Asayake

Exposure therapy can act as an extension of your formal mindfulness practice as it will make your anxiety appear, and then you have an opportunity to practice mindfulness in the face of the anxiety, it will make your formal sits easier, staying mindful in a social situation with social anxiety is likely more challenging than sitting in the comfort of your home. But formal sitting practice is super great too. When you practice mindfulness in the face of anxiety either on or off the mat it will integrate the anxiety into your life over time so that at first, even when anxiety appears, it's not as big of a problem anymore. Then as time goes on it becomes a smaller and smaller problem, and with even more time and practice it turns into just an annoyance you have to deal with. Finally, it turns into something which you fully accept as a part of your experience and at that point it could barely even be considered anxiety anymore, it still is in a sense, but it's just that you see it more clearly for what it is, so it doesn't cause you as much suffering. Anxiety is something we struggle to accept, we want to get rid of it, preferably as soon as possible. Similarly to fear it's a feeling we want to turn away from, we don't want to look at it/feel it, If we wanted to feel it we likely wouldn't call it anxiety/fear. It's resistance of what is because we fear what could be. When you're practicing mindfulness, you're teaching your mind to stay present of what is. To be present of what is means to stand your ground, you're there in the eye of the storm, you're not running away, you'll find peace there amongst the disturbances. The anxiety might arise, but you're still there, observing what is, if the anxiety is a part of that, so be it. You will be there for longer than the anxiety will be there, the anxiety is on a temporary visit but will dissolve sooner or later like all other appearances. In a sense, it's your teacher. In the end it might have been one of the best things that happened to you, it could be a gift in disguise. Your mission is not to try and get rid of it as soon as possible, but to get acquainted with it, being mindful of it when it appears. Become aware of which behaviors trigger it and which soothe it, and investigate why that is. Having anxiety is like being placed in a forest with nothing but a knife and a tent, the first time is going to be a mess but the more you get placed in the same situation the better you'll be able to handle it. You'll learn different coping skills, and you'll increase your awareness, it will teach you something about yourself you probably weren't going to learn otherwise, it will make you grow. A lot of what makes fear/anxiety so overwhelming is an illusion, it's not what we think it is. When we're mindful of it, in the present, feeling into our breath and body, we can get to know the feeling directly and discover that it's not as bad as we think it is. Awareness will dissolve the feeling over time, and the thoughts associated with that feeling will no longer serve much of a purpose and will lose their impact. When anxiety arises, and we're aware of it, it's a process of purification. Those feelings were potentially in your subconscious, governing your behaviors all along, it's just now coming to light, being aware of it is a healing of the mind, a letting go.

In regards to the fat & protein thing, fat especially is more taxing on the digestive system, it takes longer to digest. Fruit or rice will digest in 30-60 minutes and higher fat foods will take much longer, about 4 hours to digest. Acid reflux is often a symptom of poor digestion. A lot of people who suffer from acid reflux do so because of low stomach acid levels/indigestion. The food they eat for dinner will take longer to digest than it should so by the time they go to bed they still have stuff filling up their stomach, causing juices to get pushed out of the esophageal sphincter more easily. Beyond this, people with lower stomach acid levels don't have an as acidic enviroment in their stomach as others, either the acid is diluted by food that's not digesting quickly enough or the acid levels are just low to begin with. The acid level being as it should be is important because when acid gets in contact with the esophageal sphincter it triggers it to close shut so that sutff doesn't leak out and cause damage. If this is the case Apple Cider Vinegar will help to remedy this short term. Because it is acidic it will trigger the esophageal sphincter to help it close properly, this way you can lie down without stuff leaking out causing heartburn. There are also those who have high levels of stomach acid and that's the cause of the their reflux, for those people Apple Cider Vinegar would not help I believe, so testing Apple Cider Vinegar as a remedy could be helpful to try to troubleshoot what the cause of your acid reflux potentially is. If you eat something like cinamonn sugar rice porridge or rice & steamed vegetables or rice & chickpeas for dinner it will leave the stomach quicker, leaving your stomach acid less diluted so it can trigger the esophageal sphincter more easily as well as reducing risk of stuff getting pushed out of your stomach becuase of it not being emptied properly. Edit: I wanted to add that you also want to figure out potential trigger foods and avoid them completely. For me pasta is a big trigger where as rice & potatoes works great. I still have pasta every now and then because I love it but there's a price to be paid for that lol.. Another trigger for me is chili pepper. For a while I couldn't eat tomatoes or canned tomatoes but that seems to work fine again now so some triggers seem to disappear as the digestion improves.

