Hi comrades, welcome to the Improvement Megathread! 
I plan to post a new weekly megathread here every Sunday. I think Sunday is a good day to review the previous week and make some plans for the following week. If somebody else wants to post a new megathread anytime, just let me know.
Here are some ideas for discussion:
- Do you want to share something you’ve done in the previous week?
Even if you did only 1 push-up, read 1 page, meditated for 1 minute, or touched 1 blade of grass, let us know about it. When it comes to making progress, everything counts. The most important thing is to make progress, no matter how small.
- What would you like to do next week?
- What aspect of life would you like to improve?
- Do you have any streaks? For example, “sober for one day.” Feel free to post your streak every day in this thread.
- If you don’t have a continuous streak, did you manage to abstain from something for a day or more?
- Did you come across some useful information or resource that might help others?
Of course, this is not a definitive list. And feel free to make a separate post in the comm for any of these topics. This is just a megathread for all the stuff that you want to share but don’t feel like making a new post.
Let me know if you have any suggestions.
And remember the Golden Rule of Hexbear:
Always
Be
Commenting
Hello comrades! I quit using snus (mouth tobacco-nicotine pouches) since 1st January. It’s hard, and I get extreme cravings during the days and have problems falling asleep in the night, but I’m not gonna start again!
🚬
I want to lose weight so this week I installed the Waistline app from f-droid for weight tracking & calorie counting and setup an indoor trainer with my bike so I can ride in the mornings. Good luck to everyone working on their goals!
I would also like to lose some weight this week.
My favourite calorie tracking website/app is Cronometer. I’m using the free option, which has all the features you’d want. You can track your weight and see all the macro and micro nutrients. I also recommend r/Volumeeating, which is a subreddit for high-volume, low-calorie meals.
Good luck with your goals comrade
I’ve been working on weightloss the past week. Been using Noom, but only as a calorie counter and weight tracking. I find the simple routine of weighing myself daily and tracking calories is mostly enough to eliminate poor eating habits. And reducing environmental triggers (like I can’t have a bag of chips sitting on the counter and be looking at it all day-- it has to go out of sight)
i have a txt file called diary on my desktop. Open it, on the first line i hit enter to shove old entries out of the way, put the date, and start writing. Whatever. Sometimes it’s a lot, sometimes it’s next to nothing. Whatever I feel like. Some days I forget to open it. That’s okay.
Good and also healthy
In the past week, I practiced meditation on 4 days in a row, went running on one day and cooked my healthy lentil & chickpea stew.
Next week I would like to touch grass with a friend and hopefully do some reading. It’s gonna be too cold for running so I would like to practice my bodyweight routine on at least one day.
I wanna share a subreddit called Fitness Material Heaven where people are pirating and sharing paid fitness programs and books. There is a lot of good stuff, check it out!
Good luck to everyone with their goals
My first goal of the year has been to cut back on sugar consumption. I’m still at the stage of becoming aware how much sugar is in the stuff I normally eat and figuring out what I can cut out or replace. The easiest target so far is obviously cutting back on snacks, but it’s also gonna be hard because I love my baked treats.
Thanks again @moonlake@hexbear.net for linking me that sugar free reddit!
I might try and tackle this too along with my attempting to finally stop drinking. I’ve been allowing myself sour skittles as a treat tho so idk how well I’ll keep up with it.
Good luck!
You too!
I have already started talking about for now avoiding junk food through the week and then maybe do a Friday evening treat or something and then go from there. Trying to cold turkey both alcohol and sugar might be too much at the same time.
I’m glad to hear it was useful! Wishing you good luck with your goal
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Today marks two years of veganism! Yesterday was the start of week two of regular exercise. I’m finally regularly eating enough to gain weight. The scale said 130 for the first time in my life! Only like 25ish pounds to go to get to a healthy weight.
Bought an ereader that should arrive today, hoping carrying it around at work will make it easier to study in my down time, and also at home away from the distraction box that is my computer.
