2026-10-07 09:19:46
I recently listened to the book Exercised: Why Something We Never Evolved to Do Is Healthy and Rewarding and it has a very illuminating perspective. The author articulates how the idea of ’training’ physical skills can be seen as a relatively modern invention/luxury from all our effort-saving technologies. Essentially, people used to be good at running because they needed to run in their daily lives. There was no need to spend structured time deliberately improving these skills. Lately, there’s been a quote circulating that reinforces this argument.
We created gyms because modern day work no longer required physical activity. Without exercise, our muscles atrophy.
I predict we’ll need gyms for our brains too, once AI starts doing our knowledge work.
In response to this, I’ve been reflecting on why I think training physically is actually a great thing. It seems to me that the act of consciously and deliberately improving your mind-body connection has some pretty significant transferability to many areas of life. The book talks quite a bit about the social and physical benefits of exercise, but I’m fascinated by what seem to be the significant mental benefits. With this in mind, it seems clear to me that there are almost certainly physical benefits to mental skills. This acknowledgement seems to be equal parts encouraging and terrifying. To me it reinforces the stakes of the all-encompassing war on our minds. The good news is that there’s a great deal of good we can do once we recognize this.
Just over two years ago, I felt almost entirely trapped in my body. Movement of all sorts were at best a painful, laborious chore, if not outright impossible. Being able to go from those confines to going fast and feel the Autumn breeze cool me off has been a blessing and a treasure. I have to admit to being quite dismayed about the state of tech these days. Getting in sync with my body has been a very welcome and addicting distraction from the terrors of encroaching technological tyranny. Much of the root objection to generative AI in various domains (such as visual art, writing, or even coding) has been about how using the easy button individually, and as a society can structurally eliminate the ability for people to gain and retain any skills at all. Having the opportunity to immerse myself in multiple physical disciplines from essentially zero has given me the chance to really reflect on what I’ve been missing out on. Not just in terms of the physical capabilities, but what broader lessons I’ve learned in the process that have transformed how I see other challenges.
One of my major concerns related to the mass adoption of AI tools has less to do with the technology itself, but its impact on people individually, and psychologically. I think anyone who has a non-trivial amount of stress and/or pressure in their lives can relate to the omnipresent oppressive urge to mentally disconnect from those feelings entirely. Avoidance may keep you hustling, but it has other costs. Worst of those costs is how it robs you of being present in the moment. We’ve seen the impacts of a world where people are enticed, if not pressured to live vicariously over social media. Instead of heeding those warnings, we seem to be in a rush to trap ourselves into a structural and epistemological bubble that threatens to undermine the best parts of modern technology. All this to say, I am quite dismayed by all the absurd mania and spectacle. Focusing on grounding myself in my own body has been not just refreshing, but also very illuminating.
There are so many lessons that you have to learn first-hand. I can watch all the videos I like about fancy rollerblading tricks, but the only thing that will ever make me better is putting the time in to practice. I could spend so many sleepless nights consulting every AI chatbot about how I should optimize and refine my strength training to precisely fit my unique goals. But the body has its own schedule, and it takes time, effort, and consistency to make any real change. “It’s a journey, not a destination.” is a bit of a cliche, but I’m now walking with a very profound appreciation for it. As my personal goals have shifted away from just weight loss and basic mobility, I’m seeking much more challenging objectives. Actually living out character traits I want to develop requires a process that contends with the entire person: the mind, body, and soul. This requires a radical honesty with oneself that I find uniquely learnable from physical endeavors.
As I began to improve my mobility from the ground up, I fully immersed myself with lifting and fitness social media. I spent quite a bit listening to long-form lectures and even hot takes in reels on all kinds of minutiae and specifics of the process. The more efficient teachers would regularly remind you that if you’re spending more time consuming content about lifting than actually lifting you’re doing it wrong. Once the basics are understood, and one is reasonably equipped to be safe, there really isn’t much more to learn other than trial-and-error. The feedback from your own body is much more applicable than anything that can be learned from those speaking to a general audience. Sadly that feedback can be a harsh teacher.
I now believe that a hyperactive mind isn’t actually overstimulated, but likely understimulated. It seems that the brain itself can get bored with online distractions so very long before we learn to consciously disconnect. More importantly, it seems clear to me that many seemingly mental or emotional challenges have bi-directional relationships with physical difficulties, especially a lack of movement. I’ve always found moving quickly to be especially calming, which is why I always loved to bike ride. When that was no longer an option for me, it was over a decade before I overcame the mental and emotional challenges caused by that.
While movement itself is certainly no cure-all, any physical skill can itself be a lifelong journey of improving many things. I certainly want to be a fast and strong skater for as long as I can physically sustain it! That’s going to require a broader set of lifestyle changes than merely wanting to maintain a particular body weight. That direction is very helpful in guiding other decisions that may or may not have clear alignment with other goals. Throughout my life I have vastly underestimated the benefits of sports in terms of their positive knock-on effects in other areas of life. Suddenly having fun actually synergizes effectively with changes I need and want to make.
In a time when there is an endless buffet of self-destructive escapes, distractions, and conflicts; I would argue proactive effort into healthy outlets is a non-negotiable way to attempt to remain sane. ‘Touching grass’ can be insufficient when one is too anxious to consider it. To say nothing of actually attempting to be present in the moment. Embracing the challenge of technically difficult skills as something you direct your mind and body to is a very valuable way to slowly learn what presence even means in the first place. It is said that being sedentary can lead to systemic inflammation in the body, wrecking all kinds of havoc. I now wonder how much of toxic and negative inner speech stems from a directionless and stressed mind.
