Oh you know what, I bet some of why it’s been so slow going down creatine scoops lately is since I started maul smashing I’ve had such an energy hit for muscle building and baseline use of the new stuff it’s taking up most of the energy budget the recovery of aerobic generation was giving back.

Which means that if I calculate it out there’s a chance I’ll end up past “Slim” and into the “Thin” state, but with really built muscles, which is about where Hollywood leading men are these days.

…which is exactly the A-1 grade of bullshit we’ve come to expect here at Casa Kontextmaschine, so fuck it, sure. Sure.

…

…Karafuto. I guess Karafuto is “Casa Kontextmaschine”.

Anyway what about my stomach I noticed on waking today that made me hurry the “Overweight side of Normie” pronouncement is that–

Well, so far slimming down has involved the stomach going from more masses – the almost quartered belly – to a single bulge but it was like I was feeling distinct masses again as the next stage coming, almost like a pack of bread rolls…

…and then I realized: that’s a six-pack. That’s the outer form of the torso being distorted by the bulk of abdominal muscles from below the flesh. As I lose more fat, it’ll become clearer.

Huh.

Okay, the last unconsolidated fat at the bottom edge of my stomach has cleared, the entirety of stomach fat is now a single, taughtly-bound roundish mass with no further deposits barnacled upon it, and we are now at the

–Overweight Side of Normie–

(if “normal” didn’t sit right, “average” didn’t really either)

Actually, I had been holding off for a more absolute and total tautening of the bottom edge but waking up just now my stomach’s on to shrinking in other ways that count for this phase, so time to update.

As I lose weight my face becomes more lined with age. Before it was just lined with fat, I guess.

See my whole life I was told I was freakishly mentally advanced – just seemed the normal level to me – so I kind of had a heading ready to file it under when I got like, a meta- level demo of the entire concept of mentally constructed “selves” a few years back, but first the weight loss and now the muscle growth, like other people can see that shit too, right?

Hunk TF summer continues apace, probably going to declare fat down to the “overweight side of average” level soon, and the impression of my entire torso save the stomach itself to the touch is now muscle. Really the old “upper roll of fat” of the stomach, too.

Yeah even when I had anxiety combining with the depression side of manic depression I didn’t think of myself as particularly unfortunate in any particular area, social stuff wasn’t my thing but well within common norms

The first miracle, just the personality change stuff, well that’s weird like brains are weird and everyone’s gonna have something be the weirdest thing that happened in their life, and mine also takes weirdest thing to ever happen to anyone I know, so that’s kinda neat.

The second miracle, the creatine weight loss thing, insane how that’s perfectly on track to take all the fat I built in life and leave me attractively slim with like no effort, but I do feel some agency by way of figuring it out and it seems fitting that I get some kind of reward for putting everything together there (while still deliriously half-brained!) to fix it immediately

The third miracle, this muscle gain testosterone stuff, it’s like you already gilded the lily, what are you doing now, gilding the gilding? Fuck, man.

Even under the beard, my face is like seven years younger worth of thinner already, which is a little uncanny when it doesn’t make the beard any less white.

Alright, at this point there is no feature of my arms defined by fat until I bend my elbow to 80°, it at most softens features defined by muscles.

I am going to have a six-pack within as little as four months.

I have not seen my abdominal muscles in… perhaps ever.

Alright, my right Latissimus dorsi follows my pecs as first torso muscles distinguishable under the skin.

kontextmaschine:

Looking at my torso head-on in a mirror from top to bottom there’s no clearly defined start of the stomach, it’s all one plane starting out from the shoulderblades, you can look at the top and say “that’s chest” and at the bottom and say “that’s stomach”, but there’s no clearly defined point where it switches over.

Oh okay, today I noticed below my pecs some of the blemishing that indicates that there’s a section of skin just not being replaced anymore, and what has vanished is the skin that formed a crease there.

Few more months and my face is gonna be as thin as I’ve been understanding it this whole time

So I guess my take-away from ::gestures:: all this is that after I graduated college I was not in fact a final-stage imago, I had to moult through several instars before, mediated by Covid, I pupated.

Saw for the first time in years a girl who I had indirectly made clear I’d be interested in but she’d indirectly made clear she wouldn’t, and she mentioned that I was looking good while she’s clearly not even in her early 30s anymore, so that was nice.

The progression of how my arms feel as the fat melts off has been spoiled by the complication that the muscles are also growing significantly larger and harder.

Looking at my torso head-on in a mirror from top to bottom there’s no clearly defined start of the stomach, it’s all one plane starting out from the shoulderblades, you can look at the top and say “that’s chest” and at the bottom and say “that’s stomach”, but there’s no clearly defined point where it switches over.

I have been working shirtless out in the side yard (the right of way with Strawberry Ridge and Blueberry Hill) most days for the last year and a half, I wonder if anyone passed by on the path enough to appreciate my physical come-up.

…I am gonna look very hot in a few months, huh?

Wanted to talk about the changing feel to the touch of my torso as the fat melts away but the dominant impression is really of how meaty my arms and chest are getting.