sarakingdom

Since meal prepping is still an exploration, an unconventional take on it: Electric rice cookers are also amazing for fast meals and partially prepped meals. If I ate carbs, they would be my top used kitchen item. Putting the rice on autopilot so you have rice in fifteen minutes makes the rest of the meal easy. Even better if it has a steamer basket. There is absolute magic in cooking that you don't need to babysit, and can walk away from. And the question of "what on earth will I make for dinner" is a lot easier to answer when it's "what on earth can I put on the rice that's gonna be ready in ten minutes?" Your base case is: make some rice, get too tired to do anything else, and fry an egg to put on top. Then there's: Make some rice, dump some frozen veg in the steamer basket, and throw some leftover or quickly stir fried protein on top. (Some proteins can even go in the steamer basket, but that's not always much fun. Pretty utilitarian cooking. A fast option, though, and easily improved with a bottle of sauce in the cupboard.) It goes well with big batches of chili or curry or or bolognese or stir fry that are frozen in individual servings. Then there's the world of fancy rices. Some diced carrot and onion and peas in with the rice, or some chicken broth, or a diced onion and some raisins, or a can of chickpeas and some spices. Paprika and garlic powder. Not a lot more effort, but suddenly a fancier meal. A lot of that stuff can be frozen or powders or cans, and require no prep time on the actual night. (Tomato sauce is the only thing I've found isn't great for this; the natural sugars often burn a little faster than the rice cooks. But some tomato paste resting on top to be stirred in at the end should be fine, or chopped actual tomato. You just don't want tomato sauce, or something with similar sugar content, on the bottom on the pot.) And then there's the more advanced world of cooking pasta in the rice cooker while you do other things. Anyway, they cut the prepping or cooking down to about a third to a half of the meal that needs to be done ahead of time, and they also help save on freezer space, if you're trying to prep a lot at once. They are the future, only they exist now. Machines doing your lab for you.

Nothing corrects alcoholic fatty liver disease except dealing with the alcohol. Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease is not caused by fructose. The only known causal relationship is that it's part of the standard suite of metabolic issues linked to high insulin levels (obesity, type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, heart disease, etc). Any carb-heavy diet can cause it, and there is some probability it has, if there are other elements of the metabolic syndrome showing up (like weight and cholesterol). Whether those liver numbers are high due to metabolic syndrome, alcohol, or a combination of metabolic syndrome and alcohol, that's anyone's guess. But since cholesterol is also on the list, seems most useful to start with the metabolic syndrome approach, and see how far it gets you. I would hesitate to overwhelm Sal with rat studies. To someone who isn't fascinated by the science, the details of individual studies are more likely to cause panic and confusion than communicate information. Plenty of drinkers do keto; the reduced tolerance they report is an issue to know about, if she's interested in trying keto. (And she may not be.) Keto might improve her mental health, for this or other reasons; that is also a thing that is reported by a significant minority. Maybe it'd make cutting down on drinking easier, at least on a physiological level, if that were Today's Problem. Her weight might be very responsive to it, or not. But it's not too useful to overpromise. These are complex issues with complex pre-existing causes, and diet is not a magic bullet for solving anything. What it can often do pretty reliably is shift a few numbers on some blood test results, particularly for people with markers of metabolic syndrome. In other areas, it's at least of possible value, and unlikely to work against you.

