I really like that article. As someone whose father showed a fairly strong narcissistic streak, I really appreciate the way that people with dark personalities aren’t being treated as ontologically evil, just prone to harming people. I know that while my whole family had it rough dealing with my father’s narcissistic traits, so did he, and while I’ve learned I have to maintain a certain amount of distance from folks with cluster b personalities, I am sympathetic to the fact that it isn’t like they’re having fun with all this.

The inclusion of ways to deal with people with dark personalities in your life was excellent, as was the inclusion of what to do for those who suspect they have too much of some dark personality traits. I have an ex who easily could’ve wound up with aspd based on her not really feeling empathy, but her grandpa taught her from a young age to do empathy as a practice rather than a sense, and this resulted in her being a generally awesome person, albeit one who sometimes shows some scarier streaks to those she trusts. I dream of a world in which people with personality disorders all have access to resources and treatments that help them not hurt others or themselves when interacting with others and where the rest of us positively encourage it.

No, I’ve got nobara on my gaming rig, batocera on my wife’s retro console that’s just turned into a kodi device, and proxmox on my server

But also barring this, it’ll be something else like a DC-NoVA traffic meter, or a parking lot check

The thing about going all in from the start every time is that you have no means to escalate. All threats become obvious bluffs

Clown ass state. So glad to be gone. Out west my votes actually matter

Exercise and eating right actually do help. It’s just really hard to do without meds for me

Also trip a few times if your genetics agree with it. If they don’t, see if you can enter trances while meditating (it’s a special type of meditation). It’s good for you to feel one with humanity sometimes

Just don’t microdose while lifting

Don’t let your curiosity fade

Maintain open minded compassion for those different from you

Never be fully convinced you understand the best way to do anything

In disputes between the affected and the unaffected give added weight to the most affected

Learn to recognize a moral panic, and even if you have concerns related to it don’t join in. It’s the group dynamic equivalent of spiraling and catastrophizing.

Don’t drink your calories unless you want to gain weight

I don’t know why anyone expected the UAE to stay safe

History really is set to the tune of Benny Hill in a minor key…

Eh, they absolutely read internet forums. But it’s more the likes of 4chan and twitter and absolutely not lemmy

Yeah I want both governments to fall and both countries’ people to thrive and forge a better future

Hey, say what you will, but the DOW is higher than it was when Obama took office /s

It’s just math in the same way basketball is just a bunch of physics 101 problems. Yes, but the hard part is taking it from paper to doing it with biology. Your brain is struggling to get you to have an excess when there’s more than enough because animals whose brains didn’t do that were less likely to survive lean times. Add in complications like hypothyroidism and other endocrine and metabolic issues, some people are going to really struggle in ways others might not. For some the cravings will be far more intense than they can bear, and that’s why going in steps and waiting until that step is comfortable and sustainable before the next step is so useful.

Food can serve in many roles, some of which are healthy, such as a bonding exercise, cultural expression, and nutrition, others are unhealthy like stimulation and emotional comfort. One of the important things about my method is that the maintenance and early loss steps are going to challenge your negative relationships with food and find more healthy forms of stimulation and emotional comfort if those are reasons you overeat. A small weight is a great replacement for stimulation as is a glass of water or a walk. And learning to handle emotional distress without destructive coping mechanisms such as overeating is vital, here too I’ve found exercise to be a magnificent replacement. (Yeah basically any time anything happens or I feel anything I take a walk or bike ride)

Oh also I totally forgot to mention the self esteem elements. I’m not going to say nobody can hate themselves skinny, I’ve seen it, but the people who do it are rarely the sorts one should emulate. Much easier is to love yourself and your body enough to do this for yourself. “I deserve to have a body that I am physically and emotionally comfortable with” is just so much better of a mantra for when you’re hungry or struggling to exercise than something about hating how fat you are. You want to learn to look in the mirror with love and kindness and as time goes on with pride. Firstly because it’s not like fat people are less deserving of love and kindness. But also because you’re doing this for you, and it’s a hell of a lot easier to do something difficult for someone you love than out of spite. And that spite will fade as you lose weight anyways, and it may coincide with sagging skin.

