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Christmas 2021

I am back home for winter break after wrapping up finals. A bit strange to have one more semester left of college, but I feel that it is time to move to the next stage of my life. 

Personal Updates

Now that I am back home, my life is really consisting of exercise and dieting while I am trying to lose weight, and then trying to divide up my remaining free time into the job hunt/thesis/reading/spending time with friends. I do not yet have grade updates from all of my classes, so a full update will likely be in next week's post. I do know that I got an A in one class and a P in another, and I am not worried about doing poorly in the two remaining classes, I know I ended up in the B range, but it will depend on how the curves shake out. This spring I will only be taking two courses, and then will likely need to spend the bulk of my time working on my thesis. I have hopes to not push it to the deadline, but as the days and weeks go by it is hard to sit down and get meaningful productive work done at this stage. I am hoping that once I get back on campus and have the resources available around me that it will be easy to power through. 

Regarding working out, I am down to the high 260s in bodyweight which is down from the 308 I started my season at and from the 295-300 range that I ended at. I do not necessarily have a goal weight in mind, but definitely feel I could lose another 20 or so pounds. I want to get to the point where I look good, feel good, and do not have to eat a ton or work out a ton in order to maintain my build. I have been going to a local gym that is offering semi-private training sessions for free for two weeks. They basically build out an individualized program with four days of training and then you go in as often as you'd like and cycle through the four programs. My plan now is to do one day of each program and try out their "burn" cardio class, and then decide if I would like to continue doing that style of workout, or go back to my own personal programming. As of now, it is looking like I will just go back to my own programming because it will allow for more variability and customization from my end. I think that those types of training programs are for people who do not know how to program for themselves, do not have the motivation, or both. I feel like I have a decent grasp on programming and am also self-motivated enough to stick to a plan. I have also been doing daily challenges which I will update more on next week.

Books/Other

I have finally gotten back into reading books for pleasure. This week I was able to get through The Price of Tomorrow, The Fourth Turning, and Layered Money, which were all books recommended on The Investor's Podcast at some point. All of these books had been downloaded and just waiting until I had time to get to them, but with school and football, I really did not make the time to go through any of them. These three books all have a common theme of looking at where the world is going and in one way or another making a case for Bitcoin. I have learned a lot about Bitcoin this past year and find it incredibly interesting. I have recently read the whitepaper, and now that I have more free time I think I will try to learn more about things like setting up my own node, private keys, cold storage, and other things that will help me if I decide to start investing more seriously into Bitcoin. I am currently reading through AI Superpowers which has been incredibly interesting thus far. I have a whole slew of books from that podcast that I had downloaded over the summer and I am just getting through them now. 

Podcast-wise, I have continued to stay up to date with The Daily Stoic, The Investor's Podcast, and their spinoff Bitcoin Fundamentals show.  I have also been able to sprinkle in more of the Huberman Labs podcasts over the past few weeks which have helped me in my training programming and life in general. I got two physical books for Christmas that were recommended by TIP, and also got a physical copy of The Daily Stoic which I will plan on reading daily over the next year starting January 1st. I am not sure if I should start to tailor any of the podcasts or add in some more, but as of now, I will just stick to what I have been doing. In the spring potentially once I get into a new schedule and groove I will hope to maybe shift some things around. I still feel that what I have been consuming has been helpful in my learning journey and also helped to make me a better person in different aspects of my life. 

Gratitude

I know I was thankful last week for the ability to workout and the fact that I was healthy, so forgive me for being somewhat redundant. This week, I am thankful for my knowledge of exercise and exercise science. I have never really been in the "real world" as far as public gyms and workout classes as this past week or so has been my first exposure to that sort of experience first-hand. I have been very fortunate to have athletic trainers, strength coaches, and friends/siblings help me with training for pretty much the past decade, and through their help and my own research I have developed a pretty solid body of knowledge when it comes to knowledge of the body. I feel that even among my peers I am more motivated and interested in learning about the body and movements which has definitely been helpful as I become more and more distanced from football and formal training programs. I am tremendously grateful for all of the people who have helped me along my journey, and I am now seeing just how much of a leg up this has given me compared to the average person. Although it is nice to have the option of personal training and programs developed for you, I am grateful that I am able to do all of these things on my own now thanks to the help that I have received and lessons I have learned over the past ten years or so. 
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