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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2026-05-28 09:55:09
Lately I’ve had the pleasure of taking a vacation to Vancouver. I got to meet one of my great friends Liam Sturgess as well as others from the good fight of those difficult covid years. As far as ‘internet friends’ go, it felt great that they are every bit as amazing in person. Long overdue, but I’m very grateful I was able to make it to the occasion that brought this together. In addition to the main celebration, I got to spend some much needed quality time with my other half, who took charge of much of the planning on our end. She was very excited to experience the richness of nature out on the west coast, and I was thrilled to be schooled on the beauty that is out there. It was very lovely to breathe fresher air and be surrounded by so much lushness and color.
This was also a fantastic opportunity for me to take a bit of a break from my intense weight loss journey and get even further out of my comfort zone in other ways. Last time I flew, I was visiting family when I was over 500lbs. That was a massive ordeal and was very close in mind during this trip. I definitely appreciate the advantages of having gotten below 300lbs. In hindsight, the trip felt like the best way to celebrate truly transforming my life, and what waits for me as I progress further.
I am quite shocked to say I managed to cross the Capilano Suspension Bridge and did a large amount of hiking on much steeper terrain than I’m used to. Despite still being obese, It was so very gratifying to be able to do so many activities without feeling at all constrained by my size and cardiovascular capacity. The outings I took part in really showed me not only how important every pound lost was, but also the major difference the fitness level I’ve reached makes. In many ways this trip was a productive “body image reset” because I’ve gone from feeling like I’m ‘basically done’ to having a more firm grasp of what would be different from where I am to where I aim to be.
With all this in mind, I wanted to share a large collection of photos and videos from the various outings. I’ve painstakingly prepared this page to not use an absurd amount of bandwidth thanks to some very witty use of shortcodes. The images are compressed, and the videos won’t load unless you hover over them. For the full(er) detail, you can click on any item to view the full video/image.
Of the following images and video, feel free to use any of them as CC BY-NC-SA please.
We were very lucky to stay at a place in North Vancouver close to the beautifully scenic Lynn Valley LINK. What astonished us immediately on arriving to North Vancouver is how tall the trees are. Due to rarely spending time outdoors, small things like trees growing on stumps and moss on the trees was pretty new for me to see up close.
I can only imagine how great it would be to be able to regularly walk along this trail. It’s pretty steep in parts so it can absolutely be a great workout. As far as a relaxing get away goes, it was really great to have easy access to such a lovely place.
This trail alone made the visit very nice and refreshing, now I want to spend time looking for the nice trails near me.
Since we were flying across the country, it only made sense to go a little wild. It was great to get on the water and see some wildlife up close. I was a bit nervous about the open canopy at the front but got used to it pretty quickly. This is where it was most apparent that photos and video hardly do the real thing any justice. It was amazing to see the harbor seals with the binoculars, I even tried to take a close-up with them. It was janky but it worked somewhat.
Sadly we didn’t get to see any orcas, but it was pretty neat to follow a humpback whale for a tiny bit.
This outing was where I really decided to push my luck. Earlier that week, a local resident overheard us talking about politics and encouraged us to attend a protest against AI datacenters that weekend. The tour guide was very nice and great for answering people’s questions, so I took that as an opportunity. I simply asked the guide if “datacenters are net-positive or net-negative” for the whales. Obviously a pretty loaded question to put someone on the spot with. Her answer was pretty diplomatic, the guide stated that while she is against AI as a whole it does have valuable uses in research. This interaction told me that even at the front lines of conservation, students are much softer against technological consolidation than I thought. I would have assumed that the vast majority of those working in these fields would have a zero tolerance for such an egregious imposition. Personally, I am quite skeptical that using an astronomical amount of compute to decode whale calls will outweigh the clear ecological impacts. I would certainly like someone much more knowledgeable about the issues at hand to explain to me the trade-offs in detail.
The next outing was her favorite, the Vancouver Aquarium. I was surprised at how much there was to see. It was a very nice walk along Stanley Park to get to it, and we were very lucky to have quite nice weather for the entire trip.
I definitely took a liking to the jellyfish, it was very nice to see them go and be rotated around the large tanks.
The highlight of the stay was absolutely the otters, which were astoundingly adorable. It was great to watch them being fed and to learn about them.
Frogs!
Big stuff!
Of course I decided to push my luck again. Inside they had a section where you could (gently) touch jellyfish and other sea creatures. I decided to once again pop my question about AI datacenters to the two aquarium employees. I got similarly diplomatic answers with even more optimism regarding the benefits of research for conservation and ecology. I shared my concerns about the technological consolidation and they shared their concerns about impacts on students learning capabilities.
