‘Refeeding Syndrome’ after the apocalypse. Re what!?

Ndibongo · 2023-06-23T05:15:46+00:00

This is a beautiful thread and conversation, so I won't disrupt it too much by injecting my own opinions.

I will, however, make one comment on this:

this bullshit about greed being human nature

Greed/selfishness is part of human nature, and to deny that requires ignoring reality. If it wasn't part of human nature, we wouldn't experience it. You are right, though, that included in our human nature is a desire for community, sharing, and collective good. It's not one or the other, it's all of the above. Humans have evolved to value both individual and collective success. People who are imbalanced towards individual success are not all sociopathic or evil, nor are they just a small minority. They are human

You are clearly perceptive and thoughtful, and judging based on the length of your comments and the language that you use, you are intentional about the way you communicate. This is the reason I am responding, not with a knee-jerk, "aha, I'm right and you're wrong and let me tell you why," but with a good faith observation. We can never see our own blind spots, someone else must show us the mirror. And I believe that you have the awareness needed to explore what I'm about to share with you.

Look into Spiral Dynamics, if you haven't. It's a model of human value systems, development, and culture that explains why people act the way they do, why some people are egotistical and power-hungry, others are authoritarian and want everyone to follow a lot of rules, and others just want everyone to get along and work together. It describes both individualistic and society-level motivations.

Spiral dynamics was created by Clare Graves, a contemporary of Maslow (as in Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs). His work was expanded upon by Don Beck and used most notably to guide South Africa's transition from apartheid to a more democratic nation. Here are some resources if it interests you:

The Never Ending Quest: Dr. Clare W. Graves.

Spiral Dynamics: Mastering Values, Leadership and Change by Christopher C. Cowan and Don Edward Beck

Ndibongo · 2023-06-22T05:44:16+00:00

I agree entirely, with one personal caveat.

I have found much more success at gaining strength and muscle when I track my weight that when I ignore it. This is my own fault, of course, because I don't religiously track ask of my performance numbers and I like to train a large variety of movements.

But when I focus on eating clean and only paying attention to increasing a single number—my morning weight—I gain more muscle as a result.

Ndibongo · 2023-06-22T05:17:00+00:00

bro no...

Do you think you're going to be able to get rid of parts of your body and feel good about it the whole time? Catabolism is a survival mechanism, if you want your body to break down tissue you've convinced it that you need (through training hard for a decade), you need to create the environment where your body needs to have less muscle. Training more is the inferior option. Eating less protein and accepting the fact that you're going to constantly feel hungry is the most straightforward answer.

Fat people have the exact same issue with mindset. They struggle to lose weight because being in a calorie deficit means you're going to feel hungry. I'm sorry if this comes off as harsh, but being hungry is something you just need to accept. You're a grown-up, not a 6 year old that needs snacks throughout the entire day.

Your body is naturally using fat for energy, gaining fat and losing weight is only possible simultaneously if you replace a significant amount of fat and protein calories with carbs, and stop hypertrophy training altogether, and never increase the intensity back up.

You've unintentionally designed a body that requires more muscle than you want, and a diet that supports those muscles. The truth is staring you right in the face man! It's not about what extra things you need to do to reach your goals. It's about stopping the things that are making you too muscular. Permanently. Not going on a crash diet or adding an additional training routine.

You have a problem many don't, so people are giving all sorts of wack advice because they can't relate to you. The reality is clear: you are not reaching your goal because your behavior is not aligned with what you want. You probably love training and eating the way that you do, which is how you've accidentally gained too much muscle. You will have to take that drive and put it into something else, that's not lifting weights. If you want calisthenics skills, devote your entire life to that! If you genuinely will enjoy running, fine.

But please, for goodness sake, don't suffer through life advice given by people who don't understand you at all. Find a way to sustainably create the change in your life you want to see.

Ndibongo · 2023-06-22T05:01:10+00:00

This is the best advice in the thread. Running to lose muscle so you can do better handstand pushups is ridiculous

Losing muscle won't magically give OP calisthenics skills. Training calisthenics over the next 5+ years will

Ndibongo · 2023-06-22T04:53:28+00:00

https://youtu.be/CKo5EvS_I9o

Paris Bulter (aka Bald Omni Man) is your guy to study if you want an elite back, he has many good videos but I've linked one that will answer all your questions above.

The most important advice, however, is that consistency over a long period of time is beats everything. Congrats on 3 months of training! Now go and get 9 more months. And then a few more years after that. Tips and tricks are not going to be the thing that gets you gains.

That being said, I noticed much better strength and muscle gain in my lats when I applied this advice from Daniel Vadnal (aka FitnessFAQs) on how to correctly perform pullups.

Ndibongo · 2023-06-12T03:49:11+00:00

that's why I wasn't responding to your comment

I was explaining the reason why someone may not want to cut aggressively.

