OYS #54

37 yo, 6’0, 164lbs, 9.0% BF, married 4, together 7, kids 3 & 13

Gym:

I puked 1.5 times this week lifting 4x. Changed workouts 2 weeks ago and this one is kicking my ass. Good. The 0.5 puke was because I swallowed it back down. Doing a 2 month bulk. I’ve been eating clean as hell for a year and the results show – but at this point I just need more food in me.

I helped my wife get her workout together and teach her barbell work. It was a lot of fun, actually. She can’t even squat the bar so I had to get a training bar for her. We all had to start somewhere. I’m happy that after hearing 6 months of complaining about her body while I would always keep an open invitation to the gym she finally committed. But at 6’0 and 118# she has a long way to go. This really makes me very happy, but we will see. I praise and praise, no critical words from me here on her weakness. TWOTSM talks about this – praise the things you want the most even if they aren’t exactly praiseworthy.

Work

I’m expecting a few offers this week or early next. I have a plan on how to work them all and planned for all the variables by writing down my plan. I had been searching myself for a while of “What do you want in your next job role?” and finally decided. I want excitement with an energetic good business mentor to match my own energy levels that will allow me to be grow.

Reading

Continuing reading 48LOP to increase my knowledge on manipulation (external and internal) within the workplace. I’ve been too transparent with my thoughts in the past which have been a detriment. STFU is good in the workplace too at times.

Social

Went to blacksmithing class with /u/redranger207 this weekend, then grabbed some lunch afterward. We made decorative wall hooks. I think I’ll go back during open shop hours and make one of these.

Mental / Relationship:

I had some personal major breakthroughs mentally this week.

• I create hardship for myself unnecessarily to provide my ego a sense of self-worth. (this was the dragon I was searching for – an internal dragon)
  
• I externally (instead of internally) project future success to hold myself accountable to a higher standard rather than just living my already awesome life. Do I usually succeed? Yes. Is that projection necessary? No. This ties into the first point because if I project externally it then provides my ego a sense of hardship to achieve success.
  
• I understand the meaning of “how does she fit into your life” that we talk about so much here.
  
  The first two points are pretty self-explanatory. The third I somehow realized after stumbling into this amazing response by /u/Red-Curious to an MRPer years ago who got everything he wanted from his wife but then chose to spin plates and was left with a similar mindset to my own. I haven’t spun plates, I could, and was contemplating it again because I have found sex with my wife somewhat dissatisfying the last few weeks. I can do anything I want to her, it’s not super exciting. She is enthusiastically ready and willing to do it all. That drove my libido down and then I started to question why I even had her in my life.
  
  It really hit me hard. I had made my marriage all about sex and intimacy. Sure – I think she’s a good human being, but what made her unique enough for me to choose to spend my life with her? It surely isn’t the sex. I know that now. And with enough training I could do that with any woman now. So, why her?
  
  Well, this is my wife. There are many like her, but this one is mine.
  
  I began to understand that I could use my wife who is more than willing to further my mission. It’s not a partnership, but I have a damn good FO. She aims to please, and by pleasing me she gets great joy in her life. I need to put her to work with her talents to further our awesome life together so that we can both live a happy, fulfilling life with purpose and mission.
  
  Just a few examples I've jotted down:
  
  
• She loves to bake. Right now, there are 5 pies ready for the preschool teachers. Why haven’t I asked her to make cookies or stuff for the office before? She’s done it once and people raved about them for months, including some higher ups I never had the chance to talk to before. They remembered fucking cookies.
  
• My wife stands out in a crowd at 6’0 and looks like a model, and enjoys dressing very classy – combine that with her southern charm…. Why haven’t I used this at social gatherings for work or my personal mission? I’ve seen her do this before and she is always elated to be arm-candy.
  
• Men are naturally attracted to her. Why haven’t I taught her how to use this manipulative power to further my mission when she is ready, willing and able to support that mission? She used to do this to get us free drinks at bars with ease. Why not more than that?
  
• Women are drawn to her femininity. She loves to compliment fashion on other women and get them talking about themselves while remaining extremely humble. I’ve seen it at parties and it’s a weird talent. Her feminine energy radiates a room. Why haven’t I used this before?
  
  Lots of work to do here in leadership. What I do know is that my FO can add real value to my life in areas that I simply cannot do. I can’t bake. I can’t catch eyes of men. I can’t put on a sweet southern charm. I know shit about fashion and frankly don’t give a shit about women’s fashion. But, what if I could use all these talents and skills that she has crafted from her own life experience to help further our own lives together?
  
