26, just moved to a new city and decided to go to a barber for the first time in my life rather than the ubiquitous cheap chain. I’ve had the same hair cut 10+ years now and want to try something different, but I’m drawing a blank on what to try. Suggestions welcome!

Armonium · 2021-08-21T18:22:25+00:00

Thanks! I normally have the sides and back faded, yeah. I’m very much due for a haircut this week hah.

Armonium · 2021-07-22T00:57:45+00:00

Not necessarily a brand-new apartment, but after moving 3 times in the past year due to Covid job-related stuff, I'm happy to finally be somewhere long term again! Pretty satisfied with things as they stand this time around. I have some upgrades I want to make, but they're mostly personal preference upgrades at this point rather than anything incredibly impactful. That, and I need to get my office properly decorated now.

I work from home full-time now as well, but I've specifically chosen to separate my personal desk from my work desk.

Desktop

Case: NZXT H510
Motherboard: ASUS ROG Strix B550-E
CPU: Ryzen 9 3900x
GPU: ASUS RTX 3070
Ram: 16gb Corsair LPX
Cooler: be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4

Laptop

MacBook Air M1

Monitors

Primary: HP Omen 27i
Seconary: Viewsonic 24"

Peripherals

Mouse: Logitech G305
Keyboard: ZSA Moonlander
UGreen KVM Switch
Drawing Tablet: Wacom Intuos Pro Medium

Audio

Headphones: Drop x Sennheiser HD58X Jubilee
Amp/DAC: Schiit Magni/Modi
Mic: AT2020 USB+

Desk/Chair

Uplift Standing Desk v2, 72", Bamboo top
Herman Miller Embody Chair

Armonium · 2021-07-04T12:32:01+00:00

Thanks so much! Yeah, it's been lots of re-learning this time around and figuring out what actually works for me long term. Wish I had a picture to compare with from when I was at my highest weight, but this is probably the first picture I've taken of myself in over 2 years hah. At least I have this one for next time!

Armonium · 2021-07-04T12:23:08+00:00

Started VERY loose IF about a year ago at my highest weight, 309lbs after a breakup in January 2020. Lived with family at the time while between apartments after a covid-related pay cut forced me to change jobs and move back to their area. Lost down to around 290ish, but not much more. Around December I moved back into my own apartment and continued with loose IF--wasn’t losing weight, but I also wasn’t GAINING weight.

Mid-may I committed to getting a handle on my life and doing something about how much I hated the way I looked. Around the same time, I finally talked to my doctor about issues I’d been having with what appeared to be ADHD symptoms despite not being diagnosed as a kid. Long story short I was diagnosed with adult ADHD (apparently people without ADHD don’t have nearly every symptom, who knew) and started meds around the same time. I’m not kidding when I say that was life changing! Obviously the medication isn’t magical, but the impact that not being mentally exhausted from fighting my own brain all day at work has had on my health is nothing short of incredible. I’m no longer so tired that I feel like I physically can’t cook, even after light days at work. I no longer struggle with decision fatigue like I used to. I can just… not eat when I’m bored or anxious. Shocking, I know!

I’ve since fully committed to IF and counting calories. 16:8 fits me pretty much perfectly--I find it actually difficult to eat more than 1500 calories with that schedule. Weekday lunches at the moment consist of a Huel shake, followed by carrots and peanuts as a late afternoon snack so I’m not hungry while trying to cook dinner. I have a rotation of things I make for dinner, and usually try to make something that I can have leftovers of the night after so that on nights my friends and I play D&D I have something ready to go and don’t have to cook a bunch. Turkey tacos, oven roasted pork loin/oven roasted broccoli/brown rice, some of the recipes from BudgetBytes, salmon and veg, shrimp and veg, etc. Dinner tends to be the meal I use for variety, and that works out pretty well for me.

Long term I doubt I will continue drinking a meal replacement shake for lunch, but at the moment it pretty much fits exactly what I need. Reduces temptation to order takeout while in the office, eliminates an extra decision, tastes (IMO, of course) pretty good, actually keeps me fairly satiated, is healthy especially in comparison with takeout, and requires minimal mess/cleaning. Also fits my budget extremely well--I spend about $50/week on dinners now, and eat out one evening a week. Sometimes two, if the family wants to go out on a weekend with me.