I have been dealing with this on and off for years. The first thing I would do is to reduce the fat intake as much as possible. Remove oil and opt for tofu or beans over eggs. If you're eating street food/restaurant food you're gonna have to look for a place that got something without oil or fat such as steamed vegetable. This alone helped me quite a bit, with that being said I still have acid reflux from time to time, it seems to be multifactorial for me. In my case going to bed too late as well as just increased stress by itself are two triggers. Another thing worth trying is avoiding to drinking water when you eat, instead try to drink 3 glasses 15-20 mins before your meals, as to not dillute your stomach acid and slow down your digestion. A quick remedy you could try is 2 tablespoon of Apple Cider Vinegar mixed in 1/2 glass of water, drink that at night before going to bed and flush out your mouth with water afterwards. After about 20-40 minutes of drinking that my acid reflux disappears for the night. However, relying on this longterm might not be great because it damages your enamel in the long run since it's acidic. And it could be more useful in the long run to get to the root cause of your issues. I hope you found some of this useful and I hope you find some relief from your symptoms.

Lost Highway(1997) Eraserhead(1977) Mulholland Drive(2001)

Interesting, I've been dealing with heart burn on and off for a long time. I'm starting to wonder if there's something related with that for me. Possible I have had some digestion issue for a long time that I've never gotten figured out. I'm going to get blood tests done to see if that makes me any wiser. Definitely feeling better so far without supplements, the only question is how sustainable that is.. given that I'm in a dark country on a vegan diet...

Any animal product high in fat is also high in cholestorol pretty much so the only way to avoid cholestorol on carnivore is to calorie restrict as far as I am aware and that's only possible temporarily and will worsen fatigue. On carnivore you need to eat a lot of fatty foods for it to work. Eating only lean meats like white fish etc is not going to be sustainable.

Cheers

Anyone here living in a rental place have RO? I'm curious now to try this but I live in a rental place so I'm not so sure I would be allowed to make an installation like this, perhaps I could do it under the radar, I saw there are potentially some no install units you can attach to the tap itself but I'm not sure how good those are.

Did you come to any resolve regarding this? I am recently experimenting with taking vs not taking certain vitamins and it does seem like I feel better overall when I'm NOT taking Vitamin D, despite living in a dark country. Super strange, I'm pretty sure it's not placebo, although that's possible as well of course. @Craigxt22

I'm not sure reverse osmosis is the best, I've heard things about it potentially depleting minerals in the body because it's too clean, anyone knows something about that? Carbon filter seems to be a good middle ground but I'm not sure what a good carbon filter would be. In my country there seems to be no good carbon filters available as far as I can find. I believe tap water isn't good, the tap water where I live is insanely high in calcium which is not a good thing, increases risk of kidney stones and other issues so I want to get this part of my health figured out. Edit: I just noticed Leo adds back minerals and stuff into the water after the reverse osmosis, could be worth pointing that out for anyone who didn't read the blog post, I think reverse osmosis without doing that could be dangerous.