  So. This is my wife. There are many like her, but this one is mine. I feel stupid that it’s taken me this long to realize that she’s more than just a sex toy and intimacy tool. I’ve been clouded for a year in this anger mindset and it was necessary until now, but at this point I see value that I’ve been missing. There is raw untapped potential there that is begging to be freed.
  
  Just like I was before I found MRP. I had so much potential but I wasn’t using it.
  
  Could I find a similar value with another woman that could help further my mission and quality of life? Sure. But, I’ve got this one for now. It’s time to put her to work. Plus, you know, I do love my wife dearly. She is my greatest creation and through my inaction and ego I have done nothing great with her when she is a capable person yearning for leadership and wants to please me and get great joy from that.
  
  Guys - my life is awesome. There is so much untapped potential! There are so many more gifts to come. I’m going to start with my leadership all over again.
  
  Strength, motherfuckers.

So I'll preface all of this by saying I'm not a trainer...so I'm heavily biased toward my body type and what I've trained for. But I know how to get bigger, I know how to get stronger, and I've learned how to eat well for what I want to achieve. I've not been able to take myself down to shredded levels of bodyfat, and if I wanted to go much below say 12% I don't have the knowledge to get there. But even in my fat and beta days, This stuff - lifting programs and strength training was something I spent a lot of time reading and trying out. Wasn't very disciplined until recently, but I'd say I've got 15+ years of trial, error, and failure under my belt.

As I said in my other post, I was running myself in circles basically trying to get strong and leaner and fitter all at once.

So I think the first step is assessing the goal you've got and making a clear hierarchy. I always wanted to have bigger muscles, less fat, and be strong and able to perform athletically. But that's too many things to chase at once. So I set a longer term goal - that I was going to set PRs in all my lifts, and especially press my bodyweight at 230 lbs. I focused all of my fitness energy on that. And while that is technically two of goals (weight and strength), I had a clear hierarchy between them. Scale number goes down, first and foremost. But I also wasn't going to sacrifice more strength than necessary in order to get there. By setting this longer term goal, I was able to subvert the "Your shoulders/arms look small, you should do something else" hamster. By making it a strength goal, I had a tangible number to shoot at rather than a mirror and a feeling. I flat out don't know how to program to aesthetic goals. So I didn't try. I stuck with what I knew I could accomplish, and let the chips fall where they may on the other stuff. I figured that I'd get some carryover in aesthetics and athletic performance, but I was OK putting them out of mind for the time being.

So with that goal in mind, I said to myself "The scale number needs to go down, period". I was 260 and I needed to get in the 230s. So diet came first. With my diet, I think it was pretty basic stuff, except that I focused more on the mental part rather than on the "what's the best way to lose weight" part. Rather than trying to drop a bunch of weight with a low carb diet - over the years I had gotten really good at losing 20-25 lbs in 2 months and then packing it back on. I went with the sidebar "You are what you eat" method. This was a new thing for me, counting calories. Diet was -500 calories. I went with 15% carbs, 230+ grams of protein (based on 'goal' weight), and the rest was fat. Again, pretty basic stuff. And it worked really well to a point.

But I also geared it all around making sure I wasn't wearing out my willpower. My focus was more on consecutive days of compliance than anything else. So while a guy who is on a cut's instinct might be to ramp up the cardio, cardio makes me fucking miserable. Jogging, hiit, etc. Fucking hate it. Jogging is boring. Stationary biking is boring. I always get injured trying to sprint or HIIT. I also realized over the years that when I ramp up the cardio, I'm hungry all the time. Doesn't matter what my diet is, all I want to do is eat peanut butter between meals if I'm going hard on the cardio. So rather than ramming my head into the wall again, doing the boring ass cardio and feeling a magnetic pull to the pantry every time I walk by it, I just cut out the cardio shit. I didn't do any cardio aside from walking, and just maybe 2 miles 3X/week or so. With a cut, I think morale is more important than anything, and cardio saps my morale. In theory, a hardcore motivated beast mode bro can do all this shit on a diet. But I can't. So I focused on 2 things - lifting and diet.

I was also experienced enough to know that losing weight too fast hurt strength and morale. So I was cool with the slow going on the weight loss at times. I think that helped mentally.

All of this also worked really well, to a point.

In terms of lifting, I've been doing some variation of 5/3/1 for years. It allows for lots of variety and is just flat out the best program I've used for what I do. Any time I stray too far from it, my results suffer. Use it or don't, this is just my preference. But if you use it BUY THE BOOK AND READ IT ALL. Don't just pull the sets and reps off of a website or an app. 5/3/1 is much more than 5-5-5+, 3-3-3+, 5-3-1+ with .9 * your %. Read it, pick a variation you fully understand, and do it.

