Category Archives: Personal

Discussion on Game

I posted a review of Bang yesterday and this prompted me to think on if I will apply game in my own life.

I’m still on the fence about game. I’m a Christian, so casual sex is not something I plan to pursue, this seems to take away the most immediate reason to learn game.

Right now I plan on being a patriarch, not a player, so I am looking for a wife, and do not want to ruin that prospect with the player’s curse.

On the other hand, I do want to be an alpha male patriarch, not a whipped beta schlub. So, MMSL-style marriage game is something I want to pursue when I get married to keep my marriage happy and my wife attracted to me.

But for the mean-time prior to marriage I’m not sure.

Mentu’s advice on Christian game creates a really convincing argument for Christian men to learn game.

On the other hand, I do not want game to be necessary to attract my future wife though.

So, the conclusion I’ve come to for now it to slowly learn the basics of game over time, in particular confident movement and posture, outcome independence, and social/conversational skills. The kind of basic, underlying attitudes that will enhance my life apart from picking up girls, and will not require me to continually monitor myself and my techniques to keep my wife I gamed from leaving me.

I also plan to get myself into shape.

Apart from that, I won’t meet a girl to be my wife if I don’t get over my approach anxiety, so I plan to practice approaching women, not really gaming them, but simply to get over the anxiety.

Next month I’m going out of the country for a few weeks with family. I plan to practice some approaches to get over the anxiety then, when I have opportunities, as there will be less, but still some, social risk to (awkwardly) approaching women from another country who I’ll never see again. We’ll see how that goes.

The goal is to have the base attitudes of game by 30. Then depending on what I choose for my life, I can add on to the base as necessary.

Goodbye Ferd

Ferdinand is shutting In Mala Fide and In Bona Fide down later this week.

He will be missed. I’ve only been reading In Mala Fide for half a year or so and I didn’t always agree with him but his posts were always thought-provoking. His exit will be a great loss to the manosphere.

In addition, Ferd’s linkage posts were a great help in getting traffic to my blog started, so I want to thank him for that. I’m sure he helped out many others in our little neck of the blogosphere with those.

So, head over there and wish him luck in his new opportunity.

******

Reading Ferd’s goodbye post, got me to thinking on the purpose of this blog and it’s future. It’s still new and there’s a lot to write, so there’s little chance of it disappearing any time soon, but I think the blog is unlikely to be a permanent part of my life.

I was an underworked cubicle drone with nothing to look forward to but high blood pressure and pawing at drunken co-eds on the weekend. I had escaped the hell of post-college underemployment, a familiar hell to white guys in their twenties, into a new hell of ennui and listlessness. I was miserable and cranky
….
My problem is that In Mala Fide no longer reflects who I am.

This sounds more or less like the reason I recently started this blog, but at some point this part of my life will be over, whether through acceptance of my lot, the success of self-directed changes in my life, or a change to my circumstances.

The specific purposes of this blog is for me to ascertain what kind of life I will pursue: whether it will be as a traditional Christian patriarch, an irresponsible alpha, a MGTOW beta, or just another beta going through the prescribed motions of life. I’ve given myself until I turn 30 to decide. That’s still a couple years away, but at that time, depending on what I choose, there’s a good chance this blog may end. Depending on what occurs in life, it may end before that.

I don’t plan on quitting blogging any time soon, but I’ve found that writing two or three big posts a week is eating too much of my limited free time. Between my full-time work, hobbies, and social life, I only have a couple free evenings a week, and if I spend every one of them writing 1000-2500 word posts I think I might burn out in only a few months. Now that I’ve established a base of content, future posts will likely either become smaller and/or less frequent.

*****

I’ve now spent 300+ words writing about and contemplating the future of my two month old blog in a post about saying goodbye. Ferd is right: “All bloggers are narcissists and attention whores, every single one.”

Check out his site while you still can.

30 Days of Discipline Conclusion

So, I reviewed the 30 Days of Discipline and had an update on it. I finished the 30 Days earlier this week, so here’s the conclusion.

For my main project, I got a decent start on it, even though this month has been the busiest I’ve had in a long time. In addition, I accomplished a number of smaller tasks that I’ve been meaning to get to for months. The 30 Days, really helped me in accomplishing things and freed up a lot of time that I otherwise would have wasted.

As for the other stuff, I followed the rules #1, 2, 3, 6, 8, 9, 10, & 12 very well.

