u/Good_Run_1696

Hi! First post here for me, I have just discovered that my Apple Watch has always been tracking the VO2 max which is a measure of the highest amount of oxygen a body can use during hard exercise.

Yes, exercise estimated VO2 max is inaccurate to some degree, but there's some insight to be made from the persistent change over time, especially given the data density.

There are too many confounds to conclude anything about the direction of causality.

Maybe not consuming alcohol seems to unlock the mental states that makes me more likely to exercise.

Maybe not drinking truly improves my cardiovascular fitness.

The exercise spikes right before I went sober twice maybe made me more likely to commit to going sober.

Pretty cool to see my life being transformed in one chart.

So I attempt to walk 100,000 steps in a days as a fun challenge once in a while, Strava records it as an excellent effort week as seen in the extreme peaks of 3699 effort.

However in all other weeks, even if I ran 50 km per week, the effort comes no where near the extreme challenges, and I will receive a notification frequently that...

"Your effort this week is below average" no matter what I do.

I know that the the Strava algorithm won't handle extreme outliers very well, but it FEELS demotivating to have Strava says "you are not doing enough" all the time even if I am increasing the training load in the past months.

Can anything be done about this?

I completed a 7-day fast from 0:00 AM June 15, 2026 to 2:00 AM on June 22, 2026, only got the will to analyze my data just now haha. I had water, electrolytes, and black coffee during this fast. As an aspiring scientist, I decided to practice my skills by making these plots.

I recorded my body weight and four subjective variables throughout the fast. IMPORTANTLY, this is an n=1 dataset, so the results describe my subjective experience rather than establishing general physiological effects. Everyone is different, every body is different.

1. Energy: my perceived physical and mental capacity at the time of recording.
2. Mood: my overall emotional state (pretty much how happy I am).
3. Hunger: the perceived physiological drive to eat felt in the body.
4. Food Noise: the frequency, salience, and intrusiveness of food-related thoughts.

For this fast, I had persistent intrusive thoughts about Texan Barbecue from day 4-7, I don't know why haha. That was my first full meal after a very careful broth re-feeding protocol after day 7.

Figure 1 shows the overall progression of body-mass change, energy, mood, hunger, and food noise across the 170-hour fast using robust LOWESS smoothing. Because I forgot to record my weight at hour 0, body-mass change is measured relative to my first available weight at hour 12. Dashed lines mark midnight.

Figure 2 shows the same data using shape-preserving cubic interpolation through the raw observations instead. The dots mark the actual measurements. This version better shows how jagged the experience was from hour to hour.

Figure 3 shows the pairwise Spearman correlations among energy, mood, hunger, and food noise. I used Spearman’s rho instead of Pearson r because these were bounded 0–10 subjective ratings.

1. Day 1 and 2 are the roughest period, and hunger usually declines after hour 48. For me the great bottleneck has always been hour 44-48 where most of my attempts failed as I gave in.
2. You can see the "anticipatory hunger" at the end of day 7. My body knew I would eat something in the end, so the hunger rose sharply as the finish line neared.
3. Food noise was not the same thing as hunger. Sometimes I was not especially physically hungry, but I still could not stop thinking about food.
4. Mood seemed more closely related to hunger and food noise than to energy. I could feel physically depleted without necessarily being miserable.
5. My weight fell quite a bit. Obviously, that was not 6.6 kg or 14.6 lb of fat. Much of it was probably water, glycogen, reduced intestinal contents, and other temporary weight changes.
6. My calculated true energy deficit was around 15,500 kcal plus minus 1,500 kcal, maybe around 2 kg of fat loss at the most.
7. Overall, the most interesting thing was how different hunger, food noise, energy, and mood were from one another. They were definitely not interchangeable.

Cheers!

I am day 3 into a (hopefully) 14 day fast. I am not a stranger to fasting so don't worry about me, but this is my first workout to this degree during one.

No idea what actually is powering it. Ketones? Remaining muscle glycogen? Blood fatty acids? Hepatic gluconeogenesis? Hopes and prayers?

This is a phenomenal fasting win in my books.

This is my third attempt at walking 100k steps in one day (24 hour time limit). And this time, it is a spectacular success (82k and 91k in the previous two). This time I blew past my goal and reached 114,774 steps (3D waist pedometer) and 81.64 kilometers / 50 miles (GPS) in total.

Here are my reflections and everything I learned from my long walk and all the training before. Hope they are informative!

1. Preparation is everything. A feat like this has to be treated like an expedition with serious route planning, contingency planning, and calculations. I had to practice shorter walks and runs often to condition my body alongside resistance training to build muscle. I am grateful to have friends join me in some portions to keep company and provide contingency exit if needed. Time absolutely disappeared when I was chatting with my friends. I must also be ready to stop and quit at any point in the walk and have a plan out. I walked in the University of Maryland at night time so I was always near my office where I can access water and bathrooms.

