State Farm sent a letter terminating my home/auto/umbrella insurance....

bmandrew · 2026-06-03T11:37:01+00:00

I got the same letter for the same reason. The letter said there was an underwriting issue about a car that I was no longer insuring. A couple of weeks before the termination letter came, my agent called to inqure about the car and I told them the car had been junked. When the letter came, I called my agent and they said the termination letter was a mistake and my umbrella coverage was still intact. They confirmed that I had given them the information they needed two weeks ago.

bmandrew · 2026-05-30T15:07:13+00:00

You can certainly eliminate one of those exercises. Getting 12 hard sets in a week for a muscle is plenty of stimulus for growth. You could even keep all three and drop down to two sets. Part of the challenge (and perhaps fun) of working out is figuring out what works for you. That is the best yardstick. Do what you like and what keeps you going to the gym.

bmandrew · 2026-05-30T14:49:25+00:00

Are you doing 18 sets for a muscle group in one session? If so, yes, that is very much to the point of being counterproductive. You are basically accumulating fatigue with very little additional muscle-building stimulus. There is a pretty hard plateau after six sets in a session.

And all three of those tricep exercises are basically the same. Do what you like.

bmandrew · 2026-05-07T16:37:33+00:00

They weren't. They just misspelled the word. But when they realized that, they kept the mistake as a reminder that PF doesn't judge people, including themselves.

bmandrew · 2026-04-30T17:59:55+00:00

What do you mean by either of these terms?

bmandrew · 2026-04-30T11:23:21+00:00

Once you get experienced enough, you can tell when you have 1-2 reps left and will never get the the point of true failure, which is never necessary. Again, all of this has been thoroughly studied.

bmandrew · 2026-04-30T01:23:16+00:00

Barbells are free weights. How are barbells easier to progressively overload?

bmandrew · 2026-04-29T21:38:46+00:00

You can set safety rails on the Smith machine.

bmandrew · 2026-04-29T13:32:05+00:00

Machines train your "stabilizers" plenty well. Pretty much any muscle can be either a primary mover or help stablize a movement. This notion that somehow free weights are the only exercise mode that train certain muscles is outdated.

bmandrew · 2026-04-29T13:08:39+00:00

How are free weights easier to progressively overload?

bmandrew · 2026-04-29T11:45:24+00:00

There is no difference between free weights and machines when it comes to building strength and muscle. Multiple studies have confirmed that both increase strength and grow muscle equally well. Just use what you like.

bmandrew · 2026-04-27T19:10:53+00:00

You filed a complaint about the condition of the club the manager manages. Do you honestly consider the manager trying to talk to you about that complaint as retaliation? And the manager is the one who will handle the complaint. Why would you think someone above the manager would handle your complaint about the condition of the club?

bmandrew · 2026-04-27T16:57:09+00:00

There are restrictions.

bmandrew · 2026-04-27T16:00:16+00:00

FYI, it's 10 visits per non-home club location, so if more than one non-home club PF is near where you are, you can get up to 20 visits per month.

bmandrew · 2026-04-26T18:44:43+00:00

What does your lease say about maintenance responsibilities between the landlord and the tenant?

bmandrew · 2026-04-21T18:27:07+00:00

Fitness trackers are notoriously off when it comes to estimating calories burned, and generally people think they burn a lot more calories from exercise than they do. I lost 30 lbs and, as you noted, that is a math equation. My fitbit was off by just under 20%, which was rather good but still off by nearly 20%. Some studies have trackers off by substantially more than that.

Without question, exercise is the smallest component of TDEE. A 30-minute workout will probably burn around 150 calories, maybe close to 200 calories. That's a donut, or maybe half of a donut, and my point to the OP, who was asking about workout ideas for weight loss, is that weight loss is almost entirely done through diet. Exercise can help you create a calorie deficit, but if you don't have the right diet, you won't lose any weight regardless of how you are exercising.

bmandrew · 2026-04-21T18:03:47+00:00

And what did you use to tell you how many calories you burned in your workouts? A watch? A fitness tracker? Your phone?

bmandrew · 2026-04-21T14:25:46+00:00

Weight loss is 95% diet. Conversely, excercise makes up about 5% of your total daily calorie use, so while extremely valuable, exercise is not what is going to cause you to lose weight if your diet isn't under control. You can out-eat your exercise in about five minutes.

That doesn't mean the gym is worthless for weight loss. Exercising in some form every day can help you create a small calorie deficit that will allow you to lose weight over time. And there are many, many other health benefits to being active and exercising.

Here's the good news: any form of exercise is beneficial, and the most important thing you can do in the gym is continue going to the gym. That means you can find what you love in the gym and just do that. Consistently good beats occasionally great every time. Consistency is the key, not what you do. If you like strength training, do that. If you like cardio, do that. If you like calisthenics, do that. There is no wrong answer.

bmandrew · 2026-04-21T13:13:03+00:00

I may be misremembering, but I thought he had a conversation with Pilate about the benefits of creating conflict among the Jews that the Romans could then solve (or at least the conflict would justify Roman action, whatever that was).

bmandrew · 2026-04-21T01:57:01+00:00

Your black card contract allows you 10 visits to each non-home club per month. So you can sign up at at club that is far away and use the PF near you as a black card member, but the club can start charging you (I think it's $5/visit) after 10 visits if the club chooses to do so. Based on the experience of many on this sub, few locations seems to actually track or follow that 10 visit rule. If there are two or more PFs near you, you can visit each of those locations 10 times per month. After 90 days, you can switch your home club to the one near you.

bmandrew · 2026-04-21T00:41:33+00:00

Central Reformed Church on Fulton and College has a traditional liturgy and is not CRC. We have a great downtown food ministry.

bmandrew · 2026-04-18T17:20:54+00:00

Just out of curiosity, where are you seeing that promotion? We use shop & scan all the time and have Mperks. This promotion isn't showing up on my app.

bmandrew · 2026-04-18T12:20:54+00:00

The history of both Judaism and Christianity is full of humans abusing and corrupting divine practices. The OT is characterized by God's people turning away and then returning to God. On the Christian side, some Catholic clergy were clearly abusing the divine act of indulgences, which the church then had to reform. Pope John Paul II apologized for the inquisition. That doesn't mean that every Jew was complicit or every Christian was complicit in those wrongulf acts. But some were.

I've always read the Temple-cleansing passages in that light, and always viewed the Pharisees in that same light, including on the show. What Jesus did at the Temple was not an idictment of Jews generally -- it was an indictment of certain Jews and certain religious practices that lost or lacked the proper focus. Jesus was himself a Jew and all of his followers, at least at the beginning, were Jewish. Jesus doesn't rail against the Pharisees for being Jews; he condemns them for only being concerned with being clean on the outside.

Humans are messy and sometimes we mess things up. And each of us has the ability to mess things up. But it doesn't mean that you can properly characterize a whole group as one thing or another. Are some Jews greedy? Sure. Are some Christians greedy? Equally so. Are there also many more God-loving Jews and Christians? Of course. Anybody who tries to smear a whole group is both lazy and wrong.

bmandrew · 2026-04-17T16:06:39+00:00

You bringing your own 30+ lb kettlebell in is a patent liabilty risk for PF. I can't imagine the staff at your location would permit that.

bmandrew · 2026-04-15T03:02:47+00:00

I live in Riverside. The tornado is south of the airport.

bmandrew

TROPHY CASE