Hello comrades and welcome to the first improvement megathread of December! 
How was your November?
Do you have any goals for December?
Poster caption: Chairman Mao gives us a happy life
Mao zhuxi gei womende xingfu shenghuo
毛主席给我们的幸福生活
Good luck with your goals! 
gymrat shit, weightloss
Have hit the gym everyday for the last two weeks and am down five pounds overall, probably more fat than that and I've gained muscle mass and intermuscular water weight from creatine but I'm pretty consistently on around a -1000kcal deficit daily and fueled by hypomania and something something trembling with indignation at every injustice
drugs, nicotine, sobriety
Relapsed on cigarettes under heavy stress, disappointed in myself for that, gonna try quitting again after this pack and going back to vaping and zyn and eventually getting off nicotine altogether but that doesn't seem realistic for me currently
Kept up my no booze streak aside from a small champagne flute with Thanksgiving dinner (mwwaaaahh the French champagne has always been celebrated for its excellence)
Been doing small amounts of psilocybin as a self run depression treatment experiment and I feel like it's been really helpful? I take just enough to start feeling it physically and get a little funny feeling and like some rusted over neural connections are getting refuckulated but not enough to hallucinate and it's been nice? I'm enjoying music a lot more than I did for a long time dealing with major depression and I want to get back into practicing my instruments and learning new pieces and get a new amp and modest bedroom recording studio setup (and an extended range guitar and 6 string bass, but that might have to wait for next year financially)
All in all, making a lot of good progress.
Things are still rough mentally sometimes, but I keep trying to remind myself to treat myself as decently as I would treat someone else I care about who's struggling under the same kind of circumstances
Doesn't always work for me, but it helps
Stupid brain, be more nicer to yourself
Congrats on your Ws
I've heard about microdosing shrooms, I'd like to try it one day. What music have you been enjoying?
St. Vincent's Masseduction
BTBAM 's Colors and Colors II (the first one was my absolute favorite for YEARS after it came out and I fell outta listening to them after Parallax II but just checked it out on shrooms after relistening to the original lmao and enjoyed it
Meshuggah's Nothing and Catch 33
Vildhjarta's whole discography
GY!BE's whole discography
RTJ's first two
Death Grips' Bottomless Pit
Lil' Ugly Mane
Deafheaven's Sunbather and New Bermuda
Liturgy's Aesthetica and The Ark Work
(I know, I know, hipster black metal but I think they're good and really interesting despite HHH being a crank and related to a Poppy Bush associate oil fortune lmao)
Arnault Pavle's discography (early Darkthrone worship but they're fun imo)
Being less depressed and enjoying music again fuckin' rocks tbh
Oh forgot, The Dillinger Escape Plan's One Of Us Is The Killer too
roll call
@SeventyTwoTrillion@hexbear.net
@TraschcanOfIdeology@hexbear.net
@LGOrcStreetSamurai@hexbear.net
@Tomorrow_Farewell@hexbear.net
If anybody else wants to be added to the roll call, just let me know
- walked every day but shorter rounds 3 days
- ate semi-shitty food a couple days but somewhat unshittified it
- continued low energy
- went to a party and drank a handful of small glasses
- finished reading a lighthearted book
- did laundry twice
- got groceries once or twice, although a little heavy on the treats side
Hell yeah walking is the one of fundamental self improvement things that I think gets gravely overlooked. Moving those legs and getting some fresh air is critical to creating a better self great job!
Been touching grass a lot more lately too, big recommendation too.
The cardio and leg exercise is obviously good, but I feel like a nice walk is even better for my mental health. Just setting aside some dedicated time to unwind walking and clear your head pays dividends for dealing with stress and helps me be more mindful and focused in the other things in my life. I'm bad at just sitting and meditating, but I'm pretty good at putting one foot in front of the other over and over.
(Flexibility work/stretching routine is good for that too. I'm surprisingly limber now considering my size and build, I can plant my palms in the ground straight legged touching my toes for the first time in more than a decade.