The best part about building up a physical skill in my opinion is all the stuff that doesn’t matter. If I’m really committed I can leverage any situation to get better at skating. Perfect day? I can enjoy a smooth session, or really focus on practicing specifics. Awful weather? There are indoor off-skate exercises in balance, strength, and range of motion that I can still do. As someone who can be prone to over-obsess over the small details, it is very freeing to have a wide path to just get better. With a fine appreciation for all there is to learn in a particular skill, an eye for opportunity can help make the best of so many circumstances.
Of course there are still fundamentals that make all the difference. These are the basics that are worth spending real effort understanding. The best part is that I’ve found with the right amount of gratitude the basics themselves can be very enjoyable. While I can’t yet skate backwards much, nor do many spins, practicing the progression to those things still feels rewarding. In taking a broad view of what I’m trying to learn, I can still appreciate the precise improvements in the various parts I’m improving in. At the start, it can be wholly overwhelming to absorb all the fine aspects of technique. Over time, as you get used to the physical sensations many of them seem to fade in the background as they become second nature. The deliberate focus in practicing with precision provides a kind of enjoyable clarity I already find addicting.
Most importantly, I have been genuinely shocked how therapeutic it has been to learn something challenging purely for fun. I have no desire to compete, go professional, or leverage it for some utilitarian purpose. I have merely become infatuated with graceful movement, lusting for speeding winds, and in love with the harmony of the two. Without any pressure, I can calmly and attentively explore the features of all there is to it. The more immersed I become, the more it all feels like a part of me. Focusing my mind on wholly appreciating the experience has been indescribably soothing. I have profoundly underestimated how many joys can come from the simplest of things.
As I’ve written before, the body’s feedback is harsh. This can be very difficult to handle physically, mentally, and even emotionally. Reaching too far above your skill level can mean injury. Not being patient enough can lead you to fully exhausting your capability. When you desperately want to get better, but hit your limits it feels like you’re being unfairly punished. To a stubborn mind a constrained body can feel like a sadistic jailer. Quite often, the negative feedback from the body isn’t about needless cruelty, but about learning to properly match expectations.
It is so easy to feel more ready than in reality. Especially in circumstances where pressure and a desire to conform make it seem essential. When the body pushes back it’s not always because the limit is absolute, but rather a strong warning there’s something wrong with the approach. No amount of feeling like you “should” hit a milestone makes it any more likely. The body has a phenomenal capacity to grow and adapt, but it requires patience, care, and above all honesty. ‘Ego lifting’ is the ultimate example of where this goes wrong. In mis-judging how ready you actually are for particular weights, you can overdo it and put yourself on a risky road towards ‘snap city’. The answer isn’t to never lift heavy, but to build up a capacity to test those limits.
You can only build capacity that you acknowledge is missing. The line between productively evaluating your own gaps as opposed to needless self-flagellation is quite fine. Wherever possible objective feedback goes a long way. While in the moment I can feel like that lift or stride was spot on, a revisit of the recording can quickly disabuse me of that hubris. In consciously learning to recognize and act on this physical internal feedback, I’ve found it remarkably transferable to mental and emotional challenges as well. Just as physical pain can be quite a bit to endure, it pays to be careful with your own mental and emotional limits as well.
Becoming disconnected from myself largely began with a stroke I suffered a decade ago. I immediately lost half of my vision. Suddenly I kept bumping into people on the same side over and over. Thankfully, I regained a quarter of my vision in the following years. I still struggle with some vision loss but day-to-day it’s manageable. Shortly after that, I would regain weight from coping with the stress of the ordeal and fallout, eventually losing the ability to bike. At the time, I was very sad that one of the few joys I had left, gaming, was too difficult. For many years I languished under a cloud of despair and hopelessness as I just tried to get by. Having lived through that, I am so very grateful to now be able to both roller and ice skate as well as bike again. The difference in my reality is radically different.
A significant downside of drowning out pain with comfort eating is that it becomes harder to appreciate the other good things in life. Being present is hard while in pain. Resting feels impossible when being comfortable is a struggle. I now realize how much avoiding my full-spectrum pain included drowning out physical sensations as a whole.
Now that I am no longer passively overwhelmed by pain, simple joys come into place so much easier. I can genuinely breathe easy when sitting outside and enjoy lovely sunshine or a sunset. I have no idea why moving fast is fun, or why the wind cooling my skin is so relaxing. I have been pleasantly surprised how a certain amount of body awareness and coordination provides a baseline level of confidence I didn’t know I was lacking. I’ve still got quite a bit to go when it comes to balance and flexibility, but working on it has been satisfying.
Becoming more capable definitely comes with some massive quality-of-life enhancements. It’s very gratifying to have so many simple tasks no longer be such an arduous undertaking. So far, the single biggest boost to my day-to-day mental state has been the fact that with a bicycle and backpack I can do pretty significant errands. Expanding what ‘simple things’ I can accomplish means certain problems are so much easier to address.
As I’ve been more able to gently face my own shortcomings physically, I’ve learned to apply the same process to other attributes.