I did not accomplish my goal for #11 as I made a mistake on my affiliate project, had to restart, and learning the website creation tool I’m using is taking longer than thought, but I got a good start on it.

#4 was the hardest, just as I thought. Since my last update, I did well for the third week, but had trouble over the weekend. I reasserted for the last week, but my discipline failed near the end of the week.

#5 I got sick in the middle of the third week, so I fell off for a few days, but other than that I mostly kept up with it.

#7 I just plain forgot about in the final week. It’s the easiest thing on the list, but it was also very easy to forget in the mornings.

Overall, I would  recommend trying the 30 Days. It’s not easy, but it’s a good way to build some character.

Out of all the habits I’m going to keep # 6, 8, and 9. I’m going to half-ass #3, cold showers suck too much with too little benefit to continue with them, but I’m going to keep up doing lukewarm showers, rather than the hot showers I did before. #3 is one of those things I’m going to try to limit, but probably will only be moderately successful with.

30 Days of Discipline Update

I’m now half-way through my attempt at the 30 Days of Discipline, so I figured a status report is in order to keep me honest.

Of the 12 points (I’m not going to outline them, buy the book and support Victor).

For disciplines #1, #2, #3, #6, #8, #9, and #12, I’ve been following them pretty good; a mistake or two here or there, but overall I’ve been fairly good on following through on the disciplines.

I must say though, cold showers suck hard.

I did #5 for the first week and a half, but the last half of last week I fell off in discipline. So, I recommitted myself to it Monday, and will follow through with it for the rest of the 30 Days.

#7, I’ve mostly followed, but just kind of forgot about it for the second half of last week. Out of all of the disciplines, this is probably the easiest, but I simply forgot for a couple days. The list is very useful, I’ve finished a number of smaller tasks I’ve been meaning to get to for months.  I recommitted myself to it on Monday and will follow through for the rest of the 30 Days.

As I thought going in, #4 was and is the hardest. I followed it for the first week, but fell on the Sunday. I then succeeded for the first half of the second week, but fell completely off for the second half of the week. I’m recommitting myself to it today and plan to follow through for the 30 Days. I plan to get around to Ferd’s books on the subject this week.

As for #11, as I stated previously I switched my goal a week into the 30 Days after buying Victor’s entrepreneur book. I’ve started the project and got it going, but may have made a mistake and may have to start over.

So, overall, I’ve been doing good, but I should be doing better.

Projects and Motivation

I mentioned earlier that I’d write about some projects I had planned, so here it is.

One thing I want to use this blog for is just keeping myself motivated in these projects. I have a couple ideas for projects that I hope might create an alternative income stream at some point, but I never get around to working on them. So this blog post is mostly for me to clarify my thoughts and to help motivate me to work on them. If you want to read, feel free, but there’s no analysis here and I don’t know if it will be worthwhile to anybody else; I’m writing this solely for myself.

Website Project #1

About half a year ago, I identified a major gap in one of my hobbies that could be filled through the creation of a social website. I’m pretty sure there’s demand for the project from those within my hobby, as I’ve seen much interest expressed in something similar throughout the hobby’s websites. I’m also pretty sure that there would be a chance at significant revenues as a primary advertiser for the hobby for whoever filled the demand.

On the other hand, I’ve seen a few other sites that tried to fill this demand, but none of them achieved the critical mass of users necessary to make the projects viable, so none of them meet the demand.

That’s the problem. The website would require a lot of work (a year, likely more, of my spare time) as I would need to a lot of programming in php, which I don’t know, but I know I would be capable of doing it. I also know that if I could attain a critical mass of users the site would contribute significantly to the hobby and I could probably monetize it for a decent revenue stream, but I have no idea how I would reach the tipping point when I’ve seen a number of other similar sites that have failed to do so. I started working on it somewhat half-heartedly a few weeks back, and getting a good start on this project was, until today, going to be my goal for the 30 Days of Discipline.

Website Project #2

But today, I had a better idea. I purchased Bold & Determined‘s Spartan Entrepreneur’s Guide (I’ll review this at a later time). I don’t think I’m going to follow his plan as is, (I’ll explain in my coming review), but his ideas on affiliate marketing got me to thinking and I had another idea for a different sort of website using affiliate marketing. This website would require less work upfront, but I could create the framework in a much shorter time-frame and roll out the content over time, unlike the first project which is more or less an all-or-nothing affair. I have to do a bit of research on this to make sure the possible demand for the idea hasn’t been filled, but an initial scan looks positive. So, I’ve decided to change my goal for the 30 Days to creating the framework for this site.

