Short post this week, because I’ve been traveling and didn’t get far enough ahead on these posts before I left.
The single biggest factor that makes fitness advice a clusterfuck is the fact that different people react differently to the same exact plan.
On a macro (big picture, not macronutrient) level, there are three body types that affect your reaction to fitness plans.
Ectomorph – Ectomorphs are lean and have difficulty building muscle. The word that comes to mind is “scrawny”.
Endomorph– Endomorphs store fat easily and lose it slowly. They’re the big hosses with barrel chests.
Mesomorph – Mesomorphs build muscle easily and have a naturally high metabolism. These are the folks who can get “ripped” easily.
In summarizing a bunch of research that I read, the consensus is that you’re not locked into one category or another. You can be a blend of more than one category, and you can move between categories depending on age, fitness level, and other factors.
For example, when I’m regularly working out 4 or 5 days per week, I keep some of my endomorph tendency to retain fat, but I build muscle easily and do not store additional fat. When I stop working out, I quickly lose my muscle mass and store fat if I even look at food.
What does this have to do with personalizing your plan? It gives you more information about what to do and not do during your fitness plan. Using myself as an example, I’m sensitive to carbs, so my diet plan involves reducing my consumption of sugars and grains. When I keep my total carbs below 75g per day, I tend to lose 1-2lbs per week. Similarly, I know that when I plateau while doing my cardio on an elliptical, a stair stepper will usually break that plateau.
Since it’s a quick week, no recipe or exercise. See y’all next week!
There are about ten thousand different opinions on what to eat after working out. Some are wrong, some are being applied out of scope, and some are mostly right.
One of the most common myths is that you need to eat back your workout. If you’re working out to lose weight, you’re undoing a portion of what you just worked so hard to accomplish when you eat back the calories you just burned in your workout.
NOTE: This topic is a “gray area” according to Mrs. trshmnstr, and the info described here may not be accurate for all workouts and all post-workout meals. Also, it is going through a filter (me) that doesn’t understand this stuff at a very deep level, so I’m liable to screw things up.
When you’re working toward a goal of weight loss, one of the primary purposes of your workout is to create a calorie deficit. The math is simple. Calories in minus calories out equals change in weight. 3500 calories in a pound of fat means that if you have a 500 calorie/day deficit, you’ll lose a pound of fat per week. The complexity comes in determining the calories in and the calories out, but for our purposes this week, all that matters is calories in minus calories out.
There’s a tension at play when you’re working out to lose weight. On one side, if you can eat less than your basal metabolic rate (usually in the 1500-2500 calorie range), any additional calories lost through working out are icing on the cake. If you have a BMR of 2000 calories and you eat 1500 calories per day, you’re losing 1 lb per week. If you also burn off 1000 calories at the gym every day, you go from 1 lb per week to 3 lbs per week.
On the other side of the coin is sustainability. Your body will begin to push back against your abuse if you don’t fuel it properly. When you workout, whether you do cardio or weight work, you are tearing up your muscles, literally. Your body has to repair your muscles with protein. If you’re eating a 1500 cal/day deficit, but your protein is deficient, you’re going to feel miserable, struggle to recover from your workouts, and be prone to injury and illness.
However, factors such as intensity of the workout come into play when determining how much of your workout to eat back. If you’re doing relatively low intensity work, you need less protein than if you’re burning the same number of calories in a high intensity workout.
Personally, I shoot for the fewest amount of calories where I don’t feel my body increasingly drag through a week of working out. It’s not very scientific, and it requires a bit of experimentation, but you want to fuel your body’s regenerative process without undoing your calorie deficit.
For strength training, the calorie deficit isn’t as important, but giving your body the fuel necessary to build muscle is very important. The biggest mistake you can make is to do a strength based workout and not bother to make up for your body’s increased need for protein. There are easy ways to get a quick hit of protein after a workout. Some of the shakes aren’t disgusting. Some of the bars aren’t terrible. You could eat a hard-boiled egg, as an example. You want to ingest a significant amount of protein within 30 minutes of the end of your workout because your body begins repairing your muscles almost immediately after the workout, and you don’t want your body to start tapping into your unused muscles as a protein store.
Personally, I’ve found that it’s a night and day difference between strength training without a protein supplement and with a protein supplement. Fatigue and soreness go from a major issue to a minor annoyance at most when protein is properly administered after a workout.
HIIT workout of the week
Ass kicking treadmill intervals:
3 Min at 2% incline and a slow jogging pace (3.5-4 mph) (“Warmup/Cooldown”)
2 Min at 5% incline and a jogging pace (5.5 mph) (“Jog”)
1 Min at 8% incline and a running pace (6.5 mph) (“Run”)
2 Min at Jog
1 Min at Run
2 Min at 8% incline and a jogging pace (5 mph) (“Hill Jog”)
1 Min at 10% incline and a running pace (6.5 mph) (“Hill Run”)
Garbage in, garbage out. I remember hearing that saying in a circuit design class, talking about why it’s important to match impedances on I/O pins. When you put a low quality input into a system, there’s only so much the system can do to improve the output. You may be the fitness equivalent of analog TV. The input can be full of garbage, but you can still see the picture through all the snow. Some of us (myself included) are the fitness equivalent of digital TV. Unless the input is pristine, the output is unwatchable.
With food, garbage usually means two things, 1) carb- and calorie-heavy food; and 2) natural and artificial preservatives. I’m not gonna tackle the latter issue in depth, but I’ll say that I generally prefer not adding things to my food unless they positively contribute to my body. Doesn’t mean I think the preservatives are bad, only that they are symptoms of a compromise that the food manufacturer is making. They’re focused on more than just providing you with great tasting and nutritional food.
The big issue with processed foods is that they’re carb- and calorie-heavy. Usually this is because they’re using shit product with no flavor, so they spice things up the easiest way, by adding tons of tasty, tasty carbs and fat. Not only that, but they use the super cheap stuff like high-fructose corn syrup. You’ll find sugar in some of the weirdest foods. Why? Sometimes because it masks the flavor of preservatives. It aids browning (and evenness of browning). It acts as a preservative itself. And as mentioned before, it tries to make up for the fact that they’re using shitty, bland ingredients.
What sorts of shitty, bland ingredients? Eat a store tomato and then eat a tomato from the farmer’s market (or, even better, from your own garden). Eat a store cucumber and then a homegrown one. Eat frozen green beans and then fresh vine picked green beans. Produce growers are incentivized to grow uniform, good looking produce, because that is what people will buy off the grocery shelves. Ugly, delicious tomatoes would rot on the shelves. Misshapen but delicious cucumbers would be passed up for bitter, shapely ones. Odd-sized backyard green beans are unpopular in comparison to the bland cookie-cutter green beans you find in the freezer section, the canned section, and the produce section of the supermarket. Add on to that the fact that the food manufacturers putting together processed food aren’t even buying the top grade grocery produce, and you see why they need to do something to spruce up their bland dishes.
You’ll see pasta sauce with substantial sugar in it. Loaves of bread chock full of sugar. HFCS lurks everywhere. In the abstract, these are just carbs, and 5g of sugar from an apple is the same as 5g of HFCS in your pasta sauce. However, we don’t eat in the abstract. The reality is that we usually don’t even notice the sugar (or oil) in our processed foods, causing us to overeat. “Whole” foods are naturally balanced. Yes, you ingest sugar when you eat an apple, but you also get a substantial amount of fiber, and quite a variety of nutrients. When you strip out all of the nutrition and just put the caloric essence into your foods, you unbalance your diet and threaten nutrient deficiencies, obesity, and diet related diseases (diabeetus).