Things I've learned: I used to take an approach of do the strength stuff for the big lifts (5/3/1) and make the assistance lifts all of the bodybuilding shit we all like to do....curls, triceps, shoulder raises, flys, etc. etc. etc. This also seems to be the approach that the typical message board bro takes with 5/3/1. It's a bad plan for me. It worked ok for a while, but once you get to the point where you're decently strong, it's not really lining up with helping you progress. I think that's why many guys struggle so much to push past plateaus.

Your supplemental and assistance movements need to support your strength movements (big 4). So little triceps movements, burn-out curls, pec flys, all that shit....none of it makes you stronger. If your big 4 are compound movements, most guys probably benefit the most from making their secondary movements fairly compound as well, ie - Dips > tricep pushdowns; Pull ups > Lat Pull Downs; Barbell curls > dumbbell curls. Make them half body moves.

I've found that I get the biggest bang for the buck out of the big 4 (Press, bench, squat, dead) dips, pull ups, barbell curls, Kroc rows, goblet squat, and the ab wheel. I just stick to those. Pull ups and dips, I think are non-negotiable. The others, YMMV.

And to save time, I usually do a short set of my assistance lift between sets of my big lifts. So if it's press day, I do set of press, 5 pull ups, change weight, press, 5 x pull ups, change weight....etc. On 5.3.1 Boring but Strong, that ends up being 15 sets of 5 pull ups. Squat/DL days, I usually do dips between sets. Then at the end, I might do a short circuit of abs/goblet squats - 5 ab wheels, 10 GS on Squat/DL day or abs/barbell curls on bench/press day.

So anyway, on a -500 cut, I can do the full 5/3/1 Boring but Strong, plus 50-100 assistance lift between sets. I knock it all out in 50 minutes or so. The key there, on the cut, is for it to feel like a solid workout, but not be too taxing. Leave the gym feeling stronger (not sore, tired, and beat up). Don't hang out for another 30 minutes doing wrist curls and sit ups.

For me, this type of work-out allowed me to cut 25 lbs, and I set some sort of rep PR in the big 4 at least once a week. And while I never got to Lou Ferigno level ripped or symmetry, I was pretty f-ing strong at an all-time low adult bodyweight. It looks pretty damn good relative to all of the other 39 year olds I know.

Again, the keys were:

• Focusing mental energy on the diet compliance
  
  
• Skipping Cardio (could probably be personalized to include cutting out things that sap your mental energy)
  
  
• Focus your lifting efforts on gaining strength - which means for me not distracting yourself with chasing mirror exercises.
  
  
• Perhaps a more meta point, but get to know yourself and note what gives you the biggest bang for the buck.
  
  The sad ending to the story here is that I felt fucking awesome in February and started really pushing the PRs and getting out of balance with my training. One weekend I tested myself....pressed 250 x 1 and 5 repped 485 in the deadlift. Both felt great when I did them, but that same weekend I tweaked my shoulder cutting tree branches, and it went crazy on me on me the following day. Took 6 weeks for the doc to get me straightened out with stretching & ART, and another 2 months of very limited lifting. Basically push ups and goblet squats were the only things that didn't set my shoulder off. So now I'm back to working this same old routine trying to get back to where I was 9 months before (slowly!). Moral of the story here is that old guys need to stretch, and don't get greedy when testing. Stay in the program and eventually you'll hit the number you covet.
  
  One more thing, with regard to bulking. I don't do this much anymore, as I'm pretty satisfied hanging out at my current bodyweight and can still make gains. But it appears to me that your first mistake is that when you bulk, you're working out too much. The key that most guys miss when trying to build muscle is rest. You'd be better off doing 3 pretty intense workouts a week than 6 if you want to put on muscle.
  
  I didn't understand volume, rest, and eating until I did this program:
  
  Flat out, it is a motherfucker. I've done it twice. It's not something you can do more than maybe once a year. The first time I did it, I limped my way through the whole thing. It was ugly, but I got it done. I probably put on 6 lbs of legit lean body mass, a few lbs of fat. And my bench went through the roof when I did this. It's a good program. And it does a great job of putting you through the process of what it really takes to really pack on muscle.
  
  If you try it, buy the book and read it all. Then, follow it to the letter - the workouts, the timing, the "tweaks". Dan John, the author, is a really sharp guy, a top tier coach, and a good writer. By the end of the program, at the very least, you learn a good deal about what type of things work or don't work for you, and what types of things to add to your 'regular' routines that help you gain.
  
  That's all I've got for now. I could go on about this forever, but hopefully you can pull some nuggets out for yourself.
  /u/MRPsurf, hopefully there's some value for you as well.