Blog Series

For the blog, I have three longer series I’d like to work out, and if they are well-received, maybe roll them out into clef-published e-books a la Worthless.

The first series I’ve already started: An Economic Analysis of Marriage. Over time, I’d like this to be a complete guide to helping young men considering marriage to calculate the potential costs and benefits of marriage.

I’ve been writing the first post of the second series for over the last few days, and it’s almost completed. Hopefully, it will be out this week. The working title of the series is Biblical Alpha Males, and that’s all I’m giving for now.

The third series is still in the conceptual stage, but essentially, it will be guide for omega males.  As I’ve mentioned before, I was once an omega male, a loser; I’ve since worked my way out of this, but it was not easy. I figure if I create a guide based on my experiences it might help other Omegas in the future.

Novels

I’ve also had three ideas for books that I would like to write at some point:

The first is an idea I have for an epic fantasy series. At this point, I have a strong concept and have developed a story arc that would span at least 5 books. The concept for the series came together last summer as two mediocre ideas I had been playing with in my head came together to make one idea I think is great. I’ve thought about it quite a bit since then. I really want to create this. The only problem is motivating myself to sit down and write. I started writing about half a year ago, and have been writing here and there over time, but I find that while I can just think about the story for hours on end, actually putting words to paper is much more difficult. I’ve almost completed the first chapter and plan to continue on.

The second idea came from an idea I originally had in high school. It’s a near-future sf techo-thriller. I wrote about five chapters in high school, but realized how juvenile, derivative, and inadequate the plot and characterization I was creating were, but the germ of the idea stuck. Since then, I figured out another theme to add to it, which really makes the idea work. I started writing it again about 2 years ago. I finished one chapter, then ran into a major problem: the novel requires a large amount of research on current British culture and socio-economics. The project was dropped as I did not have the time to research this and the epic fantasy idea began to take over my creative thoughts. It does have a working title though: Rivers of Blood. I hope to get back to it at some point; if I do it right it could be major; the idea is good.

The third is the least developed. It’s a mythological fantasy novel based around the modern world. It would require a lot of research on Norse Mythology, but could be interesting; it would probably end up having to be a series, but how long, I have no idea. It’s far behind the other two ideas in priority, but could turn into something at some point.

Over time, I plan to occasionally post status updates of my projects on here to keep myself motivated to continue.

The Bookshelf: 30 Days of Discipline

Tonight, I was going to read and review Ferdinand’s two essays: The Age of Onanism and How to Stop Masturbating, but Smashwords is not letting me download them and I don’t have a Kindle reader, so I’ll have to do that another time.

On the other hand, I discovered Bold & Determined today (h/t the Captain), and I mostly like what I’ve read. So, I downloaded Victor Pride’s essay/short book 30 Days of Discipline and it just so happens that tomorrow is going to be the start of a new month. So, in my quest for self-improvement, starting tomorrow, I’m going to give his recommended habits a try.

There are 12 habits he recommends (buy the essay if you want to know what they are, I’m not going to steal his income). Of them, I’m going to modify four habits:

  • For #1, I will make an exception for snacking when hanging out with friends.
  • For #2, I’m going to wake up at 6 am, rather than 5 am, which is acceptable under his plan.
  • For #5, I’m going to do 4-point presses rather than push-ups as it meshes better with my martial arts training.
  • For #6, I’m going to dress better (business casual, rather than jeans), but I’m not going full-tilt with a three piece suit, for two reasons: 1) That would look really out of place at my work. and 2) I only own two suits which I need to get refitted. I’m also dressing lazy on Saturday as well as Sunday.

Out of all of them, #4 is going to be the hardest and is what I’m most likely going to fail at. Which is why I wanted to read Ferdinand’s books. (I’ll discuss that issue more when I read and review his books, hopefully, Thursday).

For my specific goal, I am going to start work on a project I’ve been meaning to do. This is a large project requiring learning skills I don’t have, so there’s no way I’m going to be able to finish it in a month, but I want to at least get started on it. I will write more on this project and others at a later time, probably in the next week.