Peanut butter is vegan and really helpful in gaining weight, very calorie dense and rich in fat and protein. It’s helped me a ton in gaining weight.
Carry around a pocket notebook and use it to take notes. During my shit years I was using one for rote so i could get a better job.
Started running again this week. 2x this week, very slow.
I want to build more muscle. I have a very lean look with not a lot of muscle. It has always been this way. I do not gain weight very easily but I want to add more muscle on my body for a triathlon in a few months. I also need to work on my swimming cardio for that portion of the competition.
I haven’t played a video game since new years, and I’m hoping I can make it stick. Last time I tried, mid last year, I went for a month, but picked up a stupid browser game out of curiousity and was back to the slop. I have to stop falling for the ‘Oh I’ll just check this out because person X said it’s fun’ trap and actually have alternatives to choose that I find fun.
I’ve got other things to do lined up to replace g*ming this time but I haven’t quite started on them. (A friend sold me a cheapo electric keyboard, and my brother is encouraging me to grow mushrooms lol). It’s intimidating to be at the foot of a new hobby and not know where to start. I guess that’s why I fell back on games because idk I at least felt I was good at them.
Thanks for making this thread.
Today marks day 15 of no marijuana. Trying to go 21 days for fun and also to re-define my relationship with the substance. I don’t want to have to rely on getting high daily to cope with the horrors of this world anymore.
I’m in the same boat! Before the holidays I had managed to go from smoking everyday to once a week… but then since the new year I was back to my old ways. Last night was the first night without it in a week, and I want to keep that up. I too want to re-define my relationship with mj. My relationship is a cognitive distortion that whatever I’m doing, it would be better/cooler/more interesting if I was stoned. Trying to undo all of my associations with the drug and establishing a sober baseline.
I can definitely relate to the cognitive distortion angle, and that’s what I often told myself. I never had put the brakes on though and fully stopped for a longer period of time outside of just vacations where it wasn’t accessible. Usually this was fine because I was out somewhere new and exciting where I didn’t need to be stoned to have a great time.
This time, going cold turkey in the middle of the holidays, after about five days I hit a fucking brick wall of horrendous withdrawal symptoms. I had no idea it could be so bad. I think this new perspective has shown that while weed can be fun, it has a major, lasting impact on my body and mind that I need to be more mindful of. It made it that much easier to stay away for the 3-week experiment and since those symptoms, the temptation to toke has gone away entirely.
awesome! I think one doesn’t need to quit all drugs/habits completely, but it’s important to find a healthy relationship with them
I mostly recovered from a flu
It has been particularly nasty this year
I have a head cold rn being sick is the worst
I’m starting therapy for the first time soon. Was meant to start going to the gym but I’m not able to stay at my apartment right now so that’s delayed till probably next week. I have lots and lots and lots of other aims I’d like to work on in the theme of self improvement but I feel like getting those started will be the most beneficial and set me up for working on other stuff in the months that follow.
I did some weeding in the garden and planted a wildflower mix :)
I keep trying to cut back on cannabis and am semi successful getting down to smoking about half as much. I’ve been trying to give my brain other addictions. During the day i’ll go touch sunlight and pull weeds, in the evening i try to get into a really absorbing game.
I’ve also been making an effort to be active each day and it’s worked out. I’d like to get more aerobic exercise in, but winter feels like the worst time to start that. It’s cold in my house, it’s cold outside, it’s so cold i don’t even want to get undressed to shower. And i want to use my kettlebells but i’d need to shut myself in a room without the cats so i feel a little bad about doing that lol. I just need to figure where to fit into my routine and how often and start doing it. For now, doing walking/dancing/yoga is fine. I don’t want to change my routine too much at once in case it won’t stick. So i’m just trying to add gardening to my daily routine until it feels normal, then i will replace the yoga step with a more intense exercise (hopefully)
Picked up the trash from the floor of my apartment bedroom. Maybe I’ll get around to cleaning the rest of my apartment sometime.
