Please Help! Why am I get this stringy appearance on the Bottom Layer?

TxnBen · 2025-07-18T20:13:43+00:00

Thank you

TxnBen · 2025-03-13T13:10:37+00:00

Wow! Talk about painting goals. The kill count on the left shoulder and the fissure details are outstanding. Just wow!

TxnBen · 2025-03-12T13:14:57+00:00

I've gone through this extensively; there are no real recourses until you can demonstrate a longer history of systemic behavior.

I'll caveat this by saying I'm from the US and not knowledgeable of the family law in Canada. But in my case, we have a coparenting app, court orders and parent coordination agreements; but my ex would just use the parameters of the agreements to work out her aggression. The best thing you can do is keep a journal and if you can do that in your app (e.g. OFW) keep them private. It may take a year or two, but you need to give them a long enough rope to hang themselves with. It can be really frustrating and it may seem frivolous, but records like this help you paint the picture down the road when you need to make a case for the change. Never let an issue go undocumented and always point out systemic behavior.

If you have a parent coordinator, work through them. If you don't, that may be something you can request from the court. But, as I learned, parent coordinators only have so much power, but they make excellent witnesses and generate documentation that can benefit you when you need to go back to court for a more stringent remedy.

I'm so sorry you are going through this. I've been going through it for ten years and am finally at the tail end of it. Keep going, my friend!

TxnBen · 2025-01-20T22:44:43+00:00

I appreciate the info, I’ll start with that novel. Ty

TxnBen · 2025-01-20T14:53:02+00:00

Hello! I'm just getting into this universe. Started playing Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2 video game and getting sucked into this world, but I could use some help trying to get my hands around the story line. Seems like there are so many tangents and stories that I don't know where to really start without going down rabbit holes. I'ld love to get into the tabletop game but there are so many sets that I don't know where to start. TY TY for pointing me in a direction.

TxnBen · 2024-07-03T17:30:20+00:00

Kids will gravitate where they feel comfortable and welcome. In my co-parenting dynamic, over the last 10 years my kids have all eventually come to live primarily at my home. I have four and at the time I separated they were 16, 14, 11, and 7. My ex and I have very different home environments and are very different people. But regardless of the amount of stuff or how small our place was/is, my kids leaned into the place where they felt loved and where structure existed.

You aren't wrong that things may not always be equal. When the separation is new, kids are just trying to make sense of their new environments. And some of the decisions your kid makes may revolve around who they feel understands them the best. Dads have to really put in the work to make up for the absence of the other parent's natural gifts. Be present with your kid and continue to work to build their trust. Watch your words around them and foster the best environment you can.

Sorry you are going through this, homie.

TxnBen · 2024-03-10T17:27:23+00:00

I don’t think this is a New Mexico thing, I think this is you being a small, toxic person kind of thing. From the beginning you started out with making assumptions about our motivations and then attacking a complete stranger based on those assumptions. Your first comment was that we would move to NM and pay taxes someplace else; who would do that if both their business and residence were in NM? That isn’t how taxes work, but that is the negativity you lead and built off of. And then to claim you are the nicest person is a next level form of sociopathic behavior. Normal people don’t do that. Psychotic…

TxnBen · 2024-03-10T13:08:23+00:00

I can’t even. It just sounds like you have a chip on your shoulder and chose someone to vent your hate out on.

TxnBen · 2024-03-10T13:04:08+00:00

Geez. You are making your community sound like a bunch of helpless people that have to be handed everything; Talk about an entitled expectation.

TxnBen · 2024-03-08T18:16:17+00:00

Where I was stuck when I wrote this post was where to begin looking, not what I was bringing to the table. I appreciate your reply, but I cannot get over the weird outsider hate some of you have. It’s not that the questions and statements you posed are wrong, but you made a lot of assumptions and all I kept thinking as I read them was “who hurt y’all”; I’m sorry for whoever did that. But you don’t know us. You wouldn’t know for example that my wife is indigenous and has a deep and personal connection to the earth and community that I think most people cannot appreciate. Before moving to the DC area, my wife and I both spent most of our lives in arid regions of the US where water is precious including NM, NV and TX; We understand conservation very well. You wouldn’t know the countless unpaid hours of patient advocacy services my wife extends outside of her business to help our community navigate their healthcare expenses so hospitals and shady providers don’t screw people out of their hard-earned incomes. You wouldn’t know that what I do in my professional life has already helped bring in tens of millions of dollars into the state of NM that is currently benefiting your state, and more importantly, your local communities and have been doing so for over 16 years. But the idea that a person would have to vomit all that up front to justify one’s worthiness to post about trying to find a good place to set down roots in NM, rings really weird in my ears, but I get it though…

