tl;dr: Went about as expected, i.e. no obvious effects, with a few mildly interesting observations. Publishing this mainly to push back against the file-drawer effect, and to highlight an example of an experiment which has both a positive expected value and a ~95 per cent chance of failure. What is the ketogenic diet good for? At the time of writing, […]
Despite having grown up in the country and attended my fair share of the agricultural shows and carnivals that pass for entertainment, I have never known the joy of chasing a pig—greased, or otherwise.
I no longer feel a desperate need to address this glaring gap in my childhood experience, because the last couple of years have given me a pretty good sense of what it must feel like.
Happiness is a greased pig chase. I don’t mean this in the ‘happiness is a warm blanket’ Peanuts sense, although clearly rural folks get a big kick out of it. I mean it in the sense that the concept itself is extremely difficult to pin down…
One of the immutable laws of the Internet is that it’s impossible to write a LinkedIn morning routine parody so ridiculous that it couldn’t be mistaken for the real thing.
This genre of hustle-porn sucks, but not because the hustlers are wrong. I’m annoyed because they’re right—at least, in theory—but they spray so much fluorescent orange Cheez over everything that any sensible person is immediately repulsed. If we dismiss the ‘morning routine’ trope as the performative humblebragging of grifters and Silicon Valley narcissists, we’re throwing the baby out with the (essential oil-infused) bathwater…
Calisthenics is—in my totally unbiased opinion—the king of all exercises.
This ancient artform has been practiced and refined by soldiers and athletes for thousands of years. It builds a foundation of strength, kinesthetic awareness, and mobility that carries over to any other physical activity: fighting, climbing, lifting, sex, dancing, sports, yoga, gymnastics.
It costs next to nothing, gives a maximum of results with a minimum of time and effort, and crucially to our current situation, is about as minimalist as it gets…
The truly horrifying part of becoming an adult is the realisation that other adults don’t know what they’re doing. Remember the feeling of falling asleep in the back seat while your parents drove you home? You will never, ever experience that level of security again. Growing up is the constant disappointment in discovering that no-one is infallible: not your parents, not your teachers, not your personal heroes, certainly not your politicians.
It’s dangerous to rely on the judgement of ‘grown-ups’, or to wait until someone gives you permission to act. Sometimes you have to take the initiative, even if it means doing slightly goofy stuff…
Probably you’ve read articles about how Obama wears the same suit every day, or Mark Zuckerberg has seventeen identical grey t-shirts in his wardrobe. The idea is to deliberately eliminate inconsequential daily choices and free up mental bandwidth for more important decisions; like ordering extrajudicial killings or strip-mining billions of people’s private information to sell to advertisers.
I say this lifehack is is much more useful and wide-reaching than streamlining your wardrobe: you can automate the important things, too.
If you wear the same outfit over and over, nothing bad happens. Maybe you don’t get invited to Fashion Week. But what if you eat the same food every day?
When I see an overweight person slogging away on the treadmill, I think to myself: that person is a goddamn hero.
Here’s the dirty little secret that fit and muscular people don’t mention in their #fitspo Instagram posts: if you’re already in decent shape, you can get away with all kinds of shenanigans….
This is not you, the border control officer says. It’s true – the clean-shaven, crew-cut, slightly pudgy face in my passport photo bears no resemblance to the scraggly scarecrow leaning in front of him, all sharp angles and facial hair. Yes it is, I squeak. There’s a long silence. I, uh, lost a lot of weight. How much? he asks. Almost 20 kilograms. He tilts his head. You got sick? Uhh, no. I rack my delirious brain, and try to figure out how to explain…
My broken jandals are dangling by a thread; one solitary scrap of medical tape holding them to my filthy and blackened feet. They’ve carried me for 150km, over ice and snow and scree, across the highest pass in the world. For every gauntlet the Himalayas has thrown down – insomnia, gastro, altitude headaches, frozen toes – they’ve provided a constant rubbery reassurance. Now it’s all falling apart at the seams…
Staying fit on the road is a challenge, especially when your entire life has to fit into a 22 litre day pack. While I stretch the carry-on limit pretty far, I suspect the cabin crew would object to me stuffing an Olympic barbell and a couple hundred kg of plates into the overhead lockers. Fortunately, I’ve found a way to cram an entire gymnasium into my pocket…
I was feeling weak and out of shape, with nagging injuries that had hobbled my amateur career in strength sports before it began. What better way to restore myself to peak physical condition than to hit the gym hard while devouring an entire pizza every day? With a whopping 1600 calories and a good whack of protein, the Domino’s $5 range represented absurdly good value for money. To top it all off, I could bug people out by getting jacked while gorging myself on the most sinful food imaginable…