What’s better? Inconvenient eating. Start with ingredients that are recognizable as crops or animal byproducts. Rather that buying that HFCS laden white-whole-wheat loaf of bread, mix up some whole wheat flour, some yeast, some water, and some salt, and make your own bread. Rather than heating up that salisbury steak TV dinner, fire up the grill and toss a sirloin and a couple cobs of corn on. Rather than buying peach rings in the candy aisle, get some decent quality peaches from the local farmers’ market. When she goes to the grocery store, I tell Mrs. trshmnstr that I want to eat meat and veggies with some fruit for a snack.
If you haven’t done so already, teach yourself to cook half decently. Buy a few cookbooks (I recommend this one), and make recipes until the end product is not only edible, but better than the crap you can get in the freezer aisle or at the local Chili’s.
The single best improvement to my health was when I shifted my diet away from processed foods and focused on eating inconvenient fresh foods partially or fully from scratch. Sure, it’s a pain in the ass to learn to cook well, and it’s a pain in the ass to source quality ingredients, but the gains in energy and in fitness have been worth it. Not that I never splurge on a McDouble or a Sharing Size Bag of Pretzel M&Ms, but they’re exceedingly rare treats, and the less I eat them, the less I crave them.
HIIT workout of the week
10x jumping jacks
20x butt kicks
10x push ups
35x crunches
10x squats
20x situps
25x lunges (each side)
30 second plank
30 second wall sit
Repeat 3x for a 30 minute workout.
Recipe of the week
Tundra’s Sheet Pan Chicken
4-6 Chicken thighs
12 oz cauliflower rice
3 garlic cloves, minced or pressed
1/3 cup EVOO
3/4 tsp kosher salt
3 oz fresh baby spinach
90 g crumbled feta
90 g Kalamata olives
Fresh basil/oregano/parsley garnish
Instructions
Preheat oven to 425.
Spread cauliflower rice on a sheet pan.
Drizzle oil on top of rice and spread garlic on top of rice. Mix together well with hands.
Place thicken thighs on the rice and drizzle with more oil.
Salt the chicken and the rice.
Bake 25-30 minutes until the chicken is cooked and the rice starts lightly browning in spots.
Pull the chicken thighs and let them rest.
Add spinach, feta and olives, and mix together with the rice.
Cook rice mixture another 5-8 minutes.
Pull the sheet pan, garnish to taste, and add chicken on top of garnished rice mixture (whole or sliced thighs are fine)
Let’s say you’re on board with tracking your intake, and that you’ve established the habit of tracking your calories. Some of you are there, some of you are a few days into a new habit, some of you couldn’t give two shits. The next step is to dive deeper into the numbers and track your macros. I know a few of you already do this, but I want to extol the virtues of macro tracking. For the longest time in college, I tracked my calories on a daily basis. I’d hit my calorie goal most every day, but I wasn’t feeling the way I thought I should feel. I was constantly hungry, and I wasn’t seeing a ton of improvement in the gym. I had plateaued, and I couldn’t break through. It turns out that I was way heavy on carbs and too light on protein and fat, resulting in me losing traction for my fitness goals.
Carbs – These include everything from fiber to sugar to starches. Carbs are fuel for your body, and despite the media and the fad diets out there, carbs can be your friend. Different types of carbs have different effects and purposes. For lack of a better description, some carbs are more potent than others. Simple carbs are a quick hit of energy for your body. They’re easy to break down, and they’re quick to take effect. This is the traditional “sugar high”. Simple carbs include refined sugar (pastries, candy, etc.), simple sugars (fruits, vegetables, etc.). Complex carbs are more difficult for your body to process, but provide a steadier source of energy over a longer period of time. This is why distance runners carb load prior to their runs. Complex carbs include starches like found in grains, potatoes, etc. As you are fully aware, spiking from sugar high to crash all day long is miserable and ends in morbid obesity after a while. Most of your carb load should be in complex carbs.
However, it isn’t as simple as choosing complex carbs over simple carbs, you want to balance the amount of carbs you get with the other nutrition you receive, including fiber, minerals, and vitamins. One of the easiest ways to balance your carb load in comparison to other nutrition is to focus on using whole ingredients in your meals rather than processed ingredients. Next week, we’ll go into more detail.
Protein – Ahh, meat! Protein can also be found in legumes, some grains, some vegetables, eggs, tofu, and hemp (for those of you in CO). Protein is your foundation for successful fitness. Working out, whether cardio or strength training, involves tearing down your muscles and rebuilding them stronger. How does your body rebuild your muscles? By pulling protein from your food and incorporating it into your muscles! If you wear down over long periods of working out, a protein deficiency may be the culprit. If you struggle with inordinate soreness and fatigue after strength training, protein may help with recovery. Timing can play a role in recovery, and we’ll cover that in a few weeks when we talk about post-workout eating.
Fat – Ignoring the screams from all those who have been taken by the ’80s and ’90s fad diets, fat is a very good thing, and it’s very important to long term success of your fitness goals. If you want to be miserable, go on a low-fat diet. Fat helps you feel satiated at the end of a meal, and it helps stave off hunger throughout the day. However, one temptation with fad diets (including Keto) is to jack up the fat consumption to insane levels. Mrs. trshmnstr is skeptical about the health of going to insane in the opposite direction and eating tons of fat. As always, a balanced diet is the recommendation.
Overall, a good baseline ratio is 35% carbs (mostly in high-fiber whole foods), 35% protein, and 30% fat. We’ll talk next week about adjusting those ratios to account for body type, fitness goals, etc.
HIIT workout of the week
As always, Mrs. trshmnstr recommends trying this out 3 or 4 days this week. As always, don’t kill yourself and modify the exercise where you need to based on your fitness and abilities.
3 rounds of:
50 jumping jacks
10 pushups
20 squats
20 bicycle crunches
1 min rest
50 high knees
15 side plank crunches on your right side
20 squat jumps
15 side plank crunches on your left side
1 min rest
50 mountain climbers
15 lunges each side
20 plank spidermans total
15 situps
1 min rest
This is a 30 minute workout, so the goal is to do 2x for a full workout.
Recipe of the week
Trashy’s daily breakfast. Mrs. trshmnstr says this isn’t a healthy breakfast, and that I’m an idiot for posting this, but I’m gonna do it anyway!
1 piece of multigrain toast
2 fried eggs
1 sausage patty
hot sauce
I used to struggle with mid-morning hunger and fatigue issues when I ate a granola bar or nothing for breakfast. This breakfast is a good mix of fat, protein, and whole food carbs with enough flavor to get going in the morning. I think the eggs are the most important part. I could probably sub out the toast or the sausage for a fruit if I wanted to be super healthy, but I’ve found that I can lose 2+ lbs per week with this breakfast if I’m good about my other meals. I’ve also found that it doesn’t take me an hour or two to get ramped up for work in the morning. I’m firing on all cylinders the minute I open my laptop.