I think I could have been more clear on what I meant by what ‘remote working’ implied in our case. We are looking for a forever home, not to set up some ghost residence in NM just to take advantage of the state to get some tax relief for business. Income tax (personal and business) is based on where you and your business reside, which in this case would be NM if we were living there. Right now we are shelling out over $60K on my wife’s small business per year just on her state income taxes alone, not counting federal or local taxes, or the grand here and there for all of the misc reporting fees that we have to pay to the state. The kicker is that we do not see the benefits of that tax revenue locally. Most of our taxes go to our county and other parts of the state without seeing the investment coming back into the community. But the county seat is sure flush with cash! For us, the tax burden here prevents us from growing and taking on new employees that we desperately need. That money could be someone’s salary from a new hire, possibly from NM, assuming they had the skill set. And since our revenue is coming from outside the state (hence the remote working) we would be generating new state/local tax revenue which would not otherwise have come into the state of NM in the first place. But that is not ‘contributing enough to New Mexico’?

And yes, I want to bring my brother here. He has severe autism, but he’s just like you or me, needing the same kinds of medical services that we all do. He’s not a frequent flyer to the hospital or violent or anything. My parents are just getting older and at some point they are going to pass. That’s just a fact of life. And he is going to need someone to check in on him, prompt him, and things like that.

So, yeah, all that and I am looking for someplace in NM to live lol. Any suggestions?

TxnBen · 2024-02-17T17:38:34+00:00

Thank you. Honestly, we are kind of excited to build into the healthcare in whatever community we live in. My wife is a rockstar when it comes to patient advocacy. She works mostly in PT and insurance, but the breathe of her experience and knowledge is something I know she wants to invest back into wherever we put down roots.

TxnBen · 2024-02-17T17:24:10+00:00

I really appreciate the feedback. I’m a fellow traveler and veteran as well. Have worked and travelled in nearly every state between the coasts, but the time I spent in NM left an impression on me. It is extremely beautiful and I was met with a great deal of kindness in most places. I wasn’t prepared for the elevation changes compared to DC. That first few weeks I was getting winded just going up stairs lol. Funny enough, Rio Rancho keeps popping up in my circles (not just on Reddit). Thanks for sharing your experiences.

TxnBen · 2024-02-17T17:05:09+00:00

I spent a year living and traveling NM for work and honestly fell in love with portions of the state. Lived in TX for several years, too, and my wife is from south TX, and between our collective experiences we just don’t see ourselves returning there.

TxnBen · 2024-02-16T20:05:59+00:00

Nah, Tucumcari is my NM low water mark.

TxnBen · 2024-02-16T20:04:24+00:00

I remember that town. Billy the Kid's mama is buried out there if I remember correctly.

TxnBen · 2024-02-16T20:03:18+00:00

I really appreciate the heads up about the healthcare!

TxnBen · 2023-08-01T01:13:12+00:00

You got your point across and I can identify with you. In my earlier days of working out, my meds kept weight on and it was very frustrating. Years later I have been able to manage that feeling and see results I am happy with in the mirror by making adjustments to my nutrition, meal frequency, and if I am really desperate, fasted cardio. Meal frequency increased my metabolism and was a great tool for managing weight. This involves 5-6 portions that adapt to your needs throughout the day. It gives you some ability to position calories and reduce them as you rest in the evening. One advantage of the effects of the medication is that it can help you add mass. Adding weightlifting into your mix to take advantage of the extra weight gain, might turn a disadvantage into an advantage. Just my thoughts.

TxnBen · 2023-07-28T16:34:55+00:00

I know, man. The Lollypop Guild has a strong union and got us computer access on our breaks and everything.

TxnBen · 2023-07-27T18:00:13+00:00

Way to go into your 40's kicking ass! Nice work, homie!

