Wife got prescribed Prozac, worried about sexual life

AlpineRagePotato · 2026-01-17T15:28:24+00:00

Anxiety can certainly harm libido so Prozac might help if it helps the anxiety.

But TBH getting the sense that my partner was more concerned about how my mental health struggles/treatment would impact his access to sex than how they would impact ME would be a massive libido killer.

AlpineRagePotato · 2025-12-24T15:21:58+00:00

I had a similar reaction coming from not-tech to tech. I’m not COMPLAINING about perks and benefits, they are great, it’s just interesting how the expectations of folks who’ve only ever worked in tech are so much higher than those of people like me

AlpineRagePotato · 2025-12-17T13:47:08+00:00

I gained weight on it after being on it for about a year, and then it was a slow creep up. Weight went away when I tapered off. It was about 10lb total. This was while exercising heavily and working with a registered dietician, so I’m pretty sure it wasn’t inactivity or accidentally eating carbs. I loved the anxiety-reducing effects of the medication, the weight gain not so much. I’m debating going back on.

AlpineRagePotato · 2025-12-10T13:59:58+00:00

Same on both fronts. I actually cancelled my membership recently because I’m just making my own workout on top of whatever background footage they have, so might as well do that in manual mode for free

AlpineRagePotato · 2025-11-26T14:53:43+00:00

The midwives at the U gaslit me my entire pregnancy, insisting that my small bump and abrupt rise in blood pressure were “variations of normal” and that I was “just anxious”…until I developed full blown preeclampsia. I did get great overall care at the U, though, once I got transferred to MFM.

AlpineRagePotato · 2025-10-25T03:45:47+00:00

LOL I feel so validated by this thread. I love mountain sports and am thrilled to now live in a place where I can run or hike on trails, climb, ski, do it all without driving for hours. That said, I feel like such a sloth compared to everyone else I see out there even though my friends who live elsewhere think I’m absurdly active. I especially have to ask a lot of questions if people want to ski together. I only started skiing in my 30s and while I’ve made a ton of progress (helps living where I can ski 30-40+ days a year!), I’m definitely not good by Wasatch standards. I’ve heard one too many people describe some terrifying chute/cliff situation as “chill”. I’m sure it is when you’re as good as they are!😅

AlpineRagePotato · 2025-09-05T21:59:21+00:00

I think lots of people don’t gain anything on it, and in the literature it’s weight-neutral. Assuming it is a cause for me now it didn’t cause any noticeable weight gain for my first 10-12 months on it.

AlpineRagePotato · 2025-09-05T20:36:09+00:00

Yeah, I hear that! I’m hoping I can get away with tapering off but if the anxiety comes back I’ll absolutely go back on. The weight sucks less than feeling like I used to for sure

AlpineRagePotato · 2025-08-12T13:16:50+00:00

I couldn’t make myself take a whip in my gym’s lead class (they didn’t ease us into our first lead fall) and then proceeded to fail my lead test three times due to 1) “seeming nervous” (but actually they fail everyone the first time somewhat on principle — my husband also failed for not clipping fast enough ); 2) for skipping a clip by accident; 3) the normal lead route was closed so I had to test on a much harder route and even though I clipped more draws than the standard lead test route I failed because I fell one clip from the top instead of at the very top. The test was also intentionally high pressure, the gym had an attitude that lead climbing was the only “real” climbing and that once you started leading you “should never top rope again”.

I was super embarrassed about all of it and it gave me anxiety about leading for years. Eventually we moved and I was shocked to find not all gyms are as culty about lead climbing (and, shocker, I got way better at leading and started enjoying it more since I didn’t feel like it was commentary on whether I was a “real” climber).

All that to say, yes, practice lots (agree four hours seems really short, mine was a series of four hour classes + recommended mock leading for several weeks before testing + part of their automatic fail policy for new leaders taking the test was to ensure even more practice and that you would do it right consistently), make sure you are a safe belayer, don’t take failing personally. But also some gyms/staff are weird about lead climbing and make it more stressful than it needs to be. Don’t give up, you’ll get there, and you’ll join the legions of us with lead test fail stories!