I used to think patience was just indifference to the passing of time. Now I see patience as the deliberate investment of time into things that are worthwhile. Investment is the correct framing I think because the best pursuits certainly involve a real cost. Very little can be done all at once, so learning to distribute effort across time really pays off. By allowing efforts to compound you can give yourself time to actually see the difference. Pressure, stress, and many other things can shrink the time budget significantly. Recognizing these limitations can put many decisions into context. Our time isn’t infinite, so we shouldn’t needlessly throw it away. Thankfully there are so many things worth giving generous amounts of time where possible.
One of my favorite quotes these days is “If you’re not falling, you’re not trying”. I’ve got some first-hand experience with that as I’ve been learning to get comfortable rollerblading on slopes forwards and back. It really doesn’t take that steep of an incline to test my balance. Of course I could avoid falling all together by simply going on long rides on paths, but then how would I improve? As frustrating and painful as falls can be, they’re a real sign you’re actually trying to push your limits. Of course, protective equipment pays off here. There is no need to carelessly subject yourself to dangers when you can properly prepare for them.
“If suffering really taught lessons, the world would be populated by wise men. Pain has nothing to teach those who do not find the strength and courage to listen to it.”
Sigmund Freud
It is so very crucial to distinguish between instrumental pain and needless suffering. I am now quite critical of the attitude that any and all pain leads to gain, or that one should be expected to endure uncritically. Physical challenges make the distinction clear. I think far from being a cruel tormentor, the body is trying to articulate this precise point. There is such a thing as too much, too long, and too hard. Sometimes the lesson is simply: this is wrong. In understanding how we should judiciously use our own capacity, we can learn how to better respect the capacity of others.
It’s genuinely hard to relate to others (as much as we may want to) when refusing to relate to ourselves. In deeply understanding the joys and sorrows taken on during my radical body transformation, I’ve been able to better connect with those who have lives I can hardly imagine. In taking on something tangible, there’s a lot to share with others. Victories, and setbacks alike are great opportunities to learn and bond. Many of the things I’ve learned in this process have helped me be an even better friend to others. Above all, it’s taught me that there’s so much we can do to help each other with the simplest things. In doing so, there’s a very wide ripple effect worth appreciating.
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2026-09-23 21:30:29
I had the opportunity to share my weight loss story at the Blooming Sunflower Center In the last few years I’ve lost over 330lbs and gone from feeling entirely trapped in my body to being able to bike and rollerblade! It has been a radical shift in my day-to-day experience and has had a profound impact on how I see many things. I am very grateful to the hosts for the opportunity to add public speaking to the many skills I am working to develop during this process.
In this talk I tried to summarize and articulate both the deep and simple lessons learned the hard way. One of my primary goals throughout documenting this process hasn’t merely to show that I could change, but to humanize all stages of the process. From my vantage point now, I can certainly see how much harder that was than I had anticipated. There is no way I could have come this far without the guidance, encouragement, and support I’ve received from so many different places. For that I am immensely grateful, and feel I owe it to others to be as open and transparent as I can be.
What didn’t make this recording is that after the talk I had a very productive Q&A session with the guests. It was equal parts refreshing and instructive to be able to demystify the process while finding opportunities to refine my ability to communicate it. I certainly hope this isn’t my only speaking engagement on this topic, but either way I think it was a good start. I think now more than ever we need to focus on ways to help build each other up, and I’m excited to do my part.
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2026-09-07 08:57:16
Jan 2025 to Sept 2026
I’m not done shedding pounds, but there likely won’t be another big round number to focus on. It was not that long ago I was thrilled to be below 500 Shortly after I went below 450 and was already remarkably mobile compared to the start. Mid last year I made it to being below 400 which was finally the point where I was really starting to see progress. As I got below 350 I was back into a familiar range, and was able to wear my old clothes again. The hard part was breaking through 300 and managing to push forward. Since then I’ve been enjoying throwing myself into rollerblading and getting back on my bike.
At this stage, I would have expected to have a clearer idea of where my target is, but it’s still quite blurry. I’m still working hard to reach 15% bodyfat which is the low end of the healthy range for men. But putting that to a precise number is hard when I have a fair amount of loose skin. Once I’m in the 230s I’m thinking of getting another dexa scan to confirm how close or far away I am at that point.I don’t anticipate needing to go far below 200 if at all with the way things are.
I’m overjoyed that I get to explore so many fun activities I’ve been missing out on. These activities really help motivate me to do more than just the ‘minimum’ in the gym. Taking rollerblading seriously has been all the incentive I need to really start taking leg day seriously. I’m very focused on single-leg mobility, as well as the finer aspects of balance. If that wasn’t motivating enough, I’m finally at the point where some of the muscle I’ve put on underneath is just slightly beginning to show. One of the harder aspects of this whole process is that the positive feedback lags so very far behind negative feedback. If you eat off-plan, the scale shoots up immediately. If you hurt yourself, it can be hard to start again. In my opinion, this is the real reason why starting and restarting feels so much harder than just continuing on.
While I still don’t have a firm weight target, my health journey has now expanded far beyond weight loss. From the beginning, I knew I needed to do more than just get the weight off, but actually build a foundation for living a healthy life. As soon as I could stand it, I learned to cook for myself and have been scouring the Internet for all the information I can find regarding fitness, health, & nutrition. Now that I’m physically capable, I’m very excited to learn to rollerblade well. Since I started biking around to do errands or go down trails, I’ve definitely fallen in love with outdoor cardio. Instead of dreading Winter, my other half is determined to get us active in the snow. She is really looking forward to teaching me to ski with her this Winter, and I’m excited to go skating to improve my skills on wheels and blades.
