Early Retirement Extreme Forums

sky wrote: ↑

Wed Dec 29, 2021 9:03 am

The Surest Way Out of Misery

https://youtu.be/R50MI4VXtOI

Good post Sky. Arthur Schopenhauer +1 for financial independence and recognizing hedonic treadmill.

Here is the chapter where that aphorism (relating to relative wealth) comes from:
https://monadnock.net/schopenhauer/wisdom-3.html

Great interview with an English guy who has lived in Thailand for the last 37 years. I can't say I would have wanted to live the same way and in some ways I find his life story a bit sad, but he seems very happy about the choices he has made.

https://youtu.be/t7iN9JlpaD4

Gabor Mate speaking about the health implications of western, industrialized culture:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uRGiP8l6P8

Interesting video on how Sri Lanka is collapsing due to the pandemic, financial tightening, and the recent war in Ukraine. Talks a lot about systemic issues and how these can create a perfect storm very quick, as people are going from middle class living to running out of food rapidly:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5zxYDHwf-Y

Van Neistat is The Spirited Man: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eT6wYbaRrlQ

You've probably heard of his younger brother if you've spent some time on YouTube. His channel is an interesting amalgam of DIY, introspection, dry humor, and love of filmmaking.

He covers the Fourth Turning in one of his videos, which has been discussed elsewhere on the forum:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeVyfiP0cLk

Video on "Stealth Wealth." Pretty applicable to WL 5 and its goal of overall maximization of enjoyment.

https://youtu.be/_INmFnlp-hU

Included: the most common car of Americans with 8 figure net-worth is . . . the Ford F-150.

Take-apart of an electric planer and a good explanation of the failure mode. This one made a light bulb go off in my head about what makes for cheap tools.

https://youtu.be/0ADkQ1ch-58

Leave it up to Valter Longo to have me reconsidering getting back on a mostly plant-based diet...or close to it at least. I still need to read his book "The Longevity Diet."

May 20, 2018: Live to 100: Valter Longo, PhD | Rich Roll Podcast
https://youtu.be/Odpt9afBlYY

July 4, 2022: Fasting & Nutrition Protocols for Longevity & Disease Prevention w/ Valter Longo | Rich Roll Podcast
https://youtu.be/06ROURlX6o4

The low protein requirements in the past have made me hesitant, but I'm starting to gather some data on that which is easing my concerns. The evidence around decreases in most metabolic diseases and cancers is pretty robust (ex. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24606898/) but most of my concerns are with losing lean body mass. The evidence gets shakier there I think but I'm looking. I'm experimenting with this again, and I'm not seeing real life loss in strength yet so...will proceed forward and monitor.

For context, Longo's protein recommendation is no more than 0.31 to 0.36 grams per pound of body weight. So a 150 pound male would eat between 46.5 grams and 54.0 grams of protein; most of which will be from plant-based sources such as beans/legumes (and Longo is supportive of fish 2-3x a week). My concern is that this recommendation (the top range is simply the RDA) is too low for maintaining muscle mass especially in a caloric deficit. He does state to justify an increase of 25-30 grams post exercise for those engaged in those activities (and that evidence is also supported by the need for protein synthesis).

If I can't find a study...my idea was to just follow along with the guidelines and just track real world changes. It will be evident if say I can't do as many pushups or pullups and I start to see performance loss.

Lemur wrote: ↑

Tue Jul 19, 2022 3:00 pm

The low protein requirements in the past have made me hesitant, but I'm starting to gather some data on that which is easing my concerns. The evidence around decreases in most metabolic diseases and cancers is pretty robust (ex. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24606898/) but most of my concerns are with losing lean body mass. The evidence gets shakier there I think but I'm looking. I'm experimenting with this again, and I'm not seeing real life loss in strength yet so...will proceed forward and monitor.

For context, Longo's protein recommendation is no more than 0.31 to 0.36 grams per pound of body weight. So a 150 pound male would eat between 46.5 grams and 54.0 grams of protein; most of which will be from plant-based sources such as beans/legumes (and Longo is supportive of fish 2-3x a week). My concern is that this recommendation (the top range is simply the RDA) is too low for maintaining muscle mass especially in a caloric deficit. He does state to justify an increase of 25-30 grams post exercise for those engaged in those activities (and that evidence is also supported by the need for protein synthesis).

