Becoming Superhuman

[Not me]

Felt like crap yesterday but realized some things: I take myself way too seriously, I make my problems way bigger than they are by focusing on them even though I tell myself I don't think about them (for example yesterday I had pains in my chest and arm and I started getting super worried and couldn't think about anything else and I thought I was gonna get a stroke or something.) Objectively I know it probably won't happen but I tend to constantly observe if there's anything wrong in my body and this makes me worried about even the smallest things. I have done this since last winter when I had an some kind of disease in my lungs which caused uncomfortable feelings in my chest all the time and I always checked if the feelings were still there. I also realized I'm still a perfectionist on some level. For example I wan't to get perfect sleep and trying to get good sleep becomes this performance where I try to do everything right. This of course makes it harder for me to fall asleep.

Ate pretty moderately yesterday: 2300 calories. There wasn't much hunger and I had a strong grip over any urges. I meditated for 40 minutes.

[Not me]

Okayy discovered that my chest and arm pains were caused by an inflamed nerve. It has become inflamed most likely because I have done too much lifting and too little stretching. No I can't do gym for one week ( so sad I know) . Luckily I can still do other forms of exercise. I'm so grateful there was a solution to this pain because it was really uncomfortably, made it hard to focus and made me nervous. I really was afraid that I might get a heart attack.

I ate 2200 calories. No effort needed. I even ate some ice cream but didn't have any binge urges. It's still snowing here in Finland on some days . Some books I have been listening to recently: Power vs Force, The power of now, The willpower instinct and Change anything. Last week I started The Natural (RSD) and yesterday A new earth by Eckhart Tolle. I like to listen to Eckhrat Tolle when I go for a walk. His voice makes it really easy to become present and I like to be constantly reminded of the tricks of the mind.

I meditated for 30 minutes.

[Sevi]

How did you find out that was an inflamed nerve? How do know that is due to weight lifting?

[Not me]

@Sevi  Oh yeah I forgot to mention. I went to see a doctor and he diagnosed it.

[Sevi]

@Not me just be careful, if there is a stress level related to physical exercises (like achieve a physical goal in a set time frame) that can be tricky, you need to challenge the body in a very gentle manner, otherwise it can cause more damage than improvement, or at least it puts you out of training longer than you expect. Rest well please, rather than lack of stretch, it sounded to me like, you forced your body more than needed. Be gentle to your body.

[Not me]

@Sevi Thanks for being so helpful . I agree that I sometimes can be a little neurotic about going to the gym and getting results. I still think that it was due to lack of stretch/mobility because I only do two times one hour of training for my upper body (per week). That shouldn't be very hard for the body especially because I have done it for five years already. So I think it was due to doing those exercises in which my shoulders couldn't move with proper form. But I do agree that the stress hormones from dieting probably made it worse.

[Not me]

Feeling a little sick so skipped school today. Right now the subjects I have in school are biotechnology, developmental psychology, electricity (in physics),  integral functions (in maths) and English. All of them are very interesting so it's nice to look forward to going to school every day. I also study independently Portuguese, history of religions and social studies.

Didn't count my calories yesterday but I would estimate they were around 2500 calories. Feeling a whole lot confused as to what I should do with my life in the future. Psychology interests me but I'm not sure if I want to spend all my time studying and then working in a job after that. I would love to travel the world and live somewhere abroad. I also wouldn't want to chase success and money too much. I really don't have a clear dream at this moment. Perhaps my exchange year will make things a little clearer and give some perspective.

Meditated for 30 minutes. I feel my focus improving.

[Sevi]

@Not me not at all my pleasure. If a nerve is alarming in a physical training, most likely it means that there is somehow a wrong upload to a muscle group. Probably an upload happened to an area which had been already tense. 

I recommend, releasing that area with exhales and calming thoughts and then gently warming up the part (simply by doing circular motions there) BEFORE the upload. 

Lastly if it is your shoulder area: shoulders are generally connected to our approach and ideas about responsibility: what you think about what it is, how you take your responsibilities; if you overload yourself with it unnecessarily or if you feel kind of guilty that you are not fulfilling what you expect from yourself.. and so on..

Generally, when you dissolve the conflicting ideas about the related subject (which expresses itself also in the body) the physical injury disappears really quickly.