This might not be something you're willing to do but how about decreasing your fat intake drastically? Let me explain how I view this. As far as your lunch goes.. particularly sausages and eggs are high fat foods, they take a lot of energy and time to digest, about 4 hours or sometimes longer. During that time your body will put an increased effort into digestion and you will feel sluggish and slow. Look at how runners or cyclists eat, they don't eat sausages a fatty meats before a running race unless it's like some keto ultra marathon guy, it would slow them down and make them preform poorly, not only physically but also mentally. Look at what Magnus Carlsen consumes while playing chess - a glass of orange juice, the most low fat food there is. That's what you want to feel and preform your best, something light yet high in energy. High fat foods decreases your body's ability to handle sugar/carbs and temporarily thickens your blood which worsens your blood flow. Increased blood flow = better oxygen transportation amongst other things. There are many reasons why high fat foods can make you sluggish, so I would try cutting down on those or cutting those out entirely and see how that makes you feel. Opt for chicken or white fish over sausages and eggs but an even better option is opting for a bean chilli without meat and oil, or simply steamed vegetables as sides to your grains. You will likely feel the best eating as high carb as possible, it's clear energy. Things like a fruit smoothie(with sugar even if you want) or a bowl of rice will digest in 30-60 minutes and you're ready to go. The key is to eat something light, which more or less can be summed up to something high carb low fat low protein. You can still eat til you're full, you don't have to eat a small quantity of food, you just need to eat the kinds of food that are light on the body, in other words easy for the body to digest, and those foods are high carb low fat foods. Examples of such foods can be rice, potatoes, sweet potatoes, couscous, bulgur, corn, chickpeas, lentils, beans, carrots and other vegetables. Chicken breast and white fish are pretty low fat but they're very low in carbs as well so that's a downside, they don't give you much readily available energy. As far as your mornings go.. you're skipping breakfast which puts the body in a fasted state where it is forced to rely on cortisol because you're depriving it of sugar/carbs. Then you're adding on coffee on top of that which is a cortisol stimulating drug. What your body really wants is clean energy from foods like fruit or grains but you're depriving your body of that and mistaking the body's stress response for sustainable energy. But the coffee spike lasts a couple of hours and then your energy will crash. This will compound with the high fat lunch you're eating. They're teaming up to knock you out, so to speak. So I would suggest also trying to substitute coffee for fruit, a fruit smoothie, fruit juice sooner or later. You can even try pouring some sugar on top for extra energy, it will make it easier to quit coffee if that's something you're willing to try, it will simply give you more readily available energy and lower your cortisol. Also drinking water early in the mornings will help your body rehydrate from sleep which will make you feel better and get you going faster, 3 glasses when you wake up and then down some fruit. Also you're working out quite a bit so high carb is important to help your body recover and the working out is going to be increasing your cortisol levels so sugar/carbs will help you regulate those levels so you don't burn out from overtraining/stressing yourself out like I did last year. The reason you like to have carbs before sleeping is that it helps your body lower cortisol, which is good. But imo you should be focusing way more on carbs overall throughout the day, it will keep you feeling better and recovering better overall, carbs alone aren't going to make you gain much weight but carbs + fat + protein will so if you really want to gain weight some fatty foods are fine. But keep in mind it's likely not going to make you feel your best imo, because fatty food does tax our body. If you're going to keep high fat foods in there maybe eat them on the later part of the day so you don't get knocked out at lunch. You could try just for a week eating fruit, fruit smoothies, canned fruit for breakfast & lunch and grains & veggies or grains & legumes or grains & white fish or chicken breast for dinner and see how that makes you feel.

Can you go more in depth about your diet?

Judging by Leo's posts on the forum, I believe him to be an INTJ. He seems to use Ni a lot to me. He also give off a certain "INTJ vibe".

Yeah, pretty much. I obviously don't think it's a good idea to drink just sugar water as it would leave you deficient in nutrients. Just added to fruit or a fruit smoothie will do, it compensates for lack of ripeness/quality of fruit and provides the energy necessary to feel better and become more active physically & mentally. But any kind of sugar works, brown sugar/maple syrup, whatever you think is the best, they're all pretty similar from my point of view, they're forms of readily available energy. The body will convert everything it gets its hands on to glucose as that is what the body's cells use for energy. Organic is probably the best but I think the difference is not that big.