I really had a great time. I did not expect to have both my understanding of how far I’ve come, and how much further I had to go put into perspective at the same time. Up until this point, the more progress I made the less clear future changes seemed. As I continued to make new lows, it became easier to take the changes for granted. I can’t express how blessed I feel to have had the chance to go from feeling almost entirely isolated and immobile, to doing all these fascinating outdoor activities. So many of the smallest experiences really stood out to me in different ways. Some highlighted how great it was to be more capable, others made it explicitly clear to me that there is still a great deal of benefits to shedding the extra weight I still carry that felt normal for so much of my life.
I did certainly indulge and let loose during this time. I was struggling to make progress before leaving due to particular stressors getting the best of me. Instead of succumbing to a shame spiral, I decided that a week of indulgence is not going to be the thing that makes or breaks my long-term health trajectory. I used the experience as an opportunity to better understand what my remaining challenges with food actually are, and certainly learned a great deal. It would seem that having the luxury of observing my eating decisions without worrying about them helped a great deal. It really gave me a much clearer idea of where I am, and what still needs to change.
It feels thrilling to be rested and motivated to really take on what remains. It was reinvigorating to have the chance to do something radically different and get to experience things far outside my ordinary routine. I feel entirely recharged and I’m ecstatic to push forward on my weight loss journey and my ambitious programming projects. I miss the wonderful and encouraging people from my gym, and I can’t wait to be around them again. With eating back under control, (without the previous stress, pressure and panic!) I feel in a much better position mentally to work on my programming projects and updates.
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2026-05-10 05:38:25
This Mother’s Day I would like to share a personal thank you to mothers, grandmothers and the wise women out there, even on the World Wide Web. When I was at my peak body weight after the dreadful covid years, I felt a torrent of difficult emotions. When things were at my worst, there was one group of people that consistently showed me a refreshing combination of compassion, understanding, and encouragement. Older ladies, wise from their years have a phenomenal capacity and willingness to recognize and uplift the best of what’s inside us. In my experience, I have noticed that when one is putting in the work to build themselves up, their biggest cheerleaders are what I affectionately dub ‘Granny Squad’. From the covid years, to my weight loss journey (where I’ve already lost more than I currently weigh), I have many lovely ladies to thank. Therefore, I think it is appropriate and necessary that I do so here.
I owe much to the women in my life, in more ways than I know. I believe in these times, it is vital to show appreciation for those who have helped us. Things are chaotic and it is very easy to let thanks go by the wayside. We all have our battles and scars, but it can be helpful to think of those who have tended to our wounds either physically or emotionally and watch over us. It certainly feels that modernity makes orphans of us all, and so I think it is vital that we reinforce the women at the forefront of holding what remains of community together, however we can.
During the covid years, I spent a small amount of time attending in-person meet-ups hoping to participate in changing the tide against the disastrous policy decisions made in that time. At those meet-ups you saw a huge variety of people. Young people like me who got canned for refusing an “emergency use” injection, working people fed up with the chaos imposed on their lives, and elders from many walks of life. I quickly noticed, that when it came to actually helping the people suffering, it was almost exclusively the mothers, grandmothers, and older women who were the most constructive. I began to recognize how the simplest acts of kindness during difficult times can be far more impactful long term than collectively fantasizing about radical action that never materializes. During this time, I was morbidly obese, incredibly stressed out, and quite out of my own depth. I needed something to help me focus that frustration productively, that I could actually accomplish.
I turned to writing. Substack was quite popular in the ‘covid dissident’ circles I frequented. I felt that getting into writing would help me organize my thoughts and feelings, as well as help me share what I had already worked to put into practice. In hindsight, this was absolutely my turning point for the better. Many great things came out of that project, but even from the very start I was lucky to receive thoughtful feedback from ‘Granny Squad’. To my surprise, some of the deepest and most constructive feedback I’ve received has not been the technical minds I expected, but from the wise and well-read ladies online. There is of course quite a bit of overlap between those two that is absolutely worth mentioning. It is my belief that due to the hyper-financial nature of the ‘attention economy’ there is a phenomenal amount of under-recognized insight from so many different sources.
What has transformed my outlook the most was beholding how ‘Granny Squad’ is not only emotionally supportive, intellectually deep, but also the lifeblood of any serious activist endeavor. My first-hand experience attending the Freedom Convoy taught me how remarkably effective they can be when cooperation, coordination, and actual work is involved. During the protests, an abundance of delicious pre-prepared sandwiches were prepared to keep the truckers fed. So many in fact, that they were freely distributed to public spectators on the scene. I am aware, that this is merely the tip of a much larger iceberg of work that went into making what was a brutally cold time warming in its own way.
I believe mothers being uniquely invested in the lives of others gives them an unparalleled capacity to understand people on a much deeper level. They’ve seen what hurt us, where we go wrong, and our triumphs. They see the consequences that bring people down, and the work that it takes to just keep things feeling normal. It is this wider context that puts them in a position to appreciate experiences others wouldn’t spend time thinking about. This highlights to me how much online media and activism is primarily ego-driven theater for clicks.
