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Sicarius
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Health

Post by Sicarius » Sun May 10, 2020 6:48 pm

Today I have some questions about my health and other people's health regarding night ops. I am discussing three different aspects, fitness, diet, and mind.
Fitness is something that I have always wanted to achieve but never quite had the motivation. However, quarantine has given me a reason to become fit, and that is discovering this website and wanting to try out night opping. I also do not want to be fat, which is motivation enough if you think about people who weigh five hundred pounds and are out of breath from thinking about bending over. I have not been doing much other than leg exercises and practicing, as well as holding, crouching. However, I am going to start a basic workout routine that is roughly twenty to thirty minutes a day that targets specific areas of the body. Just general workouts for those areas, with a small focus on muscles that are directly related to stealth activities. If anybody has any critique or ideas, please share. My end goal is to be fit in general, but with a focus on stamina and speed. I do not want to be so fit that I look like a bodybuilder either, just functional enough while still allowing me to blend in with average people.
Diet is something that I have been doing fairly well recently, and have been practicing better than the average American for most of my life. When I talk about diet, I want to be clear that I do not mean weird garbage like paleo and keto, both of which my mom has tried, but just what you eat. The healthiest diet according to statistics and common sense is the Mediterranean diet, which can be easily researched on the internet. I will not talk about the specifics of it as you can easily google it. I already partially ate this, so I convinced my mom to try the whole family on it as she was looking for a new diet for herself and us to suffer through. However, the diet is quite enjoyable and I feel much lighter after meals. I will also include matcha tea, as it provides energy and focus, making it great for night ops. Anyone else who has ideas or a specific diet, please share.
Last, I want to discuss the mind for night ops. I do not mean whether you have a disorder or not, but stuff like meditation and thinking to keep your mind sharp and healthy. I have been reading different philosophical works, and while I would never really live my life by one completely, they make your mind think which is healthy. However, meditation is my main mind exercise. I am not very good at it and can only do it for about a minute, and not very well, but once I open my eyes my senses feel incredibly heightened. This is good for night ops, and I heard the moderator Xanatos mention it once in an old thread. I would just like to get better at it, but that comes from practice and research. Another idea is to stimulate all of your senses before a night op in a meditational form. This could involve burning incense, eating a brief snack, feeling a surface, and observing with sight and hearing. If anyone else has any ideas regarding the mind for night ops, please share,
In conclusion, over this quarantine, I look to better myself through fitness, diet, and mind. I also have some saving goals that I will share in a later post and have evaluated. Please share any ideas that you have relating to this subject below, and have a good day.
"If one cannot be both, it is much better to be feared than loved" - Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince

spartan_ninja45
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Re: Health

Post by spartan_ninja45 » Sun May 10, 2020 10:44 pm

I'm in the same boat. Just started giving a fuck about my fitness again for the first time in a year. I've mainly been doing strength training and eating lots of protein as well as lots of green vegetables. But I also seek to improve my stamina and fast twitch muscle fibers. Meditation is great though. I've kept up with it for a few years and it really really helps me in all areas of my life, not just opping. I urge you to keep at it even if you can only do it for one minute at a time. Once you get used to it, you should be able to go for a lot longer. Can I ask what type of meditation you do?

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Re: Health

Post by Sicarius » Sun May 10, 2020 11:09 pm

I do not know what it is called, but I sit cross-legged with my eyes closed and take deep breaths. I would like for my mind to be completely blank, but it is incredibly hard, so I have to say "rising" when breathing in and "falling" when breathing out. This helps me to think less, but I still have trouble. I was thinking today about dabbling in other types of meditation, so I think that I will look into it.
"If one cannot be both, it is much better to be feared than loved" - Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince

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Re: Health

Post by Xanatos » Mon May 11, 2020 3:32 am

I've outlined general NO-related exercises to stay in shape but haven't gone into too much detail. They were small weekly/daily exercises to keep your mind & body tuned up in between long spans of not opping to avoid turning into a potato. If you're looking to go more in-depth during quarantine... well, nothing really beats just going out to op. Streets are pretty much empty anyway and it's not like most of us have to get up for work in the morning anyway.

For more home-related exercises, I've undergone extensive body conditioning to allow me to go for long periods of time without food or sleep, so I'm likely not the best when it comes to nutrition. Psychlonic has tonnes to share on how to get the most out of your diet & generally improve your wellbeing.

As for fitness, try taking up a martial art that emphasises a lot of physicality. It's a bit less conspicuous than 'stealth' training yet instils a lot of good habits for Night Ops. I primarily practise Kali and lately been looking into Yoshitaka Inagawa's 'Zero Range Combat System' (a somewhat esoteric amalgamation of other styles, including Kali, Systema & Ninjitsu) and the emphasis on footwork, fluidity, dexterity and awareness translates to stealth movement quite easily. Already I can feel its influence in my day-to-day bearings, be it walking to & from the shops or simply handling utensils in my home. The more you can make your technique habitual, the better. Of course this only comes with practice & dedication, so no slacking off.

To go with this comes meditation. Or mental exercises in general. 'True' meditation is a means of cleansing the mind of all conscious thought to get in better touch with the unconscious mind, but even in a dedicated environment it's damn near impossible to accomplish. It's hard to focus on absolutely nothing, so instead try focusing on one thing. A candle, your own breathing, the sound of a waterfall, whatever. Sit in a position that doesn't inhibit your bloodflow or breathing - cross-legged or on your knees with your feet close together are common poses.
At least that's how I do it, with some bells & whistles attached. You'll have to come up with a ritual that best suits you.