That article didn't seem all that concerning to me. It even states most lectins can be removed by soaking beans & lentils before cooking Lectins are just one piece of a large puzzle which is why I don't think it's a problem. Yes beans & lentils contain lectins but they also contain minerals, fiber, phytonutrients and lack the most harmful nutrients such as saturated fat & cholestorol. Beyond this beans were consumed by some of the healthiest and longest living populations such as the okinawans. I think avoiding lectins is possible to do in a healthy way if you wish, I just think it's not the best thing to focus on, it seems to me like focusing on one minor detail that is not really the main issue. But if you're experiencing some issues you're trying to resolve you might as well try it and see if it works for you. 6-7 bananas, 250 grams of frozen blueberries, 1 decliter of white sugar and you got 1000 calories. Fruit don't cause cancer and fruit contains sugar. Adding sugar to a fruit smoothie just jacks up the ripeness level of the fruit in the smoothie, pretty much. Chug one smoothie like that down in the morning and go for a run and you burn off the 300 calories that was in the added sugar. And adding the sugar will make you feel like you actually want to go for a run because it increases your dopamine and you get a surge of natural energy instantly. The reason sugar is considered to cause heart disease is because it's considered to contribute to obesity & diabetes which is not really true. People who eat fat & oils just can't handle high sugar well because the fat & oils they're eating is causing insuline resistance by increasing blood fat levels & blocking the insulin receptor site. You'll struggle to find fruitarians with diabetes type 2 or obesity, they're all mega thin. A coke contains no fiber, vitamins or phytonutrients. It also contains stimulants in the form of caffeine which increases cortisol levels. It's also very acidic which is bad for the enamel. It's not the worst food out there but it's lacking in nutrients, drinking it every morning for breakfast would not be the best choice. Fatigue from a lack of sugar/carbs keeps us reliant on stimulants or dopamine increasing substances to get going. Physical inactivity is going to be worse for our health than consuming some extra sugar in our food is. The extra sugar will be burned off quickly by our increased activity and the body & immune function will thank us for not jacking up its cortisol levels with caffeine or other drugs to compensate for our lack of energy.

Lectins are not a problem. Also, I don't have any problems eating beans, problems from beans just means you're poorly adapted to fiber or are eating too much fat. Meat is low in carbohydrates which is the natural energy source for humans that cures fatigue. It's high in potentially cancer causing animal protein and heart disease causing fats that increase your blood fat levels. It also is high in cholesterol which is bad for some people. Difference in acne between two different brands of chicken could depend on many things. It could be that one is higher in B12 or fat which both can cause acne. The solution to not having to eat 25 lettuce heads for lunch is to smash down a banana blueberry smoothie with added sugar for breakfast. Boom 1000 calories of high quality energy for body and mind. High in vitamins, fiber, phytonutrients, sugar, water, it's the wombo combo. Tastes amazing. And low in cancer & heart disease contributive properties.

Yup

I've had very weird reactions to Magnesium in the past so interested to see what answers you're gonna get. I had a period where I suspected I had a magnesium deficiency and took a magnesium supplement and I couldn't sleep afterwards. I also had an intense surge of nauseousness. I tried it once more but had the same result and that put me off it for good. Personally this would only be an issue for me if it happened with vitamin D as there's no sunlight where I live. The other vitamins might not be necessary for you to supplement depending on what you eat.

Short answer: Increase sugar/carb intake by a lot and you'll be sleeping like a baby and have more energy during the day. This is not about micronutrients/supplements most of the time, you're just undercarbed and dehydrated and that's what's giving you the black circles under your eyes. And you likely have high cortisol levels which is ruining your sleep. Eat a big bowl of rice & potatoes before you go to bed, as much as you can tolerate, and you'll sleep like a baby. And drink 3 glasses of water each morning to have better hydration during the day.