Many of the wise women I’ve learned from during these years are passionate, articulate veterans of many important social movements. Any eager young activist would do well to appreciate the experience, knowledge, and unique perspective brave moms have in any space. All that wisdom is an under-appreciated resource that is only becoming more critical in our troubling times.
I’ve heard mothers called the “CEO of the home” but I think that’s a lazy and unfavorable comparison. A CEO of a corporation gets renown for the accomplishments of others and has a generous ‘golden parachute’ should anything go wrong. A mother is the person who gets the job done when the stakes are real, and the tolerance for catastrophe is zero. Life is often hard, and circumstances can often be ruinous. Mothers are the group you can rely on to consistently overcome in situations others struggle to comprehend, almost by definition.
This immense capacity has helped all of us survive the horrors of history in some form or another. If you wanted to think of a single bottleneck that holds humanity back, it’s likely not our tools, knowledge, or even resources. I would bet on it being the incredible talents of mothers being drained by assaults on the public, or them specifically. The opportunity costs inherent to parenting are extreme, and that impact is guaranteed for better or worse. Community is one of many things that pre-dates the Internet, stock market, or even the industrial revolution. There are so many intangible forms of wealth that haven’t even begun to be truly allowed to flourish.
While I am appreciative to have found helpful male mentorship during these challenging years, I am especially grateful for the cloud of encouragement and compassion that has helped steer my own life in a better direction. Admittedly my biggest fear in my weight loss journey hasn’t been gaining it back, but to have gone through all that I have and learned nothing. To me, the most valuable lesson has been learning the value of genuine care. Appreciation for the kindness that has been so freely and consistently given to me has me reflecting on the nature of nurturing.
People often associate nurturing with ‘babying’ but there’s a lot more to it than that. When it comes to recognizing value in others, mothers have an eye to see what many of us can’t. When you think about it, that makes them apex investors when it comes to our better qualities. They see the potential in us that we often overlook. I strongly believe that so much of what’s still good in our world is due to the relentless work of women in our communities. We should all be grateful that many of these women take the opportunity to encourage and support others everywhere they go. Their talents for bringing out the best of people often shine in places you would not at all expect.This is never more clear to me than at the gym. Way before I really believed I could change, they were quick to point out progress and share encouragement.
When I think of the future, I can see that our destiny is in the hands of those who have the power to build people up. We can all learn a great deal from the mothers, grandmothers, and aunts in our lives. It is clear to me that many of the qualities required to protect and sustain a genuinely human society are exemplified by the women around us. I hope this Mother’s Day I have helped bring some attention to that.
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2026-04-13 20:43:49
It really wasn’t that long ago that I even struggled with walking, but I am thrilled to share that I have gone rollerblading for the first time in a long time. A lot of great things are coming together this Spring and I am eager to make the best of it. Last week I made a new low of just a hair below 289. Lately I’ve been looking back at just how hard-won my newfound mobility is and reflecting on how different it feels to be able to glide again.
In truth, I was very anxious to begin roller-blading. I had become so used to everything being a painful and arduous challenge that I was expecting my first attempt to be a humiliating and frustrating experience. Once I got moving, I experienced the exact opposite. Things felt fluid and fun. In that moment it was so hard to believe that I was doing it. Actually having some momentum was a surreal and liberating experience. Feeling the wind against me as I pushed forward made me feel a concrete sense of accomplishment I truly haven’t allowed myself feel until now. It was very helpful that my twin brother sent me a tutorial video on how to avoid common beginner mistakes. I’ve still got a lot to learn but I’m very happy I’ve been able to skate around without any back pain. Hopefully, the weather will cooperate and I can become quite the skating fanatic.
I’ve been trying to have more egg whites in general, but it’s been boring to only have them scrambled.
Lately I’ve been anxious about still not being very far from 300. To be blunt, I don’t quite yet trust that it’s fully behind me. I recently bought some XL shorts not expecting them to fit and to my surprise they did! Despite the scale going slowly it does seem that I’m progressing reasonably well.
The i2p version of my site is back online, if there are any problems please let me know.
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2026-04-03 21:10:28
Lately I’ve been wrestling with a quite familiar terror brought on by world events. With escalating wars and energy shocks I find myself reminded of the dark days of the covid years. Since then I have learned that the problem isn’t fear in difficult times, but being ruled by it. One of the most frustrating things to see is how during the chaos, people get taken advantage of by opportunists and institutions alike.
To address my emotional eating, I’ve had to take a deep look at what mental and emotional troubles drive me to seek comfort. As I’ve made progress, I’ve had to wrestle with a deeper understanding of my own fear-driven compulsions. On reflection, it is clear to me that these insights have broader applications beyond just health. I hope you appreciate listening to me try to figure this out.
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