I've also outlined in my homework guides exercises to improve your observation but if you're stuck at home all day these will be rather limited in scope. Nevertheless, you should know your own home like the back of your hand. Layout of the rooms, blind spots & ambush positions, where the floorboards are creakiest, what's cover & concealment, all possible exits & flanking routes, etc. Tactically evaluate your environment.
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Re: Health

Post by Psychlonic » Mon May 11, 2020 12:17 pm

Xanatos wrote:
Mon May 11, 2020 3:32 am
Psychlonic has tonnes to share on how to get the most out of your diet & generally improve your wellbeing.
I feel obligated to write out an asterisk here. You'll notice my more recent postings here for training revolve heavily around strength, that was more a personal endeavor of mine where I had wanted to accomplish personal goals that had little to do with night ops but I still wanted to be able to play around at night. I was encouraging others to simply work on fitness, but my goals weren't really meant to be followed. Strength is good but bulking for the sake of reaching competitive powerlifting levels isn't super useful for stealth and it took me a good 2 years before I was able to actually handle having all the extra weight. I'm sure you don't need to read any of this because it should be obvious, but just to really drive the point home here; when you go your whole life being a particular muscle to weight ratio and suddenly force that to skyrocket, every movement you know needs to be relearned and it's extremely difficult.

You want enough strength to handily move your own body around where ever it needs to be and not be a complete pushover if confronted and that's it. And by the latter, probably if you're strong in BWE's that's good enough. It's far more efficient to be lighter and maybe not as strong but packing some kind of trump card self-defense item.

The real areas you should focus on are cardio, muscular endurance, flexibility, and reflexes/coordination. You'll find that the easier you flow through the night, the more entertaining it'll be and the more you'll want to go out. Those things will treat you better in everyday life as well. Training for and being able to complete endurance obstacle courses is within reach of any operative and is a great way to get into prime operating condition.
Knowledge alone is not power, it is the potential for power. That potential can only be unlocked through applying that knowledge and realizing the skill.

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Re: Health

Post by Sicarius » Mon May 11, 2020 1:43 pm

Thank you all for your responses. I have been looking into cardio/aerobic exercises to increase my endurance, and within the next week, I will try some as well as exercises to increase balance and muscle power. I do agree with you psychlonic, I am not looking to be a bodybuilder. I just want to look average, but have the muscle strength as well to help with crouching and other activities. I am beginning to map out my house as you suggested, Xanatos, as I cannot leave due to the pandemic and the activity will provide experience. Thank you all for your suggestions!
"If one cannot be both, it is much better to be feared than loved" - Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince

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Re: Health

Post by spartan_ninja45 » Mon May 11, 2020 5:29 pm

(Forgive me. I'm a noob that doesn't know how to reply with a quote. So I'm just gonna copy and paste for now.)

Xanatos, I'm intrigued by what you said here:

"For more home-related exercises, I've undergone extensive body conditioning to allow me to go for long periods of time without food or sleep, so I'm likely not the best when it comes to nutrition."

What sort of body conditioning would allow for less sleep and food? Could you elaborate on that?

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Re: Health

Post by Xanatos » Mon May 11, 2020 7:52 pm

I meant you'd know more about nutrition than I do, Psych. Plus you seem to know more about dietary supplements & such not necessarily related to bulking up.

As for the conditioning, it's basically... what's the opposite of 'Mithridatism'? Just... embracing the suck, essentially. Pushing your body to its limits and seeing how long you can function on minimal sustenance. Not something I'd generally recommend.
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Re: Health

Post by Psychlonic » Mon May 11, 2020 9:37 pm

I'll expand upon this elsewhere because it's still in a vague hypothesis state and I don't want to hijack this topic, but I've been strongly led to believe that sleep is necessitated by a physiological need to refresh the hormone receptors in our bodies. There's a threshold level in the brain where electrical nerve impulses are quickly converted to hormonal signals instead and ALL hormone receptors require refreshing or else they burn out and eventually that function will cease to exist. We tend to think of sleep as a "brain command" that's built in and happens automatically, but I'm proposing and looking into the idea that it just happens organically as our neurostimulant receptors begin to desensitize allowing GABA to outcompete it and put us to sleep.

Short version here, I hypothesize that by accelerating the refreshing and biogenesis of those receptors, we require less sleep along with other awesome beneficial side effects such as lower tolerance to all the goodies that also help our bodies out. And the good news is, we already know several ways to speed that process up with some of the new generation anti-oxidants and peptides coming out. In addition, I've taken to several personal experiments with supplements meant to stave off sleep a bit more. Maybe in addition to a natural protocol we can work out what should be a very temporary regimen to be used when necessary? For example, 48 hours of driving, hiking, thorns, more hiking, more driving...
Knowledge alone is not power, it is the potential for power. That potential can only be unlocked through applying that knowledge and realizing the skill.

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Re: Health

Post by Xanatos » Tue May 12, 2020 1:13 am

It'll be like NOPCON 2 on fast-foreward.
We are all books containing thousands of pages and within each lies an irreparable truth.
What is locked, can be opened. What is hidden, can be found. What is yours... can be mine.

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