Occasionally, it’s good to see where we stand in regards to our political infighting in the good ol’ US of A turning into armed conflict. 13 months ago, I wrote an update that highlighted some of the dynamics that may spark Civil War II. Looking back, I mostly stand by what I said at the time, but some of the dynamics have cooled off since then. Specifically, I wrote:
Overall, I’m still pessimistic on the chances of widespread fighting. I think the worst we will possibly see is an LA riots type situation. However, as shown in Charlottesville, all it takes is one body for the self-righteous leftist media to climb on top and start agitating. Like a high-stakes game of “Press Your Luck,” both sides keep smacking the button, hoping to hit the political jackpot, ignorant of the lurking Whammy.
I still believe that to be true. I’m of the belief that the Left can only muster a LA riot as their maximum amount of agitation. They simply don’t have the fortitude nor the logistical ability to take the fight to the Right. The Right is, and for the foreseeable future will be, the key to any true armed conflict. The Right has the equipment, the tactical advantage, and the fortitude to wage war on the Left if ever pushed to do so. The Left has the motivation, but no ability. The Right has the ability, but no motivation.
Except for the fact that conservative media is continuing to find its own voice by stoking outrage, driving a wedge between themselves and the leftist mainstream media, the Right has nothing to complain about. They have the reins of the federal government, as well as most state governments. They’re winning the charter school battle, and the traditional media is self-destructing. If things keep going the way they are, the leftist hegemony in the universal institutions of society will be broken within our lifetimes.
In my opinion, there are only four ways that a civil war breaks out: 1) There is a significant federal gun control act put in place; 2) the Left grows a pair of balls and takes the fight into the suburbs; 3) Trump is impeached and removed from office in a blatantly corrupt proceeding; or 4) Your average middle-class working man or woman has a substantial chance of losing their livelihood to SJW bullshit. Frankly, 1) and 2) seem highly unlikely.
However, let’s take a trip into the Derplight Zone yet again, and see what’s gonna kick off Civil War II: Antifa Boogaloo.
Isn’t that the Outer Limits?
Let’s imagine a world where this prog-leftist corporate circle jerk intensifies for a few more months. Dicks and Nike and Levi were the precursors, but now we’re seeing major companies daily announce their intentions to fund gun control groups and SJW shakedown groups, and every time a shitlord sneezes in front of an oppressed class, it’s a national case. The constant drumbeat of this shit starts to take a toll not on the A-listers, or even on journeyman race car drivers and local sports announcers. Now it’s senior regional managers and executive editors and anybody with any modicum of power in the workplace either getting #metoo’d or N-worded or pronouned into trouble with HR, no matter the veracity of the allegations. The incentives are there, ruin the life of your shitlord boss, and you’re not only a hero, but the perfect candidate to replace them.
My wife is already concerned about such things. She wants me to do the Mike Pence thing and completely refuse to meet 1:1 with women. Unfortunately, I can’t do that 100% of the time, but I do it as often as possible. I’ve even talked with a couple of coworkers who are concerned about the same thing. They’re not comfortable being 1:1 with women because all it takes is one unprincipled woman with an axe to grind or a path up the corporate ladder, and you’re radioactive.
Anyway, in a world where outrage firings go from one every few weeks to multiple per day across various industries, the primary mechanism for avoiding armed conflict begins to erode. The biggest thing that keeps the US from melting apart in a fiery battle is that most average, everyday people have more to lose by fighting than they have to gain by being rid of their political opponents. When one’s livelihood is legitimately targeted, such incentives flip, and armed conflict is inevitable. Once a critical mass of people feel substantially threatened, they will retaliate violently.
Another relief valve in American culture is slowly being eroded. The Internet, for all of the gasoline it dumped on the political and social fires burning in our culture, also gave a platform for people who agree with one another but not with the mainstream media to commiserate, vent, and discuss current events without feeling smothered by the MSM’s blatant agenda. Now that the push has started for deplatforming, the relief valve is gumming up. Folks on the right are running out of patience when it comes to abridging the 1st and 2nd amendments, and if there is a substantial leftist push to deplatform most conservative, alt-right, and libertarian voices on major social media, it’s like holding a flamethrower to a gas can. God forbid they start trying to get the DNS servicers and site hosting companies involved… overstepping into complete censorship on the Internet will end violently. The Alex Joneses of the world may get completely silenced before the right wakes up from its slumber, but if a mainstream conservative/republican were to be deplatformed or completely silenced, I think more than a few right wingers would see the writing on the wall regarding the 1st amendment.
I think that the left is moving fairly slowly and methodically right now. They know they can bide their time until the midterms, and that after the election, they can go full nutzo on Trump and the alt-right for another year and a half before they need to cool off to look semi-sane for the 2020 election. However, I think there is a narrow path to a very bad place. I think that it starts with a legit blue wave, giving the Democrats a majority in the House and a neutral split of the Senate, if not a slight majority. From there, “all is right” in the world again except for Trump, who would quickly be brought up on charges for an impeachment hearing. The inevitable vitriol from a Trump impeachment, possibly leading to isolated violence would be all the impetus a prog-leftist Congress would need to regulate social media and begin deplatforming the right en masse. Also, once that “racist, sexist, bigot” is out of the way, the easiest virtue signal in the world is to dump a ton of money into a bureaucratic leviathan for helping colleges and companies deal with the #metoo crisis through strict enforcement and a liability shield for companies who shoot first and ask questions later. Maybe toss on a recession as the cherry on top? Repealing the tax cuts and passing a medicare expansion would probably trigger a recession.
The right would very quickly go from having a ton to lose, to having nearly nothing to lose, and I think violence would be inevitable in such a situation. How likely is it that all of this falls into place? Infinitesimal. However, it is the one clear path I see to organized violence.
The one thing that most strongly indicates whether or not you’ll success with your fitness goals is whether or not you track your intake. It doesn’t matter if you’re interested in weight loss, building strength, distance running, maintaining mobility, or any other fitness goal, garbage in results in garbage out. The most common way to track intake is MyFitnessPal, and I know that many of us here in GlibFit use it. However, there are plenty of MFP tips and tricks that you may not be aware of.
First, you can adjust which nutrients are tracked in the food diary. This is helpful if you are sensitive to certain micros, sodium for instance. It’s also helpful for macro tracking, which will be covered next week.
Second, you should be familiar with your profile and goal settings.
The information you provide here sets up all of the day-to-day numbers for MFP, including your calorie goal, your macros goals, etc. As you progress toward your goal, it’s good to check back in and make sure that MFP is configured to your life as it is currently.
Third, you should regularly track your fitness. People are notoriously bad at guessing how much food they have consumed, how many calories they have burned, and how much weight they have gained or lost. Even if you are on a purely strength building goal, tracking your progress will give you insights that you couldn’t have seen otherwise. MFP has a report function to aggregate your data.
Mrs. trshmnstr recommends relying on your Garmin/Apple watch/whatever whenever possible for tracking exercise. Most smart watches can integrate with MFP, and the data they provide will be substantially more accurate than if you manually enter the data. However, if you’re pounding the treadmill or doing weights work, your wearable isn’t going to be too much help.
Finally, Mrs. trshmnstr wants me to stress and stress again that what you don’t track, you don’t control! You may be able to make some progress by haphazardly changing your eating habits and haphazardly tossing weight around at the gym, but the pros track the minutae of food intake and of exercise in order to better understand how to best achieve their goals. It’s a bit of a burden to start, but once you get used to it, you’ll reap the rewards.