While I love to just glide through the air, I know enough to know that practicing the basics can go a long way. I’ve committed to regularly doing beginner drills, but especially my stopping skills. For lots of people, the heel brake is sufficient, but I’m really trying to get good at the t-stop. The plan is to get as much practice of the basics as I can before the Winter, but I’m really looking forward to doing longer rides when it begins getting a little cool.
Learning to make food has been a gratifying experience. Taking that on in addition to the weight loss has made food feel more of a tool than a threat. Back when I wrote Why can’t I stop eating? I could never imagine what it would be like to be where I’m at now. While food troubles are not entirely behind me, I regularly have days where I’m not worried about it at all. Not out of avoidance, but from finally building up routines and enduring trust. I’m finally at the point where I’m willing to do more than the very basics when it comes to cooking. I’m interested in more complex recipes and finally beginning to put the effort in more varied meals.
Now that cooking itself is no longer the major battle, I’m very interested in learning what I should be making. My first major step into the nutrition discussion was reading Food Politics. It was an excellent read that absolutely honed some of how I see the contentious health debates these days. I still need to read ‘Being Vegan’ thanks to a kind suggestion from someone, and I’m very interested in exploring the many different perspectives out there. I certainly don’t think carbs are the enemy, but I wonder about nutrient decline. At this point, I’ve only dipped my toe into what is a very lively and contentious space.
I started this journey overwhelmed with frustration of constantly feeling useless and that I was a burden. I had sacrificed my health for a tiny bit of independence that faded exponentially as my health deteriorated. In that situation, having low-self worth feels like the least of your problems. Ironically, I am now convinced it may in fact be the real problem all along. In some ways, I am lucky that much of my condition was reversible. Not only did I not believe it was possible, but many others still doubt it can be done at all. For part of me, it is gut-wrenching to realize how radically transformative a bit of long-overdue compassion with myself has been.
People say the open contempt for overweight people is rooted in health. From my perspective I largely doubt it. As someone who has transformed radically in a fairly short period of time, I have a strong sense that it’s actually rooted in different things entirely. Firstly, I think there’s a naked hatred for a (perceived or actual) lack of utility. It’s genuinely hard to do basic things the more weight you pack on. What’s likely confusing to people is that someone’s mobility while overweight is not easily deducible. Some people at a particular build can still be quite mobile, while others are unable to move without significant pain or effort. It’s not always clear what’s underneath in a wide variety of ways.
Beyond that, I think a more insidious reason obese people can be openly ‘kicked when they’re down’ by people is because it is an overt sign of larger problems. For a while I had a bit of a chip on my shoulder over the fact that other addictions with less-obvious signs can be more socially acceptable. Having overcome that a bit, it seems like people hate that a visible sign things are not always okay is just out there. Given my own difficulties with facing my own pain, I can certainly sympathize. This is where I’ve come to learn that some aspects of the spectacle of weight loss can be toxic hope porn to distract from more fundamental issues.
A lot of this has a direct impact on other issues, but especially other disabilities. While I’m still new at this, I absolutely want to have a much better understanding of disability rights and history as a whole. So far, I’ve only got my own experiences and what I’ve been able to learn from other thoughtful people, so I know there’s a long way to go. We live in a time where medical advances can do great things, and that is real power that can be abused on big and small scales. While they may overlap, medicine practiced for the benefit of the patient, rather than society are different things that can conflict at times. The threat of an all out bio-tech dystopia is far closer than it would appear. Respecting the sanctity of life, and a fundamental commitment to protecting the rights of others seems to be one of the most effective ways to work against it.
I would greatly appreciate any pointers or resources in any way related to this.
I wish I could say that it gets so much easier. In some ways it really does. I no longer worry about relapsing, and this year has been wildly successful despite many serious challenges. I started 2026 at just above 300lbs. That was certainly a great deal of progress from where I started, but it was also where I had basically been for most of my life. Since the start of this year I have gone from familiar suffering to gradually beginning to feel the benefits of how far I’ve come in two years. Lately, as the weeks have passed, I’m starting to feel more capable rather than just less constrained.
So much of where I’m at now is entirely unfamiliar. My long run of social isolation and immobility didn’t really begin during the covid years. Now that I have taken off the weight of those years and then some, I am beginning to uncover problems that are harsh reminders I’m not coming out of this unscarred. Despite being really strong in some ways, insidious mobility difficulties remain. As frustrating as that can be I’m fairly optimistic that with time I can resolve those as well. What’s really painful for me at this stage is grieving the opportunity cost of not having fixed all this earlier. It is immensely challenging to ignore that when so many simple interactions and small things serve as nagging reminders.
People who have taken this road before warn that people treat you radically differently as you change. I did not expect it to be so heartbreaking. It has been eye-opening to see the world as someone people dismiss as useless at best, to gradually but swiftly being seen in a whole new light for fairly superficial reasons. I am certainly not blind to the ways in which obesity makes even the simplest things in life more difficult, but I vastly underestimated how much of that is exacerbated by how one is seen. Which is why even fairly nice interactions now can be quite bittersweet. I am quite worried about how I will ever come to trust people outside the (thankfully numerous) people who showed me real kindness prior to changing.