I'M LATE! But god damn it I'm posting.


Absolutely CRAZY couple of weeks. Moved into the new house, then immediately took off for a week in Paris with just the wife and I.


Had an amazing time, but am SO, SO excited to just settle in to the new house, get back on my diet plan, rebuild my routine and habits, etc. I love vacation, but I also love my day to day life.


(note: trying a slightly different format)


Rate the week (out of 5):

5

What were you grateful for this week?

Trip to Paris. This was a wonderful trip, and a huge reminder of what I've accomplished over the past year or so.

What needed work this week?

Found myself getting VERY reactive about sex. Time away also centered me around what I've been slacking on at home.

PHYSICAL

No diet plan or exercise due to trip. Weighed in on first morning at home at 179 - not too bad. Next morning I was down to 166 (1 lb over before I left).


We did a ton of walking. That said, lack of sleep and constantly eating out has really made me excited to get back on track.


Today my brain is absolute garbage - really need to catch up on sleep. May try dosing with melatonin today and getting to bed earlier than normal.


MINDSET

Reactivity about sex is clearly a huge deal for me, still. I clearly had a large covert contract that we would be having sex every day - and found that (for whatever reason, probably the huge amount of beautiful women in Paris) my sex drive was MUCH higher than normal. Those two things collided to drive up my initiations and my frustration when it wasn't reciprocated.

​

I have to remember a few things:

​

- Her reaction (or lack thereof) says nothing about my value as a person.

​

- I don't need to read into every encounter as a verdict on one part of our relationship or the other. There are a million and one factors in whether she's in the mood or not; take it for what it actually is and nothing more.

​

- I let these things ruin my mood, which in turn decreases my chances in the future. Beware of continuous hedonic adaptation stealing my ability to actually enjoy the present (upset about what things "should be," rather than enjoying things as they are).

​

Anyway, the experience - and becoming aware of it halfway through - helped to re-center me. Started re-reading MMSL and it re-connected me to where I was when I started this whole process. It reminded me that the process is what matters - like almost anything, progress here is characterized by long plateaus followed by large, quick advances.

RELATIONSHIPS

We had sex twice, and mutually jerked off once while watching porn. Being as the porn thing happened last, I was almost irritated by it (I had initiated, gotten turned down, but then she got interested by me watching porn - enough to jerk off, but not enough to have sex).

​

Didn't though - had my head screwed on straight again by then. In a pique of irritation (after what was actually a great night out, and after about a bottle of wine), I made a move I haven't done in ages and tried to talk about our sex life. This was unproductive, as it always is when it's anything other than "making the implicit explicit" from a position of strength. Still, it was good in the sense that she opened up about her birth wound - she has a fistula that sometimes stuff from her digestive tract into her vagina. She's incredibly sensitive about it, and I realized that some of the times she's begged off sex because she "feels gross", it's actually been because she has leakage going on.

​

Like all people trying to understand their own behavior, myself included, this is part truth, part hamster. But it reoriented me to a few things: sympathy and empathy for her, rather than frustration; towards responsibility for my situation, rather than irritation for her; and back towards some of the "basics" I'd lost track of while working so deeply on my own co-dependency. Reconnecting to my ability to be angry is great, but I'd lost sight of working on attraction for a bit.

FINANCIAL / WORK

Part of the reason this trip was such a big deal for me was that it's been a sign of how much I've accomplished in the last few years.

​

Last time I was in Paris I was single, traveling alone, and poor as fuck. This time, our hotel bill for the week was more than my entire budget for a month-long trip ten years ago. It means a lot to me to be able to live this kind of life - defined by freedom, lack of anxiety, adventure.

​

I've worked very hard to make it happen. The wife appreciated it, but she doesn't really understand what it took, or how much effort I've really had to put in. Like most people, things seem simple, easy, or inevitable from the outside.

​

That's fine. I'd rather she not know. This is work I would do even if I was single - my trajectory has been mine alone. I've designed this life over many years now, and the fact that it looks easy from the outside is a compliment.

What am I looking forward to this week?

Getting back into the swing of things. We're finally in the new house, and I'm dying to just return to normal...getting back into the gym, the office, eating on my diet plan, hanging with my kids, etc. I like my routines.

What is important to me this week?

Just focusing on re-establishing a baseline. I've got plans for the next few months - things I was to improve or work on - but for now, I want to just re-build my "cornerstone habits": diet, exercise, sleeping well.


Reading


Got back into MMSL. A lot of it's old news now, but I remember how BLOWN AWAY I was when I read it the first time.


