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Get Fit, Stay Fit, Feel Good - 2026

stangmx13 said:
The looksmaxxing trend among young easily-influenced men is def concerning. PEDs, bone damage, overdoses, a death, and prob more I haven’t heard. The boys have joined the unrealistic “beauty” standards club that women have dealt with for so long. Influencer culture needs to go away.

And GLP-1s are bringing back heroin chic 🤦‍♂️
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Yup. While it's true that gear has always been around, It is much more socially acceptable now than it ever was in the 90's. It's also pervasive in social media. You are Spot On about young men now facing the same unrealistic beauty standards young women have been up against forever. :thumbdown
 
Mike95060 said:
Yup. While it's true that gear has always been around, It is much more socially acceptable now than it ever was in the 90's. It's also pervasive in social media. You are Spot On about young men now facing the same unrealistic beauty standards young women have been up against forever. :thumbdown
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Maybe this will be the straw that breaks the proverbial camel’s back and people will start accepting a wider range of body types.
 
Mike95060 said:
So today I was sitting on the couch with my 15 year old and overheard him on the phone say to his classmate, “Yeah I would 100% advise against that..”

I raised an eyebrow an then tried to not make it obvious I heard him.

He hung up a minute later and told me,”So ___ is gonna start taking peptides.”

My boy has really gotten into lifting and I’m proud of him. It’s all self motivated. We talk about lifting and exercising but he would rather go to the gym with his friends than with his old man which is fine. I have been in his ear for years about being natty. He tells me he thinks it’s stupid to be on gear and I have no reason to think he’s experimenting with it. But it’s all there. 15 year olds can get their hands on it. I’m sad and pissed about this reality.

Make doping shameful again.
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Peptides aren't "doping". PED's are. There's several ways to increase HGH naturally, but most don't know how to do this or aren't committed enough. Peptides have been studied for decades now, but big Pharma can't patent them; hence the campaign to discredit. Not all peptides are beneficial and may be detrimental. I agree that kids don't need peptides, but the message that they're a PED is incorrect.

Our food intake and Pharma industry does more damage to our bodies, especially WRT scripts to "manage" every problem. Our traditional food source and eating schedules are far worse than even the PED's themselves. If kids can learn how to manage food intake, what to eat, and when; combined with fasting and insulin education (something they'll never teach kids in school), they'll live twice as long as us. If you can get your son interested in best practice self care, he'll own his own health. Our generation's health owns us....
 
The American diet and PEDs can both be bad. It’s not a competition. We can strive to be better with both.

IMO, the less-regulated nature of supplements is bothersome. I keep thinking about that post about lead in protein shake. Also, I had a convo with someone at the gym and he said he found info that some products are just lying in the ingredients list. It’s fucking challenging to produce good quality food of all kinds for a huge population. Society is screwing up some parts of that.

I’m getting so cynical these days. The harder the world tries to sell me something, the more I assume it’s bad or those people are fucked. So pretty much all influencers and what they are peddling. 😂
 
two wheel tramp said:
Maybe this will be the straw that breaks the proverbial camel’s back and people will start accepting a wider range of body types.
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I hope the current trends in body standards are a two steps forward one step back situation. I fear this is a one step forward two steps back situation.

Social media is making it really easy to judge everyone. I don’t know how much progress we can make until that goes away.
 
stangmx13 said:
The American diet and PEDs can both be bad. It’s not a competition. We can strive to be better with both.

IMO, the less-regulated nature of supplements is bothersome. I keep thinking about that post about lead in protein shake. Also, I had a convo with someone at the gym and he said he found info that some products are just lying in the ingredients list. It’s fucking challenging to produce good quality food of all kinds for a huge population. Society is screwing up some parts of that.

I’m getting so cynical these days. The harder the world tries to sell me something, the more I assume it’s bad or those people are fucked. So pretty much all influencers and what they are peddling. 😂
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Me too, regarding cynicism. I trust anyone at a gym less than the coyote I saw at my office park last night. Not having been to a public gym in awhile, If I've known them a long time and know them well, it's different...but anyone who doesn't understand the basics of our food system and anything about self care / the basics is insulin and cortisol, I start to tune out. Oddly, it took 2020 to get me to shift my thinking. I agree that many ingredients from unreviewed companies are likely bullshitting. The shocking one for me was the heavy metals in cocoa powder which defeated the purpose of taking it in my morning blend. It was a sad reality....and there seems to be little places to turn for purity for much of anything.

Ugh. I Eeeyored on that one.
 
I think I've been nailing my sleep this summer. We got a portable AC and I plumbed the vent out our patio door. I run hot and rarely use a blanket, even in SD "winter". Previous summers we leave the door open and hope the room cools down and the mosquitos stay out. Now, having the room at a consistent 74-75F this summer is making it sooooo much easier to sleep.

The sleep metrics have been interesting though. Check this:
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F* A, my HRV is unbalanced as 'too high'. Data on this is very limited compared to 'too low'. One resource suggested "working to recover", which fits with how my training block is going. I'm not too far outside my range. Maybe a week or two of >100 will change my baseline so I won't be unbalanced.
 
Oddly enough, not eating and getting 10-12k steps in a day working construction and you lose weight!

From June 14th until August 5th I was remodeling the house wife and I bought, remodeling it with my dad. Didn't think he'd push his clients off for the summer but he did. Sooo.....that meant I'd get to the house around 830, he'd be there 30-40min already and work until 5pm sometimes 8pm or come home for dinner and go back after kids were asleep and work more from 8-11pm.