I might do the occasional update on here to keep me honest and after the 30 days, I’ll do an after action report (here’s hoping I don’t wash out).

Now a review of his essay:

It’s short (25 pages), to the point, and written in a clear, straightforward style similar to how Victor writes on his blog. The essay is a list of 12 habits you have to follow for 30 days, followed by a couple pages of clarification of the purpose of the habit and support for why you should adopt the habit.

Some of the habits seem like they’re going to be hard (aw… poor baby) and others are not as physically demanding, but are the kinds of things that would be easy to forget about in the moment. It’s not an easy plan to follow, but if it was, it would be 30 Days of Leisure, not 30 Days of Discipline, so at least the book follows through on the title. I’m pretty sure that anyone who could master these habits would be a better person for them.

So, if you’re interested in improving yourself and looking for a challenge, check the essay out; it’s not that expensive. That being said, I’m not actually starting on this until tomorrow, so I can’t say it will improve you yet.

I’ll put out a second part to the review when I have my AAR.

Unplugging

I was reading the Hawaiian Libertarian archives, and came across this post on the media. It got me thinking about my own media consumption habits, which reminded me of this passage from CS Lewis’ Screwtape Letters, where Screwtape, a greater demon, advises a lesser demon on tempting a man:

As this condition becomes more fully established, you will be gradually freed from the tiresome business of providing Pleasures as temptations. As the uneasiness and his reluctance to face it cut him off more and more from all real happiness, and as habit renders the pleasures of vanity and excitement and flippancy at once less pleasant and harder to forgo (for that is what habit fortunately does to a pleasure) you will find that anything or nothing is sufficient to attract his wandering attention. You no longer need a good book, which he really likes, to keep him from his prayers or his work or his sleep; a column of advertisements in yesterday’s paper will do. You can make him waste his time not only in conversation he enjoys with people whom he likes, but in conversations with those he cares nothing about on subjects that bore him. You can make him do nothing at all for long periods. You can keep him up late at night, not roistering, but staring at a dead fire in a cold room. All the healthy and outgoing activities which we want him to avoid can be inhibited and nothing given in return, so that at last he may say, as one of my own patients said on his arrival down here, “I now see that I spent most of my life in doing neither what I ought nor what I liked”.

The Screwtape Letters (which I’d heavily recommend reading) was written before TV became the dominant form of media consumption, but is an excellent description of what TV does.

I’ve was always more of a gamer, but years ago I would watch TV regularly. Often I found myself watching TV, but not enjoying it. I would watch shows that I didn’t find entertaining simply because I was too bored or lethargic to do anything better with my time.. I would stay up late watching crap or simply flipping through channels watching nothing in particular, neglecting my sleep, but not really having fun either.

Then, I moved into a friend’s house. He didn’t want to pay for cable and neither did I, so we went without. I found I didn’t miss TV at all. I would occasionally have a hankering to watch the Simpsons, but other than that I found there was no loss to my life or happiness, and I had more time for other things.

Now, I still watch some shows (such as Archer and Futurama), because sometimes I just need to lie down and relax for a few hours, without having to read or think too much.

But I only watch shows I have specifically downloaded or purchased on DVD. So, when I do watch TV, I only end up watching what I know I enjoy, so I never find myself wasting time on boring stuff.

I’ve been considering subscribing to Netflix as there’s a show or two on there I want to watch (Community and Arrested Development, specifically). My concern though, is with that much easy selection I might again be tempted to waste more time watching TV than I would like. So, I haven’t subscribed yet, but am considering it.

As for other media. I never listen to the radio anymore and haven’t since I got an MP3 player; I find the talk radio boring and music radio plays only crappy music (ie. non-metal).

I never really watched TV news; I found it was really hard to see through the bias to the deeper meanings at the speed of television and so many of the stories were complete wastes of time.

I did read newspapers regularly, but I’ve been trying to cut back. I still read newspapers as part of my job requires it, but I try to avoid it on my own time.

Keeping up with the news is mostly a waste of time and can actually be harmful. Nassim Taleb wrote about this in the Black Swan (another book I’d recommend); the best filter for news is what you hear from others and too much news can actually be harmful to your thinking as you become trapped in minutiae and narrative.