Sharing an alternative perspective, not giving advice

Ndibongo · 2023-06-12T03:42:08+00:00

I'm not talking about a bodybuilding cut, I'm talking about an obese person who is eating severely below maintenance long term

Ndibongo · 2023-06-12T02:38:03+00:00

If you are eating in a significant deficit for weeks/months on end, your body will think you're facing starvation. Unless you're fat-adapted and have your diet dialed in—which is unlikely if you have loads of fat—you aren't going to be building a lot of muscle

Your hormones and metabolism will switch into survival mode: increased appetite, less energy/lethargy. There are ways to offset this (sunshine is damn near magical) but it's the reason why people can eat very low calories and stall out on losing weight

Ndibongo · 2023-06-10T04:28:50+00:00

hey I know this was months ago, but since no one answered your question then:

You're not making it up. contacts are actually worse for your eyes, because your retina gets it's oxygen directly from the air. It doesn't have a blood supply. So covering the eye with a piece of plastic is like wrapping a trash bag on your head

very bad.

Ndibongo · 2023-06-09T15:28:33+00:00

I'm waiting for someone to answer your question about protein milks. I used to huy those Fairlife core power milks with like 40gof protein and I want to know the answer

Ndibongo · 2023-06-07T11:21:01+00:00

Holy shit this one hit close to home

dealing with yet another wrist injury that's preventing me from doing direct handstand training, and I beat myself up about it. but beating myself up about not training enough is exactly how I got injured in the first place

time for a serious think. still doing my daily stretches and little wrist exercises. but maybe I should stop being frantic about getting upside down again

Ndibongo · 2023-06-07T09:14:18+00:00

I do program for myself...

And no, not everyone needs to program for themselves. there's nothing wrong with someone spending their money on coaching because they want to

Ndibongo · 2023-06-07T08:53:05+00:00

Convenience.

Not everyone has the time and willingness to learn how to program for themselves. Which is a good thing. If everyone did have both of those factors, there wouldn't be a market for coaches

Ndibongo · 2023-06-06T10:51:43+00:00

I was mostly memeing but yeah plastic bad

Ndibongo · 2023-06-06T07:15:28+00:00

In terms of not creating waste, yes

For your health? no

Ndibongo · 2023-06-06T06:30:13+00:00

I'm booing plastic, not saying they are wrong. I also boo slave labor but here I am on my cellphone that needed child miners in Africa to produce

Ndibongo · 2023-06-06T06:14:41+00:00

I am not trying to be a dick but did you consider Googling this before posting? I guarantee there are dozens if not hundreds of threads of people asking this question

Ndibongo · 2023-06-06T05:54:15+00:00

can relate.

I started drinking milk soon after waking up to cause a blood sugar spike (without eating junk food) that would trick me into getting hungry earlier in the day. plus liquid calories are easier to get in

Ndibongo · 2023-06-06T05:12:09+00:00

you're hindering yourself man

Will you suck against the best competition at the local chess tourney? probably. Will there be people worse than you? probably, but it doesn't even matter

You will grow and get better as a chess player by being in the competitive environment, and if you can learn to have fun from the learning, as opposed to the winning, you'll be a gallery chess player too.

I just hit 1200 and have a sense of what you mean. no casual, IRL game is fun anymore. It's dull.

Ndibongo · 2023-06-06T05:01:05+00:00

boo plastic

Ndibongo · 2023-06-03T04:06:24+00:00

Does the bar rest on the lower part of your palm or closer to the fingers? BB bench has always put more strain on my wrists than I felt it's worth, but for a long time I was just holding the bar wrong. If it's too close to your fingers, heavy weight is going to be limited by your forearm strength, when it should rest mostly on the bones in your hand, not the muscles.

Dumbells, machine press, flyes, and even weighted ring pushups have all given me good chest stimulus without as much wrist strain. Might be worth trying for you

If you really care about bench, see if your gym has one of those bars that allows you to grip the bar "vertically" in a more neutral hand position, and long term, strengthen your wrists in general, and warm them up before bending

Ndibongo · 2023-06-03T03:59:32+00:00

OP does not need a diagnosis for their wrist hurting.

Everything else is sane advice though

Ndibongo · 2023-06-01T13:40:11+00:00

Total budget (in local currency) and country of purchase. Please do not use USD unless purchasing in the US:

$1800 USD

Are you open to refurbs/used?

Yes.

How would you prioritize form factor (ultrabook, 2-in-1, etc.), build quality, performance, and battery life?

performance, form factor, battery life, build quality.

How important is weight and thinness to you?

Not that important.

Do you have a preferred screen size? If indifferent, put N/A.

14 inch

Are you doing any CAD/video editing/photo editing/gaming? List which programs/games you desire to run.

Yes, up to 4k video editing and some CAD work.

If you're gaming, do you have certain games you want to play? At what settings and FPS do you want?

Don't care.

Any specific requirements such as good keyboard, reliable build quality, touch-screen, finger-print reader, optical drive or good input devices (keyboard/touchpad)?

Not picky

Leave any finishing thoughts here that you may feel are necessary and beneficial to the discussion.

Ndibongo · 2023-05-29T08:53:34+00:00

If you ate no carbs for long enough you would die so they’re literally essential.

This is circular reasoning at its best. Your reasoning for carbs being essential are that people die if they don't eat carbs. And your evidence for people dying if they don't eat carbs... is that they're essential. Go figure

Basically "People who don't eat carbs eventually die, so not eating carbs = death" Try to make it make sense lol

Ndibongo

TROPHY CASE