A downside to ’throwing everything’ at this problem for as long as I have is that I feel like I have learned too much about it. I’ve been trapped in a vicious shame-spiral over being unable to articulate how I’ve been feeling about this. In part, this is because I feel I have no right to complain about any of this. I am quite happy to have come this far, and it was completely unthinkable not that long ago. It’s just that I feel wholly unprepared for what feels like a crash landing. That’s the part that makes it difficult to share. I feel bad, and that makes it hard to talk about how I’m feeling, then I feel bad for not continuing to be transparent about all this. Even worse, I’ve fallen behind on projects outside this mission which aggravates me greatly. At this stage, I’m learning that there is a fine line between being patient with oneself and slow-motion self-abandonment.
So much of this process is not at all interesting to me anymore. I’ve mastered the basics and the nuances often don’t amount to enough to bother obsessing over. I want to continue to lose weight so that I can get the most out of the fun activities I’m learning. As far as ‘good problems to have’ I feel genuinely lucky to have been able to get to this point. The hard part is that I’ve also learned a lot about health generally, and it’s no longer at all shocking to me that not only do so many people struggle with weight, but why so few people manage to reverse it.
So what I’m supposed to say here is that I’ve dropped the ‘victim mentality’ regarding my weight so that I can seize all the blame for it in exchange for assuming all the credit for reversing it. I’m supposed to say “If I can do it, so you can too!” with a smile while I look down on where I started. Once I’m comfortable with rewriting history to absolve the bigger picture, I can then decry others for struggling with their ’excuses’. I am convinced this is actually how many people successfully lose the weight. You dehumanize your past self to avoid thinking too hard about what you’re assimilating into.
There’s a bigger picture to health, I knew from the beginning I would never successfully lose weight, never mind keep it off if I didn’t resolve problems beyond just diet and exercise. Usually in any discussion about losing weight, people tell you to “stop eating” or some other knee-jerk advice. In my experience, shame-driven weight loss only leads to self-destructive ends even if they aren’t obvious. In my first post about this back at the end of 2023, I warned to never compromise on your health. In reflecting during these difficult years, I’ve had to wrestle with the difficult question of why I did in the first place.
In my case, while I was certainly ignorant of the minutiae of nutrition. I also knew hardly anything about exercise beyond the fact that I liked to ride a bike. Ultimately, that doesn’t really matter at all because eating was effectively my only coping strategy. In the beginning of this process I presumed that this would all be as easy as simply adopting positive coping mechanisms. Since then I’ve developed a much more nuanced position. I’ve realized even ‘healthy’ coping mechanisms can lead to disastrous ends. Strategically, one could spread that between different mechanisms to make the impacts less obvious to themselves and others. It is clear to me the important question is why do you even need to cope?.
Yes, you can prioritize your health and make a beautiful spectacle of changing, but you’re then put in a very difficult situation. If the validation doesn’t distract you from it, it becomes quite clear that the challenges relating to weight management, and taking care of your health generally truly don’t depend that much on your dieting and fitness skills. At a certain point it becomes blatantly clear that it’s just real-life accounting tricks to repackage toxic liabilities as growing assets.
I am now so much more suspicious of any health ‘success story’ that doesn’t directly threaten people’s ‘just world fallacy’. People seem to desperately want fitness (and health, by extension) to be the ultimate meritocracy. You just ‘put in the work’ and somehow resources, community, and other issues can be ignored entirely. As noble and aspirational this can look on the outside, there is a grim dimension to it. If it’s just a matter of ‘being ready’ or ‘wanting it enough’, then why is it such a challenge for so many people? Just as a person is not immune to propaganda no matter how intelligent they may seem, the same applies to health.
Maintaining or even building health requires sacrifices in some form or another, especially in unhealthy and dysfunctional environments. To be fair, many of these are genuinely worthwhile, but it’s hubris to presume they’re all harmless. From the beginning, I’ve been fairly open about the kindness, support, and guidance I’ve received in getting this started. This is why I feel I owe it to those who still struggle with these problems to be as genuine about this as I can be. In practice, it turns out to be so much harder than I anticipated. My goal was never to merely show people I could change, but to help others see that it is so much harder than it needs to be. None of which is exclusive to body weight.
From the beginning, sharing my thoughts was incredibly easy. Publishing into the void is a useful way to avoid the anxiety relating to mental and emotional struggles. Once my newsletter began to grow, and this blog got more attention, I would lie to myself that “nobody is listening anyways” to keep the apprehension at bay. It is the absolute peak of irony that while I believed I was desperate to be heard, actually being heard made speaking so much more difficult. Why am I so afraid of judgement? Why is it all so hard to talk about?. These questions make me long for the days in which my means of interacting with other people was almost entirely online. Since I started writing I’ve come recognize that my inability to share shorter things comes out of a deep fear of being ‘misunderstood’.
In the years where I hid from the world, I was seeking safety that I could never secure. Escaping my upbringing was not the same as escaping the consequences of it. I spent so long believing I was victorious for securing some sense of independence. A tiny foothold of security wasn’t enough to prevent me from collapsing under the weight what I lacked, and what I endured.
I am writing this wholly confident that I will be able to reach an optimal weight relatively soon, aside from the extra skin I’m carrying on top of it. From this vantage point I can see now that the important change was never about food choices, fitness programming, or anything like that. What’s changed is that I can begin to accept my circumstances for what they are, rather than numbing terror with substances and comforting lies. Like everything else, it’s a process. I do still falter quite a bit on this front, but at least I am consciously contending with it.