For some people, these are both correctable with keto. Keto would not require stopping the drinking, if that's not today's battle, but would require changing what that drinking consists of. (Beer and cider out, wine restricted, hard liquor allowed.) Caveat: If the current or past level of drinking is heavy, it might end up being an unavoidable part of the liver problem. But it can be something you ease into rather than the first step. (I do agree with folks that addressing the alcohol is a good step, for mental health reasons as well as physical health reasons. But I also recognize that, like cigarettes, it's a tough one to do all at once, and it's hard to think about while overwhelmed. It can be Not Today's Problem in the short term.) So if it were me, what I'd do is: Go keto Walk a total of half an hour per day (assuming that's more than your current walks), aiming for an eventual goal of 7500 steps after a few challenges. (For most people, that's about an hour per day. That can be a process of 5 or 10 minutes more per challenge, if you've got the half hour.) Do the very first step of addressing the alcohol some day. Maybe it's cutting down by putting a pint of mineral water in place of one round. Whatever is the incremental improvement you can make without it being a big deal today. Maybe it's just bringing it up with a therapist to start that discussion. Anything that says, "I don't need to do this today, but I'm not avoiding it, and I'm not scared of it." Quite honestly, I think that'd be a good baseline for all your health issues. The rest is just improvements. Good basic diet (pending results of a trial period for your body), good basic exercise, problem issue being told it's not the boss of you. If that foundation is in place, things are basically under control and ready for more specific improvements, and you can give yourself the reassurance that you're doing a good basic job. Your brain might want more exercise to chill out, your body might want it for fitness or weight, but, again, Not Today's Problem. Today's problem is just step one, the basic dose for simple mental and physical health. Next challenge is for step two.

If I join your mailing list, will I get a free PDF of the five week plan to unlock my inner potential?

List of things to do for this challenge: Request the Swamp Thing books from library Look up my nearest army/navy store Buy the replacement thing Browse combat boots (and don't ignore the jungle ones this time around, this is an era of global warming) See if the library has Samurai Champloo Find computer speakers Move the thing Buy the combat boots Return the shoes Send the card Scrub the desired water bottle Find a good walking bag

No judgment there! I was just stopped dead at the implication that empty bladders featured so prominently in the challenge. I hear ya on the crazy supplement path. I'm experimenting to get better control over ADHD symptoms, but it doesn't entirely sit comfortably to be dipping a toe into the waters that have claimed so many. I might take up ginger-turmeric milk again. I drank some this winter when I got bored of cocoa, cuz it has a sort of chicken soup "grandma's tonic for all ills" reputation, but then I fell out of the habit of making hot drinks that took effort. Might pick it up just for some chicken-soupy vibes and more drink options, more than because I want anything tangible from it. It would be nice to know if people actually did, but otherwise it's just a generally healthy food choice, like blueberries, so it can hop out of the spice rack more often. I'm a little more curious about Lion's Mane, because it's interesting, but also worryingly popular at the moment. (I was growing mushrooms when I first learned about it, so at first I just thought it was a cool shaggy mushroom to try growing, but then I realized it was being sold in coffee, and it must be so hyped.)

There are two immediate side effects of this challenge. First, I suddenly feel less self-conscious that my daily wardrobe is 90% leggings and racerback tank dresses, because I don't know what else one would wear to a cyberpunk retrofuture party. Okay, I do need more combat boots, but apart from that, I'm appropriately dressed. Second, I'm loving the reclaimed vibe of vices as virtues in a screwed-up universe. Anti-social things are the appropriate response to a world that is hard on humans. The main goal is to not be as screwed up as John Constantine. In that vein, I'm going back to bed. I had a detour into a lousy mood, so fuck it, I'm just going back to bed. I'll either listen to my zen audiobook or knock few hours off my sleep deficit, but I will do it in bed.

The notification was sitting in my inbox, and all I could think was,"Dear god, I've got to see what sort of challenge shaar has this time". What's your impression of each of these? Any noticeable effects?