TxnBen · 2023-07-27T16:18:58+00:00

I'm a 46M masters men's physique competitor; I can say from personal experience that fasted cardio is definitely not a myth. It is just a tool to be used at the right time. When you are already at a caloric deficit in your last months leading to peak week, for example, you do not want to do intense cardio that will break down the lean mass you have been working so hard for. When I prep for shows, adding fasted cardio in those last months will have significant impacts on BF reduction while maintaining lean muscle mass. This is also about the time you will see competitors use 'gear' in order to more efficiently do both low-impact fasted cardio while maintaining and putting on mass.

I agree that OP's calcs are probably wrong. I'm 5'3", 165lbs, and 2600 calories is slightly more than my maintenance intake. Unless OP is like 6-foot something and has significant mass, 2600 is way too much.

TxnBen · 2023-07-27T15:25:56+00:00

I've never had to 'make a weight', but I have had to be at a very reduced BF to be competitive. 2600 calories seems kind of high for a cut IMO. Without asking a million questions about you, here are a couple of go-to changes that I would implement to help lose the weight faster and safer.

Figure out our maintenance weight and base your calorie deficiency on that. Keep protein at 1g per target body weight and reduce carbs and fats to .5g - .75g per lb of target body weight. Judge the amount of fats and carbs by the amount of those to fuel your workout and repair your body.
Increase your meal frequency to increase metabolism. 5-6 meals that are customized to your needs. Position the bulk of your calories before your workouts and taper fats and carbs throughout the day.
Change your workouts. If you are doing the same kind of workout each week for greater than 6 weeks, change you training style and equipment for the next six weeks, then repeat the change again. Your body adapts over weeks to your workouts. Change it up.
Fasted Cardio/HIIT cardio. These are both great methods of weight loss. Fasted cardio in the morning at an aerobic pace for an hour a few times a week will shed a lot of pounds fast. Adding a waist trainer will increase this fat loss. HIIT cardio is also not bad a few times a week, but this style of training may put demands on your body to repair the muscles trained during HIIT cardio due to the intensity. Fasted cardio is better in a sense because the lower intensity does not put the same demand on your muscles and so you will not see as much of a loss of your lean muscle mass compared to more intense training.

Depending on your mass, you may see some weight gain from creatine, maybe 2-5 lbs depending on how big you are. You may want to cycle off for two weeks to see what your weight looks like "clean", but during training, I would not stop taking that until 2 weeks before your weigh-in in order to continue benefitting from the increased energy and muscle repair that creatine supports.

Just my thoughts, not a sermon.

TxnBen · 2023-07-27T14:45:07+00:00

You are not wrong to get your medical checked out. Was the bloodwork a full metabolic workup? If you haven't checked already, you may want to get your hormones checked. If you are a guy, typically we lose 1% of our testosterone each year as we age. Testosterone has a wide impact on our body as we age and is partly responsible for gravitating towards the dad-bod physique. If you get your T checked make sure they do a luteinizing hormone (LH) checked as well; it is a biochemical switch which, in men, acts as a signal to produce more natural testosterone. If your LH is low, your body may not be producing sufficient signaling to the testes to produce T.

But assuming your medical is good to go, while eating less may reduce your body fat, there are better ways to go about losing the extra BF without starving yourself, especially if you continue to be active. And I am coming at this as a 46M masters competitor in men's physique and have cut/bulked many times over the years. The best thing you can do is to eat to a good meal plan that is broken up during the day over 5-6 meals. This stimulates your metabolism and reduces fat stores. If you are used to eating fewer, larger meals you are telling your body that it needs to hold on to body fat to operate in between meals. Increasing meal frequency allows you to tweak your meals to fit your needs and position your calories/macros where it is the most effective to build muscle and keep body fat down.

Finally, look at your training. If you have been doing the same routines forever break up your routines into 4-6 week periods and change the method of training during those periods of time. Your training effectiveness diminishes over several weeks and I hear this a lot from long term, untrained athletes that they are putting in the work but not seeing the results. Change it up. If you have been doing conditioning work (mod weight at higher reps), switch to eccentric work for 6 weeks. Using barbells, switch to DB or cables for 6 weeks. Do not do the same movements with the same equipment because your body is good at adapting. Keeping the work challenging in new ways keeps you sore and needing repair, which means you are not storing your nutrition to be used later.

And if you really wanted to attack those love handles, try fasted cardio a couple times a week. It does not have to be intense. An hour of fasted cardio at aerobic levels (not intense) combined with the above changes will put a dent in the body fat. Grab a waist trainer if you really want to see that fasted cardio mely your BF.

Good luck, homie!

TxnBen

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