Posts by ironjackal60

I was looking at my calendar this morning, realizing how quickly the summer is slipping through my fingers, and it hit me that we are right on the cusp of that specific time of year again. You know the one. That transitional period where the heat is still brutal, but the collective energy of sports fans starts shifting from "vacation mode" to "anticipation mode." For me, it’s always been a weird, bittersweet feeling.

I’ve been a die-hard follower of my local team for as long as I can remember. I remember sitting in the stands during those early August sessions years ago—the humidity was thick enough to chew, the grass was starting to look a little stressed, and the players were out there grinding in the sun. There’s something almost primal about it, isn’t there? Watching a group of people prepare for a long, grueling battle while the rest of the world is still focused on barbecues and beach trips.

But lately, I’ve been having these internal debates with myself about the value of this entire preseason stretch. I mean, don't get me wrong, I love the sport. I love the strategy and the raw athleticism. But as the years go by, I find myself questioning the "spectacle" aspect of it. We spend so much time obsessing over every single practice drill, every roster move, and every preseason matchup, but how much of it actually matters to the soul of the game?

There’s a certain romanticism in watching the rookies try to make their mark, and I’ll never deny the thrill of seeing a sleeper hit emerge from the chaos. But there’s also this growing sense of cynicism in me. With how much information is pumped out now—every single movement being tracked, every minor injury being analyzed by a thousand different pundits—it feels like the "mystery" of the sport is being eroded. We’re being fed a constant stream of "preparations" and "schedules" that almost feel like they’re designed to keep us on a leash, waiting for the "real" thing to start.

I also can’t help but think about the logistics and the sheer grind of it all. For the fans, it’s about the excitement of a new season. For the players, it’s a high-stakes, high-injury-risk period where they are essentially fighting for their livelihoods in front of half-empty stands or on grainy livestreams. It feels a bit lopsided sometimes. We get the entertainment, and they get the physical toll.

I remember one specific year, maybe a decade ago, when I went to an early-season exhibition game. The atmosphere was different then. It felt less like a corporate product and more like a community gathering. Now, everything feels so... scheduled. So optimized. It feels like we’re being conditioned to treat the buildup with the same intensity as the championship run, even though we all know the outcome of these early skirmishes is largely academic.

Is it just me, or has the "hype cycle" become a bit too much to handle? Do you guys find that the preseason builds genuine excitement for you, or does it just feel like unnecessary noise before the season actually hits its stride? I’d love to hear if anyone else feels that shift in how we consume the sport during these months.

Just for kicks:

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A solid 65 pounds between the legs.>

Work on those forearm muscles by starting with a rubber ball before moving up to a spring-loaded hand gripper. If you're actually going to put in the work, use an elbow brace and you'll see some progress eventually.

If you actually want to lean out properly without having a massive surplus right now, you need to be looking at a daily deficit of about 300 calories; this whole 1,000-calorie deficit thing you're doing is complete garbage. You have to hit your protein targets to protect your muscle mass while keeping your strength training intensity exactly where it currently is.
That’s why carnivore diets actually work, whereas whatever this guided nonsense is is just pure trash.

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I don't buy it; at that height, 60kg isn't even remotely healthy. It just means they have zero muscle mass and look like a walking coat hanger, which is why they can't even lift a 40kg weight. Of course he wants to pack on 15kg so he looks like a normal guy and actually has a shot with women.

Exactly, your body isn't designed to store fat; you need to trigger it to build muscle through heavy lifting instead. Skip the cardio sessions and focus on a serious weightlifting routine with heavy iron, and you'll see yourself gaining 10-15kg in a year. Of course, that requires proper nutrition, which means you have to be willing to invest, $67 spending money on a gym membership plus an extra 200-$100 per month to fund a solid diet, whey, and some basic supplements.

You can grab chlorine-free pool treatments, probably ozone-based, sitting right there on the chemical aisle at Bauhaus

I’m not sure which hospital they have you at, but standard procedure for a UC surgery usually involves removing the entire colon and constructing a pouch from small bowel tissue, leaving about 4cm of the rectum that requires careful monitoring. Like I told you before, just follow what the doctors say and go with the pouch; give your body a full year to settle everything down. You can always revert to an ileostomy later if things go south. In my first surgery, they removed my whole colon, formed the pouch, and put me on a temporary stoma so my stool wouldn't stress the pouch and rectum while they healed. During my second surgery, they closed the stoma, and the pouch finally took over. There was a nine-week gap between those operations, and I ended up being out of work for exactly four months total. If your pouch isn't fully formed yet, you're looking at two separate procedures: the initial formation and then the final closure of the stoma.

If you manage to score some steroids on the black market, the move is to hit a relatively high dose initially to guarantee effectiveness during those first 7 to 14 days—we're talking 32mg daily. From there, you taper down based on how you're actually feeling, cutting the dose by 50% every two weeks, so you drop to 16mg, then 8mg daily, and eventually 8mg every other day. You might find yourself staying on that 16mg to 8mg range for several months if that's what it takes.

Steven Cox5 said:That’s exactly my point: they need Medrol or Decortin and Imuran right now. But people act like it's nothing. How are you supposed to handle a colonoscopy and biopsies when your gut is already bleeding like this? And don't even get me started on the Moviprep prep. My clinical experience says otherwise—like, you guys might have MDs, but why won't you just let us doctors actually treat you? I told her straight up: we've been waiting a year and nobody is doing anything.

First, they kept me running in circles for a year. I’ve burned through about $6667 between private specialists, travel, and all those useless supplements, probiotics, and vitamins. Finally, the scan shows terminal ileitis, and now I'm stuck dealing with agonizing pain while trying to feed and change my 7-month-old. I was literally crying at the grocery store just trying to find food for her. And I'm just sitting here waiting... waiting... waiting. No private doctor will dare prescribe the actual therapy without a biopsy because it isn't "officially" Crohn's yet. By the time I get the colonoscopy results back from the pathologist, another 20 days will have passed. And how is my poor gut supposed to handle the prep? I can barely stand the bloating and pain, let alone a colonoscopy. If they don't start me on therapy by Friday, I'm hitting the ER and going straight to the hospital director if I have to. I'm not leaving until they give me what I need.

There is no way anyone should be forced into new colonoscopies while in an acute flare. When I was in an acute state, I only had one partial colonoscopy performed just to confirm the diagnosis, and I didn't undergo a full colonoscopy until fifteen months later once I had reached a stable remission.

Yeah, I called it a long time ago—this is likely autoimmune. You’re going to need corticosteroid therapy to get your system back to baseline, and then you can transition to Pentasa or some other sulfasalazine. It’s honestly mind-blowing to me that it takes four whole months just to nail down a diagnosis....

I've been dealing with intestinal issues for years—ulcerative colitis—and ended up having a total colectomy seven years ago. Look, I’m not a doctor, but I’ve certainly seen it all when it comes to gut health. If I were in your shoes, I'd look into ruling out autoimmune inflammatory diseases; the most logical move would be asking your primary care physician for a prescription for corticosteroids, maybe some Methylprednisolone or something similar, and running a trial course for about 5 to 7 days at a modest dose of 16mg daily just to see how your body responds. If you see a massive improvement, then you're likely looking at some form of autoimmune inflammation, which means you should probably start on a long-term regimen like sulfasalazine.
Try supporting your system with supplements that actually aid gut healing: zinc, magnesium, B vitamins, omega-3, L-glutamine, homemade kefir, and Ashwagandha. Cut out the iron unless it's absolutely necessary because it puts way too much strain on your digestion. Once your gut starts functioning properly again, your blood work will improve rapidly, so focus on fixing the gut rather than overloading it with iron.