The main problem with this from my point of view is that reducing carbs will reduce your motivation and your ability to train and recover. Consistent cardio is a good idea if you want to lose weight and eating more carbs is going to make that process more enjoyable and sustainable. It's not as simple as carbs increasing insulin which leads to weight gain, that's just one side of the coin. Carbs have other functions that are important for weight loss as well. Firstly, they enable you to excercise more and get more stuff done which will increase the amount of fat you burn. Blood sugar spikes will plummet your cortisol and high cortisol levels is what fucks with your ability to recover fast after training. High cortisol puts the body in a survival mode where it will try to pack on belly fat because food seems scarce, rather than try to recover. And it will screw with your sleep quality, which will impact your hormone levels negatively and make it harder to lose fat. It will also weaken your immune system which will possibly result in more off time from training. Carbs fill numerous important functions in the body, no matter if you're trying to lose weight or gain weight. Also, high protein foods too cause raised insulin in the same fashion as sugar. So the question is, if we're cutting out carbs to e.g. increase chicken/meat or something like this, what are we doing? We're giving the body less readily available energy so it's forced to run on cortisol and in the long run it has detrimental health effects. Those high protein foods are the most anabolic because they will not give you energy to get shit done like carbs will, they will just contribute to growing body mass. Fat doesn't cause an insulin increase but it's not a good energy source(takes 5+ hours to convert to energy). If you eat carbs and want to start out your day taking a run, you just eat a jar of canned fruit in syrup or a couple of bananas or a liter of Orange Juice and off you go. 100-150g of carbs is very low, keep that in mind. You can easily burn that off on a run or cycling and then you'll be out of readily available energy for the day and you'll be running on cortisol, there's a difference in how you feel and function. But I think you should try whatever you think is best and see for yourself how things work. You can try cutting down the carbs and if it's not working well for you that's a lesson learned. If it works out for you that's great too, just keep being aware of how it is making you feel as well. If you're going to stay calorie restricting for 3 months it's important that you feel good while you're doing it, It's probably not worth losing 45 pounds if you're feeling worse by the day and struggling to get by. Losing 45 pounds shouldn't feel like doing military service in Afghanistan. It should be harder than chilling on your sofa all day, but if you're struggling big time to maintain your restriction it's likely too big to be sustainable and you should try reducing your restriction by adding in more carbs. If you notice your stress levels are increasing you should up the carb intake, and make the calorie deficit smaller. Keep in mind that the fastest route to the goal is often not the best route. It's tempting to have a big calorie deficit to try and drop weight quickly but that might teach you a tough lesson, which is probably unavoidable either way in life, but that's the best advice I can give you.