HIIT training of the week
As always, Mrs. trshmnstr recommends giving this a try 3 or 4 days this week. Also, please don’t kill yourself on these exercises. There’s a different between pushing yourself healthily beyond your comfort zone and blindly pushing your body into dangerous territory. Modify the exercises if you’re not capable of completing them as written.
Set a timer to start counting up from 0:00. Each exercise listed is a 1 minute workout. If you complete it before the minute is up, the rest of the minute is a rest period. If you haven’t completed it by the end of the minute, switch to the next exercise. Each exercise has an alternate for if you are unable to do that specific exercise. These are all fairly common exercises, so search for them if you don’t know them.
Roughly 2 lbs of chicken thighs, bone-in, skin-on if possible
3 tbsp brown sugar
3 tbsp paprika
2 tbsp kosher salt
2 tbsp black pepper
1 tbsp cayenne (i usually add another 2 tsp of red pepper flakes, as well)
1 tbsp garlic powder (or 1 clove of minced garlic if you’re feeling fancy)
1 tbsp onion powder (or a small diced onion if you’re feeling fancy)
I like to do these on my Weber kettle grill low and slow, but they’d also do fine in an oven.
combine all of the ingredients in a gallon zipper bag, trimming the chicken if it has too much excess fat.
mix everything up so that the chicken is well coated
stick the bag into the fridge for a few hours (overnight is fine)
fire up the grill and pile up the coals on one side of the grill
add any smoking chips/chunks (apple and hickory are good) and set the grill up for low and slow (full open bottom vent, nearly full closed top vent on the indirect side of the grill). For chicken, i usually don’t bother with a water pan. I cook them between 275 and 325 for only 2 or 3 hours, so I’m not particularly concerned about maintaining an even temp.
using tongs, add the chicken to the indirect side of the grill.
come back 2 hours later and temp the biggest thighs in the thickest part with a meat thermometer.
Once the biggest thighs are reading 155F at their thickest, leave the lid off the grill, adjust the coals to start burning hot again, and put the chicken on the direct side.
After a few minutes (depends how fast the coals come up to temp), flip the chicken. You should have some maillard browning as well as a small amount of sugar burn. Pull the chicken when done.
It’s that time again! No, I’m not talking about autumn, nor am I talking about holiday season. *glares at all the pumpkin flavored crap already out there*
GlibFit 3.0 starts tomorrow, September 12th! The timing of this GlibFit is going to be a bit different. Since US Thanksgiving is on a Thursday, we’re starting and ending on a Wednesday. Ten weeks from tomorrow is Thanksgiving Eve, and we’re going to have you in good enough shape that you enter the holiday eating season with confidence!
GlibFit 3.0 will take on a slightly different theme than prior GlibFits. Mrs. trshmnstr and I will be working together to get you some kickass content. She’s going to provide the detail, and I’m going to provide the direction.
Generally, the format will be as follows. There will be a deep dive topic of the week. The major themes are going to be HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training), eating while regularly doing cardiovascular exercise, and maybe a couple articles on sleeping. Each article will include a HIIT workout of the week and/or recipe of the week that you are encouraged to try.
Beyond that, it’s like normal. Set your own goals, check in weekly (Wednesdays at 1400 GlibTime), and set good habits as we get into fatass season!
HIIT Training of the Week
Mrs. trshmnstr recommends giving this workout a try for 3 or 4 days this week. Gauge this to your own fitness level and abilities. Modify the exercises to fit your abilities.
5 rounds of
1 minute sprint (on treadmill, outside, elliptical, bike, rower, etc.)
For those who aren’t yet ready to sprint, power walking with a high incline on the treadmill is fine. Obviously, any of the other machines can be subbed in, as well.
1 minute walk
Then, 5 rounds of
10x pushup
10x squats
10x jumping jacks
10x sit-ups
This is a roughly 20 minute workout, and the eventual goal is to work up to doing the workout 2-3x through.
Recipe of the Week
Salsa chicken
Chicken breast
A jar of your favorite salsa
Taco seasoning
Sour Cream
Mexican blend cheese
Fresh herbs and vegetables (cilantro, onion, lettuce, tomato, jalapeno, etc.)
Rice/Tortillas/Beans
This is a super simple recipe that gets you a ton of protein and as much fat as you need to feel satiated.
Dump chicken, salsa and taco seasoning into slow cooker and cook for 4-6 hours on medium heat.
Shred chicken with a pair of forks.
Serve over a bed of rice, in a tortilla as a taco, with some beans, or however you prefer
Top with fresh herbs and vegetables, a dollop of sour cream, and some mexican blend cheese.
I want to start off with a few mentions. First off, thanks to Yusef for the diorama posts. I wouldn’t have bothered writing this article without your articles showing the interest the glibertariat has in historic battles. Thanks also to straffinrun for encouraging me to snap some pics and linking the Mises podcast.
The Mises podcast is absolutely kickass and worth a listen.
Here’s a basic view of the area surrounding the battlefield:
Now we zoom in to the battlefield.
I annotated the map to include some of the important landmarks:
From east to west between Henry Hill and Matthews Hill is the Warrenton turnpike. From north to south between Henry Hill and Chinns Ridge is Sudley Road.
I spent all of my time on Henry Hill, as I had my 1 year old with me and didn’t want to cross US 29 (Warrenton Turnpike) with her to walk Matthews Hill. These images are all hi res, so you should be able to zoom in by clicking on the images. Edit: the site choked on my super hi res images, so these are lower resolution but still clickable.
The Museum at ManassasLooking East across the top of Henry Hill. Bull Run is about 1/2 mile into the woods.Looking North from Stonewall Jackson’s statue at Henry House.Henry House with Bull Run mountains in the distanceStill looking North at Henry House, Matthews Hill can be seen on the top right of the image
The above image is a bit deceptive. There is a large valley between Henry House and Matthews Hill.
Henry House and a monument to the battleTurning to the East, you can see a Union artillery lineUnion CannonsConfederate Artillery on the West side of Henry Hill pointing eastFrom the Confederate Artillery to the Union Artillery is maybe 1/4 mile west to eastMrs. Henry’s grave at Henry HouseHenry HouseYou can go into some of the houses, including Henry House and Matthews HouseLooking East from Henry House. Stone Bridge is buried in the distant woods out of sight.Matthews House at the base of Matthews Hill. Warrenton turnpike passes right in front of the house
Chinns Ridge is back in the woods to the West across Sudley Road. I didn’t make it back there.Working East along a loop around Henry Hill, there are info boards in various places.Northeast of Henry Hill is Robinson House, which is around 200 yards away from Warrenton TurnpikeThe foundation of Robinson HouseWorking back South toward the Union ArtilleryAnother info boardView from the Union artillery West toward the Confederate line
A picture is worth a thousand words, so this is like a zillion word article! Let me know if you have any questions or want to see something more in specific.
I occasionally get the fiction writing bug and put together a short story. Usually they suck because I’m not a creative writer and I’m usually just blowing off some creative steam since I write highly technical documents at my day job. Anyway, I have a start of a short story I’d like to share for the hell of it. If there’s sufficient interest, I’ll write and post more of it on here.