I say all this to contradict much of what I’ve come across (and learned from) in mainstream and alternative health discussions. It seems that both systems select for compatibility with the comfortable lies we tell ourselves. Health authorities are never going to contradict power, and ultimately alternative remedies need to be marketable to gain traction. Of course that’s not to say both worlds are pointless. Depending on the circumstances, both systems have their utility. We should not at all be shocked that in complex circumstances, that majority of people struggle to fruitfully navigate the labyrinth.
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2026-08-05 22:00:20
Over the course of my radical weight loss journey I’ve learned a lot. The most important lesson in my opinion has been developing an uncompromising growth mindset. It is clear to me that such a mindset is very applicable to things far beyond personal health. This is my attempt to generalize some of these lessons to the bigger picture.
It is completely understandable that people are overwhelmed (if not outright paralyzed) by the torrent of troubles in our time. These days, it certainly seems that anyone who cares deeply about any particular domain of our lives is sounding dire alarms. Everywhere one chooses to pay attention, there is an endless chorus of urgent calls to action. This exists both on the large and the small scale: from large structural problems like wars and financial havoc to localized hazards and shared personal difficulties. There is no shortage of crucial causes in much need of diligent and discerning effort. These days my pet priorities are focused around health and digital freedom, but these are certainly not the only areas where real work is needed.
Any one of us is just a mere individual.
No matter how capable and equipped we may be, we have limits.
What needs to be done feels incomprehensibly daunting and what we can accomplish often gives little comfort.
What is the point of ’taking action’ if ultimately, the sum of my best efforts are guaranteed to fall short?
Much of these problems are driven by structures and systems that are far beyond any individual. It makes sense that people would simply join one or many movements aiming to improve things. Sadly, just as quickly as movements would rise to the challenge, they would inevitably become infested with the same rot that corrupts the institutions and structures they sought to reform or abolish. Over time, this transforms the most ambitious idealists into jaded cynics. You talk to any experienced activist and they’ll have endless stories about how a hot new trend is actually an old trap that has been sprung over and over.
What’s worse is that everything is so complex. Those deeply knowledgeable about particular topics are often incomprehensible to the general public. Expertise isolates and being comprehensible is an expensive commodity. The more one peers into any serious human endeavor, the more the game looks overtly and harshly rigged. It would certainly appear that our efforts are best placed merely trying to endure the storm and pray that it passes over us. When that doesn’t work we can always numb ourselves out from the pain.
I think what makes our times so difficult to endure is the inherent isolation baked into the structures driving the dysfunction: bureaucracy, algorithmic social media, and now artificial intelligence. This creates a profound sense of hopelessness, because if it’s up to us then it is already lost. The great news is that there actually are other great, kind, smart, and creative people out there. With a bit of patience and courage, a lot more can change than we think.
One of the more difficult challenges in even beginning to wrestle with difficult problems is facing the situation plainly. We need to meet people, problems, and systems how they actually are, rather than where we would like them to be. We don’t have the luxury of ideal circumstances, Through history we have all inherited conditions not of our choosing that carry consequences we can’t fully comprehend. When it comes to addressing things that matter, the enemies of sanity are certainty, catharsis, and completeness.
It is absolutely important to be sure in your convictions, on its own there’s nothing wrong with that. Certainty without acknowledging our mental and emotional confines is a recipe for wearing intellectual blinders. Being open to positive and negative surprises is fundamental to meaningfully growing and changing. We can’t truly expect to make any meaningful improvements anywhere if we’ve already given up on improving ourselves. Learning and the capacity to adapt are non-negotiable in chaotic environments. Actual learning is more than just playing with ideas, it’s about being willing to put them to the test and make changes when necessary.
Some people have to ask themselves if they actually want change, or if they just want to feel something. Catharsis seduces the mind into endless distraction with fanciful pleasures. Both gazing at the abyss of horrific evil, and daydreaming of utopia can easily cause your sense of perspective to slip away without notice. Being aware of dangers and horrors is important, and so too is understanding what better outcomes look like. The problem isn’t about awareness, the real danger comes from letting our unexamined feelings drive our decisions. This opens us up to manipulation, because powers in high places certainly know how to pull people’s strings. A fine understanding of how you’re wound up can absolutely help from getting stuck in similar traps over and over.
All-or-nothing thinking feels very clean and elegant in the abstract, but leads to terrible results in reality. You can learn good things from bad people, and great people can make mistakes. Corrupt and failing institutions can still serve important functions, and even the most robust systems can have dangerous flaws. Reforms that are wholly insufficient may still be necessary. We have to be open to change not just in our own lives, but also in the world around us. Treating others (and ourselves) as beyond repair is just as foolish as presuming anyone’s perfection. Time is a huge part of the equation. Some things can’t be accomplished all at once, and require meticulous work over longer stretches.
Accepting that things are as they are is not the same as acceptance of those things. The point is to witness the problems, not endlessly wallow over them. Being capable of comprehending the issues is vitally important to meaningfully addressing them. That said, the line between constructively minding a problem as opposed to letting it set your reason ablaze is very fine. Even in the best of times the embers of grief need to be properly tended to, or we risk losing far more than just our minds. It is necessary to not succumb to the temptation of avoiding real problems. It can all be a lot worse than you can imagine, yet still not be hopeless.
Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist.
Children already know that dragons exist.
Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.G.K. Chesterton
This is not a command, but an invitation to consider just being too stubborn to give up. On some level, that’s all that’s required. Whatever your dream, cause, or ambition, facing every obstacle with a mindset of “this too, can be overcome” is the simplest distillation of the perspective required. But I’ve learned enough to ask for more. I don’t just want you to toil away endlessly against the darkness I want you to be joyful while doing it. It is clear to me that these dark times call for a radically different approach to the novel circumstances we face.
Expecting more shouldn’t be about judgement, but about hope. Acknowledging where things fall short is necessary, but so is precise care. Being clear about where criticisms come from, while avoiding inflammatory harshness can make the difference between an honest conversation and an endless brawl. Clearly understanding our own goals and values are what allows us to properly articulate what is important when disagreements arise. Even when diverging goals are in play, there is often still room to find common benefit from something.
There is value in encouraging potential that is yet unrealized, but there does need to be a real path to actualizing it. Shortcomings in particular tactics and initiatives can make the effort a non-starter. On the other hand, that’s not the same as saying there’s nothing to be learned from the exercise. Being open-minded about judgement-free analysis can help spot rare opportunities. We are naturally invested in our approaches, so it can pay to be dispassionate when evaluating them.
Wanting the best is always compatible with at least a touch of kindness. Leave the control, harshness, and venom for the tyrants. An enduring desire for things to improve can just as easily come from compassion rather than rage, if we allow it. Building up your capacity to nurture what you want to see can go a lot further than playing offense all the time. Failure is to be endured, harm is to be pruned with maximum prejudice.
One of the hardest things for most people to wrestle with in our time is that we’re simply not playing the same game as the way things used to be. We’re in a radically different environment than what people in living memory grew up with. These changes need to be accounted for. People often have so much less capacity for things than we would like to have, but this can be built up over time. It can be a lot more valuable to identify steps between where we want to be and where we actually are, rather than obsessing over a complete and total overhaul.
Putting in the work to diligently set the stage for changes can do a lot more good than taking on too much and being disappointed. Preparation goes a long way to make things easier, and small things absolutely snowball into bigger efforts. When things aren’t as we would like them to be, it is important to think about what little changes can clear the way to an easier path. It can be all too easy to be enthralled by the spectacle of things rather than being properly devoted to the substance. Keeping priorities in focus and being gentle about it can often be the difference between success and catastrophic burnout.
The best strategy in most circumstances is to find way to expand the time horizon. Panic can create unnecessary urgency that sneaks in compromise and sub-optimal decisions. Buying time can be a very valuable tactic so long as we are clear-minded about what we’re buying time for. In most cases a touch of patience in the face of difficulty can do wonders for staying the course. Again, being patient in enduring circumstances is not the same as accepting them. Being focused on what needs to be done in the moment is a major pre-requisite to making actual changes. As the stakes rise, harm reduction can often be as good a victory as can be reasonably achieved.
Every non-trivial project is going to involve other people. Taking out your frustration on those around you is at best counter-productive and at worst will leave you entirely isolated. In difficult times stress rises and it takes a toll on everyone. Being mindful of our own capacity as well as that of other people is needed to make practical decisions. Far more interactions can be a negotiation rather than an outright fight. Conflict is inevitable, but we can all decide which battles we will judiciously escalate or diffuse.
There’s no “magic-fix” to any real problem, but there surely is sorcery to be found once you understand anything deeply enough. The vast majority of people think of things in simplistic linear ways: “I do X, Y happens”. This drives a lot of shaming behavior “Just stop doing X”, or “If everyone did Y, Z would happen”. This very often entirely ignores the incredible power of compounding effects. People rarely dig too deeply into the root causes and struggle to articulate reasonable steps to get from where they are to where they want to be. This creates a scenario where most people are trapped in shame spirals “why can’t I fix it?” and concede to hopelessness and despair.
Once you’ve taken in a broad perspective of a complex issue, pay close attention to the feedback loops. There are self-perpetuating cycles, often for and even against particular trends. By focusing your efforts on slowing down the negative feedback loops and reinforcing the positive ones, you can accomplish transformative results that look ‘magical’ from the outside. Understanding these feedback loops can really improve your ability to connect the micro scale to the macro scale. Big problems often have smaller scale iterations, and vice versa. Understanding this can give you a far wider space to take action in than a binary choice between the biggest fights or being entirely solitary.
Rather than obsessing over total defeat or complete victory, consider both positive and negative momentum and drag. What’s currently making things better? What’s slowing those down? What are the things making everything worse? How can they be mitigated or reversed? These are much more pragmatic questions than trying to build an immovable object to halt an unstoppable force. In reality most things fit neither category. There’s always some meaningful ‘slack’ in any direction that can be addressed on any scale.
If it is all already entirely up to me or you alone, rest assured that all hope is lost. First and foremost you have to release yourself from complete responsibility for the state of things in the world, or even in your life for that matter. Our own agency is powerful, but it’s not the only factor at play. We’re on this planet with over 8 billion other people. Life is not a ‘single-player’ game and there are no bonus points for doing everything alone. Solitude is necessary and valuable in the right dose and circumstances, but it is certainly not the answer to everything all the time. If we help each other out, we may radically transform our ability to resolve these problems together.
Giving up on ourselves and others only gives tyrants an easy win. Encouragement is the best kind of ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’. People forget what they’re capable of. Inspiring and raising others up is a meaningful force multiplier against the evils of our time. Connecting with others is about so much more than just gaining perspective, it’s about reforging our natural defenses against so many of our modern ills. This means we have to take the time to recognize the potential, talents, and even weaknesses of those around us, as well as ourselves.