Behave - https://www.amazon.com/Behave-Biology-Humans-Best-Worst/dp/1594205078


I CANNOT RECOMMEND THIS BOOK ANY HIGHER. It is absolutely blowing me away - every single chapter is fucking me up. Incredible. Kind of book that changes how you see the world.


Read two "fun books" on vacation - Lexicon and The Yard. Both were fun thrillers. I can down that shit like nobody's business.


​

> BF - 24%

What are you doing to address this? Getting started on StrongLifts is a good thing, but nutrition and weight loss is the other half of the equation. Are you tracking calories? Do you know your TDEE and Macros? Figure that stuff out, and download MyFitnessPal and start tracking what you put in your mouth.

>While I no longer really desire my wife due to our history of problems both in and out of the bedroom

This is butthurt: "You don't want me, so now I feel like I don't want you." If your wife was giving you 100% in the bedroom, would you still feel the same way?

>I reintroduced kino to our relationship with fantastic results.

>She claims to hate it but I can clearly see she loves the renewed attention.

This is good. Keep working on this, especially in situations where it cannot possibly lead to sex at that moment. This helps it come off as truly genuine.

>that evening while we were lying in bed, she gave me an HJ under the covers while our daughter played around on the floor on the opposite side of the bed. This is so far outside the norm for my normally super up-tight wife that I thought she’d been possessed by a spirit or something. Two days prior to that we had sex for the first time this calendar year. So the results are starting to trickle in.

Awesome! This stuff works.

>10 minutes of visible work on my part has led to 5-10 hours of increased effort on her part each week.

Amazing how setting the example and leading makes such a difference, huh?

>We are constantly late to events because she’s dawdling around the house instead of taking our agenda more seriously. I’m going to have to start leaving her behind if she’s not in the car on time, or convincing her that appointments are 30 minutes earlier than previously stated in order to fool her into doing the right thing. I’m open to suggestions on this one.

My wife has been guilty of this as well, her attitude is "We're only a few minutes late, it's no big deal." Well it IS a big deal. I'm not a fan of the advice to leave without her - it may work, but I think it should only be used as a last resort when all else has failed. What has worked for me is to just tell her everything starts 15 minutes earlier than it really does, so we still get there "late" but on time.

How you decide to handle this depends on your specific dynamics: I have a good wife who is DTF whenever I want, works hard around the house, does all the cooking, is pretty submissive and follows my lead. I've chosen to give her a little grace in this area. This may not work in a different marriage - the wife might choose to take advantage of the husband. So YMMV, you'll have to play around with it and see what works.

>Family budget. I handle all of our finances but I have not been as disciplined as I could be. We’ve recently spent $15,000 on home improvements in order to rent out our basement as a guest suite, and within the next few weeks I anticipate we’ll be earning $1,000 per month from our tenant. We’re in a great area for finding renters and I already have multiple interested parties just from talking about it around the office, so I’m confident this will work. But in the meantime we’ve got a LOT of new debt, and I need to manage our money better so we can have a better emergency fund and less concern about monthly bills.

Sounds like a good investment that is going to pay off in 15 months, so that's not a bad thing. But if you don't have a full emergency fund, then you should cut your spending in other areas to achieve this. Dave Ramsey's The Total Money Makeover outlines a clear plan to achieve this. And honestly, anyone making $67 an hour should not be having money worries.

To get you started, I would suggest writing down all your essential monthly expenses. Those are the bills. They get paid first. Add them up, and add up your income for a month. The difference is really the only thing you have to discuss and get under control, since the bills are non-negotiable. Now if you have non-essential stuff like cable, etc. then you will have to decide what you can cut to make some breathing room in your financial situation. This should be a primary concern, since money problems contribute more stress to a marriage than almost anything else, and it is one of the top three reasons for divorce as well.

>Frame and outcome independence mindset are improving but are not there yet. I’ll keep reading, practicing, and improving.

• Thoughts on Frame
  
  
• Outcome Independence

(I rambled a bit here)

I chose the Kindle Voyage with the nice eInk screen, with the built in light Wifi/Data (it is touch screen) because:

• sleep better at night with the softer light. The Fire or any other tablet blasting your eyes fucks with your sleep (Twilight is a good Android app to combat this)
  
• MUCH longer battery life
  
• Wireless syncing of books, etc. There's two versions, one is JUST wifi, spend the extra dough.
  
• Tiny fucking thing. I added this cover to protect my investment when in a bag. It's still small with the cover.
  
  Both of those books are closer to the bottom of my Red Pill reading list. I do intend to read them to enhance what I can but I've always done well. I've had a disproportionate amount of friends over time say they wished they could just talk to girls like I do, with my confidence.
  