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A subtle jolt signaled the end of the ride for Lt. Van Balych. The doors to the elevator slid open with a light rumble, and his first step onto the gravitative section of the NASS Umbique was a bit shaky. He hadn’t been in space in quite a while, and he had forgotten that it takes a day or so to get one’s space legs under them. The hallway he stepped into seemed neverending, an artifact of the wholly uninspired design of the Nakayama-class orbital patrol frigate. “Brutalism meets Flash Gordon,” quipped another Ensign during then Ensign Balych’s first space assignment, also on a Nakayama-class orbital patrol frigate.
These frigates were disproportionately sized for their role in the North American Space Force, almost 80% the size of a Xie-class cruiser. However, the asteroid belt wasn’t nearly as contentious a place as had been expected, and the cruisers spent most of their time doing the job of orbital patrol frigates anyway. In a political “compromise,” the newest generation of orbital patrol frigate, the Nakayama-class, was designed to be the best of both worlds, a frigate with the resources of a cruiser. The result was a 700 meter long ship that looks like a boxy rolling pin. An ungainly angular command section contains a bridge, a forward engineering compartment, and a forward weapons array along with an associated magazine. The middle 500 meters consists of a spindly core around which the gravitative section rotates. The gravitative section is a 5-deck modular cylinder kept at 0.85g. Each module is a 500 meter by 50 meter rectangular strip that can be fully isolated from the other modules in case of emergency. The modules interconnect with adjacent modules through bulkheads every 100 meters. The rear section is a bulbous EM drive section. There is an aft engineering section and an aft weapons array, but they are usually remotely controlled unless heavy damage is taken at the front of the ship or maintenance is required.
Van looked at the instructions projected on his glasses and began walking down the monotonous beige corridor, passing door after door of crew quarters. One of the nice things about having a ridiculously oversized ship was the fact that everybody got their own room. “26-B-12,” he mumbled under his breath, passing an Ensign in a purple trimmed uniform, indicative of a weapons controller. Yes, NASF ripped the whole colored uniform thing from Star Trek. It was supposed to be a morale boost, but it is more of a fleetwide embarrassment than anything. Van looked up from his half-aware cadence down the hall to see 26-B-17 on a door to the left. He shifted his gaze to the other side of the hall and acquired 26-B-12 a few meters further down. As he reached his arm out to push the entry button on the wall, the door recognized his wrist implant and opened with a mechanical whirr. “It’s an accordion door, of course, because that’s the least complicated type of door to design and maintain. These doors never fail!” Van sarcastically thought, remembering back to the multiple occasions during his stint on the Svenson when the door to his quarters jammed.
Van stepped into his new quarters and was hit with a familiar smell. Despite the Umbique being almost two years old, nobody had been in this room since the pre-launch inspection. The new quarters smell was unmistakable. He dropped his duffel on the downright luxurious queen sized bed and scanned the room. The configuration was familiar, bathroom to the left, closet to the right, bed in front, desk next to the bed. Around the edges of the floor were angled windows that reminded Van of prisms. They were an attempt to give a view of the starscape that wasn’t just a porthole drilled in the floor. Officers were assigned quarters on deck 5, and non-comms were assigned windowless quarters on deck 4, a not-so-subtle insult given that the quarters on deck 5 could hold the entire 220 person crew thrice over.
Van stepped into the bathroom, which automatically illuminated upon his presence. He looked into the mirror and swept off the remnant disheveledness that lingered from the four hour ride to orbit and then to the Umbique. He had been greeted by a Lieutenant Commander at the airlock and couldn’t remember her name. She was cute, if a bit swallowed up by her high-collared uniform. Balych toggled through the menus on his glasses with a sensation that resembled muscle memory and called up the ship’s crew roster. In a matter of a few seconds, he had filtered the list and found a picture of a soft-faced Lieutenant Commander trying her hardest to look tough. “Lt. Cmdr. Aria Snelling,” the dossier headlined. As quickly as he had looked up the information, he shut down the search and focused back on his reflection, running his hand across his cheek. He frowned at the rough feel of the five o’clock shadow and returned to his duffel to retrieve his laser razor. A quick two minutes later, he was baby faced and bald, which was how men were expected to groom themselves these days. He had a mild shudder as he thought about growing a beard and hair, which were considered old fashioned and a little bit tacky. Van gave his quarters one last glance before walking out and heading for the bridge.
Lt. Balych had been assigned to the Umbique as Chief Compliance Officer, a natural extension from his prior role as a Senior Compliance Liaison at Space Consulate Canaveral. His task on this cruise was to ensure the regulatory compliance of all transports flying the common transit routes between the asteroid belt and the Inner Ports. Human space travel was still in its infancy, and very little exploration had been done outside of the asteroid belt. However, a few colonies had been established on the Moon and on Mars for various industrial purposes, including ore refining, spaceship manufacturing, and automated manufacturing for Earth consumption. These Inner Ports, including the many ports on Earth, were abuzz with commerce. The transit routes that connected the Inner Ports with the asteroid belt were traveled by a unique group of people, the Boomers.
The elevator slowed to a stop with a small jolt and Van felt the last of the gravity go away. He held onto the railing until the doors slid open. With a small push, he stepped into a small corridor and eased back down onto the floor. The command section did not rotate, and technically had no gravity, but a magnetic field interacted with metallic microfibers woven into his uniform to provide the illusion of a minimum of gravity, something like 0.2g. It was enough to be able to walk around, but took some getting used to. Regulations stated that a crewmember could only spend 6 hours per day maximum in magna-grav sections of the ship to prevent the onset of microgravity ailments like bone density loss. Van walked past a couple of doors that led to command crew conference rooms and stepped up to the door at the end of the hall marked “Bridge”. He almost smacked his face into the door as a buzzing noise accompanied a red flashing light to signal his denial of access. A moment later, he heard an alarm sound from the tactical station on the other side of the stubbornly closed doors. Van quickly located the access list for the bridge on his glasses and scanned the list for his name. He found it instantly and confirmed that the access code on file matched to his wrist implant. He stepped forward again and the door slid open. The tactical officer pivoted in her chair and quizzically looked at Lt. Balych as he rolled his eyes. The bridge was vaguely reminiscent of the old NASA mission control center in Houston. He had never seen it in person, but there was a faithful mockup at Space Consulate Canaveral that he had seen many times. Three rows of computer stations were stacked in front of one another, all facing a bank of three screens at the front of the bridge. Van stood on a riser near the rear of the bridge and was looking downward at the command center. Three chairs sat in the middle of the large riser, a surprisingly large space for only three chairs and an emergency console on the back wall. The flurry of activity overwhelmed Van’s senses for a moment before his mind was able to adjust.