My dad hauls ass, non stop, no breaks. Early 70s mind you. Luckily it was not a hot summer BUT tearing out 400sqft of 3/4" oak on top of 3 layers of linoleum, probably the most physically exhausted I ever felt in my life, mainly because it 4-5 hours of continuous hard work. Coudn't stop cuz the work had to get done too, deadline was August 1st to move in. I'd only have time to throw down a cold chicken apple sausage and a some trail mix later in the day. Several bottles of powerade and water and energy drinks.

Early August my phone alerted me in a sudden "lifestyle change". My average 6500 steps jumped to 11k for 8 weeks and all done around 2100sqft.

Had no time to hit the gym all summer. Didn't think I was losing weight but hit the doctor and a week ago and sure enough dropped 12lbs from June to August.

Now that I'm back at work and less active I gotta refocus on the diet and hope to get 2-3 days of gym in a week. Might start with some 5ams just to get it out of the way.
 
Only got to the gym twice last week due to other obligations and then did yardowrk this weekend. Gotta love it when you lose 3 lbs of water weight over the weekend. I swear Sunday I drank over 2000z of liquid but still felt dehydrated once I was back in the house and this was over a 5 hour period maybe I should have tried to drink more as I was sweating a lot gotta love 100 degree southern days.
 
I have been trying to up my volume recently. I'm about 30-40% off my peak training volume from 2 years ago. Last week was my best week in a long time. I put in about 7.5 hrs. That included some "fluff" time for late night, easy walks. It's kind of breaking my brain how difficult it really is to do 10+ hours a week and have enough life left over for anything else. I guess what is bothering me is even though my volume numbers are way down, I don’t FEEL like I’m taking it “easy.” Fitness it a challenge yo.


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Mike95060 said:
I have been trying to up my volume recently. I'm about 30-40% off my peak training volume from 2 years ago. Last week was my best week in a long time. I put in about 7.5 hrs. That included some "fluff" time for late night, easy walks. It's kind of breaking my brain how difficult it really is to do 10+ hours a week and have enough life left over for anything else. I guess what is bothering me is even though my volume numbers are way down, I don’t FEEL like I’m taking it “easy.” Fitness it a challenge yo.


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Man I have it down to 2 hours a day at the gym and it is hard to do anything else. by the time I get off work at 5pm throw down some grub then do some work around the house it's time to head to the gym. then I get home and its pretty much straight to bed and rinse and repeat all week. gets hard to find time to spend with the wife other than at dinner time.
 
Sharxfan said:
Man I have it down to 2 hours a day at the gym and it is hard to do anything else. by the time I get off work at 5pm throw down some grub then do some work around the house it's time to head to the gym. then I get home and its pretty much straight to bed and rinse and repeat all week. gets hard to find time to spend with the wife other than at dinner time.
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I finally realized my HRV is all kinds of fucked up cause I don't do much zone 2 workouts...so, guess those get added in on off days. Everything I've been running has been zone 3/4 with resistance training for an hour. Oops....
 
So yesterday was fun. For some reason I was just not feeling well at the gym. I managed to push through it but am not sure if I was just drained from this weekend or if something else was going on with my. I got some good reps in but god it was a pain. I am now within 10 lbs of my previous for reps max on the bench so excited by that but feel I am lagging in some other areas so may need to push myself in some other exercises to see some gains there.
 
I took 4 days off to ride two weekends ago. Then I missed two more because of work which drove me nuts.
Back at it since then.

Today I am just going to ride the bike / stretch and do stepping coordination stuff (think PT) because my leg needs another day to recoup.

I decided to give a new max bench (machine) a go yesterday. It was a fail but it was a 15lb jump. Not even close really. However at 265 on the way up I hit 4 reps, which was one more than normal. The bench is one exercise I give a little time to do, stretching and doing a minute or so of PT stuff in between sets. I am finding more weight in other exercises too. Curls, triceps, shoulder flies (restricted).

I did a few pull downs yesterday and those hurt like hell. Stretches the bad shoulder while engaging the muscle. Very light weight though. 70lbs.. just enough to help me off the seat when done really. I bet I am making some funny faces on that one.

The weight is dipping again. I have been super carb careful except Sunday where I ate spaghetti. had a beer and two pieces of garlic bread. :drool

Zero potato chips which was my cheat at lunch. Now the spinach tortilla wrap is about it. Other than that it is protein, blue & blackberries, carrot / veggies here and there and an apple before the gym.
 
@budman

I think that feeling of being "off" when you can't move or get your exercise in is positive tell man. I think it means the work you put in when it was completely miserable to do is paying off in the form of momentum. Your new default is to GET IT DONE.

Getting back after it (gently) after a little break is a great sign you made positive lasting changes in your lifestyle Bud. Fuck yeah. :thumbup
 
Sharxfan said:
Damn I haven't seen that weight since I was like 18. :laughing
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:laughing can you guess where my weekends are? those peaks are after eating one serving of carbs once a week. i'll put on 5lbs of water weight just to lose it throughout the week. after just a couple of weeks of not cheating i'm noticing my lower belly fat and lovehandles getting looser and i can see it in the mirror. i don't necessarily need to get lighter than this but i'm going to keep this up until i can see my lack of abs :rofl

i hope that the diet and moderate weight lifting will let me slowly recomp. seems to be working :thumbup
 
My final lift-heavier session of this block was yesterday. I can now squat 3x10 135#. I think in early spring I was only managing 3x4 at that weight. So that’s a good improvement. Maybe next week I’ll take my squat shoes and try a 1RM. Surely it’s finally greater than my bodyweight lol. I’m 147# most mornings.

Also, I can now leg curl without feeling like my hammies will cramp. 3x8 50# for single leg so far.
 
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