I recently read a tweet where someone said the best era of Doctor Who was when the production team was young, angry, and reading Swamp Thing. Honestly, 100% agree. That was way pithier than the way I said it a month ago to @Jarric , and also that is a real mood. Then I realized that I was also better when I was young, angry, and reading Swamp Thing. I lost my way. I am not the adult version of that person. Why am I not the adult version of that person? I had one job, guys. One job. So I'm doing what any sane person would do in that situation. I'm sticking Swamp Thing, retrofuturist cyberpunk vibes, Doctor Who, and Japanese jazz cafés into a blender and coming up with a challenge. What I'm gonna do this challenge is work on a morning routine. It's gonna be painful and I'll hate it. Welcome to surviving the dystopian future with some dignity intact. It'll also be good for me, and the appropriately mellow use of cool early hours when everyone is asleep, which I need to use now that I'm a retrofuturist jazz hipster with a coffee habit in an scientific-magical eco-horror universe. One half hour of walking. One half hour of meditation. One half hour of making art. That should blast the brain cells with some anti-ADHD juice first thing, and help it chill a little about braining the to-do list later. Then work. And even if I'm too exhausted from lack of sleep to go on living after that, I'll have done the main things for good future decision-making, hopefully. Maybe I'll even get my evening routine back on track. I'll lose sleep at first, probably, but I'm losing sleep now, so I might as well lose sleep the way that involves getting some self-care knocked out early in the day. Yes, that is 90 minutes of new morning routine before work. Fuck moderation, we're doing the thing. No one in a 1980s graphic novel or cyberpunk book ever approached things by making ten-minute incremental changes. I have a reputation to uphold here. An ethos. I'll spend the rest of my time being angry and reading Swamp Thing.

This has been a particularly sleepy challenge, I think. Interaction is probably a bit down overall, but it's not normally this low. I suspect everyone's a bit run down this month. I've been having this feeling too, and I don't usually have that issue. (And I've also been on the other side, and had more non-posting days than usual, and not reading so many other threads.) I think it's just a lull.

With perhaps a splash of:

I mean, you never know. The different feel might end up throwing you stylistically. I've definitely seen clips out of context that I've looked askance at. Or maybe it won't. I've seen others that seem fine. But worth the experiment, I'd say. Science. (My only real hesitation is that they have broken the code, and readmitted ST:V to canon. It makes me want to spray them with a water bottle, like cats on the forbidden counter. I don't entirely trust them to handle Sybok in a way that successfully subverts the problems in the initial narrative, and this seems like a doubled problem in a universe with yet ANOTHER hastily retconned-in surprise sibling. TNG WORKED HARD TO UNDO THAT NONSENSE. PATRICK STEWART CRIED HIS EYES PUT TO SPARE US MORE SYBOK.)

I haven't seen it yet, but I'm on the waiting list for the DVDs, because I've seen nothing but praise for it, even from people who are not too enthused about other new Trek shows. (Not the raving trads who loudly hate wokeness in their Trek, but fans making reasonable critiques.) And one thing I believe they've done well is retcon the problematic Spock-Chapel relationship in a way that makes Chapel a good character, not a sad two-dimensional cliche. It sounds like they've done well at making it a good ensemble show. Everyone I know who's watched it says it's a return to great Trek, and basically the best of the new Trek.** I suspect the look and feel is quite different, enough that it may feel like a slightly different universe. But I'm okay with that, I think. It probably was that way when TNG came around, and we get an interesting, non-sexist Pike in return, with zero "I just can't get used to a woman on the bridge... not you, you're not a woman, Number One", which is a good deal. *** Apart from the one guy who is stanning for Prodigy.

I don't really see the visual appeal, either. I've seen some visually grabby trailers before, and that's just not that interesting to me. You see the scope of the generic Hollywood formula problem it's got going on. A formulaic remake of a formulaic remake of a formulaic remake of a... I'm currently putting Swamp Thing, retrofuturist cyberpunk vibes, Doctor Who, and Japanese jazz cafés into a blender and coming up with a challenge.