But also, hugely important is that hating yourself is a fast track to disordered eating and overshooting weight loss as well as developing weight focused body dysmorphia (ie inability to see your healthy weight as healthy). I have a loved one who wound up hospitalized for anorexia, so it’s something I feel is important to acknowledge and avert the risks of. It’s better to be overweight and living an active and happy lifestyle than to be anorexic. General rule is a little over is better than a little under, but a lot over can be worse than a little under.

Clown ass country where we need coupons for medicine

If that was the case we’d have one of the most efficient medical systems in the world instead of one of the least

I’ll add that one huge thing is establishing a realistic plan that accepts weakness and failures without derailing. When I was actively losing weight I did the following cico based plan.

I started with a week of just counting calories, all diet changes were because I was aware of how much I was eating. While doing that I found out what my maintenance calories were and what the maintenance calories of my goal weight were.

I then did a week at my maintainance calories, though the goal is to keep doing it until it’s comfortable. While doing that I figured out general meal plans (ie how much I wanted to budget for breakfast/lunch/dinner/snacks). This stage is important because a) you’re probably used to overeating so this is you stopping gaining weight, b) you’re learning where you’re most comfortable cutting calories in your day, and c) relearning your relationship with hunger. For that last part, I was teaching myself to associate a mild hunger with losing weight and to stop seeing it as such a problem.

Then once I was comfortable at maintenance I began with a 500 calorie deficit. That’s a generally safe number that’s largely achievable and results in a pound a week loss. When I was comfortable there I moved up to 1000 a week, which is about the limit of what is safe/wise for the average person to sustain over an extended period without medical supervision. Either as the ultimate deficit is fine.

From there, don’t check the scale more than once a week, and if you hit a plateau for a few weeks reevaluate your maintenance calories and double check you aren’t missing some in your counts. I also recommend smaller portion sizes over a longer time. Keep food out of sight when it’s not eating time. Try a glass of water and a walk instead of a snack. You may need a multivitamin or to plan around your micronutrients. Fiber helps with satistion, refined sugar hurts with it, though you’ll figure out what foods leave you full and what foods just aren’t worth the calorie/fullness ratio pretty quickly. Some days you will fail, that’s ok, keep them spread out and don’t try to make up for them. You can have cheat days, but those calories do still count so keep them few and far between. Also home cooked is usually a better value for calories than premade.

Once you hit your goal keep counting while eating at maintenance for a while to ensure you’re sticking with stable maintenance habits. This isn’t supposed to be a yo yo (though if you’re active dirty bulk/cut cycles), instead it’s about building a healthy relationship with food portioning.

Exercise doesn’t make you lose weight outside maybe a hundred or two calories a day, but it does lead to a healthier lifestyle and creates reinforcement of the health and ability gains from weight loss. It also can raise your resting calorie burn (don’t calculate for changes from it until you’re done). The important thing is just like with diet, finding a way to sustain it. This means finding something involving cardio that you enjoy that you can do regularly like a sport, running, or biking. If you’re interested in strength building, bodyweight exercises are great. Slowly build up with exercise, until you’re at an activity level that you want.

Anyways yeah, I figure it’s worth putting all this out there since a lot of people out there love to act like it’s either all about willpower or all about finding tricks to not need any willpower, when really it’s all about building better habits and accepting that it took time to gain it, it’ll take time to lose it, but you lose it bit by bit with actual changes. I was never huge, but I lost 30 pounds in about half a year when I was OPs age and developed a healthy lifestyle for years out of it despite a family riddled with obesity, heart disease, and anorexia. This doesn’t take from the shittiness of what OP is going through and if her doctor feels the medical benefits outweigh the risks the insurance company needs to shut up and pay.

It’s also wrong for St Linus. He was a college student trying a project for fun when he started. Part of what makes Linux great is that it isn’t something made from the ground up to change the world or to be its founder’s career. It was an interesting project that was so useful it wound up being adopted and evolving into what it is

Good. It’s sad it’s needed but I’m glad it’s being done