Finding ways to win together is often much more valuable than trying to endure it all alone. You would be pleasantly surprised what people get out of the smallest things. These days it is more important than ever to be a “team player”, yet also able to be selective about which team is worth playing for. Cooperation should never mean being oblivious to what’s happening before our eyes. Unlike abstract systems and ideals, real people are complicated. Building up the people-skills to navigate that complexity is as urgent as it is difficult.
You can’t compete with someone who is having fun.
The biggest fallacy of consistency is believing that all meticulous work on a difficult challenge has to be a miserable slog. Finding the joy and spreading cheer in good efforts is its own victory. In the right circumstances, people with enough bandwidth can find a thrill in solving difficult problems. This is an under-appreciated way to accelerate people’s desire to do whatever needs to be done. Taking the time to celebrate small victories, or even just show some appreciation can make even the most dire of situations more enjoyable.
Being radically tough mentally and emotionally demands the ability to pull strength from a place that can’t be exhausted. You should dream bigger, but put focused energy into the simpler things. Having a grim understanding of dire realities does not need to steal joy from every moment. If anything, having open eyes to tragedy and despair can make the smallest joys far more precious. It is not at all easy, but it is a disposition very much worth developing.
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2026-07-10 08:00:00
There’s no real “finish line” on this whole building a healthy lifestyle thing, but I’m finally at the point where the immense amount of work put in feels worthwhile. I can now bike again, which feels incredible. After putting it off for some time I finally got my old bicycle (lots of sentimental value there) repaired. I spent many years very despairing that I would never ride again.
I’ve also lost the big 300 now. I started this journey over 576lbs and this morning I weighed in at 273.4 with my latest low last weekend being 270. Starting I didn’t know it was even possible, now I realize I couldn’t imagine what it would demand of me. I can personally attest that none of this is easy.
I’m still recovering from some challenging times, but I’m very much looking forward to sharing more moving forward. I’ve learned a lot in this process, and certainty have a great deal to share. I hope you enjoy this attempt to record some thoughts while being able to ride again. It is very good to be rolling.
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2026-06-23 18:41:39
It has been a while since I’ve published one of these off-the-cuff walking monologues. In short, I’ve been worn down from the disappointment of continuing to reach higher, and feeling punished when minor injuries accumulate into feeling trapped again. Progress remains steady, but I still have a long way to go.
When I think about what’s been troubling me lately a great deal of it boils down to trying to ‘fly too close to the sun’. This entire time I’ve been desperate to actually get moving, now that I’m capable of it I have a very difficult time holding myself back. Some of it’s pressure, some of it is struggling to sit with background frustrations and fears. Looking back, it’s no mystery, but in the moment I feel driven by a very unfamiliar set of compulsions.
Now that I can be much more active than I ever have been, I feel compelled to take it for all it’s worth. For this entire journey every advance has been met with a desire to push even harder. I have certainly hit my limits before, but the severity and damage was limited by my lack of overall capability. Now I feel like I can do significant and lasting damage when I’m not careful and I realize how careless pressure and frustration can make me.
I am still recovering from going ’too hard’ on a couple of rollerblading sessions that included some falls. It’s really not the physical injury that bothers me as much as the regret of not being able to keep going. Each day I’m not back to “100%” consumes me with guilt that is nearly impossible to dismiss without doing something active that only delays recovery. I know this is a problem, sadly I am currently at a loss of how to disentangle it.
It has been surprising, but never before in this journey has the temptation to outright quit been higher. In part I am very disappointed that getting this far hasn’t ‘fixed everything’. In my less optimistic moments I’m angered that I’ve been given a cruel taste of what I am still unable to do. This spirals into despair that I may never actually fix this. It has been made crystal clear to me how strong the negative feedback loop to regaining weight is, but it seems I’m unable to gracefully go the other direction.
It all feels so far above me. This process has taken far more out of me than what I expected. I have some new grey hairs to show for it. It is clear that I need to find the right balance or a new equilibrium will be forced on me. So much of my present despair has to do with the fact that it does feel like everything I’ve done to get to this point has more or less been for nothing. It’s possible that I’m just being greedy. I need to have the patience and gratitude to accept that this is just going to take more time than I would like. On the other hand, I worry that this process itself can break me.
A pleasant shift is that I have discovered that the tactical use of carbohydrates can do wonders for mental clarity. In the past particularly demanding days would have me feeling significantly mentally exhausted on top of the physical exhaustion. With some success, I’ve been able to prevent that effect by properly fueling my body with some berries and fruits during difficult days. I’m definitely eager to learn more how how to precisely and efficiently use this to stay lucid despite trying to be more active. In the past I had noticed that doing a lot of exercise after a significant meal feels very good, my hope is that I can time things to take advantage of that.
On the mental side I’m doing what I can to take some of the pressure off. I’ve felt a great deal of frustration for not publishing more, especially because of some of the relevant big picture moves going on right now. I am trying to be patient with myself as I catch up, but it does get me down quite a bit. This feels like the point in the cycle where I have to rediscover inspiration again. I need to find positive reasons to press on and remind myself of where things can go from here.
I realize I need to rest reevaluate, and refocus my efforts. Lately I’ve been prioritizing sleep, which I think is making a positive impact. Sometime soon I hope to more concretely plan out a slightly different approach. If nothing else I need to figure out how to properly restrain my over-zealousness.
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