[Not me]

Overate yesterday and realized I haven't been fully practicing never binge again. I have just believed the urges and thought they are mine. Now I will decide to be free of overeating no matter what. From now on I will be fully in control and I will never ever overeat in my entire life! Never. All thoughts and emotions that even suggest the possibility of ever overeating again are not me. They are the creature (the pig) inside me that only wants pleasure, nothing else. It doesn't care about my goals, my family, people I love, my health or even my life. It will do anything it can to convince me to overeat. But no longer will I let it. It doesn't have power over my will nor over my muscles. So I won't even consider listening to the urges it has. I will make it suffer because it has made me suffer so many times.

Yesterday I truly realized that it's time for this to end. My mum tried to talk to me while I was eating and I felt angry towards her and I wished she would just go away so I could continue to eat. Thinking about it I felt horrified. How could I feel like that towards my own mother. This made me realize the pig is actually trying to destroy my relationships so it can binge even more. I just have to end this. This is not a process of getting free. Process only implies failing somewhere down the road. I'm free from now on and I will be strict! This is my life here and I won't let it be destroyed by food. I will make strict criteria for what I consider as binge eating and never ever break those rules. Writing this I can already feel the pig inside me resisting. This is the end for it.

Here are my rules:

Never in my life: overeating, binge eating. My definition of overeating will be eating more than two plates of food or eating more                                                    than till my stomach is 80% full. The two plate rule is because 80% fullness is difficult to measure. Also: no more than four meals a day and no extra snacks in between. These meals would be lunch, dinner, afternoon snack and a pre bed snack.

Never at home: all foods containing grains, all sweets, all desserts,milk, ice cream, margarine, sugar, cheese (cottage cheese not included), eat outside the table 

Allowed within the 80% full/ 2 plates limit: all vegetables, legumes, rice, all meat, eggs, poultry, fish, seeds, oils, fruit and any main dish that contains grains or cheese that we have for lunch in school or for dinner at home 

Allowed on special occasions: desserts (one fist sized serving on birthday parties and family meetings and with my exchange year host family if they serve me), foods containing grains or cheese (on occasions when I'm not at home up to one plate per meal), alcohol (up to four drinks in social situations), soft drinks (up to two glasses/ 0,5 liter in social situations), hot chocolate (one cup a day when I'm skiing)

Always: drink water with meals, sit down when you eat

Unrestricted: water, sparkling water, coffee, tea 

 

Any thoughts and emotions, no mater how innocent or rational that try to convince my to break this plan are the fat thinking self (the pig) and I won't even consider listening to it! From now on I'm free.

 

I took me two hours to think this plan out so it should be good enough. I will fully commit to it. I will read one chapter of Never binge again each day after I come back from school to keep the ideas fresh in my mind.

Not sure what shrooms have done to me but nowadays when I just drink coffee I feel like I'm on a freaking trip . I think it's quite funny.

Edited April 28, 2017 by Not me

[Not me]

Ate four moderate meals yesterday, roughly 2300 calories. The pig had some urges but I instantly recognized them and silenced them. Feels so good to be in control . I'm still sick so I'm not able to do much. I just lay the whole day and watched videos and studied a bit. It feels good to relax and not be productive for a change.

 I felt super present when I did my meditation and I realized I will probably need to change the time I meditate  because I can't focus that well before bed. Back at self-inquiry again. Did 20 minutes of it  yesterday.

I have only five weeks of school left before summer holiday. In summer I will spend lots of time meditating and probably attend a meditation retreat. I think I will also start doing shadow work and spend a lot of time socializing. I think it will also be good for me to let go a bit and just enjoy life. I'm interested to know what you all are planning to do in summer. Feel free to comment below and let me know .

Then after nine weeks of holidays I will go to Brazil and spend a year there. Exciting . I'm not very nervous about it yet. My host family seems nice and friendly and I'm used to dealing with new and difficult situations. I'm a little concerned about speaking Portuguese tough. The native speakers are so fast that I have really hard time understanding what they are saying.

[Not me]

I read that if you identify with a problem your ego will recreate it again and again in your life. It has become part of who you are and the ego doesn't want to lose it. I don't want to identify with problems especially not with any weight related. This is why I will move my journaling to a new direction. I have roughly three months before I will leave to Brazil and I think this will be a good time to apply intensive focus to different areas of my life and make rapid progress in them. I will focus on one area of my life for a month and then go to the next one. The first one will be studying.

The plan: I will have school from 10 am to 2.30 pm Monday through Friday + on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday a two-hour Portuguese lesson from 5pm to 7 pm. I will focus fully in school and not use my phone during lessons. I will do 45 minutes of homework after school on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. I will study 45 minutes of Portuguese on Wednesdays and Fridays. On Saturdays and Sundays I will do 3 hours of studying in the morning ( one hour Portuguese, two hours school stuff). I will report my minutes of studying done here every single day. I will treat any thoughts, emotions and rationalizations that try to make me break this plan as the inner saboteur which tries to make me fail and just ignore it.