  I basically tell them "I wish I didn't have bad acne in high school, was taller, and still had all my hair. With all that going against me, do you still think game and confidence are genetic?" (in more or less words).
  
  Point is, game takes practice, time, and the smallest amount of courage applied repeatedly.
  
  Confidence comes from knowing yourself better than others know themselves. Take an objective personal inventory of yourself. There are things you are much better at than 99.9% of the people you meet. That's one in a thousand! Find all those things about you and remember them, build on them, they are what makes you better. The more things, the rarer you are. Draw confidence from that. Not good at something you like? Become good at it.
  
  Confidence takes us to the edge of the known. The smallest amount of courage will take us across the line. When we inch across the line, the known grows and with it our confidence.
  
  That's what this shit is all about. Stumbling through those doors as hollowed and broken men, into this Great Hall of Man Making and carving our new selves out of granite with intention. Practice and improve your game any way you need to. Your game is the lens through which others will see this new and improving you.

Work - Fucking killed my call last week and landed a new $10k project with a current client. I was then emailed over the weekend by someone who inquired 5 months ago and chose to go another direction which didn't work out. I feel like I owned that call as well and spent 3 hours today creating a proposal and video presentation which I'll be sending them once the video is done rendering/uploading. In competition with someone who is much cheaper but isn't going to provide nearly the kind of value I bring.

Until I just reviewed last week's OYS, I totally forgot about the one other person I have that was holding until after Thanksgiving. Things are definitely looking up now that I'm starting to get my work mojo back and feeling good about the direction of the company and the work we have been producing lately.

One project is going very poorly and I'm trying to turn it around as best I can. Client is a bit of an asshole but I am determined to not allow him to affect me or keep me from doing my best work.

Getting through my workload as best I can. The stress that lifted off my shoulders from landing the big project has allowed me to refocus. I spent too much of Thanksgiving weekend chasing down personal errands and stuff that wasn't as important as work, but still fighting to get a few more inches forward wherever I can. Grade: B, or A- if I happen to land this 3rd client this week.

Lifting - None while my neck heals. I was looking forward to trying it out today, but still too sore and timid that I'll fuck it up. I know a big part of it was the financial stress lately, and after that project was signed I started healing much more quickly. I'm just taking it day by day and not going to try to train through the injury. I can't see it being more than a few more days at this rate and if that is the case, why risk another two weeks or worse?

Have gotten away from wearing my neck brace in the past 2 days. Putting it back on now as I'm typing this. Grade: None

Health - Getting back to IF and also beginning calorie counting soon as I need to focus on cutting and losing weight. Even just a week and a half of rest, plus Thanksgiving, has made me feel disgusting again with my weight. I need to stop focusing on the big noob strength gains I was seeing and instead slow down and stop being fat first and foremost.

Also purchased some Collagen Hydrolysate to help heal/recover the parts of me that feel injured/sore as well as recover faster from workouts. I've already been taking Glucosamine/Chondroitin and my joints and especially my one ankle still feel sore, Will be giving that a shot soon. Also purchased some ZMA for sleep and testosterone. Helped me get tired last night, still not sure where my T stands. I need to get to a doctor and get this checked out but holding out until the new year when my insurance will likely be changing. Grade: C

Personal Development - Kept going with Jim Rohn's Art of Exceptional Living and am now on Disc 5 of 6. Truthfully not a whole lot of progress though as much of this weekend was spent either celebrating the holiday or taking care of errands and mapping out a bit more of the future in regards to money.

I also developed a mental game born out of something I read on TRP to help make decisions and stay focused/disciplined. I'm testing it out and seeing how it goes.

One thing I'm trying to take to heart is to stop focusing on as many of the small things and pay attention to the things that really matter. I get too wrapped up in details about shit that doesn't matter in the long run. Grade: C-

House - Dragged the Christmas tree up from the basement despite my neck and put that up. LTR and I did decorations all over the house and some lights on the two bushes out front. This set me back a little with healing because of the lifting, hammering, carrying a ladder, etc. but only for one day and it was worth it to get that off my plate before family visits in a few weeks.

Our Bethlehem star tree topper wasn't lighting up anymore, so I rigged up 1 of my 20 or so cheap LED lights with a wireless remote (awesome for mood lighting when watching a movie or having sex if you don't want to drop cash on something like a Phillips Hue, not "smart" or nearly as bright though) hidden in the tree branches right below the topper. Now it is lit up rotating through 16 colors and is better than when it was just solid white. Win.

Also chipped in with Turkey day cooking which was awesome across the board. Grade: A-

Leadership/LTR - The reduced stress over finances has made it more light and fun around the house. I'm slapping LTR's ass hard left and right, tickling her, etc. Good times.