Besides, the news almost never changes, you can predict exactly what your average newspaper will have each day, all that changes is the details:

  • Local violent crime
  • Heartwarming human interest story
  • Political scandal
  • Political leaders debate bill to remove freedom
  • Middle East violence

If anything is novel enough to care about, you’ll learn about it from somewhere. If you really want to keep up, choose an aggregator, such as Instapundit, it will summarize the bigger stories without requiring much time.

The last form media is the internet; this is where most of my media attention goes. I try to read most of the sites on my blogroll fairly regularly, and I have no regrets about that.

What I do find is that it is very easy to waste time just clicking around doing nothing, rather than doing something more useful. Facebook, and political debates on there are especially bad for this. I find I can waste a lot of time debating useless politics with my friends. I enjoy it, usually, but it’s not really productive. I’ve been trying to post less in the last few weeks, and this blog is helping in that. When I can use the Lightning Round to make snide remarks and larger posts to talk about other interesting topics, I think I waste less time posting and debating things on FB, but it’s something I’m working on.

One other special difficulty is late night; it is very easy to continue to waste time, even when not really having fun or learning anything useful, rather than going to bed to get the sleep I need, but I’m trying to work on that. I did quite good in going to bed at a decent time for a few weeks when I first started trying primal living, but have started staying up late again in the last couple weeks. It’s something to work on.

In conclusion, some tips for readers: if you have cable, get rid of it; you probably won’t miss it. If you need to watch TV, use DVDs or downloads, possibly Netflix, so you can ensure you only watch TV you enjoy. Don’t read newspapers or try to keep up on the news, it’s an unproductive waste of time. Subscribe to an aggregator and/or follow a couple of blogs you like; you’ll get all the news that’s actually important. Try to go to bed on time; that important thing on the internet keeping you up, isn’t really that important.

Knowing Your Mission

I was going to post on something else today, but I just read “What then Should a Man Do” at Bright Darkness, and started to reflect.

The second point of his post is that a man should embrace a quest. My question is, how does one find one’s quest in life?

Growing up, I always did what I supposed to do. Succeeded at school, graduated university, found a job, buy a house. The next steps were to pursue marriage, raise a family, and continue to advance in my career. I would possibly enter politics upon my retirement.

So far, all I’ve accomplished has just been from stumbling through and doing what was expected of me; there was never any sense of purpose or aim to it; I had/have no real mission.

The closest I’ve had was a desire to start a family, but is/was that just doing what was expected of me? Even so, is that in and of itself a purpose? It would seem rather small to devote myself solely to raising a family, with no other meaning to my life.

I entered my career simply because my employer was the first to hire me for a decent job (a big consideration after a year of underemployment and living at home). I have been questioning my career path, as it is unfulfilling. Yet, maybe as I advance and my responsibilities increase, it will become more fulfilling. Or maybe not. Do I want to just be a desk jockey for the rest of my life, just another cog in the bureaucratic machine? (Now I’m talking in cliches, so I’ll wrap this up).

Anyway, one thing I want from this blog is to find a mission, a purpose. (Or possibly that there is no purpose, so I can give up the search to embrace nihilism).

I’ve tried to find a purpose before, but never had much success. I’ve always assumed I would stumble on it as I went through life, but here I am a few years shy of 30, having accomplished nothing noteworthy, spending my days in pointless government busywork, spending my evenings in front of the computer. I desire something more.

So the question: how does one find a purpose?

PS: I know that these first few posts have have had a lot of personal reflection on myself and my life. I’m trying to establish to myself what I hope to accomplish with this blog. In the future, my rate of posting will go down (the only reason I’ve had one major post a day so far is the spare time the long weekend has provided) but there should also be more analysis of issues in the future and less of me narcissisticly muttering to myself about myself.

Reflections on Easter

As a Christian, I will occasionally use this space to reflect on my faith.

Today is Easter, the day that commemorates the single most important event in Christianity: Jesus’ resurrection. From Luke 24:1-12, 36-53:

On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: ‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’ ” Then they remembered his words.

…

While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.”

When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet. And while they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement, he asked them, “Do you have anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate it in their presence.

He said to them, “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.”

Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. He told them, “This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.”

 When he had led them out to the vicinity of Bethany, he lifted up his hands and blessed them. While he was blessing them, he left them and was taken up into heaven. Then they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. And they stayed continually at the temple, praising God.

Upon Jesus’ resurrection the entire Christian faith rests. Without it, Christianity is worthless. Only through Christ’s death and resurrection can we be saved.

