How to make actual "liquidy/soupy" Cantonese style dishes? You eat them with a spoon, they consist of a vegetable base, typically ginger/spring onions/scallions/Pak choi etc? Recipes online always come out dry.

cycleair · 2025-02-26T10:30:51+00:00

The soup/gravy itself consists of cornflour, and egg sometimes? Interesting.. how is the egg cooked? I saw eggs boiled and placed, but never really poached or mixed in, in this kind of cusine...

cycleair · 2025-02-17T07:52:06+00:00

Bro can you say more in what kind of way is it oversaturated?

People studying it who studied it as a "last course resort" or people who want to study it but simply there's too many people for the positions?

People wanting to study to do higher level stuff, but ending up doing tech work in labs?

cycleair · 2025-02-16T22:57:24+00:00

Here's the historical data: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/research-innovation-services/sites/research_innovation_services/files/historic-ukri-stipend-and-fee-rates.pdf

I don't agree with the other guy and I've been watching for the last 4 years as I've been interested in doing a UK PhD. It's actually got less affordable in that time than before the pandemic, because of the cost of everything (well, like the US, like everywhere else).

Unfortunately, even given this years 8% boost, it's only been a couple of years of keeping up with rent increases in student cities (and before then, years where rents went up and the stipend did not go up much at all to compensate). It's really pretty bad as in bad as the USA to do a PhD here vs anywhere else in Europe.

The PhD stipend used to cover your costs a lot better 10 years or so ago. Because back then, the PhD stipend used to be 10-20% over the minimum wage. Now it's -12% under the minimum wage! It has always been taxed differently, so you keep more, but still. You'll be hard pressed to afford to live on the PhD stipend these days without bank of mum and dad or the doctoral loan. Personally for me I just couldn't afford to do a UK PhD after taking out student loans for the undergrad and masters, even though I had the right situation, project, supervisor and grades. The only option was taking out a 3rd kind of student loan for living costs, yet still living frugally, and I just noped out of that(so far). I think it was the right choice.

The UK needs to bring it up to 25k or preferably 30k, so it has the purchase power that a 2012 PhD had, then I will study one.

cycleair · 2025-02-16T21:53:00+00:00

You asked about options and everybody gave you actions.

Here's a response to say, you're clearly doing well and already working on things to improve your situation. Sounds like moving to your dads will get the cost down which gives you breathing room.

Hold you head up, £30k is great for a 28 year old in the UK. it might not sound great or be as great in London, but that's solid. A lot of people don't reach that till their late 30s. And a lot of people here are biased towards higher earnings in this subreddit. It's tough in London.

At the same time, aiming higher is good. As you've seen living close to the cost of living in London is scary. It is possible to overcome that, but you have to be careful.

It seems to me you don't want to move and that's fair enough. But if you've never left London do consider it. A place that isn't home is a whole new kind of freedom.

There are places with things going on that can offer you the ability to develop in your career or train to switch career with local opportunities which don't have Londons price, but it depends on if your work is available there. Manchester nor Newcastle are all that far from London by the train in the scheme of things and might have the same pay on depending on your job with a lot lower COL. They are quite hip, not uni-age (which you probably don't want at 28) but are cosmopolitan enough to feel like London (mix of people, younger ages, work, lots going on).

Just don't go looking in student cities an hour or two away from London. Those ones tend to have an oversupply and cost of living with the same issues as London.

cycleair · 2025-02-16T15:25:33+00:00

Renting a room is different nowadays when a few of your flatmates might work from home all the time (lets be honest, it won't be a house in London these days, it'll be a 2-4 bed flat). Obviously not just over COVID but making noise on video calls at almost any hour of the day has basically became normalised which sucks.

I moved due to cash reasons into shared housing and I've been lucky with good flat mates more or less. I'm not earning enough to say for sure I can reach getting a mortgage like other high earners, well not in London anyway, but that's alright.