The bridge crew consisted of a Captain, two Commanders, four Lieutenant Commanders, and six Lieutenants. The Captain and Commanders inhabited the three throne-like chairs in the back of the room. Lt. Balych approached the throne and cleared his throat. It was time to put on a show. In his best Swahili, he addressed Captain Mbeke. “I have been transferred under your command as of today, March 18, 2162. I am glad to be of service to you.” He intentionally and expertly avoided any offensive gendering, sideways glances, and assertiveness. It was especially difficult to keep his eyes from wandering when addressing Captain Mbeke. Xhe was a mountain of a woman, err, gender-nonspecific human. The image kept popping into Van’s head of mashed potatoes, because Mbeke’s morbidly obese body had the color and texture of mashed potatoes with gravy. Lt. Balych had addressed morbidly obese Captains before. 40% of Captains required a mattress instead of a command chair because they were too big for the command chair (which was already designed for a person of 450 pounds). However, Captain Mbeke had wedged xherself into the command chair, clearly in denial about xher 600-plus pound girth. Van had researched Captain Mbeke prior to boarding the Umbique, and knew much more about xher than likely anybody else on the ship. Captain Mbeke was born Stephanie Dawson, and was the daughter of Second Consul Blandon Dawson, one of the most powerful politicians on Earth. After spending 6 months living in South Africa, Stephanie Dawson became trans-racial and transgendered, and eventually changed xher name to Salani Mbeke, coopting a traditional Congan surname. Most senior officers were appointed directly to their positions due to political connection, and Captain Mbeke was no different. She was 32 when she was appointed to the Captaincy of the Umbique, without even stepping foot at officers’ school. Similarly, the Commanders and Lieutenant Commanders had all likely been appointed to the vessel as political favors. Running an orbital patrol frigate was seen as a cushy job for the elites, given the low danger, the high amount of control, and the sumptuous allure of harassing the junior officers and non-comms. Normal people like Lt. Balych capped out at Lieutenant, with a select few making it to Lieutenant Commander.
Captain Mbeke, leaned up into an erect sitting position, a fire building in her eyes. A guttoral exhale signaled that the fury was about to be unleashed, a song and dance Lt. Balych had experienced many times before. He tried to act and look as unimposing as possible, hoping to let the gale pass with minimal damage. In perfectly unaccented English, Mbeke screamed, “YOU DARE BUTCHER MY LANGUAGE?? YOU HAVEN’T EVEN BEEN ON MY SHIP AN HOUR AND YOU INSULT ME??” Her arms shook with rage, the dangling fat counter-rotating and flapping like a flesh-colored flag in a hurricane. The sound of skin-on-skin slapping was vaguely sexual, but only disgustingly so. Van purged the thought from his mind before the thought of a walrus mating with a bowl of jello made him visibly cringe and offend the gelatinous woman even more. Mbeke shifted over to look at one of the Commanders and said in a broken voice, “The safety of this bridge has . . . been. . . violated!” Her lower lip began to pout and water glistened deep in her fat-swollen eyes, her words punctuated by a rhythmic heaving whistle unique to such a morbidly obese person trying to suppress her sobs, “I’ve. never. been. so. humiliated. in. my. liiiiiiiiiiii-hi-hi-hiiiiiiifffffffffffe!!” She broke down into a blubbering mess, her pasty mashed potato skin turning bright red with the effort. The Commander to her left motioned to one of the Lieutenants who escorted Lt. Balych off the bridge and into one of the command conference rooms. Van was happy that the ceremonial victimization of the Captain was finished. Tradition or no, he could never shake the thought that it was a bit ridiculous. There were better ways to put new junior officers in their place.
Lt. Eva Baxter dropped the portable reading device on the conference table with just enough gusto to signal to Van that she didn’t want to be there dealing with onboarding a new bridge officer at the moment. Even though Baxter was likely a normal person who went to officer training school and didn’t come from a life of privilege, the systemic disdain held by the appointed senior officers tended to infect the rest of a ship like a virus. “Here is all the information about your job responsibilities, the layout of your bridge console, access parameters, your shift assignments, and protocols for communicating with senior officers. Read it all and memorize it,” she gruffly monotoned, punching buttons on the reading device. With a final button click, the entirety of the manual was uploaded to Van’s glasses, as indicated by a progress bar projected on the bottom of his left lens. She then proceeded to look him head to toe, a gesture he knew all too well. “We run the consort system here, have you been a consort on any of your previous assignments?” her disinterested demeanor staying unchanged, despite the shift to a sexual conversation. “Yes, I was consort to a Commander on my previous space assignment,” Van responded, momentarily flashing back to a memory of a sexual encounter with Cmdr. Bordreaux on the Svenson. “Good,” the emotionless Lieutenant dismissively muttered, “you’re not the Captain’s type, and the Commanders both already have enough consorts, so you may end up with a Lieutenant Commander.” An unofficial policy adopted on some of the most female dominated ships in the fleet assigned the male junior officers to female senior officers for sexual liaises. Neither the men nor the women needed the sex, as sexbots and sex toys were more than adequate to satisfy any sexual desire they had. However, the consort program gave the female senior officers another avenue to show their disdain for the junior officers, and especially for the wholly emasculated male officers. Consort sexual encounters were notoriously humiliating to the men. Some of the women even took perverse joy in pegging their men while making every effort to let the men know that they were less than trash. Lt. Balych had been lucky the first time. Cmdr. Bordreaux was a bit more traditional, and wasn’t particularly comfortable with the dominant role she was supposed to take in the consort relationship. Mostly, she just wanted companionship. Van was nervous that he’d get a true believer in the consort system this time around. His ass clenched at the thought.
I’ve been on a bit of an article hiatus since my laptop died. I have a desktop (which I’m on right now), but I built it 8 years ago from the clearance section of NewEgg, and it sounds like it’s about to die. In the last 12 months, we’ve had 3 computers go, and this’ll be the 4th once it kicks the bucket…. fun times.
Anyway, I know that y’all are just dying for some Trashy insight, so I’m gonna try to make the concepts of this article come together. This is mostly a “look at the cool razors I have” post, but I’ll try to shoehorn libertarianism in there somehow. I love these stream of consciousness articles because it doesn’t involve any planning!
I started my post-pubescent life like most other men and women. I got a free version of the latest Gillette razor in the mail, and I ran that trial pack of blades until they weren’t even sharp enough to cut tissue paper.
This showed up in adolescent trashy’s mailbox
I heard the common refrain from everybody. “They’ll give you the handle for free, but they’ll gouge you on the blades.” Turns out they were right. Gillette had a virtual monopoly, with Schick in a distant second, so they could charge anything they wanted for their blades. Add in a small psychological ploy to rely on consumers’ sunk cost fallacy, and you’re set for life.
There were three problems that cropped up. First, I was a broke high school/college student, so I was running the blades until they started to rust. Second, the shaves were absolute shit. Third, the shaves were a chore. Slather on the disgusting canned foam, scrape 5 dull blades across your face, have razor burn for 2 days. My skin is a bit sensitive, so a poor shave meant a couple days of sore face. How did I cope? By growing a beard. Yes, in high school, I had mutton chops and a circle beard because I hated shaving.
This seems like a good time to go on a social/libertarian tangent. There’s something about products like this that irk me, and I’m not entirely sure why. You have people with 1000 different needs from their razors, and you offer the same blades and the same orientation with the same lotion bar at the top. It strikes me like the perfectly beautiful, but completely tasteless tomatoes you can get at the grocery store. Sometimes, giving up choice in favor of the lowest common denominator results in absolute shit product, and that’s what the modern cartridge razor has become. If your cartridge razor works well for you, count yourself lucky. The cool thing about the free market is that you don’t have to follow the fickle trends of the masses. You don’t get stuck with the Comrade 4 blade because Supreme Leader Bernie decides that nobody needs 32 kinds of razors. You’re free to experiment with different types of product, both from now and from the past.