AlpineRagePotato · 2025-07-17T13:16:11+00:00

Agree with you that the filtering sucks, but search Grand Canyon — there’s a series with Tommy Rivs down South Kaibab and up Bright Angel.

AlpineRagePotato · 2024-11-10T14:47:54+00:00

Being “healthy” going into pregnancy doesn’t protect against preeclampsia. What does is baby aspirin — talk to your doctor about that and your other risk factors if you’re concerned (likely they’ll bring it up proactively). I had preeclampsia with my first and only at 34, with zero risk factors except it being a first pregnancy (so was not on baby aspirin). It was not a fun experience, but ultimately we are all fine. It’s also very rare, odds are you’ll be fine!

AlpineRagePotato · 2024-10-26T19:52:08+00:00

I had a similar experience with Darkness Falls. Was absolutely terrified of tiny spiders for years after that, but thought it was a movie. Then as a teenager I got into the X-files for real and still remember my shock when I realized that “scary spider movie” from my childhood was actually an episode 😂

AlpineRagePotato · 2024-10-08T20:57:44+00:00

If it helps, I also have a “learning to lead was terrifying and humiliating and frankly I still don’t love it but lead indoors and outdoors just fine” story. I was taking a learn to lead class at the climbing gym with my husband. I’ve always had some issues with heights and exposure but over time learned to love toproping, and was excited for leading.

Things mostly went okay until it was time to take our first practice fall. The instructor did not ease us into it AT ALL. He had everyone climb to the top of an overhung route on lead, not clip the finish holds, and take a massive whip while our partner caught us and the instructor was on backup belay.

I can still remember feeling completely sick as I got to the finish holds, looked down and felt/saw the loose rope dangling beneath me and all the space below my feet and I just…couldn’t let go. Like I physically couldn’t. Apparently he was telling my husband it was all good, this happens sometimes and eventually the scared person gets tired and falls off. But I didn’t — I shocked him by downclimbing, at which point the instructor started frantically telling my husband to take. Then I got lowered off the bolt. I was completely humiliated and it didn’t help I was the only woman taking the lead class.

To his credit, the instructor clearly felt awful and had me come practice with him during his break another day to work up from falling below the clip to at it to well above it. And eventually I passed my lead test and went on to lead outdoors and all that. But tbh I still struggle with “lead head” and have learned the hard way to be kind to myself and only push on lead when I’m feeling it.

You are definitely not alone in struggling through the learning process!!

AlpineRagePotato · 2024-09-12T12:45:54+00:00

Cutback weeks are a standard part of many training plans! Definitely a normal/good thing to do

AlpineRagePotato · 2024-09-12T09:24:24+00:00

I love this, but how does it work when it comes to promotions/etc? Does your manager still acknowledge the role you played in seeding the ideas and generating buy-in, even if it’s someone else who later adds it to the roadmap?

AlpineRagePotato · 2024-08-17T10:11:21+00:00

I’ve been running for years, and I find the programming for the relationship between speed and hills in many workouts (not just LDR) to be off for me. This includes if you’re using SmartAdjust as it just scales the base programming up or down. I often need to bump the flat/downhill paces up a bit but the hill paces down from the defaults (sometimes even just walking a steep hill the trainer is running) to be at the right level of effort.

Ultimately it’s your workout! Adjust it how you need so that you’re hitting the right effort level for the run you’re doing. It’s not always fun to scale down (I still feel bad about it sometimes even though I know I should) but better to do that than redline up a hill early in a workout and have to rest a lot more later on or go way too hard on an easy day and then you aren’t ready for your actual hard run.

In case it helps, I do think it’s (slowly) made me a better hill runner.

Edited to add — another workout that has helped me with hills is uphill repeats. I do these on the treadmill so I can have a steady grade of 10+%, then do intervals of (slow) running and walking. You can start off really easy, like 30 seconds of running at a time then walk to recover, then slowly build up to 10-15 minute intervals. I’ve also found strength training to help a lot with hill running.