It's not that there aren't a thousand mediocre films with colonialist or benignly racist attitudes about going to live with noble savages or whatever, but at least have the courage or character to be a bad film or something, not just sort of generic manufactured movie product. (Or be Last of the Mohicans, and be an actually good film with some anti-colonial messages with your noble savages. It's not like I can't overlook things for a film doing something well beyond simply marketing and writing huge checks for CGI.) Was never that interested in the first one, and when I read a critique that was simply the plot summary of Pocahontas with the names crossed out and changed, I decided I was super comfortable with that decision. It looks on every level like over-engineered Hollywood generica. Also, what sort of unholy frankenfilm can have that many tickets sold, and generate zero popular quotes or characters, and no fanfiction at all? Like, I think there might be more Tetris/Minesweeper romance than Avatar fic in the online archives. Do you know how bad things have to be for fan writers not to fic your film? Those people can fic anything for the slightest of reasons. That is a canary in the coal mine. Also, they made the one true Avatar change its name, and that was rude.

Please put spoiler tags around that regurgitated colonialist pablum in this thread. I value being able to ignore its existence completely, including not having to look at it, like, ever. If there are, presumably it's a temporary situation following an accìdent involving a hogmonkey and a dye factory.

Tempting... This is the most shocking part of our new post-guild forums. We're losing our traditional monk culture is this new world of globalization and uniformity. The old ways are being forgotten.

Guys, I'm pondering challenge themes for next challenge. I have a few ideas, but none that really jump up and down and draw attention to themselves. (Possibly because it's the same with challenge goals. I have worthy ideas, but none that really feel like the next thing.) The challenge containing the 25th of May will of course be the Glorious Revolution, but April, who knows. I have have a Trek option, I have two Who options (one modern, one classic), I'm not feelin' the Discworld options this time around, and I don't have any ideas for oddball ones like Miss Piggy, but I'm not opposed. The difficulty is that I feel like I'm gonna need enthusiasm for my theme to carry me through some muddled indecision about, well, everything else this month. Probably I'm gonna be focusing on frontloading a morning routine with heavy doses of self-care things early in the day. Probably. (Fixing my sleep and the start of my day are sort of a chicken and egg problem. I loathe circular problems. Although I suppose I should be getting back in touch with my aikido roots and learning circular solutions.) Maybe there's an Avatar challenge in there. It's been a while, but it's feeling like it might be a Piandao type of challenge? A little Avatar wouldn't be the worst thing right now. Let's discuss.

Excuse me, that is my ADHD support cat. That is ADORABLE. Four? It's possible that you are the emotional support animal. I suspect he was actually rescuing Spock there, because they do later argue privately about it being inappropriate to tell that story to his coworkers (although I contend she had consent in that clip). That tangent aside, it was a very smooth rescue of someone. Does your husband take requests? I've never had to ask a partner to be more Vulcan, but, honestly, at this rate, it might become necessary in future relationships, so you could try it and let me know how it goes.

This is the future. That is AMAZING. I need a trained support cat like that.

Teddy bear. I want one. So, really, more of a medical device than a luxury. One is almost obliged to have a cat, out of responsibility for one's health. In the old place, the answer was no. I had a very comfy bed-sized sofa in my work space. After I got in the habit of brief work naps on it to recharge after demanding work, I occasionally did find it mentally easy enough to just take a six hour sofa-nap at the appropriate time. In this place, the answer is yes, there are no good sofas where comfortable horizontality can be achieved. But it's also bed a a state of mind. The physical location is one of the prerequisites, but so is the mental task switching to the sleep task. (That was another thing my nap habit made easier, because I had regular practice deciding to sleep and not viewing it as a work interruption, but a work aid, so even under the poor evening braining of strange attentional fits and starts, it was easier to view it as part of the job rather than an interruption.)

On the one hand, this is like word for word the for sleep encouragement I've been using for years. On the other hand, this does not solve the problem of getting into the bed, my guy.

Week 5 Day 2 - Training Montage Tuesday This video is my current sexual orientation. The Needs of the One Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun Score Control the emotions 1 Eat the plomik soup 0.5 Drink the water -1 Sleep at 11 -7 Train the lirpa Weekly Score Things I need to remember: Lirpa training options Emotional control options Take a walk Yoga Balance exercise Plank Horse stance Bridge Superwomen Rest when I don't wanna Reward incremental progress to make goals feel immediate Meditate