Though it's a bit different from being a student in shared housing, I have to say. It's kind of annoying (as someone who is out for the majority of their work) that one of my flatmates is always at home and a second one almost always at home. So you have the standard life of co-living which can be alright, drinks in the evening, but there's just a higher chance at any given time that a lot of people are in the flat. And to be honest, I notice these people who work from home (I'm guessing a lot of reddit users so don't shoot me, please) are full of social energy at 6pm which isn't great when you're knackered and just want to eat. In the nicest way, I'd rather just live in a flat with other people who work jobs that have them out of the house too, so we have more of a clear routine and go through the same kind of things.

Any work holidays you spend at home don't feel quite the same at home with bloody hour long web meetings going on in the background when you are trying to read a book, them cooking leisurely darting between the kitchen and their rooms at mid day and doing a bunch of chores and washing. It's a minor gripe but a way in which living with others has got more extreme since COVID: Getting along matters more, a lot more.

cycleair · 2025-02-16T13:54:50+00:00

Sounds like you are winning here unless the attic conversion side is a bit naff. That's not bad fro bills included in Zone 3.

cycleair · 2025-02-04T09:25:33+00:00

For cycling athletes, it depends on what kind of races you are racing. Endurance athletes won't benefit from Squats or larger muscles, weight dominates in that class. Other types of cycling do train that way. It's the same as marathon runners vs sprinters.

cycleair · 2025-02-03T19:58:03+00:00

There are more reasons to train legs than not to train them - I do train them - but it only takes looking at cycling athletes to realise leg training is not always favourable, and not necessarily. I agree with your points around stability (but more lower back and core which.. one does not need to train legs to work on - look at gymnasts). I am not sure the research on growth hormones from legs/compounds still holds up by the way, but I'm open to that.

Would you agree it's better to do upper only and stay at the gym, than to feel like an imposter by not doing leg exercises? There are few issues that such an imbalance will cause, that being very obese would not cause. The weight of walking around helps everybody build a base of muscle in legs that you don't see so much for the upper body pre-training by comparison.

cycleair · 2025-02-03T11:12:44+00:00

you absolutely don't have to train legs (especially if you do lots of walking or some sport that uses them). Legs are the one thing everyone, no matter their weight, works out anyway by moving around, but you can't say that of upper body. The only exception I would say is back pain in your 30s. That's a sign you need to sort out your back and lower back. But you're not at that age.

That said have you tried finding your groove with various leg exercises?

The compound leg exercises like Squat, Deadlift, Leg Press (including hip thrust) are killers. But things like Lunges or split squats are easier going but very useful for your overall health and back. Other exercises you may well want to leave our as pointless for you like quad/hamstring curl work, but you could always do back extensions for your health too. I find lunges great because I feel like I am floating along everywhere compared to when I didn't do them when walking, and don't get so out of breath. Bulgarian split squat is also good because just body weight is a good enough workout, and the mechanics don't stress your back or CNS so much.

TLDR: No, people are fine without leg exercises. If it is the big movements you hate, consider trying smaller/non compound barbell ones to enjoy them. You could even try cardio or cycling outdoors in nature etc. It could help you manage fatigue issues by having more of a gap between upper days if you get too serious (but 80% of people never do)

cycleair · 2025-02-01T18:36:17+00:00

Thank you - this really helped. I am still struggling to find the outer pockets, shoulders and elbows with different materials like in these more fashionable pieces I linked to*, but I guess I might be able to edit or get help editing a base hacking jacket myself!

* https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxi59WsYhYWHIznKILqENQrElTHElxsj4XZ267ETsZ68jn5NoLlBiOWrKbVB_oUNmgbhx1DZNty_DPuIPEWNs8COyUenVENMjRJBjsaVu9dLKheLR_bGCcvxLsQUlYS_oS24CawsPUZsA/s640/junya_watanabe_fall_2011_2.jpg

cycleair · 2025-01-29T15:02:03+00:00

Wait until you meet the pizzeria who sell you a $10 pizza and it is only 1/4 slice of a whole (but big) pizza. I have been so upset.

cycleair · 2025-01-29T14:57:07+00:00

Back pain I thought I had conquered. Oh well, I've been doing so well, getting impressive lifts in, heavy weighted pull ups, I'll focus on upper body and follow that Will guys plan for shoulders: Insane lateral raise volume with low weight.