Also doing better at STFU and not whining over stupid/small things that annoy me. A situation came up where I just clearly stated I thought she made the wrong call, why, and stopped talking. She said she hadn't thought of it my way and an hour later she went to work on correcting it herself. I was never a bitch about this kind of thing, but I would definitely go on talking way too much in the past when a concise statement would suffice. This comes from trying to not focus on the small things that I mentioned above. Grade: B

Finances - Obviously much better with the latest project but it still only buys me another month or two of time because of how the project payments are laid out. It absolutely eases the first 5 months of 2017 but I'd still run out of cash without another client by February.

We were able to purchase a bunch of things we have been putting off that we've needed/really wanted. I think it snowballed a little and we fell back into bad habits with a few of the purchases. Nothing major, but I don't feel like I was keeping my eye on the prize when we're still not back on a very good track with income. That's only 1-2 more clients away, but after the past half a year I cannot be taking anything for granted. We're definitely in a much better position overall now though and have some time and space to manuever with changing the business plan and marketing around, which is really what I desperately needed for December so we can work our asses off and be prepared for a new direction as 2017 rolls around. Grade: C

OYS: Men of March Part Deux

Anyone else doing Men of March again? Last year u/thefamilyalpha gave us an incredible set of challenges. There was a list of don'ts and then a new list of do's every day.

> 1 You will not masturbate, edge, or touch your dick for pleasure during the entire month. You can have sex, but not with yourself.

On it. Last year this had a huge impact on me because I realized in order to get off I had to game my wife. This year it's not even an issue.

> 2 You will not watch porn, any sexy gifs, look at provocative photos or anything of the sort as this will lead to you breaking rule one.

Last year I went a step further. When browsing Instagram or whatever, instead of clicking on the hot girl photo I would click on the ripped dude photo to inspire me to "not focus on getting the girl, but on being the man". Around this time I started following r/progresspics - highly recommend this to everyone here.

> 3 You will do 100 pushups every day. Don’t give the ‘time’ excuse, or any excuse as I don’t give a fuck, just do them. Break it up however you have to, but before you sleep at night, 100 must be done; chest day or not. Maintain proper form to prevent injury.

He also added that this is in addition to your normal exercise routine. I'm somewhat overdeveloped in the chest, so instead I do 10 minutes of planks, usually in sets of 2, 2, 1.5, 1.5, 1, 1, 1. I do this every night before bed and I watch FailArmy videos to make myself laugh, it makes planking that much harder when you're laughing. Also associates good feelings with the pain.

> 4 You must start reading a book. Even if it’s just a few pages a day at first, you must be reading a book. During Men of March I read ‘New World Ronin’ by Victor Pride as well as ‘One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich’ by Alexander Solzhenitsyn. You don’t have to finish the book in the month, just actively read a few pages every day to build the habit. With that said, I finished two books by making the time (usually before bed) to read free from distraction.

The first thing I do each day is drink my coffee and read. Right now I'm reading a biography of Oliver Stone. I also have Meditations and Sex God Method loaded up on my Kindle for when I'm in a waiting room or in transit.

> 5 You have to start giving genuine answers to people. If someone asks if you’re busy don’t say, “No” when you are. You have to stop avoiding conflict at the expense of your true self. If your wife asks a question, give an answer. Responding with “I don’t know/care” is not an answer a leader gives to those whose lives are his responsibility. Start knowing, start caring, and start telling the world your true opinion.

This is my biggest struggle. I was raised to be independent, but I was raised by a badass, take-charge, single mom. So for too long I expected my wife to be a badass. My wife doesn't want to be a badass, she wants me to lead, she wants my opinions because she can't always trust her feelings. So I better have a opinion but that only comes from having a strong direction in life. Opinions without a valuable direction are stupid, arrogant and often hostile. A man with a mission will have an opinion and it's attractive. Yesterday a girl messaged me asking to come over for career advice. My wife came home to find me giving advice to a young woman. Huh...

> 6 If you have a vice, remove it. You have to be honest with yourself; if you’re overweight and drinking to numb the pain or are smoking pot and being unproductive, that shit has to go. This isn’t a ‘dry’ challenge, if alcohol or pot isn’t a problem good to go. If it’s more than that, leave it be for the month.

Last year I had a ton of vices: porn, video games, sugar, social media. None of those are causing problems in my life right now. Moderation is key. A year has changed a lot.

> 7 This is not a story book, it is a program designed to strip away the layers of fake, generic, and counterfeit behaviors and lies you’ve been living in order to discover who you truly are. Read one day at a time, do not skip ahead.

Again, I highly recommend buying this book. Unfuck your life one day at a time.

