Early Retirement Extreme Forums

Given the other deleterious effects of diarrhea, it doesn't seem to be a positive-value long-term strategy. Edit: and to the extent of your body having more choices, it does. Hormones affecting hunger levels, activity levels, stress levels, etc., all contribute to weight and health in general. But y...

Thanks for your reply. Imagine two situations. First case: you eat sugary cookies, and your intestines work on them for a few days. Second case: you eat sugary cookies and your body removes them as quickly as it can in the form of diarrhea. How would the law of conservation of calories hold in thes...

Second the motion for a sauna. Pretty easy build too, if you want to go rustic (no plumbing, no electricity). I built a wood-fired sauna in my backyard for maybe 5 grand all in?

Ah, interesting. Yes, need to noodle on how best to structure this for me. With work and family stressors and travel and school vacation schedules and all the rest, it's really hard to get into a consistent groove. So far, all I know I want to do is to make sure I don't eat when I feel "not hun...

Thanks, @2b1s. Agree there's so many intricacies. I'm just now starting to sort through the bullshit, so my observations are really limited to just a normal, relatively healthy guy who's a bit pudgy and kinda tired of trying to figure out how to not be so pudgy, and my a-ha moment borders on "w...

Agreed. I'm not suggesting that counting calories as a method works for the various vagaries you noted, in addition to labels just plain not being accurate. It's just been helpful for me to focus on the specifics of the inputs into the calories in (or useful calories absorbed, if you prefer) side of...

I dunno. It's not a method of weight loss, it's just a fact of thermodynamics. I see the statement of "if calories in > calories out, you will gain weight, and vice versa" is just a restatement of the laws of physics as applied to "living organisms". Your body can't choose to ign...

Fair enough. But to carry the analogy a bit further, what is one optimizing? And does it always (through time) have to be the same thing? And would it be the same thing (at all times) for every person? So, to the extent you are optimizing weight loss (or FI) in your "multi-legged physical (or f...

I suppose it's time for an update. The winter was brutal on the mind, following the 2023 stresses mentioned above. I did end up surviving 3 rounds of layoffs. I ended up spending a lot of money to get gym memberships to have somewhere to go since I work at home full time. Cheaper than therapy. I fee...

I like that. Thanks, Henry.

@jp, maybe to put a finer point on it: To me, "change" is a big or drastic change (difference in kind?) while perhaps we could use "adjustment" or "growth" to be a small, incremental change (difference in degree?). I change from being an atheist to being theistic. I gro...

I used to focus on the negative stuff too (preppers excel at that lol), but now I find I make the greatest strides/leaps forward when building upon previous successes. I draw the most energy from my wins as it were; negative energy only gets me so far. I don't need to feel dissatisfied to have the ...

Sorry. Catching up here, so this is not responsive to the latest. I've always thought of "FI leading to SI" or "dropping out" as a first world privilege. You can see it in the data of household density (poor = higher, probably multi-generational; rich = low, probably limited to o...

We got this, babe.

Hey, delay. Thanks for popping in, it's nice to know someone's reading these sporadic updates. Sometimes I feel like I don't have too much to contribute here with my current trajectory. Here I must vehemently (vehemently) disagree. So many people treat FIRE as the end, when in reality it is the beg...

@candide - The insurers have modeled the boomers, I'm sure. Entire consulting practices specialize in analyzing scenarios like these, which then become standard products licensed by all the major insurers. If there is a mistake, it's likely impacting the full industry. This is when regulatory captu...

7Wannabe5 wrote: ↑

Wed Feb 21, 2024 3:45 pm

in pursuit of Transcendent Eco-Sexuality

I mean, that's iDave, right there. It's staring you in the face!

Yeah. I fully support social capital for picking up someone’s mail or cooking them dinner if they broke a hip. I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about when someone’s needs outpace their loved ones’ capabilities. See, e.g., @hristo’s experience with hristo’s father trying to care for his wife. ...

I thought about this more and I think for me, ending up in a LTC facility would be a personal failure. I think it's a mistake to rely only on monetary capital and not social or other forms of capital. I also think that having no financial plan or wishing this part of life and our modern solution to...

I am neither ERE/semi-ERE nor past the age of 65, but I have begun thinking of this topic, in some part due to my parents' advancing age, and so I offer some thoughts from observing them: 1) My parents are frugal. They have a 7-figure kitty, but they live off of social security alone and have for ab...