Exercised Again and Some Insights

11:59 PM

Today has been a pretty good day. I can't really say anything negative about it, except that perhaps I ate too much (3500+ calories, ouch!). Last night I exercised for around 50 minutes, and today I exercised again for around 30 minutes doing kettlebell swings mainly. I really enjoy doing the kettlebell swing exercise, and I would do more right now, but my body is sore.

The parts that are exercised the most during kettlebell swings, is called the posterior chain. This is basically the upper back, lower back, core, buttocks, and upper back legs areas. I'm not sure if my technique is wrong, I don't think it is, but I do feel sore on my lower back and buttocks areas, and even though I really want to, I'm unable to do any more of this exercise due to this soreness. It just hurts or feels slightly uncomfortable when I try this exercise now, and my body feels stiffer in these areas, so I have to wait a bit until my body recovers.

I think I'm going to see tremendous benefits from this exercise, I just wish I could do it for far longer. It's annoying that there is a recovery period necessary after exercising with weights. I've never really felt sore after exercising before, it's uncommon, but I am feeling it a lot now. Maybe I'll exercise by doing other kettlebell workouts now. Yeah, I just tried and the soreness basically told me to stop exercising and recover instead. This sucks.

The most steps I ever took in a day was around 65,000 steps. It took me like 16 hours to achieve that, basically I just walked all day from morning to night. It left my feet very sore and I didn't lose any weight from this activity at all. What sucks here too, is that it took me a few days to recover from this, mainly because the soles of my feet were so sore from walking and chaffing so much. No matter how much I wanted to walk more, I wanted to reach 100k steps, I was unable to, mainly because I was also feeling sleepy and that was also a factor.

Nowadays, unless it's indoors, I don't think I will be able to walk anywhere near as much anymore since my views about the sun have changed. I basically fear the sun now, and I try to avoid it, whereas back then, just a few years ago, I don't think I even wore sunscreen when walking outside all day. It's weird still that I look so young, despite having worked in an office where sunlight shown right on my face, for years, and never really wearing any sunscreen until like 2022 or 2023. Today, I actually don't wear much sunscreen either, mainly because I just rarely go outside, and I have blinds that block UV light.

Today I had to go outside to pick up a package, and I went outside during peak sun hours, at around 12 to 1 PM, and there were absolutely no clouds. The UV rating was like an 11, which is extremely high, I think the highest rating is 12, and I was outside for a few minutes like this under direct sunlight. I didn't wear any sunscreen because I went outside under short notice, basically the delivery person called me up, and I had to pick it up from them outside, they weren't there yet so I had to wait a few minutes for them to arrive. The package was UV related too, it's UV blocking tint for my windows, maybe for my car as well.

Anyway, I don't think I look my age, I think I look a lot younger. I think I'm critical and objective about my appearance, I called my previous minoxidil damaged-self as looking like a monster and a freak basically, and when I was overweight I was unhappy about being overweight, and now I'm just very unhappy with my stomach only. But yeah, my skin is clear, firm, good color, good elasticity, no wrinkles, healthy looking, I have a full head of hair having healthy color and appearance, and I don't have any nasolabial folds anymore either. I think I look exceptionally young, with the only exception being the "depressed nasal base", a term for the area right above / next to the nostrils where nasolabial folds usually start and is more depressed or lowered in older people, which I'm trying to resolve. This is a super common "facial flaw" but I haven't encountered any words for it online.

The cool thing about English is that there are random words for nearly everything, but sometimes there isn't a word for something. There's a word for making random noises, gibberish. There's a word for the dot on top of the "i", tittle. There's a word for the thin piece of skin where the nail protrudes from, cuticle. But there's no word for the area right above / next to the nostrils, where there's usually an indentation or depression from loss of fat from aging, more visible from the side. I've seen the term "depressed nasal base" in Chinese RedNote though, they do talk about this area often in Chinese social media, if someone has a depressed nasal base, someone will point it out, "you have a depressed nasal base", but I've never seen it mentioned even once in Western social media, and I am in a lot of facial skincare related circles.

I think, other than that one flaw, my skin is great, and I'm very happy with my current appearance. I just need to lose fat around my stomach, and then I'd be extremely happy. I'm already pretty happy right now.

What sucks, is, who will enjoy this new look of mine? What's the point of being "handsome" or "good looking" (self-proclaimed), if I am just going to be an introvert staying at home all day, where no one will see me? I don't make videos nor post pictures often either, so no one will see this appearance.

Well, I'm going to try getting a fit body first, and then we'll go from there with what I do with this new appearance. The problem is that to get fit, I have to stop eating so much. But when I'm bored or something, it's easy to eat. Since I have a lot of food at home, it's easy to eat too much. I ate way too much food today. It's the same problem with reading manga or watching anime, in all honesty I completely detest these activities and I hate doing them, but when I'm bored, I do these activities and procrastinate instead of doing things I should be doing. These senseless activities are a direct counter of what I want in life, and these activities are what keep me where I am.

I think it's because perhaps internally, I don't believe in myself enough, that I don't believe I can be someone with a fit and muscular body, with six pack abs, so I sabotage myself by eating too much, so that I stay where I am. It's the same with procrastinating on work, I would be free to do anything I want to if I just finished the stuff I have, procrastinating just keeps me where I am, treading the same water in the same place for years. Even though I've always wanted to have a fit body since always, perhaps these mental blocks prevent me. Recovering from minoxidil damage was probably the same, I didn't view myself as this ugly monster, so I did everything I could to recover, and I did. Wow, these are some great insights.

What can I do with these insights? What can I do to break the chains of the limited views I have for myself?