Dan J’s Website

I've added this to my workouts to start building the strength and stability I'll need to do full overhead presses eventually. Bookmarking for ease of reference.

Like in most other areas of my life, I've been privileged to come at the question of body weight without undue stress or anxiety: I'm male, and naturally skinny, so "lose weight" has never been a thing I felt the need to do.

Having good problems isn't the same as not having problems, however, and my problem has always been the opposite: I've always felt too skinny, not strong enough, and had the various other ailments that accompany that, like a rounded upper back (and generally bad posture)¹.

Lifting weights has a made a big difference to me, and this article explains why.

I have been in a healthy weight range all my life, and had this exact problem: I felt that I looked overweight, I hated how my body looked and more importantly felt like I didn’t understand why it did anything it did. I felt like if I ate even a little bit more than barely any food, I gained like three pounds each time. I only seemed to get fatter if I ate how much a normal person was supposed to, yet no one was about to help me with the weight loss I felt like I desperately needed to pursue.

Reverse all of the quantities in that statement (over with under, a little bit with a lot, fatter with thinner, loss with gain) and I could have written it.

My frustration was, even after I started lifting weights in university, I never really knew what I was doing. I eventually found a program² a few years ago which made the difference by being one of the few resources I've ever seen actually geared towards the skinny guy who wants to gain in a healthy way³. Quoting from the article again:

Lifting weights was a fit for me because it makes resting and recovering equally as important as training. It lays extremely bare for people like me, who struggle to grasp what my body even might be for other than “constant source of resentment," how it all works. Moving and feeling mobile, capable, and energetic is life-changing to me, and these feelings are supported by lifting and getting stronger; getting stronger is supported by eating and resting as well as actually lifting.

Once I had the experience of following a lifting program, with feedback, and measuring how many calories and macronutrients I was taking in, I could move my feelings about my body from vague "this sucks I hate it" to an experimental mindset: "uhoh, I've stopped gaining weight. Let me try adding another 250 calories to my diet."

Regardless of our feelings of inadequacy, we are all, by being human, inheritors of athletic potential. Put another way, we were built for strenuous exercise, and, for most of us, when we feel bad about how our bodies look and function, some combination of exercise and mental work (e.g. therapy) is the answer.

I got back into running recently, and am following this training guide, which basically starts you out mixing a little jogging with your walking, but steadily works its way up to running for one hour non-stop (after 13 weeks).

Slow and steady avoids injury, and all that. I need to combine it with plenty of stretching, though...

Also, in a depressing example of how fragile the web is, the link in that article to running form guidelines goes to a domain that no longer exists. 😒

Here's the Wayback Machine link: Benson's EPS - Basic Movements in Running

VEGAN BLACK BEAN CHOC FUDGE BROWNIES

• 1 1/2 cups black beans (1 15-oz can, drained and rinsed very well) (250g after draining)
• 2 tbsp cocoa powder (10g)
• 1/2 cup quick oats (40g)
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup pure maple syrup or date syrup (75g)
• 1/4 cup coconut oil (40g) (Dan: I've been using avocado oil)
• 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 cup to 2/3 cup chocolate chips OR ~~raisins~~ (optional)

Blend ingredients 1. to 8. in a food processor. Then mix in 9. and pour in to a greased/oiled pan so about 1 inch thick. Place into a preheated oven (350ºF) for approx 10-15 mins. Leave 10 mins to cool then cut.

Whole recipe without choc chip OR raisins gives...

• 1370 Calories
• 30g Protein
• 47g Fat
• 216g Carbs

I usully split into 4 brownies. (Dan: I usually split into 6) And also I sometimes add a scoop or 2 of my raw cacao flavour vegan protein powder to boost the P count. Add a splash of almond milk (Dan: I usually put some milk in there. Real milk.) if mix becomes to dry!

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