If I was slamming down 4000 calories daily I probably would start to gain weight if I didn't do a lot of cardio. But when you eat no oils or fatty food gaining weight is difficult, I eat below 10 grams of fat most days currently. First of all there's a lot of calories in a small volume of fat, foods without fat generally require much more volume for the same amount of calories which means you'll get full a lot quicker, it's harder to eat as many calories. Also, eating 4000 calories per day on purely fruit is not realistic unless you're eating many fat fruits like avocado, durian or including nuts in your diet. Eating 40 bananas per day would leave you nauseous on your bed unless you're running an ultra marathon, or so I believe, I've yet to try that lol. I eat 1 deciliter of added white sugar per day to my fruit and that sounds like a lot but it will only amount to roughly 300 calories. I believe if anything the biggest problems with eating only fruit is that it's hard to get in enough calories if you don't add in the fat fruits and nuts, many fruitarians get unhealthily thin because they can't manage to get enough calories in. They basically live in starvation mode similarly to someone who restricts their calories to drop weight does. This is not good, it leads to high cortisol levels and burn you out and cause fatigue. This is why I eat cooked foods and sugar too, not just fruit. Restricting calories is not a good mindset imo, that's why I phrased it as slamming down the calories, I don't really count calories at all but I eat til I'm full and often even beyond that. I will track a couple of weeks of eating sometime in the future to see more clearly what I'm actually eating but I would estimate I hit atleast 2000 calories per day of almost pure carbs, probably I'm more like in the 2500-3000 range. Calories In/Calories Out is an oversimplification of how things really work. When you think about it it's obvious that 3000 calories of protein, fat or carbs are all going to make you feel completely different and do different things in your body. Your day is going to be completely different depending on what you eat, what you end up doing and what you'll burn off will change. Eating a lot of calories from sugar/carbs will give you energy and increase your motivation, it will increase your metabolism in multiple ways both direct and indirect. It will also improve your sleep by lowering your cortisol levels. Blood sugar spikes are vital for our well being because they crash cortisol. Blood sugar spikes are the body's way of knowing that we're not in starvation/survival mode. When the body thinks we need to gather food to survive it will give us cortisol spikes, blood sugar spikes plummets the cortisol. Fat decreases the body's ability to handle sugar spikes by blocking the insulin receptor site. This is why fat people are a lot more prone to Diabetes type 2 than slim people, they will have increased levels of fat in their blood. But someone who eats a lot of fat will also have higher levels of fat in their blood. When the body can't regulate the blood sugar properly blood sugar spikes turn into elevated blood sugar, which is bad. Lowered cortisol leads to improved sleep which leads to improved hormone levels, increased motivation, mood, increased metabolism. It will give you the energy to make stuff happen in your life, give you increased motivation for things like taking a walk or a run and other fat burning activities. It will increase your mind power, ever noticed how the champion of Chess himself, Magnus Carlsen, used to drink Orange Juice when playing since when he was a child for an energy boost? It makes a bigger difference than most would like to believe. Slamming down carbs has improved my mood and emotional stability a lot. Many people today are addicted to caffeine, nicotine, weed or stimulants like ADHD meds. These are all ways to artificially increase cortisol levels, as a compensation for lack of energy. Someone who wants to quit an addiction would have a much easier time doing so if they went on a diet like this because they wouldn't have that same fatigue or trigger for their addiction, which stems from a lack of readily available energy in the body. Keep in mind that every cell in the human body runs on sugar, it's what we're best adapted to use for energy, and energy manifests itself in so many different positive ways that it's difficult to summarize in a post. Beyond this, as far as storing fat in the body goes. The body highly prefers to store fat as fat. That's why scientists can look at your body fat and know what foods you've been eating, because the fat from the food is directly store onto the body. For the body to store sugar/carbs as fat however, a conversion has to take place due to adaptive thermogenesis where 25% of the energy is lost in conversion due to increased body temperature. I used to be cold a lot of the time, especially during winter as it's quite cold here in Sweden where I live. But since I've started eating this way my body temperature has gone up significantly. I believe this is a sign of adaptive thermogenesis/increased metabolism. If you eat 4000 calories of carbs & fat, the carbs will be used for energy and then when no more energy is needed the fat will be directly stored onto the body. If you eat 4000 calories of carbs, the carbs will be used for energy and when no more energy is needed, your metabolism will increase during the conversion of sugar to fat, so you will store less fat from eating 4000 calories of purely carbs than from eating 4000 calories of balanced macros. There are 2 ways to lose weight, either you decrease your calories and put yourself in starvation mode and live with elevated cortisol levels, worsened sleep, lowered metabolism(because the body thinks it's starving and tries to CONSERVE energy when in a sugar deficit), lowered motivation, lowered mental stability, worsened hormone levels, which will make your weight loss unsustainable in the longterm, the bigger the calorie restriction is, the less sustainable it is. Many people who restrict their calories by a big amount end up bouncing back in weight because they can't tolerate the lifestyle for long or end up becoming addicted to stimulant drugs like sugar free energy drinks/coffee to be functional with their mental fatigue. The other way you can lose weight is that you eat as much calories as you want from sugar/carb foods only, so you have increased energy to get more shit done, you can sleep properly at night and have no mental fatigue as well as increased emotional stability and many other benefits that increase your well being. The weight loss might be a lot slower, but it's sustainable because the journey is more pleasent, it's a lifestyle rather than a diet. I've eaten high fiber vegan(WFPB) for 4 1/2 years before but it didn't work for me personally. Back then I avoided sugar and it all worked great in the beginning, and I did become VERY slim. But I ended up becoming fatigued and had issues come up which ultimately led me back to an omnivore/bodybuilding style diet with higher fat, which worked well to begin with but ended up in health issues related to increased cortisol levels and the body not being able to relax. On this super high sugar/carb style of eating with no restriction, I feel back to my healthy peak self. It's a blessing for me!

