WhatDoYouMeanPodcast [comrade/them]

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Cake day: July 26th, 2020

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  • If your main goal is to lose weight, then your focus in nutrition is energy balance. Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE) calculator asks you for a binary gender, but it’s the gold standard of estimation[1]. One time I went to a medical campus to do a bomb calorimeter test and it was within 5% of the online estimation. The weight loss game has a few rules to it:

    1. you have a single pool of energy (you cannot choose where you lose fat from)

    2. there are (as far as you’re concerned) 3500 calories in a pound of body mass

    3. you will burn some ratio of muscles:fat

    4. resistance training (bodyweight/weights) and protein make sure the ratio is as small as possible (and you do want that)

    5. you want 2g of protein per day per kilogram of mass. For example if you weigh 100kg you want 200g protein/d.

    A good baseline is to try and record what you eat[2], analyze how many calories you are consuming, and then endeavor to eat 500 less calories than you expend. How you do that is your own prerogative. If you’re like me, you might find the deficit too harsh or your daily activity dependent on taking more calories than what’s on the paper - you may have to adjust by consciously adding more calories. Our sticky to the right of the comm has a good list of resources from R*ddit regarding meal prep, fitness meals, recipes from lifters, etc. you can make your own[2].


    Let me start with the conventional wisdom for the purpose of lifting weights and then speak to the resources you currently have. The idea is that you are trying to undergo a practice called progressive overload. In essence, exercise will rip your muscle fibers apart. Like a callous for skin getting ripped, if your muscles get adequate building blocks (protein) and rest then they will build back stronger than they were before. At that point, if you continue to use the same weights, your muscles will have adapted and no longer rip appreciably. Therefore, you need to use a more intense workout (usually bigger weights and sometimes 1-3 more reps) to continue to rip them so that they grow back bigger and stronger. Bodybuilding is the art of using the most efficient methods of targeting individual muscles with the most muscle tearing, growth signals, fuel, and conditions to help the muscle grow.

    Your goal of weight loss is typically seen as antithetical to muscle growth. If you don’t have enough calories then you’re losing mass instead of gaining it. Therefore the #1 easiest way to get someone to engage with your youtube channel is to answer the question “can I lost weight and gain muscle at the same time?” And the answer is sometimes if you’re super dedicated and precise. I don’t like recommending unattended newbies shoot for that. If you’re having trouble taking turns in Mario Kart, I wouldn’t recommend you switch from auto to manual steering. Once you know your lifts, you have a nutrition plan, and you don’t have much need for my advice, you’re better equipped for exploring unconventional ideas.

    I think, most fundamentally, a split (a schedule of lifting that separates different muscle groups for different days) might consist of

    A - back & bicep

    B - chest & tricep

    C - shoulders & legs

    x - rest day (see: cardio)

    Then during your 7 days of the week, you might split it up

    AxBxCxx

    So Sunday back & bi, Wednesday chest & tri, Friday shoulders & legs. As much as I’d rather just recommend you a full routine, running off to find someone to teach you how to squat and deadlift is both difficult and not fun. It also sounds like you’re more committed to doing your own thing with additions. So, for my money, I’d just look at ExRx’s directory and do whatever looks fun with the cables and dumbells[3]. Anything with dumbells you could probably do with a kettlebell. I’d just mess around with it, do plenty of cardio, and look back at all this if/when you actually want to build muscle to get more regimented. I just wouldn’t expect to build a significant amount of muscle on a deficit without a plan.

    [1] https://tdeecalculator.net/

    [2] https://thefitness.wiki/improving-your-diet/

    [3] https://exrx.net/Lists/Directory (note: to avoid overwhelming yourself, it’s much more approachable to just look at the headers. For example I would look for lifts for your thighs, not for your quadriceps.)





  • Does it not matter to anybody that none of the shit Trump proposes is going to work? It is filled with reactionary hate and it’s nonsensical. But also nobody’s goals are served by it. We talk about how ass backwards it is to try and get infinite growth, but they’re not even trying to get growth in anything meaningful. People are going to be sicker, poorer, less learned, less curious about their less habitable land that is less insured. In exchange they get fossil fuels to help produce middling products and apocalypse shelters for billionaires. There’s no grand projects, no art, no good slop, and nobody to push the envelope. Fascism doesn’t make cool shit, it just hurts people





  • Couldn’t recommend the taser flashlight more then. If it’s dark then being blinded and hearing the electricity is a more obvious “do not engage” signal than a knife. Intellectually, you know a knife can fuck you up. Practically, if you can’t see the people you mean to harm and then you hear a big noise you don’t have many good offensive options - doubly so if being quiet was part of the plan like if you’re trying to mug somebody. You would literally have to shunpo past the flashlight (into the pepper spray)

    And frankly if you pissed off Byakuya your best bet is apologizing anyway. Also you should practice and be careful. Self defense is weird and gross; it’s unpredictable and nothing is full proof. You have my condolences for even feeling the need to arm yourself.




  • I think the intersection of less than lethal, effective incapacitation, and ease of carrying around comes back to pepper gel/pepper spray. You also get some distance. Knife fights are brutal, awful affairs. And God forbid you lose your nerve if the deterrence doesn’t work (i.e. they call your bluff). Pepper gel might not get that menacing flash like curved steel will, but it’s a step up in terms of effectiveness and ease of deployment.

    In between pepper gel and knife I’d urge you to consider a toothed taser flashlight. Through this one is more of a force multiplier than a tool for incapacitation. If you’re in a fight, a flashlight taking their vision and giving it to you is really really useful (an advantage debatably as critical as superior effective distance aka having a knife in a gun fight). Not only that, but swiping at them with something sharp is something you’ve expressed yourself as desirable. Finally, the crackling electricity is loud which gets attention an attacker probably doesn’t want and is menacing in a way that would get them to fuck off as well. It’s another one that is easy to carry around. A katana is pretty useful, but if it’s not with you when you’re attacked then a lot of good it would do you.