> 8 Every day there will be a challenge, you must complete it.

Great challenges last year that resonated with people were:

• Put together a budget of income and expenses, track all the shit. Do this with, or show it to, your wife.
  
  
• Toss out everything in your house that you don't use. Again, do this with you wife. Show her that you lead.
  
  
• Run for your life. Get up and run until you feel like you'll die, then run even further.
  

>• Fix the son’s shitty behavior

Fix your own shitty behaviour first. This shit is unnaceptable..

​

>me (or the wife) getting angry and shouting, or slapping him

Your son is 5. He's a ball of energy. He's going to run around like a madman, screaming and laughing - that's what 5 year old boys do.. I know - I have one the same age. Most of the time I let him at it. I have the ability to zone out and let him run wild.. he's letting off steam, enjoying himself and being himself. As long as he doesn't break anything or hurt himself, I'm happy to see him being a 5 year old boy.

My wife doesn't have that ability & the noise / energy gets to her sometimes. When that happens, I'll pick him up, throw him around a bit play fight - whatever.. just engage him and play with him for a bit until he calms down.

Sometimes he gets out of line when he doesn't get his way.. throws things, slams doors, etc. That behaviour, I won't accept. For that, he goes on the naughty step and stays there until he recognises why I put him there and apologises. I'll always make sure that he knows what he did wrong and understands why he is being punished. I always remain totally calm but firm when this happens.

I never shout at my kids and I never slap them. This type of punishment is pointless and detrimental. Once you lose control like this, you have lost. If you use physical punishment (slapping) or verbal punishment (shouting), what lessons are you teaching them? That it's OK to shout and slap? That you can only control them with violence? All you are doing is demanding respect. You need to learn how to command respect, not demand it.

​

>Also, small gifts for when he does behave well.

​

You want to reward good bahaviour but do it by giving him your time and attention. By giving him gifts as rewards, all you're doing is teaching him to expect stuff when he behaves.

This is no different than your wife... remove time and attention for shitty behaviour, reward good behaviour with time and attention. You don't give your wife a gift every time she sucks your cock.

Or do you?

​

>So when we finally do start fucking, it’s been like a week or more since the last time I came and I last like two minutes max. This is the other piece of advice in TWOFSM that I find hard to wrap my head around. I’ve heard of the breathing stuff and ‘circulating the energy’ before and I’ve never been able to do it and the more I try the more frustrated I feel.

The advice in TWOTSM is good but it doesn't go into enough detail - try this book.. it's excellent:

https://www.amazon.com/Multi-Orgasmic-Man-Sexual-Secrets-Should/dp/0062513362

He's great for a framework into the rest of things.

I would be remiss to not mention /u/BluepillProfessor book on dread. You get much more benefit from it, than you do by reading it in the forums. I am hunting for where ribbonfarm talks about how books rewire thought patterns in a way internet writings cannot, so you'll have to take it on faith right now that it's better when it's in a book form.

https://www.amazon.ca/Saving-Low-Sex-Marriage-Seduction-ebook/dp/B01BGZO1WK

Welcome back dude. My own quest for sleep is never ending. Using a CPAP now.

Ear plugs are great but I tried tons of brands before finding these:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000V3PZB0/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_dt.qDb6YBP602

​

Zero pain and very effective.

​

If you don't take ZMA or supplement Zinc and Magnesium, give it a try for sure. Cutting blue light and caffeine are big ticket items for sure.

> Need to add gallon-of-milk-a-day to increase cals to 4,000+.

You can't rush progress. GOMAD is a ticket to bloated fatass. Fine if your only goals are lifting more weight, BMI be damned....but if you want to just build muscle, there are better ways. Not for the faint of heart.

Sepaen is right about your bmr.

A great book to help recalibrate your whole perspective on style is a book by Tanner Guzy that just came out called The Appearance of Power:

https://www.amazon.com/Appearance-Power-Masculinity-Expressed-Aesthetics-ebook/dp/B0778QQWQC

Agree with most of the advice here. STFU, lift, read sidebar, pass shit tests. You've got a long road ahead of you - typically 1 month of recovery for every year of bluepill. That's a 17 year trek, which I am also on.

If you want specific month-by-month advice, I'd recommend BluePillProf's book - it's like four bucks on kindle

https://www.amazon.com/Saving-Low-Sex-Marriage-Seduction-ebook/dp/B01BGZO1WK

Also you might want to check out /r/askmrp which is a sub specifically devoted to newbie questions. They even allow a victim puke to get started! :-)

https://www.amazon.com/Saving-Low-Sex-Marriage-Seduction-ebook/dp/B01BGZO1WK

Here is the mobile version of your link