2. Weather is critically important. This walk attempt was largely hampered by heat, not physical endurance. During most of the afternoon, the air was up to 32°C/89°F with 80-95% humidity. My body literally cannot be cooled down properly. When I started to get serious heat stress symptoms, I had to frequently visit cafes and museums with air conditioning and bathrooms to cool down. I almost quit my run early, but 2 hours of hanging out in the Smithsonian cooled me enough to continue. There is no medal for ignoring heat illness.

3. Shoe choice is critically important. I had flat feet and after buying long distance running shoes specifically meant for my feet type, I felt almost no pain in my feet the entire walk. I used hiking shoes in my first attempt and I felt incredible pain towards the end, but this time, I don't feel much at all. It's life changing. If you were to do long walks, DO invest in a shoe that will fit you and your use, ideally get your feet measured.

4. Liberally lubricate feet. I covered my entire feet with thick vaseline before putting on my socks. Body glide and other products also works well. I did not get a single blister, burn, rash, or corn at all. It worked so well!

5. I had to eat constantly to keep up. I theoretically could be powered with only stored fat, but that would be a bit too difficult. Since I probably burned something like 6,000 kcal, I aimed for consuming around 250 kcal and 600 ml of water every hour at least. I packed and eat snacks with variable glycemic index so energy can be released constantly. So in total I packed 2,000 kcal of trail mix, 1,000 kcal of biscottis, 1,000 kcal of chocolate, and 1,000 kcal of sandwiches. Throw in some instant coffee and matcha here and there too.

6. Drink a lot of electrolytes, especially in hot weather. I ended up using 7 electrolyte packets spread throughout the day to make sure I had enough to be sweated off. My second attempt was cut short by a calf cramp, so I made no mistake this time. Your body knows whether you are sufficiently hydrated or not. So trust that body sensation and drink enough fluids even if it means frequent bathroom breaks.

7. Listen to fast music. Turns out fast music can make me keep pace very well. I sped up whatever I am listening to such that the tempo is around 120-140 BPM. Then use the tempo as a walking metronome to keep pace. If you listen to slow music then your brain slows down, and so will your pace. So use whatever, rock, techno, edm. Personally I found out that John Philip Sousa's marches played at 1.25x speed is the best for me.

8. Difficulty increases exponentially towards the end. I started my walk at midnight and aimed to finish at midnight. However I finished half of my walk before 9:30 am. This just goes to show how difficult longer walks can be. Anything beyond 70,000 steps becomes an entirely psychological journey where you negotiate with reality. Every next step becomes some sort of mental torture even if your body feels fine. I managed to ignore most of my mental bargaining by focusing on the music.

9. Try not to sit down, especially towards the end. Every time I sit down and let my leg rest, it was really difficult to stand up and restart the walk. Sometimes down right unbearably painful to stand up. Even stopping at a stop light can become painful. I learned to find a place to put my backpack and refuel standing up. This was a serious problem in my first two attempts, but not this attempt as the new shoes reduce pain a significant amount.

10. Trails are slightly better than cities. The fewer times I stopped for red lights the better. Less mental bandwidth also spent on environment scanning and navigation on trails. With good planning, I always have water refill stations in my path. I only ran out of water once and only for half an hour. Every time I stopped, a lot of momentum is blunted, so choose whatever path works best for you. I theoretically can do 200 laps on a running track instead, but that sounds miserable.

11. Prepare as if you are spending all days outdoors. I brought headlamps, first aid kit, sunscreen, decoy wallet, decoy phone, batteries, spare clothing, bathroom kits just in case. It's like camping without the tent. Very fun indeed.

12. A physical pedometer is the most accurate measurement for steps for me, at least for what I had. GPS is the most accurate for distance. I calibrated 4 different ways to measure my walks. My 3D Trisport pedometer will always give within 2% of my actually counted steps, regardless of distance or gait. Technology is cool!

The seventh picture shows a total pedometer count a little higher than my canonical record, I had to subtract out the 3,700 steps I had taken to calibrate my pedometer the day before.

This is probably my last long walk, at least for a while, as I reached my goal and I will be moving to marathon training in short term from now on. But this walk had been incredibly fun and rewarding. It made me reflect a lot about my privilege to do walks for fun while many others have walk for work and in worse conditions.

I am grateful that I can walk for a challenge. I am grateful for my body and good health that allow me to partake in this activity. I am grateful for all the support I had received.

Cheers!

My third attempt at the 100,000 steps challenge (in a day) challenge. Waist pedometer measuring 118,500 steps by the end. Hot weather forced me to take refuge in AC often, but I pushed through.