Apart from the resurrection there is no hope of salvation, no forgiveness for sins, and no hope for eternal life.

The resurrection violates everything we know about life and death. It is impossible, it is unscientific, and it is most unbelievable. Yet, I believe it.

The question is, do I believe it because I was raised to believe it or do I believe it because I actually believe it?

I used to know firmly. When I was young, I could not conceive of not believing it. I had a crisis of faith in university and my faith came through intact and stronger, although, it was a very close thing; there were a couple weeks when I almost discarded the faith I had built my life upon.

On an intellectual level I accepted that the resurrection occurred.  I read the Case for Christ and other apologetic works for the resurrection and could well argue a debate about the historical validity of the resurrection.

But I know that I’m smart enough to  intellectually justify almost anything to myself.

So, was I just justifying my prior beliefs to myself, or was I actually intellectually honest to myself? I believe the latter, but then again, I would believe that wouldn’t I?

Over the years, my faith has slowly been withering.  I find myself questioning if I actually believe in God anymore. Unlike the first time, where my questioning was more a sudden onset of intellectual crisis, this has been more of a slow chipping away and wearing down of my faith.

I find myself struggling with sin which I can not beat and have given up even fighting. I find myself questioning the existence of the God I’ve pledged my devotion and loyalty to. I rarely read my Bible anymore. I still pray, but often barely believing God hears it. I don’t feel God in my life. I remember the promises of the Bible and do not see them manifesting in my life.

So, I’m trying again. I’ve started reading the Bible again on an almost daily basis, and am trying to pray more with more faith. I’ve started going to services in the evening which are more traditional and liturgical than the evangelical churches I’m used to, in addition to morning services. I plan to read more books on my faith.

If  God is there, if the resurrection is real, may He renew my faith. If He is not, may I learn that and be strong enough to accept that.

Now, off to the evening Easter service. God bless.

Starting Off – Primal Living

So, when contemplating the red pill, where to start?

I started by reading manosphere blogs; one I came across was Freedom 25. Frost’s position in life before he started his blog and quit his job seemed similar to mine (except, he was more successful with women and not a Christian), so I bought his book and read it while on a business trip. (I’d recommend giving it a read: if you’ve been around the manosphere for a while, there won’t be anything particularly revelatory, but it’s a nice distillation of basic red pill information that would be otherwise diffused among hundreds of blog posts on dozens of blogs).

Out of all stuff there, the one the least disruptive and most obviously beneficial change was diet. My diet sucked and I knew it. I ate fast food half a dozen times a week, I would drink a liter or two of soda a day (on top of liters of chocolate milk and sugary juice a week), and I would snack constantly on chips and candy. This was actually an improvement over a couple of years prior where it was fast food almost a dozen times a week and two liters of soda a day.

Frost (and other parts of the manosphere) recommended the primal/paleo diet. I researched it on the internet and it seemed legitimate enough to experiment with. So I bought the Primal Blueprint by Mark Sisson. I decided to have a fairly strict test-run primal living for 3 weeks and was fairly strict for those three weeks. I finished a week ago.

The Changes:

I cut sugars (except for some honey for use in sauces and a daily piece of dark chocolate), grains, starches, and milk/milk products from my diet.

I had eggs for breakfast, a big-ass salad for lunch (with a homemade oil and vinegar dressing), and meat for supper. For snacks: nuts (primarily almonds), berries, and rationed dark chocolate.

Bananas for energy when engaging in extensive physical activity.

Water, and water alone, to drink.

While many paleo/primal practitioners recommend local, organic, and/or grass-fed options, I ate fresh and frozen meat from the grocery store and non-organic fruits and vegetables, as the extra expense and hassle of organic and local food did not seem worth the benefits..

Go to bed earlier for 8 hours of sleep (averaged 6-7 hours a night previously).

Wake up 30 minutes earlier so I could read the Bible and do daily exercise. Two things that I had been missing in my life.

Daily exercise: started with 25 four point presses, 25 sit-ups with bridges, and 20 lunges.

The Results:

I was more lethargic than usual for the first week, despite getting adequate sleep the entire week (I generally did not get enough sleep prior to going primal),  but not exceedingly so. The second and third weeks I had somewhat more energy than usual, but not more than a proper sleep itself would likely explain. I did find that I had more endurance for physical activity by the third week.