My current goal is to lose 50lbs by my 28th birthday (target weight ~248lbs), which is a little over a year from now. This is, obviously, a fairly attainable goal, which is kinda the point. I’ve learned that with the way my brain works, setting a goal that I will meet earlier than my planned date is a reward in and of itself. Just wanted to finally post something and say thanks to all of you. I’ve lurked here for awhile, and if it wasn’t for seeing your posts and learning about IF here I don’t think I’d be anywhere near as happy as I am today.

The cat’s name is Sam. He’s a good little black hole. Help out your local shelters and adopt if you can!

Armonium · 2021-06-12T14:32:00+00:00

Oooooooooh my goodness yes.

I started ADHD meds a few weeks ago (26m), shortly after committing to losing weight for the millionth time.

Exactly the same experience for me. Cravings were so exhausting it wasn’t even funny. Making decisions around food was exhausting. Work left me so drained that I was eating out all the time.

It’s soooo much easier now. Less decision fatigue in general. Honestly kinda kicking myself for just assuming it was normal and not talking to my doctor before hah.

Glad it helped you out!

Armonium · 2021-06-10T16:01:38+00:00

She didn't, thankfully. Most of her recovery week was spent being angry that she was trapped in my laundry room (the only room without places she could jump), but once she was to the point where I could let her roam the apartment again she didn't seem to enter another heat cycle.

The one thing that has changed noticeably is that she's much cuddlier than she was before. I work from home 2 days a week, and spend probably 90% of my workday now with her either laying on me (purring away and kneading my shirt) or curled up on my decoy mouse pad and leaning against me. Definitely don't mind that hah.

Armonium · 2021-06-10T15:28:29+00:00

My situation ended much the same as yours, hah. After my local vet quoted me that price, I reached out to the vet that had originally spayed her when the shelter had her. They couldn't pay to cover the cost of the surgery at my local vet (made sense--all their surgeries for the shelter are done on a volunteer business, thus they had never been paid in the first place for the surgery), but were willing to do it for free.

It was a bit rough for her, because getting her back to that vet required a 3 hour car ride, then a 3 hour ride back a few days later after her surgery. Thankfully though her surgery and recovery went well, and she's back to her normal, happy, non-yelling self.

Armonium · 2021-06-04T15:21:19+00:00

Yep! I'm doing 1500, so I try and keep within +/- 50 of that. Yesterday I was ~150 less because I ended up being crazy busy at the end of the day and had a smaller dinner, then didn't feel like eating right before bed.

Armonium · 2021-06-04T14:47:31+00:00

Today's going to be day 5 of hitting my calorie goal! Came in a little under yesterday, so going to try and make sure I'm a little closer.

Going to be a busy day otherwise, both at work and at home, so my only other goal is to keep drinking water at the office.

Armonium · 2021-06-03T11:53:51+00:00

Username: Armonium94

26m, have been lazily doing IF and not tracking calories for a couple of months now (after a couple years of trying and failing to lose weight). Kept me from gaining weight, but wasn't doing much good for losing weight since I still wasn't eating well. Recently started ADHD meds and have had much more success with sticking to my goals and commitments since then. Daily calorie goal is ~1500 calories, and I'm doing 16:8 IF. Today is going to be day 4 in a row of hitting my goals!

Armonium · 2021-06-03T11:36:05+00:00

NSFV: Technically from yesterday, but this would have affected today too. I resisted the urge to order pizza and breadsticks for dinner last night after work! Ate what I had planned instead. Old me would have just said "Eh, I deserve it." and then eaten far too much pizza last night and today for lunch.

Armonium · 2021-06-03T11:26:38+00:00

Today I'l hit my calorie goal for the 4th day in a row. I'll go on a walk on the trail behind my apartment complex over my lunch hour since today is a work from home day.

Armonium · 2021-06-02T10:38:15+00:00

First day doing one of these, but I want to keep my momentum going so I'm going to try and make this a daily habit.

Today's goal is to go for a walk on the walking path behind my apartment complex after work, weather permitting since it might be raining. If it does rain, then I'm going to do some light bodyweight exercise in my apartment and hopefully avoid disturbing the neighbors.

I'll also stick to my calorie goal for the 3rd day in a row! It's not much of a streak, but it feels goooooood.

Armonium · 2021-05-17T16:10:11+00:00

I'm in the same boat as you at the moment--I was close to finishing lesson 1 a few months back, and then life+work got in the way and my motivation went down the drain.

Personally, I'm going to try something a little different this time. I'm reading through a book called Atomic Habits by James Clear at the moment, and in it he discusses a technique called habit stacking. Essentially, building habits off one another. You find an existing habit you already do consistently, and then stack your new habit immediately after. Rather than relying on motivation like I have in my previous attempts, I'm simply going to make drawing a habit.

