s Archive.
Here’s a quick snippet from How Not To Age:
nice. (i’m trying to start up a classics reading group with a few close buddies – we are starting on Iliad, and it’s pretty tedious. i would not be able to continue reading without touching base with them. wonder if they will have continued interest going forward.)
well, i’ve already tried non-healthy aging, so i might as well try healthy aging.
that’s interesting. i’ve been trying to reduce meat consumption as well (though my attempts are sort of half hearted and not really that intentional); it felt natural with the increased running. hopefully i can continue to do better.
There’s a great book podcast called Overdue and they have several episodes on The Iliad, I think you’re gonna like it.
Eating plant-based feels so good that I can’t ever imagine going back to the Western diet. I highly recommend trying it for 2-3 weeks. It’s never been easier to eat healthy since there are a bunch of meat-free products now. Just find a meat-free substitute for whatever you are already eating. Or make 16 bean burritos and put them in your freezer like I do
i’ll check it out. i impetuously bought like nine books of commentary or historical background, so i really will have my work cut out for me. Jaynes’ Origin of Consciousness was incredibly bold but probably horseshit (arguing that self-consciousness occurred after the Homeric age, and this proto-conciousness, a sort of schizophrenic disposition, is inferable from, inter alia, the descriptions in *The Iliad *(direct influence of gods, etc.) Finlely’s World of Odysseus seems to be a more rigorous internal reading of the Homeric texts, making inferences as to the social world of the pre-historic/dark ages. Looking forward to Weil’s famous essay thereafter.
That’s cool. I’ve a lot of respect for people who have made the move. I thinik I’ll try reducing meat-eating day/week-- find and develop some good recipes and reduce from there. what’s his take (or yours otherwise) on whey protein? and pescatarianism?
Whey protein is not great since it activates mTOR and deactivates autophagy, which is the opposite of what we want:
In regards to pescetarianism, I wouldn’t eat fish more than a few times per week due to pollutants and mercury, but it’s probably still much better than meat. The Mediterranean diet is basically a pescetarian diet and some of the longest living populations are eating it.
so my option is pea-protein? with all the lead?
half a week of a running deload, but now starting more formal race training. going to put ego aside and restart going at the plan’s suggested volume pace (though my “long” run was a little too long yesterday) – hopefully that will let my body continue to reset. went on a 5k trial earlier this week – really not a great showing (perhaps not eating in the day leading up and drinking too much water before contributed to very poor side stitch; also weak grit/psychological fortitude for the back half of the what, last 4 kilos (lol)). but still shaved off some time and the v02 calculator reports that i have a good margin to beat paul ryan’s real marathon time assuming i can train to compete at the full distance, which is my only goal. also i’m doing better at keeping my slow runs slow, losing just a little speed but keeping heart rate down.
goal this week is just to stick w/ the base-week training and not get injured; hope to work on my cadence, which is also not great.
You’re training for a marathon race? That’s awesome
thanks. feels like stolen valor until i actually do it. hopefully can just trust the process and my body will hold up.
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January was ok. Still just a very up and down month in so far as getting back into the habit of working out and just my life in general.
February, just hoping to continue the work that I’ve put in the last week as I’m getting into a groove working out. Also finally taking some PTO after 7-8 months of work. Want to at least take a quick day trip just to see something different.