I will still keep reporting my calories every day + weight and waist measurements every Wednesday and Saturday so I don't slack off on fat loss.

Let's go!

[Not me]

2500 calories yesterday. I looked up the calorie content of alcohol drinks and was quite surprised the there are so many calories in them. I'm talking about ciders and long drinks here, stronger drinks probably don't have that many but I'm not really a fan of them. I try to avoid alcohol as much as possible but sometimes when I go out I have a few drinks just for fun. I don't think it will harm me in any way.

My current bench press max is around 110 kg or 240 lbs, pull up max is 30 kg or 66 lbs (added weight) and shoulder press max 35 kg or 77 lbs per hand. I don't really squat that much anymore but I would estimate that my max squat would be around 120kg or 265 lbs. I don't havee any particular max lift goals I just want to keep progressing and keeping myself in good shape. One thing that would be really cool to be able to do is human flag. I think when I get lighter I might be able to do it.

I studied for three hours yesterday. I wasn't very effective because I was sick but I did it anyways. 

[Not me]

Whoa I ate three quite big meals and got 3500 calories. And I was still a bit hungry after that. I din't break the two plate limit but maybe the food was really greasy or something. Will have to be more careful next time.

I meditated for 50 minutes and studied for 45 minutes. At the moment I really have a strong motivation to build my work ethic and I'm really starting to like studying. I also did a couple minutes of self-inquiry. For some reason I feel I get more out of it when I do it in the evening. Maybe it has to do something with the fact that brain chemistry is different in the evening.

[Not me]

I was still feeling a bit sick and didn't want to eat in a caloric deficit because it would slow down my healing. I ate four meals, 2800 calories. I wanted to hit maintenance calories which would have been 2500 but I went a little over. Instead of calling the addictive voices the Pig (as suggested in the book) I will start calling them the Beast because the Pig just sounds so innocent and childish that it's difficult to see it being any harmful. I will add to my food plan that I will only use regular sized plates and I will never eat over 3000 calories even if I was still hungry.

My current weight is 82,7 kg and waist 87,5 cm. I was hoping they would have gone down but I haven't been eating that low calories so it's understandable. At least I'm feeling much lighter.

Studied 45 minutes. I felt the pull of wanting to take out my phone and just use it instead but I didn't act on it. I meditated for 30 minutes in the afternoon and felt super focused after it. Noticed I'm still quite insecure in some social situations especially if the people are older than me.

[Not me]

It's finally getting warmer here in Finland and everyone just loves the sun. We spend like five months of the year in complete darkness so everyone is basically just like "Woaah I don't even remember when was the last time I saw the sun" . Now that everyone seems so happy it's much easier to smile to people. When it's winter and dark I don't feel very comfortable smiling to people on the streets because everyone just looks so angry and serious. 

I ate 1900 calories and felt completely full. It's around 15° celsius now outside so I can go on our terrace to do my homework. I love the sun but my skin is so white that I burn super fast and have to use sunscreen all the time. I will probably come back from Brazil with a cancer or something . I didn't time my studying yesterday but I think I studied for at least one hour. I finished listening to A new earth. I liked many parts of the book but I didn't feel it was quite as good as the power of now. I expected more from it.  Now I'm continuing to read Mastery by George Leonard. I have already read Mastery by Robert Greene so there's not that much new in the book. I don't read physical books that much because I'm always doing something and I just feel it's much easier and effective to listen t audiobooks.

I meditated for 30 minutes in the afternoon and did 15 minutes of meditation + 25 minutes of self-inquiry in the evening. Overall feeling really good!

[Not me]

Fasted for 20 hours yesterday. I had low energy at noon and I wasn't sure if I would be able to continue the fast. This quickly passed and I had great energy for the rest of the day. I broke my fast at 4 pm and had three apples. After fasting for so long the tasted just amazing. After this I studied for an hour and had a two-hour Portuguese lesson. Then  I walked home and enjoyed a big meal of 1500 calories. It's so nice to live in a small city because the distances  are so short that I can walk everywhere. I always try to be outside and moving as much as possible so this I'm really grateful for this.

I couldn't fall asleep at night so I went to sit on our living room sofa and watched the  stars and the clear sky in silence. I felt peaceful and thought I should do this more often. 

I woke up really tired but I try not to be hard on myself since it will just makes things worse and screw up my day (happened a million times). Luckily it's sunny so I don't feel that tired. I'm kinda sensitive to the ammount of light. I drank a coffee into which I added sugar free cocoa powder and some stevia. Then I took some magnesium and a really cold shower. Now I'm feeling totally fresh and awake.

