The Column
Dear reader: sorry I’ve been writing so much lately. This one is particularly good, though.
Life’s Good (Like Really Good)
I may sound like a broken record, but man life is good. I have a lot to be grateful for, which is maybe why I’ve been feeling so darn full of gratitude lately. Everyone should be so lucky to experience something like the consistent and un-asterisked joy and contentment I’ve been so GD fortunate to have these past few months.
It doesn’t mean life is wonderful always. It’s that the baseline I’m returning back to around my usual daily perturbations is one that I’m really happy with.
That’s nice.1
…All that said I did make this yesterday.
Quality. Not Quantity.
If there’s been a overarching theme in Aaron’s life and mind for the past many months, it’s been this:
Quality. Not quantity.
To put it bluntly, quantity sucks.
Quality is where it’s at.
Quantity gets you more overhead, more expense, less time, more frustration, and generally returns long past diminished.
Quality gets you what you want and what you need without unnecessary crap.
Default Meals
I’ve written about these pretty extensively before, but it occurs to me this is another case of quality > quantity.
I don’t have a ton of meals I’m trying to perfect.
I have 52 recipes I’m going to work on, craft, and perfect over time.
Form & Range of Motion > Weight & Reps
This video makes an weightlifting argument I’ve never heard before, but one I really like.
Summary
- Don’t push to get as much weight for as many reps and sets as possible.
- DO push to get as much out of every rep and set you do.
Weight is one lever you can throw to get more out of each rep, but far from the only one. Form. Range of motion. Tempo. Mind-muscle connection. You should be more focused on perfecting your movements than slopping weight around.
If you can't do the weight with correct form & full range of motion, you can't do the weight
100 Day Glow Up: Re-doing 75 Hard (sort of)
In 2024 Melissa and I did 75 Hard. 75 Hard is a time-limited challenge meant to improve physical and mental fitness.
We are both doing well right now, much better than we were going into our previous 75 Hard, but we also both decided we’d be better off doing another round of this shared challenge. However, I’m in grad school. She’s not in summer mode yet, so we don’t want to “full” 75 Hard. So what we’re doing between proper 75 Hard and my “Infinite Firm” goals.
| 75 Hard | 100 Day Glow Up | Infinite Firm | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Timeframe | Summer 2022 | Spring 2026 | Started 2022, it’s been going okay |
| Exercise | 2x day | 1x day | 1x day (later revised to “don’t miss 2 days in a row”) |
| Outdoors | One exercise is done outdoors | 30+ minutes outdoors | 30+ minutes outdoors |
| Diet | Follow one | No added sugar | Intermittent fasting-ish |
| Water | Gallon a day plain water | 100oz day plain water | Gallon a day, mostly plain |
| Reading | Read 10 pages with your eyes of a non-fiction book | Read or mediate for 10 minutes | Read or mediate for 10 minutes |
| Alcohol | None | None | None on work nights |
| Bonus | Daily progress pic | Daily Diary | - |
We use a shared Google Doc to write up a little daily dedication diary and post a picture from the day. This keeps us accountable and lets us see our journey laid out.
Top 5: Apps for Life
In no particular order.
Note
It’s partly a coincidence the logos in that list are monotone. Endel, Oura, and Hevy all just-so-happened-to-be black background with white lines on them.
Pocket Casts lets you change the logo in app and offers a black-on-white scheme.
Obsidian gives you the ability to use whatever color scheme you want.
Quote:
If there’s two options we hope to say this one is gooder and this one is worser good. - Zane