Yeah, I would say mostly based on my limited experience, but there is a comprehensive logic to it as well. My experience so far is that I feel very good eating this way, it makes room for a lot of high energy food, I have increased mental clarity. I eat whenever I want and as much as I want, I slam down the calories but am not gaining weight. I have noticed many benefits so far such as lowered stress levels, improved sleep, more energy throughout the day, lowered anxiety, increased motivation, improved mood overall. I'm not excercising much currently, just some cardio. I am weighing myself regularly and I'm maintaining weight so far, not gaining weight despite pouring sugar on my food and eating til I'm full 2-3 times per day, sometimes more. I eat a lot of fruit and fruit smoothies with added sugar and supplement with Vitamin D3, K2 & B12. When I'm tracking my micronutrients I'm getting good amounts of vitamins and minerals, pretty much the only thing that is considered low is my protein intake, but so far it seems like a non issue. If I notice any concerning downsides to my low protein intake I'll start adding in beans & chickpeas. I do like how those foods taste but I definitely prefer how low protein foods make me feel, I notice a different on a day to day basis in how I feel depending on what I eat. Fruit smoothies with 6-8 ripe bananas, 250 grams of frozen blackberries and 1 deciliter of white sugar make me feel the best. One can speculate all they want about wether eating 90/5/5, all fruit diet or carnivore is good or bad but the only way to find out if it's worthwhile is to try it for yourself. I would rate 90/5/5 fruit/rice/potatoes/sugar/pasta diet highly so far. Probably pretty bad for bodybuilding lol, but the question is if bodybuilding truly is healthy. Sure a lot of guys want a muscular & ripped physique, but how come it's so difficult to maintain such a physique, perhaps it's not the natural or healthy physique for most humans. Ok, I believe that makes sense. I believe that's probably a pretty healthy diet and a safe bet that's going to work pretty well for most people.

@Michael569 When talking about a Mediterranean approach, what do you mean by that? Because I think that's associated with a lot of different things for people. Do you mean largely whole food plant based with some fish? @bazera I don't think current protein recommendations are accurate for humans. I eat 90/5/5 ratio of carbs/fat/protein and seem to be doing very well on this ratio so far. But we've yet to see how I do long-term, maybe I crash on this, who knows. But personally I don't think humans require more protein than can be found in fruits & grains. I'm not a fruitarian though, I think that would be difficult to sustain long-term simply because you would have to eat huge amounts of fruit to not get too thin, or add in many fat fruits like avocado, durian and olives. And I don't think fats are the best for human health. Not to mention that fruit quality in many countries is poor af. I add sugar on much of my fruit to compensate for the fact. I don't see why a more balanced macro ratio would be better necessarily. Fruitarians often think humans are designed to eat fruit, for them 90/5/5 is what proper macro balance looks like.

I see you guys point, but what is balance really? That is still very subjective in the case of nutrition, is it not? The word balanced in this context seems to be more or less synonymous with healthy to me. Because what's the point of eating in a balanced way if it's not healthy. In my mind 90/5/5 vegan, WFPB or carnivore could all be candidates for a balanced diet if they turned out to be the healthiest for humans, or in other words in balance with how humans have adapted to eat & thrive. If the health guidelines are where it's at then why is dietary associated diseases like heart disease and cancer as bad as ever? I feel like there should have been positive results if the guidelines are pointing in the right direction. Then some things to think about regarding sugar. Sugar free alternatives have been on the rise for many years, almost everyone I know buys them instead of the sugar containing alternative. Many of the same people are still overweight. I know you probably don't promote sugar free sodas but if sugar is as bad as it's made out to be by health guidelines then why doesn't more people avoiding sugar seem to net public health results? Poor asian farmers practically lived off of sugar (rice, sweet potatoes) for hundreds of years and seemed fine. Meanwhile my overweight dad who is a doctor is very careful with his carb portion sizes and has terrible health. Also @LfcCharlie4 sorry, I didn't quite get your question before. Could you explain what you meant?

I think the journaling situation is problematic. I think enabling users in the journal section to delete comments on their journals could potentially be a good solution and it should be looked into further. I think this would improve the state of the forum, at least short-term. Other possibilites I can think of are for example a replys disabled mode for the journal section. But that would take away the ability for people who get along to interact with eachother in the journal as well which isn't optimal either. I guess as long as there's communication in the journal section it's going to be prone to misuse and drama. But giving journal creators increased control of their journals doesnt seem too far fetched for me and might reduce the problems a fair bit. I can think of many situations where this could be useful as well as reduce a lot of unnecessary work for the mods. Another solution that comes to mind is making it so the block function isn't only hiding messages but actually blocking people from posting on the journal. Whatever the solution I think this needs to be looked into,