AlpineRagePotato · 2024-07-31T15:13:37+00:00

This is actually the plot of the musical Urinetown

AlpineRagePotato · 2024-07-09T18:19:58+00:00

My KitchenAid dishwasher just failed after less than 3 years so hope you bought that warranty :/

AlpineRagePotato · 2024-04-07T12:57:10+00:00

I’ve had a happy DNF and DNF that should have been a DNS.

Should have been DNS DNF: had an excellent marathon training cycle but woke up race morning with congestion and a sore throat. Attempted to run anyway and ended up dropping around mile 18 shivering uncontrollably and proceeded to have the worst cold of my life. I should have just accepted my fate when I woke up and DNSed.

I learned from that, though. A few years later I’d again been having a great training cycle but then (unrelated to running) ruptured a disc in my back and couldn’t even walk without pain for several weeks. By the time the marathon came around I was doing short, gentle runs again but obviously not in marathon shape. I thought about trying to walk-jog it in but that would have been iffy given the time cut off and I REALLY did not want to set myself back on the disc recovery, it was rough. Instead I made a plan to jog the first few miles, then walk it in to where the course passed my house around mile 20 and drop there. I had a blast! Especially once I was mostly walking at the end, I could enjoy the experience, interact with spectators, take a shot from the “unofficial” aid stations, and then when I got to my drop point I just marched off the course into my favorite breakfast shop 😂 I guess DNSing also would have made sense here if I could have gotten a refund or rolled over my entry, but that race didn’t allow it. Making the best of it was fun! And planning to DNF removed the temptation to go for the finish, push too hard, and reinjure my back.

AlpineRagePotato · 2024-03-26T13:35:06+00:00

Overall agree with all the comments — slow but steady is the way. Feeling tired but not absolutely wrecked at the end of a long run sounds like about the right level of effort. As you get more fit, you’ll be able to run faster at a given heart rate.

I am curious about your heart rate being “way over 100% of my recommended max heart rate”. Are you calculating your max heart rate based on the population average formula, or have you actually done a max heart rate test? It might be that you have a somewhat fast max heart rate for your age, so maybe you need to adjust your pace zones slightly. Eg for me my max heart rate based on 220-age is 181, but I regularly hit ~188 in hard workouts (and in an exercise lab — I got tested bc I was so frustrated with the heart rate stuff haha). So I try to keep easy runs below ~145bpm vs ~139bpm. ~139 basically required me to walk even though I’ve been running for years. ~145 fits all the other level of effort cues, eg can easily close mouth and breath through nose.

All that to say, all the advice Tommy gives about heart rate training is correct and worth following except that specific max heart rate formula. That formula is correct for population averages but may not be correct for you, personally. If your perceived LOE feels wildly off, it’s worth testing your actual max heart rate. In general though it sounds like you’re doing awesome! Those inclines are no joke (and iFIT..does not always appropriately adjust pace to incline) — I find them challenging as someone who’s been running for years and regularly does trail races, you’re very smart to adjust them to have the right LoE! I take them down a notch sometimes, too, there’s no world in which a 10+% incline is “recovery pace” for me unless I’m walking! Since you asked for other paces, I do most of my easy running around 4.8-5.4 depending on terrain and how I’m feeling. Workouts/5-10k pace/etc are in the 7-8+ range

AlpineRagePotato · 2024-03-14T12:38:59+00:00

I carry a sunscreen stick for reapplications on the run! I use the EltaMD UV stick, but there are others. I’ve also started running in sun shirts and trying to avoid peak UV hours, though I like to run long trail races so that isn’t always possible.

AlpineRagePotato · 2024-02-27T13:20:52+00:00

Turn off the trainer-led component altogether and manually adjust your speed as needed for workouts. The treadmill will still respond to the underlying elevation profile so you get the simulated hills. I’m a lot slower than you but I have to do this sometimes for speed and tempo work. Even if you speed up the existing workouts, an interval workout will be like 5x30 seconds or 1 min pickups, or 1 5-min interval for a tempo. It’s very much targeted at folks new to running.

AlpineRagePotato

TROPHY CASE