A community which focusses on improving yourself. This can be in many different ways - from improving physical health or appearance, to improving mental health, creating better habits, overcoming addictions, etc.
While material circumstances beyond our control do govern much of our daily lives, people do have agency and choices to make, whether that is as "simple" as disciplining yourself to not doomscroll, to as complex as recreating yourself to have many different hobbies and habits.
This is not a place where all we do is talk about improving "productivity" (in a workplace context) and similar terms and harmful lifestyles like "grindset". Self-improvement here is intended to make you a generally better and happier person, as well as a better communist, and any other roles you may have in your life.
Rules and guidelines:
Hello comrades and welcome to the last improvement megathread of January! 
One more week left to finish January strong 
Some discussion ideas:
+ How was your week?
+ Do you have some plans for next week?
Poster caption:
The tractor-plowing squadron
机耕队
Jigeng dui
roll call
@SeventyTwoTrillion@hexbear.net
@TraschcanOfIdeology@hexbear.net
@LGOrcStreetSamurai@hexbear.net
@Tomorrow_Farewell@hexbear.net
@anarchoilluminati@hexbear.net
@WhatDoYouMeanPodcast@hexbear.net
@KoloradoKoolAid75@lemmygrad.ml
If anybody else wants to be added to the roll call, just let me know 
add pls
Welcome to the tractor-plowing squadron 
We're happy to have you 
in the future marxist paradise . . . . my role will be tractor-plower 
Yeah, add me too comrade <3
Welcome to the tractor-plowing squadron, comrade! We are happy to have you with us 
Thanks comrade, good to be here <3
Stickied good luck
CW alcoholism
The week was OK but I could really be healthier and kinder to my comrades. I'm aiming for dry February. I'm also looking at two short-term living options, neither recovery-focused, just an aparthotel or a little house. The aparthotel is in a super-walkable part of the city. That includes many many bars but also tons of other stuff. The little house is walkable by usian standards but all of the stuff is on two intersecting street. I would be properly within a quadrant and not on either of the streets.
If I'm in the little house, I'd have quiet. I could just go to the grocery store occasionally and stay home preparing my meals, reading, getting used to linux and maybe delving into programming again. Or I could ignore those possibilities, tell myself that I'm bored and bring home booze from that same grocery store and be blotto by noon every day.
If I'm in the aparthotel, I could explore the city more freely and hopefully find stuff to keep me occupied when I'm not doing my inside tasks. Then again, there will be bars on the way to and from everything and I could find myself regularly doing one-man pubcrawls.
Failure and success both seem like real possibilities at both places, so I guess I'm asking for better questions to ask myself before making the decision. Thanks in advance.
I don't have any experience with this but there are some comrades in our megathread roll call who are on the same journey as you, hopefully they can give you some advice.
If you wish, I can add you to the roll call and you can update us on your progress. The megathread is posted every Sunday so you can receive a notification and keep us updated
Yes please and thank you.
Welcome onboard, we're happy to have you!
How was your week?
Oh boy, it was rough. For the last almost two weeks I went on a drinking bender after almost a month sober and am having to detox today. Luckily I wasn't drinking as much as I have in the past so the detox is fairly mild. Still somewhat kicking myself for spending so much and the fact that I lost my phone, but I am staying positive about the future and glad that I didn't go for longer since I've had several weeks and even months at a time in the past, so eleven days is definitely an improvement.
Do you have some plans for next week?
Getting things back on track from where I was at two weeks ago. I had stopped for 26 days and was feeling real good mentally and physically. I had rejoined the YMCA and started doing yoga and was doing a lot of reading and starting to really study Marxist theory. So the plan is to get back to the YMCA and pay my membership since it was due a few days ago, go to the scifi book club at the library (reading Borne by Jeff Vandermeer which I have only a few days to finish now), get back to my long walks by the waterfront and taking the doggo down the trail and finally going back to eating vegetarian which I had finally just fully committed to for those 26 days. I'm also starting some online courses and looking for a job after being out of work for a long while finally. Basically living healthier than I have when I've been drinking. I've been trying to get my life back on track for the past year after getting a DUI at the end of 2024, it's been a long, and at times painful processes, but I finally feel like I'm coming out of it.
I'm glad I found this community today, it's very timely since today is officially my first day of sobriety for good this time. I'll keep coming around and using the community to keep myself on track and encourage others too ;)
Congrats on your sobriety! We have some comrades here who are on the same journey. I post the megathread every Sunday so keep us updated!
This guy who does a podcast with Rev Left Radio has great videos on sobriety.
My best life hack for a vegetarian diet is meal prep bean burritos. It takes me a few hours to make around 16 burritos and I put them in the freezer. It's amazing that you can prepare a healthy and delicious dinner for 2 weeks with just a few hours of cooking. You don't even have to cook anything, you can just buy the tortillas, beans and sauce and combine them. I also put peppers, onions, corn, chickpeas, lentils and a bunch of spices. 
Hell yeah, thanks comrade! Oh, that's awesome, I love RevLeft but never have listened to ShoelessinSouthDakota but was just thinking the other day I should be.
Sweet, that is a great idea and I already have most of those ingredients. I also like making black bean burgers which are easy peasy. Thanks for the tip!