If I can't find a study...my idea was to just follow along with the guidelines and just track real world changes. It will be evident if say I can't do as many pushups or pullups and I start to see performance loss.

I'm just an anectdote, but I have gained plenty of muscle mass from a lower protein diet (don't track it all the time but I would guess about 60-80 grams / day at 200ish lbs) all from plants. Strength gains are fairly slow, but gains are always slow when you aren't new to resistance training anymore. As to the post exercise protein, definitely you want protein after training, but newer studies (https://www.jospt.org/doi/full/10.2519/jospt.2018.0615) highlight criticisms of the anabolic window studies, as they had < 20 participants and fairly sketchy results. Conclusion below.

Based on current evidence, it appears clear that any effect of protein timing on muscle hypertrophy, if in fact there is one, is relatively small. Total daily protein intake is by far the most important factor in promoting exercise-induced muscle development. Research indicates that consumption of 1.6 to 2.2 g/kg per day is needed to optimize results.16 While nutrient timing potentially can be a beneficial strategy for enhancing muscular gains, the “window of opportunity” is not as narrow as often purported. Rather, the window exists on a fairly wide continuum, and its effects on muscle growth ultimately depend on when nutrients were consumed prior to the training bout. Research shows that the anabolic effects of an individual mixed meal last up to 6 hours.12 Thus, provided that such a meal is consumed within about 3 to 4 hours prior to a workout (or possibly even longer, depending on the size of the meal), the need for immediate postexercise nutrient consumption is abated. For those who train partially or fully fasted, on the other hand, consuming protein immediately postworkout becomes increasingly more important to elicit anabolism. If one's primary training goal is to maximize muscle growth, it seems prudent to consume high-quality protein (at a dose of approximately 0.4–0.5 g/kg of lean body mass) both pre-exercise and postexercise within about 4 to 6 hours of each other, depending on meal size.

I think they agree with Longo above there, 25-30g protein somewhat near to training. Adding carbs to that didn't matter at all .

Thanks Slevin! This is good to know. I'm fine with anecdotes in this case...I don't think it is possible to find exactly what I'm looking for. I could pull up multiple papers on what protein requirements are for gaining/losing weight and gaining/losing muscle mass and you'll see ranges all over the place. I don't even lift weights anyway (just a callisthenic routine) but I'm sure if I started back up I would benefit greatly from the "noob gains." So it is good to know you can lift heavy weights and do just fine in that regime!

I did find this eventually from The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics:

https://www.acsm.org/docs/default-sourc ... 688d8896_2

To increase muscle mass in combination with physical activity, it is recommended that a person that lifts weights regularly or is training for a running or cycling event eat a range of 1.2-1.7 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day, or 0.5 to 0.8 grams per pound of body weight. Consequently, the same 75 kilogram individual should increase their protein intake to 75 grams (300 calories) to 128 grams (512 calories) in order to gain muscle mass. This level of intake can generally be met through diet alone and without additional protein and amino acid supplementation.

Reputable enough I'll take it for now as I think at this point I may just be looking for bias confirmation...

At the end of the day, might be best just to track real world results but I can at least take solace in the fact the above may serve my purposes: I am not a competitive athlete training for a running or cycling event, nor would I consider myself a natural bodybuilder. Additionally, my aim is just maintaining lean body mass in a diet (of which I only have 4 pounds left anyway) so I am not not necessarily aiming for muscle growth either...so if I follow Longo's protein recommendation and just increase protein 25-30 grams on days that I workout, then I should be just fine.

ERE plug.

https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2022 ... the-flames

I was looking for resources on how to do DIY macbook repair recently when I came across this channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/rossmanngroup

The TLDR is that it's run by a guy who owns a laptop repair shop in NYC. He posts incredibly detailed videos of the techniques he uses to diagnose and fix the machines that come into his shop. (seriously, there are like... hundreds of hour-long videos walking through the entire process)

If you're interested in DIY electronics repair, I think this channel would be a great resource.