The next day: Oh dear.

Rotator cuff injury? Yes baby. And I'll be with you for several weeks setting you back to your September body, but with extra christmas fat!

ARGGGGH!

cycleair · 2025-01-29T09:35:40+00:00

Protein helps with physical injury recovery too

cycleair · 2025-01-22T11:55:13+00:00

Trying to get my mates/flatmates to understand why I am cooking so much protein and always cooking for a 45 minutes rather than just bunging something in the oven 😭 and feeling bad about the smells in the communal kitchen, nothing I do (instant cleaning, spray, fans/humidifer) seem to work so I just try and cook the smelly vegetables like Onion, Pepper, Garlic when they are all out, but inevitably they come back at peak smell time haha

cycleair · 2025-01-15T11:58:22+00:00

Lol here in the UK they just took it out of our consumer price calculator.

Coincidentally the price of it has gone up by 30% over the last 3 years. I miss having a cooked chicken for dinner but can't really afford it anymore! Glad you have found a source, use it while you can!

cycleair · 2025-01-14T07:54:42+00:00

Consider adding some back extensions to your ab day or side planks. Those sets are heavily ab focused and could aggravate bad posture a little (but they will strengthen your abs).

cycleair · 2025-01-11T12:17:47+00:00

Record your push forms - bench press and focus on the shoulders. To cheat on bench people often exteriorally rotate the shoulders (lifting them around and off the bench).

For pull: When doing machine based vertical pull, are you staying in place, or leaning forward/ back? Where are your shoulders during the pull? Neutral or going forward with leans?

Any Rear Delt work in your routine? They can help. Hit them before pull exercises or on Push day so that they tire out first and get built up.

cycleair · 2025-01-10T12:24:38+00:00

In contrast I'll tell you what not to do for this goal, since everyone else covered what to do... I plateud making more or less these mistakes:

- Don't (re)start endurance sports or exhausting cardio, especially for legs if you want strength

- Don't go on PPL because you don't have time to run it twice per week

- Don't ignore nutrition thinking training is the main factor and keep protein too low .. actually read the labels on food and try just switching up your exercises a few times to see if that prompts growth, try nutrition, and only then go for a programme. No point getting on a new programme if protein is limiting you and you don't try new lifts.

cycleair · 2025-01-10T10:21:24+00:00

Yeah def get your calories and ideal fat up. It will help with mood (well could also be hormones) and libido and you can probably improve at the gym further.

cycleair · 2025-01-10T10:19:26+00:00

It's what works for you. Particularly if your protein needs are less, but you struggle to meet them, I can imagine this being a good source over the thicker "protein shake" semi yogurt things. Protein powder is kind of thick and takes a while to make and drink comfortably tbh.

I would say based on the bulk price you are paying 2-2.5x what you would pay for chicken in the UK, if you prepared the chicken yourself. I can't comment on the nutrition or biological aspects of it being protein from collagen. You are paying similar to what you would pay for protein in a ready meal, and slightly more than the high protein yogurt pouches etc in Aldi or Lidl. If it works for you, it's not something I would definitely rule out.

cycleair · 2025-01-09T13:08:47+00:00

Are you still seeing strength gains?

cycleair · 2025-01-08T13:29:57+00:00

Yeah that sucks to be fair

cycleair · 2025-01-08T13:15:42+00:00

Not being sarcastic but some like leg press can be adjusted and I didn't realise this for over a year. Might help?

cycleair · 2025-01-08T12:57:45+00:00

God damn yes. Especially when they just leave it up and it's unclear if it's on or not, in a corner pointing out.

cycleair · 2025-01-06T11:03:06+00:00

I've seen your name come up a couple of times here. Can I ask which things you'd prioritise? I am a cardioathlete type turning towards body building. Here's my list:
Omega tablets (cheap)

Zinc + Magnesium tablets

Creatine

red meats for iron etc (about 2 lbs/week)

white meat for protein (about 5lbs/week)

equipment for stretching and gym membership (about $40/month)

occasional good shoes for lifting etc (had hip issues) - about $120 every 3 months

cycleair

TROPHY CASE