I will probably start training again today. It's been one and half weeks since I last trained. I'm always amazed how good I feel when I start training again.

At the moment I have developmental psychology in school and it's so cool to understand how my growth happened and why I became the way I am. It's also scary to realize  how many things can go wrong and how badly people's psychology can get fucked.

I meditated for 20 minutes in the morning and did self-inquiry for 20 minutes in the evening.

Edited May 6, 2017 by Not me

[Not me]

Ahh yeas feeling unstoppable! I did a kickass upper body workout yesterday. Although I couldn't lift as much as usually I felt great. I fasted for 18 hours and had no hunger whatsoever. I had two meals consisting mostly of meat, potatoes and vegetables. Then I had a smaller snack before bed because I was so hungry I couldn't sleep. They were about 2400 calories combined. As I'm eating more and more natural foods and I don't binge any more I feel my energy levels increase. It just feels so good to be healthy. I have some heartburn at the moment. I'm not sure if it's because of I have binged earlier or just eating too big meals. I will experiment with avoiding heartburn triggering foods like coffee and tomatoes and also chew my food more. We'll see if it goes away.

This morning my body weight was 80,8 kg and my waist 76 cm. The progress is strong! I'm feeling much leaner every day.

There were so many excuses for not studying but I didn't listen to them and did my 45 minutes of studying like a boss. Then I meditated for 20 minutes. 

[Not me]

Just having this feeling of gratefulness and peace all the time. It's funny because I haven't even been meditating that much. I guess it's because I have been practicing being present outside of meditation a lot and learned to accept myself more. 

Haha 3000 calories yesterday. Seems like I need to eat less meat. If there's even a decent amount of fat in the meat I almost always end up getting too much calories by eating it. 

I studied three hours yesterday. It wasn't easy but I enjoyed it because the subjects were about things that will practically help me in the future. I studied two hours of economics and one hour of Portuguese. I always have much less motivation to study abstract subjects like mathematics or physics because they will have little impact on my future. On the other hand if the subject helps me improve my life (like psychology) now I'm super interested and can study like crazy. I went out with my friends in the evening. There were six of us. We chilled for a while in my friends house playing drinking games and talking. Then we decided we should go to this one club to which everyone was going that night. We walked there in a beautiful orange sunset and I felt so relaxed and peaceful. We walked across a sports field and did a 100m race with my friend. It was so fun to let loose a bit. We were laughing all the time and everyone was having a good time. We arrived to the club and my friends went to buy drinks while I went talking to some other friends I saw there. At that point I didn't want to drink anymore. Then we went dancing. It was a bit awkward at first but when the music change into a bit more electronic we were all on fire . I thought maybe I should talk to some new girls there but I was feeling so tired at that point that I rationalized to myself that I'll do it next time when I'm fresh. I don't have a need to sleep with girls at this moment. Well of course I would like it but I don't feel like I have to get a girl. But I do thing it would be fun to chat up some new girls and flirt with them a bit and see where it goes. And I would definitely like to be on top of my social game.

I meditated for 40 minutes.

Oh yeah, by the way I will turn 18 in six days . Feels weird.

[Not me]

It's crazy I have been able to keep journaling every day for over two months now. I focused on other habits at the same time and had no problem doing this. I guess it helps that I do journaling in the morning before I get to my daily tasks. I have also been doing self-hypnosis for about one and half months without missing a single day.

I had freaking high cortisol levels yesterday. I was so exhausted I couldn't sit while I was studying so I had to lie down. After an hour of studying I decided I need a break and after that I didn't want to totally break myself down so I stopped my studying there.

I ate 2500 calories in two semi big meals. I meditated for 30 minutes and did self-inquiry for 10. 

[Not me]

Even though I slept well I was super tired yesterday. I walked a lot and thought that I should probably start listen to biographies of successful people. I found Steve Jobs biography free on youtube so I started listen to it. I have the booklist but many biographies there didn't seem that appealing. Maybe I should give them a try anyways. I've been having weird feelings in my body. I experience these kinda like mini electric shocks around my body. I think they might be some kind of psychosomatic issue or something. I'm tired of going to see a doctor because it seems like I always got some kind of problem going on.

2400 calories yesterday. I did a one-hour workout in the morning and a short 15-minute workout in the afternoon. I studied for 35 minutes. I totally forgot that I had a goal of doing 45 minutes. Well today I will probably do at least one hour because there's so much homework.