Yeah, I'll definitely be around in the community, I'm deadset on staying sober and working on myself in general this time around ;)
This week I did some reading on 5 days and practiced meditation on 4 days. The book gave me the idea to buy spinach powder so that I can boost my intake of leafy greens every day.
The weather should be a bit warmer next week so I want to go running at least on one day but ideally more 
The book gave me the idea to buy spinach powder so that I can boost my intake of leafy greens every day.
You love to see it!
As a brokie, spinach powder is kinda expensive where I live so if anyone is feeling inspired by this idea and they want to try something similar out you could always look for bulk dried herbs, especially parsley (as the drying process loses a lot of the flavor compounds from the parsley, making it less ideal from a culinary perspective but more ideal as a greens booster for your diet) or, my personal favorite, dried nettles.
Dried nettles taste pretty neutral and "green." It's usually sold for use as a tea in the west but nettles are completely edible and they are so nutritious that they are a candidate for being marketed as a superfood (🤢🤮) I tend to use it in place of parsley or anywhere that something like spinach fits. Nettle soup was a peasant food and a subsistence meal for countless centuries so don't be afraid of eating it.
It's a really good, easy way of increasing your vegetable intake and it's perfect for people who have accessibility issues (e.g. if you have motor issues that make vegetable prep hard or you're living in a food desert or in poverty where it can be prohibitively difficult to access fresh vegetables regularly.)
E: Oh yeah, you can powder these things in a food grinder if you want to as well. I'm too lazy for that and I'm not bothered by the texture but it's always an option if you want to do it.
Hell yeah, powders are a great life hack. It's an easy way to make your diet 10 times healthier. I just mix them with water and drink or put them in my oatmeal. Here are some powders that I use on a regular basis:
Great stuff!
Same thing applies to garlic powder and onion powder - it's a great, cheap option that can be way more accessible than fresh onions and garlic, plus it works in most dishes like usual.
I tend to use granules because they don't clump but if you find a dish lacks depth then adding garlic powder, onion powder, sweet paprika (literally just dried powdered red bell pepper), and/or powdered mushroom elevates pretty much any dish and it adds a ton of nutrition. Nutritional yeast flakes do the same.
Never heard of aronia powder before, gonna research it. Thanks for introducing it to me.
Amla is really great. The only fruit that outperforms it in terms of antioxidant level is acerola to my knowledge, but acerola isn't suited to commercial production although you might find it beind sold by street vendors if you're in the right place. (It's a wonderful tree to grow if you live in a tropical or temperate region too.) Amla is very popular in South Asia and they seem to have the commercial production of it locked down, which is why we can get it in powdered form. Not that it matters - when it comes down to it, 99% good vs 100% really doesn't make any practical difference.
If you like learning about health and nutrition, I recommend the book How Not to Die by Michael Greger. I think you're gonna like it! This author also has a book on healthy weight loss and another one on aging (I'm reading it right now). He also has cookbooks for all 3 of these books, you can find all of it on Anna's Archive 
Spinach powder 
that could be easy enough to get, hope you get your running in I'm gonna work my way up to it
If you want to work your way up to running, I recommend the "Couch to 5k" program. It's an exercise program designed for beginners with zero experience:
So basically, on the first day you run for 60 seconds, then walk for 90 seconds. Repeat that cycle 8 times. You can adjust the amount according to your needs but the basic idea is to gradually increase the amount of running and decrease the amount of walking.
There are a lot of free apps and podcasts using this program in which somebody tells you when to run and when to walk. It's easy and fun, I highly recommend it 
I'll get on it then monday, library is closed anyway so I can get my exercise in rest tuesday and so on based on how I feel.
Good luck and let us know how it goes! I would also like to go running on Monday if the weather permits
been upping my running game since the new year, wanting to add mileage and conditioning prior to start of formal marathon preparation.
last two weeks probably at 25-30 weekly miles (which isn't, you know, more than running more than a hour a day 5-6 days a week), and already legs feel like they're falling apart. worse, i took off from the climbing gym these past weeks and over the holidays -- went back and i feel like i've lost months of progress, my forearms are aching like when i first started this past summer.
i'm sleeping, i'm eating, i'm not drinking. really wish my body would get it together.
Practicing drums 3 hours a day and doing active listening for 1 hour everyday. I'm gonna get good!
I think my biggest weakness right now is just not really having enough repertoire down. I only really know a dozen or two songs enough to solo over.
That's awesome, who is your favourite drummer? What do you listen during active listening?
Meal prep Sunday just finished a lot of Mexican rice, beans and prepping some stuff for tofu patties. I've applied so some places last week and got a lot more walking in. Gonna strive for at least 20 minutes of walking a day, also been reading again. I got a book due on Friday I'm gonna get my one book a month in, scaling back from one a week. Got more plasma donations coming up, just to break even really but I'm passing my health screening easy now.
As 
burns down I'm gonna keep my head up and not fall into despair, it's tempting really tempting to go back into my old ways but that's not who I am anymore. Those habits and that old me were just coping mechanisms that no longer help me and I will always love my past self even in that depressive rut I was in but it's time for it to rest up. I didn't say it for a while but I wish everyone the best for this year and your goals 
My job search is in full swing. It's always a weird feeling trying to convince people I am who I say I am. I like to think my work at Langley monitoring leftists was good. I just need people to understand that I can do more of that for them