My mood tended not to fluctuate as much as it did prior to the diet. It’s possible the end of insulin spikes helped with this.

I cheated a few times; all when out with friends or coworkers. I went for coffee with a friend and ordered a sugarless hot chocolate (I don’t like either coffee or tea), ate a handful of chips on a couple of occasions, had a rye and coke on one occasion, and I had a Clubhouse Sandwich for a work lunch. A few cheats, but limited. I found being out with friends was by far the most challenging part of the primal diet. It’s not hard to avoid things at home, but when everybody else is snacking around you, it’s hard to resist.

For some reason, I really craved a chocolate milkshake for the last two weeks, I also had the occasional hankering for chips. On the other hand, I surprisingly did not really miss soda, candy, bread, cereal, etc. I had thought for sure I would crave soda, but I didn’t. I actually started to almost enjoy water, something I rarely drank before I started outside of when I played sports or was at martial arts class.

Making salads did take up more time than the sandwiches. I saved time by just making a giant salad on Sundays and taking some to work each day, although, at the cost of it not being as fresh as it might have been by the end of the week.

Cooking meat took more time than fast, boiling KD, or nuking a hot dog. On the other hand, it tasted better than the nuked hot dog and cost less than fast food.

I have never had weight problems, so I didn’t do this to lose weight. Until a few years ago I was very skinny with a BMI under 20, but was in terrible shape, with no real upper body strength, no endurance, and no discernable muscle mass. Then I took up martial arts; over the about two years I gained about 50 lbs, most of it muscle mass, some of it a gut. In the first week I lost 10 lbs, then lost 5 more lbs over the next two weeks: 15 lbs in total. My gut noticeably shrank; enough that others even commented on it.

Made my way up to 35 four point presses, 35 sit-ups with bridge,  and 30 lunges. Added squats, started with 10, increased to 20.

The takeaway:

Eggs are an awesome food. They will be my breakfast. A big-ass salad make a great lunch. I prefer both to the sandwiches I used to have for both breakfast and lunch. This will make up the core of my eating

I am cutting soda out of my regular diet, but will indulge occasionally when out with friends. Same with sweets (outside of some dark chocolate).

Meat will be my primary supper. I may have the occasional pot of KD (maybe once a month) or a hot dog with a wrap.

Water will continue to be my primary source of hydration, but I plan on buying a 2-litre of natural juice and a 2-litre of chocolate milk a week. I don’t think I’d be able to go without chocolate milk ( I used to drink about 4 litres of it a week).

When out with friends and family, I will relax and fully enjoy myself. The cost of not being able to snack and eat out with friends, family, coworkers is greater than the expected gain of avoiding a limited amount of chips, sodas, or pizza.

I am going to buy one bag of chips a week for the week (down from 3 or 4 a week). I craved them too much: if I don’t have a limited amount of them, I will inevitably binge.

I will allow myself to occasionally indulge in a milkshake or ice cream.

I am going to avoid fast food, but might indulge occasionally when I am lacking time.

If I really want to eat something not primal, I will indulge myself, but primal eating will form the core of my diet.

I will try to go to bed earlier so I can sleep more: I’m aiming for 7-8 hours a night.

I will continue waking up 30 minutes earlier and continue exercises.

I do not plan on going to organic or local options at any point in the foreseeable future.

If I ever do need weight loss, I will go strict primal for a few weeks. It seemed to work well at this.

Recommendations: I would recommend going primal to others, especially for weight loss purposes. I don’t know if the weight loss was from eating primally or just from cutting out soda and candy, but either way, I lost 15 lbs and noticeably trimmed my gut, while increasing the amount of exercise I was doing (and presumably my muscle mass). I gained some endurance, which was nice. I had fewer changes to my mood, possibly due to a lack of insulin spikes. It’s more expensive than eating grains and starches, but cheaper than fast food.

So that was the first step.

The next step: I ordered Roosh’s Bang, Day Bang, and 30 Bangs; they should be here in the next week or so. I’m going to read them through; I’ll probably post reviews when done. I might post some thoughts on them while reading. I probably won’t apply most of the information as, at this point I am not interested in pursuing meaningless sex as it would be against my religious beliefs and I’m still hoping to find a nice Christian girl to settle down with, but game is one of the foundations of red pill living so I should investigate it.