When I started looking into fixing my macbook (logic board problem), everything I initially found said some variation of "Apple solders all their components to their logic boards so if anything goes wrong all you can do is pay Apple 1k to replace the whole board." The concept that the logic board itself could be fixed never arose until I found this channel. Then lo and behold, I can watch ten videos of this guy demonstrating in extreme detail that no, actually it's possible, and here's how.

I mean, most of what he shows is way beyond my current level of ability to replicate, e.g. soldering new chips onto messed-up logic boards. But just watching that kind of stuff has expanded my sense of what's possible in a DIY context. It also has some kind of (positive) mental anchoring effect, where repairs that previously seemed intimidating now seem trivial because hey, I just watched this dude rebuild a motherboard, I'm pretty sure I can replace a screen or whatever...

The channel owner is also a big proponent of the right to repair movement, which I see as philosophically aligned with ERE.

**The caveats to this whole recommendation are that 1) You'll need to do some filtering if you're just looking for instructional content (he has lots of videos that are just rants about Apple and the NYC government) and 2) Most of the content is probably too advanced to be useful to the average DIY-er. I imagine that the population of people who have the tools / skills required to replicate the repairs that he does is pretty small, even among the ERE crowd.

New from Adam Curtis
Russia - TraumaZone

Trailer: https://youtu.be/nI_KpeTgrvo

BBC iPlayer https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0d3hwl1

I know many here are interested in Curtis. I have not seen it yet.

Noho91 always has great, but simple-to-implement ideas on how to make the shop experience better. Here is his latest offering:

https://youtu.be/0wnGboQNXuo

The Great Transformation, Implications
Peter Seba

https://youtu.be/kgULCgo4eZ8

Documentary about life at one of the biggest active retirement communities in the U.S. I was able to watch it for free through my public library service. The 81 year old "handyman" guy who is living with all his belongings in his van trying to find a wealthy woman in the community to sponge off of might serve as good example of why not to be too "semi" in your ERE lifestyle plannng.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11358166/

7Wannabe5 wrote: ↑

Sun Jan 29, 2023 7:38 am

The 81 year old "handyman" guy who is living with all his belongings in his van trying to find a wealthy woman in the community to sponge off

Sounds like he'd be better off in Phuket. That retirement village looks like hell on earth for an introvert.

chenda wrote: ↑

Sun Jan 29, 2023 8:16 am

That retirement village looks like hell on earth for an introvert.

Funny, the author of a story last week in Vanity Fair about the demographic issues surrounding The Villages and the Boomers in general said the exact same thing.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/01 ... -time-bomb

There’s an insistence to that community; the Villages cannot be an easy place for an introvert. The ubiquitous golf carts often have the names of the passengers emblazoned in script on their hoods, man in the driver’s seat, woman on the passenger side: Dennis and Sally; John and Beth. Signs outside of houses often offer the same information. There’s no excuse for not knowing your neighbor in the Villages.

His book came out last week as well:
The Aftermath: the last days of the baby boom and the future of power in America
https://www.worldcat.org/title/1311569680

Good idea to look ahead at the thing everyone will be talking about in ten years.

All retirement facilities look like hell on earth to me.

Ha!

I spent several days in a retirement community directly adjacent to the Villages this past year. A buddy of mine bought an investment and vacation house in a 55 and older gated community, with a home owners association and monthly fee. It's an hour to Orlando.

Oh my god I was ready to put a bullet in my head after a few days. Everybody is OLD. I joked that the rule should be 75 and older because other than my buddy nobody was younger that I could see.

Also, there is nobody about because everybody is shut into their homes. Other than a few people walking their dogs or just walking I didn't see hardly anybody. And everybody owns a golf cart which is hilarious. Some of the folk I talked to were raving about the new lithium ion batteries the new carts possessed. We played golf in the afternoon with the entire course to ourselves save one other quartet. Apparently the old folk only play in the morning.

The neighborhood is beautiful but all the homes and landscaping are almost identical. A lot of people have their names on the mailbox posts like "Joe and Debbie Wasserman" personalized. And all of the mailboxes, thousands, are identical. There will be no variation, haha.

Not for me.