)
Routine took a hit this past week. I kind of expected it with Thanksgiving and all, but I also hurt my knee. Gave it a bit of a rest and I've been wearing a brace whenever I go out, but still feeling a bit sore. Did go back to the gym yesterday for some upper body work just to try and maintain my routine. I'll probably give it another day or two and if it still feels off I'll probably go see a doctor about it.
My November started well but then I got sick as hell for the last 2 weeks. I have mostly recovered now so I'm getting back on the horse. My biggest W this month is that I did a lot of reading.
December is one of my favourite months so I would like to take it easy and relax if possible. The improvement grindset will continue in January, until then I will try to enjoy the vibes
get well soon
Whatcha been reading? Any good recommendations? I've been slacking on my reading lately unfortunately
Thank you comrade!
I finished reading How Not to Die by Michael Greger, which is an amazing book about health and nutrition, more specifically the whole-foods plant-based diet and it's many health benefits. It has a lot of useful and actionable info. I highly recommend it to everybody.
Based on your other comment, I recommend Easy Way to Stop Smoking. I haven't read it myself but I've heard it being recommended many times so maybe it's worth a try
Will check that out, thank you.
I've been trying to reduce my non-
intake too so that other recommendation is helpful too 
I have a fairly Mediterranean diet but cutting out cheese and deli meats has been rough lmao
diet, disorganized eating
Been keeping about a -1000kcal deficit and cutting fat the last two weeks being really active
Slipped last night and ate a huge snack before bed and had way too much salt intake and feel pretty shitty about it
I pretty much erased all the work I put into cardio yesterday in like 10 minutes and it wasn't even like I was famished or anything, I just started snacking and couldn't stop myself
Today's a new day I guess
Today's a new day I guess
That's the best part of this whole self-improvement thing, so long as you have a new day you can make progress. Keep at it LocalOaf, your they/them powers will help you on your journey. Stay encouraged friend
- My gut is vanishing, ab like shapes are becoming visible. I will become as it's my moral duty as a leftie dude
- Reading still strong. Starting Wheel of Time for the first time.
- Game Development going well. Have some basic 2D platformer functionality.
- Grinding leetcode because I need a job and sadly the stupid leetcode thing is a part of the hustle of finding a computer nerd job in 2024
- My circle of friends seems to be shrinking, not getting texts back from people. I don't know if that's good or bad, or it's on me or on them
- Getting back into playing games I love rather than playing games to pass the time.
- Did some worldbuilding for my "dream project". I created the some Sea gods that the pirates worship for favor or pray to avoid their wrath.
- Watched several game development behind-the-scenes and interviews on GDC from real indies to see what it's really like to make a project from zero
- Listened to an audiobook version of W.E.B. Du Bois "The Souls of Black Folk"
My big ones are sci-fi games on is Prey (2017), Deus Ex, Dead Space, and Alien: Dark Descent.
Cleaned my room a bit to move an exercise bike into it in front of my set up, I'll do my best not to over do things as I do but I'm on a quest of improving my cardio a bit
Technique:
[ ] RLRRL 60 Scale 8 trips 16ths 5 each
[ ] KRKR 65 -70 Be able to count and lead with foot
Brush Groove:
[ ] 10 mins @ 15bpm
[ ] 10 mins @ 15bpm + of 4
Groove:
[ ] 15 w cymbal 5
[ ] 15 w Ted Reed pg 38 15
[ ] 15 2 feel ted reed 10
Transcription:
[ ] Philly Joe Jones on Art Pepper - Imagination AP Chorus 1;28
Active Listening:
[ ] Suggested Listening Album
Tune Learning:
[ ] Darn That Dream
I decided I'm not going to deep dive the tunes I'm learning because I really need to learn more songs.
It's been a while since I gym'd did mostly cardio last night and tonight will do more cardio. Honestly I'm getting into the mindset of just trying to sustain effort for 15 minutes at a time, those last minutes when I'm so tired and just manage to pull through is rewarding. I feel like keeping the struggle up is more important than how fast I'm going or how heavy I lift.