This is all the books and audiobooks I [26M] completed in 2025. My rules for the list are:

1. The book has to be completed fully to go on the list. In progress books do not count.
2. Podcasts, courses, or videos do not count.
3. Academic journal papers do not count.
4. I estimated word count primarily from full 1x audiobook runtime, using roughly 150 words per minute, then round to nearest thousand. When audiobook runtime was unavailable, I used paper page count × density, adjusting down for textbooks, atlases, figures, equations, poetry, and whitespace.
5. I read more than the list suggests, particularly STEM textbooks, but since I never finished them, so they do not make the list.

January 2025 entries are quite biased as I rushed to finish all the in-progress books in 2024, so that they would go on the list, so it might look like I am very prolific in January, but that is not fully accurate.

Anyways, what can you tell about me based on my completed readings in 2025?

[Reposted video from multiple subreddits]

Is this him? If so, what focus is he trying to complete here? Perhaps we need a Patriot Front update in 1.1 to allow for "metro battalions" as a usable unit.

I like to set up and observe AI wars. And this time I decided to take over Republic of Thailand in 1969.

Strategy is to make some modern tank divisions and boatloads of CAS and supply planes then managed to encircle at least 1,300 divisions in China. I can't herd the AI divisions without overrunning them, so the total pocket casualty toll was around 20 million axis troops. AI death stacks are surprisingly easy to defeat with this combo.

The casualty screen is before I undertake the offensive. Also, can't figure out how on Earth did Brazil have the highest war score...

Warning!!!!

Today I went to the DC fan zone at the national mall. I made a mistake of bringing my bag there. But, when I reached the entrance, the staff in red shirts told me to leave my bag behind by the side of the entrance and I trust what they said. Hundreds and hundreds of bags were put there so I also put mine there.

After the USA-Australia game today, I came out to see all my bags gone. The staff told

"We warned you, If you put anything there we will put them all in the trash! And if you keep asking, we will use force to remove you from this area! Leave now!"

I swear they said that, it stuck in my head vividly because how outrageous it was.

My friends and I, along with many others are in complete disbelief, and frantically asking the other staff where it all went, they said some golf cart took everything. So, after a lot of running, I serendipitously spotted a suspicious cart in the distance and my friend had the fastest run humanly possible to catch them. We force the staff to off load all the bags by the side walk and report the incident to higher ups.

If you lost your bags today, we offloaded all the possessions at Jefferson and 3rd, the corner of the National Museum of the American Indian, as shown in the pictures here. Around 20 people got their bags back; however. Around 40 bags and 20 water bottles remain here now.

I do not know how else to help. FYI: DO NOT BRING NON CLEAR BAGS TO THE WORLD CUP FAN ZONE. Please check with comment belows for what is allow.

Do not repeat my mistake.

Hi! I am doing my 10th attempt at "Hail to the King" and this time,

I won the war out right by capitulating Burma without taking out the required provinces of Tenasserim. When Burma capitulated, it white peaces to the pre war border?! And there is no option to start the limited war again! Oh my god?!

Shouldn't capitulating burma counts as winning the limited war?!

Lessons I learned about walks beyond 50k steps you might not expect:

1. ⁠The psychological difficulty of the walk will increase exponentially at some point, and it is very important to delay that onset as much as possible. For my walk, the last 15,000 steps is far far worse than the previous 76,000 steps combined.

2. ⁠I must be eating and snacking constantly all throughout the walk and I can literally feel the food transforming into energy in real time. Simple carbs can be felt in 15-30 mins. Full meals can be felt in 30-90 mins. Uneaten food is energy debt you will pay later. Steady supply of electrolytes felt very important as well especially to prevent cramps.

3. ⁠Sitting down, even for a short break, will consume a lot of your momentum. Towards the end, standing back up became immensely difficult every time I sat down, and caused a lot of pain to get back into pace.

4. ⁠Pacing becomes very important if there is a time goal, what I did is playing military marches at 1.25 speed and use the tempo as a metronome to set my walking pace for large portions of the walk.

5. ⁠Ultra distance walking is a different sport compared to ultra distance running. Running is physiologically much harder, but you only suffer for a much shorter time, 3-6 hours for a marathon. But ultra distance walking is a much more prolonged effort, I was outside from 4am to midnight and it still wasn't enough. So long walking is more of a mental game.

6. ⁠Blister prevention is everything. I covered my feet with a comically thick layer of vaseline, and had to reapplied it a couple times. Works wonders, I didn't get a single blister or friction burn.

7. ⁠Trails are better for such challenges than urban walking, every stoplight I had to stop for would really blunt my momentum and it's difficult to restart the legs once it stopped. City walking is easier because of water refills and shops, and more to see, so it's debatable in the end.

My first attempt I got to 82k, and this time 91k, so Hopefully I might be in better shape for next time. In the end, I don't really recommend the challenge, it's just psychological torture for the most part, but it is an aspiration of mine. Cheers.

I went for a wholesome Wang Yang play through and just played normally and the PDTO really got ratioed. It feels like China's buff might be quite a bit much haha.