Back when razor makers were artisans
Speaking of the past, those guys really knew how to shave back then. It was a small luxury to get to shave, and it’s something that I have found immensely enjoyable, both from a “gotta do it, so might as well enjoy it” standpoint and from a “hobby that connects me to the past” standpoint. I shave with a 1957 Gillette Super Speed.
It cost me roughly $15 on ebay, and my razor blades cost a few pennies each and last me 5 or 6 shaves before they dull. Both men and women used to shave with safety razors like this.
Let’s dive into the hobby aspect of this stuff, and some of the nuances will start to come out. You’ll quickly understand why a single blade type at a single preset angle isn’t preferred.
At a macro level, we’re talking about wet shaving. Just as a quick disclaimer in case some woman happens to stumble across this site (because we know there are no female liberatarians) and wonders what the hell is going on… I’m talking about shaving one’s face, but my understanding is that it translates fine to doing legs, too. Wet shaving means that there is water involved. You don’t just slather canned goop on your face and start scraping. You don’t fire up some gizmo and hope it gets close enough that you look like you actually shaved today. Wet shaving is about preparing your face to get a close shave with comfortable results. In broad generalities, there are three phases to a wet shave: skin preparation, shaving, and skin protection. You prepare your skin to be lubricated enough to allow a razor and a blade to glide across your face without catching on the skin. You also prepare your stubble to be as erect as possible so that you lop it all off when you pass the blade through each hair.
As an aside, one reason why irritation is so common with cartridge blades is because the multiple blades act to pull the hair up out of the follicle and trim it below the skin line, resulting in irritation and a higher chance of ingrown hairs. It’s a very “close” shave, but it’s really too close.
You will find that most traditional forms of shaving involve a single blade, thus reducing the likelihood of such . . . uncomfortable . . . consequences. There are four types of shaving. Cartridge blade razor (including disposables), electric trimmer, safety razor, and straight razor. The bolded ones are the ones closest associated with wet shaving. Yes, you can wet shave with a cartridge razor, but you’re only getting partial benefits in that situation.
Some of the guys who make custom straight razors do some great work!
I’m sure we’ve got some straight razor folks here in Glibertopia, but I’m not really experienced with them. Besides the barber cleaning up the back of my neck with one, and the rare barbershop shave (which is shit once you figure out how to properly wield a safety or straight razor), I’ve never really even seen one in person.
However, the principles between safety razors and straight razors are much the same. The muscle memory is different and the stakes are higher with straights, but the process involves lubing up your face, holding the blade at a certain angle, and dragging it across your whiskers.
I’m big on connections to the past. Things may be “better” in the present, but often the consumerist impulses of today result in bland mass-produced products. There’s nothing beautiful about the latest Fusion razor. It’s an uninspired amalgamation of neon plastic and chromed plastic. However, I’ve seen some straight razors and safety razors that are works of art! Craftsmen made the shaving tools of old. Assembly lines stamp out today’s shaving tools.
There’s something about using a 60 year old work of art to do a mundane hygiene task that makes it less humdrum. When you add in the other components of a wet shave, it adds a small luxury to your morning. Back in the day, men didn’t mind taking a minute and enjoying their morning routine.
Pre-Shave
Before starting your shave, it’s important to prepare. Preparation is as important as execution in wet shaving, because your razor doesn’t have training wheels anymore. You can push pretty damn hard with a cartridge razor and not be worse for the wear. Safety razors reduce the chance of slicing your face open in comparison to a straight razor, but both types of blade are very unforgiving to mistakes.
There are two types of pre-shave preparation. 1) Skin preparation, and 2) Mapping your beard.
Skin Preparation
It is important to do two things to your skin prior to shaving. You need to lubricate your skin so that the razor glides along and doesn’t get stuck. You also need to get your hair follicles to stand up as much as possible to get a close shave. There’s a simple way to do both… hop in a warm shower. Many people shave in the shower to get the maximum benefit of the warm water. I’ve never found it particularly attractive an idea, but you do you. If you didn’t just hop out of the shower, a warm, wet washcloth to the face will do the trick. If your skin tends to be dry, or if you’re a beginner prone to making mistakes, you can use a pre-shave oil or a pre-shave cream to supplement the warm water. It also adds a pleasant aroma to the beginning of your shave. Like I said, small luxuries.
In the pic, I have one of each. There’s a Truefitt and Hill pre-shave oil with a citrus scent. Next to it is a Proraso pre-shave cream with a menthol finish. I don’t really use them very much any more. Occasionally I’ll use the oil because it is the closest to real-deal citrus as I’ve ever found in a citrus scent.
Anyway, you take a sparing amount and rub it into your skin, and all of a sudden you’ve got a slippery face.
Mapping your beard
Unlike a cartridge shave, where the blades are equal opportunity offenders, single blades are quite sensitive to the grain of your beard. If you go with the grain, it’s the least uncomfortable and it’s the least close shave. If you go against the grain, it’s the most uncomfortable and the closest shave. Usually people will do 2 or 3 passes in order to get a close and comfortable shave. For example, they may do a with the grain pass, a cross-grain pass, and an against the grain pass. If you properly do three passes like that, your face will feel like a baby’s ass.
The thing is that the grain doesn’t just go in one direction. Just like your hair on your head, your beard has whorls and direction changes and all sorts of unique challenges. For example, my left cheek grain goes down, but my right cheek goes backward. Knowing which way the whiskers go helps you avoid accidentally going against the grain in some areas on the first pass.
Lathering Up
You can see in the above picture the two brushes that look like huge weird makeup brushes. I’m not sharing the bathroom with Mrs. trshmnstr, so they’re not hers. Those are my shave brushes. They’re made from badger hair. Yes, they literally pluck hairs from badgers to make these brushes. You can also get boar hair brushes or synthetic brushes (think paintbrush bristles). I’ve never used either of those, but I like my badger brushes. The one on the right is a normal badger hair brush. It has enough resistance to stand up to vigorously rubbing your face, but the hairs aren’t irritating. The one on the left with the frosted tips is a silvertip badger brush. These are premium brushes due to the nature of the silver tipped hairs. The hairs stand up enough to be able to make a good shaving lather, but they’re quite soft at the tips, making for the perfect balance.
The purpose of a brush is simple, you load it up with shaving cream and you apply the shaving cream to your face. I should be more precise. You can use shaving cream (roughly the consistency of toothpaste) or shaving soap (a hockey puck shaped bar of specially formulated soap). This is where wet shaving completely leaves normal shaving behind.
You can see in this next photo a few shaving soaps. On the left is TSE Texas Leather Tallow Shaving Soap (yes, tallow as in animal fat… the best shave soaps are made with tallow), which literally smells like my cowboy boots. In the middle is Proraso Green, which has the same menthol hit like the pre-shave cream. On the right is Gentleman John Sandalwood Soap, which is my current go-to for everyday shaving. The left two soaps are a little bit creamier and aren’t really in puck form, so I use them directly from their containers. The Gentleman John didn’t come with a container, so it’s in my shave bowl.
There are two primary ways of lathering up, face lathering and bowl lathering. They’re both perfectly legitimate, but they yield different types of lather. The face lather tends to be more of a wet, slick lather, whereas the bowl lather tends to be fluffier and drier. Depending on your preference for lather, you can choose the appropriate technique.
