"Drink more water," but make it unwell

It is not my way to influence, which is why you won't see me hopping onto TikTok and showing you step by step how to make peach-ring-flavored water as a way of hydrating more.

However, I do have a debilitating competitive instinct, and so does my partner. So when it came time for him to try and drink more water, I admit that we set up two five-gallon jugs and raced over the next few days to see who could finish theirs first.

Will this sort of "water case race" work for you, as a way for either you or anyone else to drink more water? That is impossible for me to say. Does it strain the definition of "healthy behavior"? Absolutely; I submit fewer images are more ambitious in terms of physical wellness, yet troubling in terms of mental wellness. Have we taken the nearly unimpeachable recommendation of "drinking more water" and allowed American individualism and capitalist competitive drive to pervert it beyond recognition? Perhaps. But fortunately also in this country, only God can judge us.

Seamus won. But did he? Did any of us?

Eat

~Discord Pick of the Week: Shared with permission and with no further comment:

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I try to maintain as dim an awareness of intermittent fasting or OMAD as humanly possible. But I haven’t managed to avoid learning that one reason a lot of the more biohackery people do it, and act so superior about it, is that some very limited (but ultimately inconclusive) research suggests it triggers “autophagy”, or our bodies’ process for cleaning up junk material in cells. They may be devastated to learn that exercise also does this and maybe better, according to a new review published in March. I would not expect them to care except I imagine they would be furious at the prospect of  a n y o n e  daring to outlive them.

Devastating to me in this study is that high-intensity exercise and endurance training seem to activate autophagy more effectively than either lifting weights or low-intensity exercise. Luckily, resistance training does so many other things for us that I remain unbothered.

Speaking of: Across 32 countries, only 17.3% meet the physical activity guidelines for both cardio and strength training. BUT! About 72% of people get the recommended amount of aerobic activity, and only 22% are hitting their strength training marks (the 17% is where they overlap).

An Oscar for these young women coaching each other on deadlifts in formal wear. Our future is so bright🥹

In the year 2000, everyone wanted a female James Bond (cf. Alias, Kim Possible, Charlie’s Angels). The last year that women could have it all.

YouTube will now “prohibit content that features any food-related behaviors that may be imitated by ‘at-risk’ viewers,” including even videos that cover disordered eating recovery.

F1 driver Abbie Pulling’s strength training workout (not for imitating, just for admiring)(Abbie Pulling implies the existence of Abbie Pushing).

Drink

Why right-wingers are so afraid of men eating vegetables.

If you heard this week about that “elite couple breeding to save mankind”, you simply must know their whole story. Waifu pillows and bronies are involved.

Rest

This week I went to the Hammer Museum with my sister and saw a small collection of pieces from Al’s Cafe, a 1969 art installation that appeared to be a regular restaurant until you went instead and the menu included TOAST AND LEAVES, DESERT PLATE AND PURPLE GLASS, and SIMULATED BURNED PINE NEEDLES A LA JOHNNY CASH, SERVED WITH A LIVE FERN.

Davin Grann is writing about the best subject that there is: shipwrecks.

Why you need to think for yourself.

That’s all for this week! I love you for reading, thank you, let’s go—