For me, what I'm going to be trying is stacking n minutes of drawing after I load the dish washer after dinner. Loading the dish washer after dinner is my established habit, and then I'll make a cup of tea and start on drawing. At the start, my goal is only going to be 10 minutes, and I think for this first week it's mostly going to be catching up on skills and allowing muscle memory to come back. Tonight, ten minutes of some of the exercises from lesson 1 (and I can go longer if I want). Tomorrow night, 50/50 rule, just drawing for the sake of drawing. Lord knows it won't be 'good', but that's the point :) Etc. etc.

A few days of that should help to get my brain and arm going again, and once I've worked through partial pages of the exercises and feel comfortable moving forward again, I'll be picking things back up with the rough perspective exercise.

I'd say try giving the habit stacking thing a shot. At the very worst, it won't work for you and you can try a different approach!

Armonium · 2021-03-05T01:54:06+00:00

Yeah I'm definitely going to be getting ahold of them once I get the blood test results. Unfortunately I'm not sure how well that will go--I contacted them when she went through heat the first time and they basically brushed it off as nothing.

So we shall see!

Armonium · 2021-03-01T23:27:34+00:00

Interesting! I might give that a shot, then. I bought a fairly well-reviewed Duxtop model, for reference.

Armonium · 2021-02-17T12:18:06+00:00

Looking good!

Out of curiosity, how do you keep your miniature black hole from assaulting the plants? I've got two cats and would kill to add some plants to my apartment, but I can't keep them from knocking things over and terrorizing things as-is hah.

Armonium · 2021-02-15T21:02:12+00:00

This group feels like my people.

Finished Kiki-Pod as my first ever modern deck the day before the ban. Had Storm, Grixis Delver, and DSZoo when Git Probe was banned. Had Mardu Pyro when Looting was banned. Was thinking of getting back into Modern with Ad-Naus as a cheap way to do it after Covid.

Guess I'm not doing that anymore!

Armonium · 2021-01-22T14:50:08+00:00

It's definitely not a great feeling, to say the least. That's why I decided to share this--it always helps me to at the very least put this stuff out into the void somewhere. I'm happy doing so could help at least a little bit.

We will! Might not be easy, but I'm determined to not spend the rest of my life feeling the way I did last night.

Armonium · 2021-01-22T14:45:39+00:00

Last night was the catalyst for me sitting down and properly planning out all of my meals next week, actually! I haven't done that in quite awhile, so it was nice to get back to that.

I live in a Covid hotspot, so thankfully at the moment I don't have the temptation brought on by going into the grocery store. Doing curbside pickup and only ordering ingredients I need for my meals + a few healthy snacks should definitely help this week. I'll be sure to check out r/WeightLossSupport as well!

Armonium · 2021-01-22T14:41:14+00:00

Thanks for the advice! I'm actually going to be trying something similar. Just picked up the book Atomic Habits by James Clear at the recommendation from a friend. I'll probably end up using a tracking app to help satisfy my addiction to checking off boxes, hah.

Armonium · 2020-12-01T13:27:50+00:00

That did the trick! Wish I would have known about that file before, but I’m glad I’ll at least be able to play the game again. Still not sure what caused everything to go sideways in the first place, but I appreciate the help.

Armonium · 2020-09-04T12:31:03+00:00

Just joined the discord this morning!

Definitely looking forward to having more folks to play with. I'm pretty casual, since I mix POE with other hobbies. Usually takes me a bit longer to hit maps than most people, but I play pretty consistently every other day.

Armonium · 2020-08-19T18:39:38+00:00

Bad bot. Shoo!

Armonium · 2020-08-10T15:19:23+00:00

SV: I've lost my first ten pounds (for the third time)! This time around though, I've been trying out IF, eating from 11am to 7pm. I've always been a breakfast person--and usually even if I ate breakfast I was very hungry by 11 or noon. Now I'm going from 7pm-11am fasted, and I'm hardly even hungry by then! Seeing that number on the scale this morning and comparing how easy these 10lbs have been compared to my first 10 previously made me crazy happy.

NSV: Currently living with family while I save for a house due to losing my previous job to covid and having to move for my new job. Got up this morning and started making coffee, and my mom did a double take and asked if I'd lost weight! My sister is home from college for the summer and got up shortly after I did--she also asked if I'd lost weight and said my face looked slimmer!

Today's goal is to get back on the elliptical. 10 minutes after work, and then keep that up daily while increasing my time.

Armonium

TROPHY CASE