Face Lathering
Face lathering is my go-to. It’s easier when you don’t have a ton of space, because you don’t need additional bowls and you don’t make a foamy mess all over the counter. Face lathering is two steps: loading the brush and lathering. First, to prep for the shave, you need to add a few drops of water to the soap to “bloom” the soap (meaning that the soap absorbs some of the water and the top layer softens up. Also, I like to leave the brush in warm water while I shower. If that’s not an option, just run some hot water over the bristles, because the brush will absorb some water. Then, give the brush a single shake (you want to get rid of some water, but not all), and start swirling the bristles over the soap puck. The soap will begin to foam, but you’re only loading the bristles with the soap, so you don’t want to go too long.
Once the brush is loaded, you proceed to swirl the brush on your cheeks until a foamy lather builds. Once the lather builds, you can paint it on other parts of your face until you have built up a nice slick, cushiony lather on all the places you’ll be shaving.
Bowl Lathering
Bowl lathering is very similar, but instead of taking the loaded brush to your face, you put it into a bowl and start swirling. Because of the fact that the bowl doesn’t have any moisture in it (as compared to your lubricated face), the lather tends to dry out, which makes it fluffier. Once you have a good lather built, you can just paint it on your face with the brush.
Want an added touch of luxury? Pour some hot water into a shave scuttle and heat up your lather while you make it!
Shaving
I’ve written an entire article’s worth of info, but we haven’t even cut a single whisker yet. In reality, once you get a hang of things, the pre-shave portion takes 2-3 minutes at most. Now it’s time to choose a razor and blades (for the safety razors). As mentioned above, my experience is with safety razors, so that’s what I’ll talk about.
Razors come in all different shapes and sizes, but there are three most important attributes: weight, balance, and aggressiveness. The key to shaving with a single blade razor is to avoid pressing. The blade should glide over your face, and even the slightest pressure can make for a bad shave. As such, the right weight razor keeps you from having to exert pressure to get the razor to cut. Too light, and your blade will skip right off your face. Too heavy, and you have very little control and feel as you cut. Balance also influences the control and feel. A well balanced razor can be held by two fingers and you can almost feel every whisker yield to the blade. Aggressiveness is about matching your style and skin sensitivity to how much the razor tries to take off on each pass. Some folks like really aggressive razors. Some (like me) like less aggressive razors. It’s all about getting a close cut without causing razor burn. Certain safety razors have adjustable aggressiveness. You twist a selector, and the blade bends to a different angle, reducing or increasing aggressiveness.
The blades themselves are also seen as aggressive or not. Feather blades have a reputation for aggressiveness, but I happen to like them in my Gillette Super Speed because it mellows their aggressiveness. Others are less aggressive. Most likely these differences are due to minute differences in the manufacturing tolerances, despite the fact that the blade’s form factor has been standardized for 80 years.
One of the great things about shaving with a safety razor is that besides the initial investment in the razor (about $10 for each of mine on ebay), the blades are super cheap. I’ve gotten deals under 10 cents per blade, and each blade usually lasts 5 or 6 shaves, if not more. However, like any other hobby, you can get lost in all of the options and spend hundreds of dollars on shave equipment. There are some rare vintage razors that go for over $100.
Shaving is very much an exercise in muscle memory. It’s quite similar to knife sharpening in that you need to find a proper angle, hold it at that angle, and make smooth strokes. You know it’s right when you can hear the blade cutting the whiskers. It’s a soothing sound. Unlike what you’ve likely learned shaving with a cartridge razor, it’s not about pushing down and dragging across half of your face. That will end with blood everywhere. With a safety or straight razor, it’s about smooth short strokes with almost no pressure. You only exert enough pressure to keep the blade from skipping when it hits the next whisker. I’ve found that when in doubt, you’re using too much pressure. The goal is to “reduce” the hair rather than “eliminate” the hair. This is why you do two or three passes. The first pass takes the stubble down lower, the second even lower, and the third down to the skin.
Also, this is a literal razor blade. Razor blades cut you if you drag them sideways along your skin. Your short smooth strokes should be directly perpendicular to the blade’s edge. Turning corners is an advanced move for when you stop cutting yourself.
After a bit of practice, you start to be able to feel when a blade is getting dull. Before then, replace your blade on a regular basis. Usually 5 or 6 shaves is about as much as you can get out of a blade. If you have an old house, there may even be a blade depository in your bathroom. It dumps all the used blades into your wall for the contractor to find when you decide to remodel the bathroom.
Finishing Up
After you shave and wipe off the excess lather, you’re not quite done yet. Your face is in an “open” state due to the warm water, the lather, and the razor. One refreshing way to close up your pores is to splash your face with cool water. If you have a couple tiny nicks that are thinking about bleeding, sometimes this step will convince them not to bleed.
Once you’ve rinsed your face with cool water, it’s time to apply after-product. This is purely optional, but I find that my face thanks me. I have extremely dry skin, so this is the perfect time to add some moisture and avoid redness, cracked skin, etc. In come two categories of after-shave. In front is Clubman Pinaud, which is a traditional Home Alone aftershave. It’s alcohol based, and it’ll let you know if you nicked yourself. To me, this is the smell of a barbershop, and it lingers with you for the rest of the day.
Behind the Clubman is some Tea Tree leave-in conditioner. I forget who recommended it to me, but this stuff is the absolute best at moisturizing my face. I just rub it in like lotion, and my dry skin issues go away within a couple hours. It doesn’t linger like Clubman, but you can still smell it a couple hours later.
Also, while you’re cleaning up, rinse out your brush and get as much water out as you can. I hang mine alongside my razor to air dry the rest of the way. I also leave the soap container open to air dry.
But what if you got a boo boo? Bleeding is a part of learning to shave, and it sucks. Rather than sticking toilet paper to your face or bleeding everywhere, get yourself a styptic pencil or an alum block. They both contain chemicals that help your blood clot up and stop the bleeding. They aren’t magic, so don’t start rubbing your jugular while you’re bleeding out, but they’ve stopped cuts where the blood was dripping down my chin before.
I’ve never found out the right way to clean the styptic pencil. I usually rinse it off under the faucet, but the pencil doesn’t play well with water.
All of this to say, nobody needs 32 different kinds of razors. In Progtopia, we’re all gonna be stuck with shitty off-brand disposables and silly-string for shaving cream.
Razors come in all different shapes and sizes, but there are three most important attributes: weight, balance, and aggressiveness. The key to shaving with a single blade razor is to avoid pressing. The blade should glide over your face, and even the slightest pressure can make for a bad shave. As such, the right weight razor keeps you from having to exert pressure to get the razor to cut. Too light, and your blade will skip right off your face. Too heavy, and you have very little control and feel as you cut. Balance also influences the control and feel. A well balanced razor can be held by two fingers and you can almost feel every whisker yield to the blade. Aggressiveness is about matching your style and skin sensitivity to how much the razor tries to take off on each pass. Some folks like really aggressive razors. Some (like me) like less aggressive razors. It’s all about getting a close cut without causing razor burn. Certain safety razors have adjustable aggressiveness. You twist a selector, and the blade bends to a different angle, reducing or increasing aggressiveness.
