Category Archives: Status Report

A Leap Forward

I’ve been occasionally approaching when conditions are right over time, but today I probably pulled the most alpha approach I ever have, and I felt like sharing with somebody who wasn’t there, so here it is. The experienced alphas may not find it all that impressive, but for a former omega like me, this is amazing.

Anyhow, I was out for coffee with a friend and we were discussing my life mission and my general apathy. We were discussing how I should start to ‘just do it’ to meet girls so I can find my wife. He told me to overcome my apathy. So I hesitated, took a drink, hesitated, took a drink, then I overcome my apathy.

There were a few girls sitting together nearby, one of whom was really cute. Earlier I had overheard them talk about something related to church, so I moved.

I walked over cool as ice and just sat down with them. After sitting, began with absolute self-confidence, “Hi, I’m Free Northerner. What’re your names?”

Firm handshakes and each introduces themselves to me.

“I think you’re cute and wanted to meet you.”

Girl: “Thank you.” [smiles].

Girl’s friend: “She gets that a lot. She’s always telling us how she’s always cute, never hot.”

“That’s good. Cute’s better than hot. Take it from me.”

“I overheard you discussing [denomination]? Are you a Christian?”

Friend: “You heard that. I could tell; I keep track of things like that.”

“Sound tends to travel in this place.”

Girl: “Yes. I go to [church].”

Friend: “Where do you go?”

“[Church]”

Friend: “Where’s that?”

“Near [school].”

“Can I get your phone number?” Take out phone; hand it to her.

“Sure.” She puts it in phone. “Your phone’s old I got it wrong and put it in twice. I can’t find the back button.”

Take phone. “Yeah, I I don’t really keep up on phone technology. Your number was ####? You name was [girl], right?”

“Yeah.” Finish adding number.

“I’m phoning you. Now you have my number.”

She checks phone. [Not a fake #.]

“I’ll phone you in a while and set up coffee. Good to meet y’all.”

Handshakes to all. Girl occasionally giggling and smiling throughout. Walk back to my friend. Get on jacket, leave shop. Friend is amazed at how alpha I was.

There was a bit more to it, and she talked a bit more, but that’s the jist of it.

About 5 minutes from start to finish. All done the half-smirk/half-smile I often wear; full-tilt, absolute confidence. No hesitation, no stumbling, no hemming and hawing; straightforward and to the point. Controlled the conversation, controlled the frame, never veered off. Direct game, no manipulative BS.

I feel alpha.

Adventures in Juicing

I started juicing today. Based on the recommendations of Juicing for Men and Hawaiian Libertarian I asked for a juicer for Christmas, and received Jack Lelanne’s Power Juicer as a gift.

I used it once immediately after to make sure it works; I threw whatever I had lying around into it to create a single glass. But I haven’t used it other than that until last week.

I decided to try to make enough for one cup each weekday morning, as I no longer eat breakfast, and would like a nutrient boost as a replacement for breakfast.

I ended up making a litre (4 cups) worth in about a half hour from the following ingredients, which ended up costing less than $20:

1 large bag of brussel sprouts
1 large bag of spinach
6 bananas
a handful of leftover blueberries
1 pineapple

Here’s what I found:

I didn’t notice any real improvement in my life from a week of juicing in the morning, but I did enjoy having something to fill my stomach early.

Costco did not sell either kale or collard greens, which is why I used brussel sprouts and spinach. I need to find a source of kale.

The taste was unpleasant, but not overly so. It’s something that seems like it could grow on me, or at the very least be tolerable.

My juicer had a hard time with the pineapple and the brussel sprouts tended to get clogged. It also needed frequent cleaning and even died on me a couple times (which was rectified by cleaning and restarting). If I end up doing this regularly I’ll definitely need a more efficient juicer.

Bananas are not good for juicing. They create a slime, rather than juice and made the consistency of the juice really weird. They also tended to clog the machine.

Pineapple is good in the juice. It adds a nice sweetness.

The berries and spinach juiced easily, and the spinach made a nice dark green juice which looked pretty cool.

The brussel sprouts had a harsh taste and tended to clog easily. I’d like to replace them with Kale or more Spinach.

The berries give very little juice. In my original throw whatever I had in glass to test the machine experiment, I used a whole package of blueberries and got only a tiny amount of juice. I don’t think berries are exceedingly cost effective for this purpose, but I might add in one pack each week for flavour and nutrients.

Conclusion:

I’m going to continue to try juicing to see if any effect takes place over a longer time period, but if I decide to make this a permanent part of my diet, I am definitely going to have to buy a better juicer.

I might occasionally post more on juicing as I do it. I can’t say that I recommend it at this point and haven’t noticed any real life improvement, but I’ve only done it a week. After a longer period, I’ll have more information to share.

Any advice or comments any of my readers who juice might have would be appreciated.

Status Update: Life & Purpose

My blog has been in existence for just over six months now. My first post, was on my reason for blogging, and I was asked about how it’s coming along. So, here’s a post to keep myself on track.

Over this period, I’ve come to accept most of the axioms of the manosphere, although, the praxis of it is still being worked out. In particular, I’m still questioning whether or not to learn game, but am trying to adopt some of the underlying attitudes of it.

I still have not decided what I plan to do with my life, but the two big options I am leaning towards are patriarchy or MGTOW.

Recently, I’ve come to realize that I am okay with going MGTOW; I don’t fear “being alone” like I used to. In some ways, I think I might prefer it, but I do know I’m not going to marry unless it is a very old-fashioned and patriarchal marriage.

High command has let my work unit know that cuts will be occurring, so my job may be in jeopardy over the next year or so, so that might force me to decide. If that happens, I’ll probably slide to a minimalist lifestyle and work on my side businesses rather than bust my ass finding a new one. Going minimalist will likely require, at least temporarily, MGTOW.

On the other hand, I truly would like to get married and fill my quiver. I know the prevalent attitude around these parts is don’t do it, but I think the benefits will outweigh the potential costs if I find the right woman. So, I’m willing to take the risk once and if I perish, I perish. I can than go minimalist MGTOW after that. On this front, there’s a potential, somewhat long-shot wife prospect who’d looks like she might make a good helpmeet, we’ll see how that turns out.

I’ve gotten in much better health. Through eating (mostly) primal, I’ve lost 30 lbs or so, have reduced my gut significantly, and have reduced my belt notches by two. On the other hand, my daily work-out routine disappeared over my vacation and I haven’t restarted it yet. I find I go to bed too late, so I don’t wake up with enough time to do it in the mornings.

I’ve started my affiliate website project, and have created the underlying structure of it. It’s actually up on the net right now and working, but there’s not much for content yet and I still have to market it. The project is ongoing, but I have trouble finding motivation in the evenings after working. I’m setting up a block of time in December to take off work so I can really put myself to work on it.

The affiliation through my blog here, has made me about $20 so far. Not enough to do anything with, but at this rate, I’ll probably get my first check (I need to earn $100 for them to write a check) by sometime early 2014.

I’ve recently decided I want to eventually homestead. This is a long-term plan (we’re talking over the next decade or two), but I plan to (eventually) sell my house, buy some affordable property in the country with a large acreage, add a solar power system, get some grazing cows and chickens, start hunting, and become mostly self-sufficient on the food and energy front. Then use a combination of odd jobs, consulting, and various small business projects for income supplementation. We’ll see how that goes (some day).

So, that there’s the life update. I’ll try to remember to put another one out in about 6 months or so. We’ll see. Cheers.

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.

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.