Becoming Superhuman

[Not me]

Damn it I have to be more careful. I was feeling like I winner because I though the beast cant beat me anymore. Well yesterday I broke my two plate food rule and overate at dinner. I totally thought it was me who wanted to eat more and more but of course any thoughts that want to break the food plan are not mine. I will keep the same food plan but be totally strict about not breaking it. So under no circumstance can I eat more than two plates of food. If I want to eat more it's not me, it's the beast trying to trick me. And it's very serious if I break the food plan even just a little because that will threaten achieving my goals and being free of binge eating.

I slept a lot last because I was sick and now that I have to go to school I have to wake up two hours earlier and I'm super tired. I hope I will get used to this soon. Hate it when I can't concentrate.

I meditated for 30 minutes. I studied for 30 minutes and ate 3000 calories. This morning my waist was 87,5 cm and my weight 82 kilos. They probably went a bit up after eating so many carbs yesterday because at least on Monday my weight was 80,2 kg. Well we'll see what the results will be on Saturday.

[Not me]

Wehee 100 posts! Felt really creative yesterday writing an English essay about our educational system. It really feels good to just flow with what you are doing. Had some pretty strong urges but they couldn't control me. Starting to notice that it's harder for me to write good shit in the morning. It would be easier for me to do this in the evening but I'm not sure if I can do it consistently.

Got accepted to a 7-day meditation retreat. It will be in Sweden in three weeks. If I can I will probably stay there for another week or so to get some serious meditation in.  Feeling quite excited about that.

I read some articles and realized that my heartburn is probably due to drinking too much water with meals. One of the articles said that when you drink  water with meals your stomach acid dilutes and that makes it harder for it to break down carbohydrates. Which leads to too many bacteria being able to ferment the carbohydrates. This produces lots of gases that create pressure inside the stomach which makes it more likely for the acid to leak to the esophagus and create heartburn.

I studied for one hour and  ate about 1800 calories. I meditated for 20 minutes. 

[Not me]

I've been trying to eat meals without drinking water with them to cure heartburn. It works but it's so much harder for me to stop eating and the cravings are just crazy. Perhaps this is good practice for noticing the food beast screaming and realizing the cravings are not mine. But at first I will try drinking just a little, something like one glass a meal and see if that works for me.

I got totally caught in the cravings yesterday and ate 3300 calories. I will start remind myself before each meal that the beast might try to trick me. 

Now I have three weeks of school left. I have so many subjects that I will spend almost all of my free time studying. I kinda like it because now I can show myself that by working hard on something I can really ace it. Also my work ethic will get better. I am starting to realize that my attitude towards doing work has been quite negative. I have though that it's just wasting time from doing more important things.

I'm also starting to see how it feels like in one moment I'm on top of the world and my life is in perfect control and in the next moment it seems like everything is going to shit.

I studied for 45 minutes. I didn't meditate

[Not me]

I can't believe that I'm 18 now . As a child I always thought that people who are 18 are so old and big and now all of a sudden I'm one of them. My mind has hard time understanding that. Too bad psychedelics are illegal even when you are 18. Today I will do a three-hour bike ride, study a lot and go see my grandparents. I will have my Portuguese exam in two days and I really want to do well in it.

I didn't get much done yesterday. I was so tired a took a two-hour nap. After that I helped my dad in our garden for two hours and then it was evening already. I realized that drinking coffee on an empty stomach has probably damaged my stomach and that has caused the heartburn. Drinking so much water with meals might have made it worse but I don't think it's the real cause. 

Steve Jobs biography is turning out to be really interesting. I didn't know that he did lsd a lot and was interested in spirituality and zen and spend a lot of time practicing them. And it seems like he was totally crazy when he was young. He did weird diets like eating only carrots and apples and thought that they prevented him from smelling bad. And because of that he didn't take showers and of course smelled horrible .

My waist this morning was 75 cm and my weight 81 kg. I ate 2200 calories and meditated for 30 minutes.

[Not me]

Hmmm interesting. I thought I just ate until my hunger was gone but when I calculated calories they were 3200. I still got into a caloric deficit because I did my three hour bike ride but I would rather not rely on cardio to stay lean. The long cardio session might have been one reason why I felt I needed to eat so much yesterday. The nerve issues are back so I had to stop doing gym again. There's this kind of weird pain in the right side of my body, in my toes, back and arm. I hope the doctors can find a permanent solution to this so that I can continue training and living normally. Today I will try stretching my nerves a bit and see if it helps.

I studied for about an hour and meditated for 30 minutes. I realized I have been controlling my breathing too much while meditating. When I stopped doing that my meditation immediately got much better. Now it's time for some serious studying.

[Not me]

This week I will go low in carbohydrates to see if it would help with the heartburn. I will probably be quite hungry so any carbs I eat I will try to eat them in the evening so I have easier time falling asleep. I added a new food rule which is that always before taking more food on my plate I will have to drink one glass of water. This really helps me control my eating because I often mistake thirst as hunger. I put a notification on my phone which will remind me twice a day to not take things so damn seriously . This way I won't forget it so easily. I often put all kinds of notifications to remind myself what is important to focus on. Had some difficulty sleeping last night because I was so hungry but then I went and ate an apple and fell asleep instantly. I will probably start eating an apple every time I'm hungry before bed so I won't have to eat too many calories but I can still fall asleep. Even though I do intermittent fasting I try not to be too strict about the eating window. My first meal is always school lunch and last meal is dinner or if I'm hungry a snack before bed. It's sad to think that these are the last three weeks in the same school with my friends. When I come back from Brazil only a few of them will still be in the same school with me and after that we will probably go to different places.

I meditated for 45 minutes. I had all kinds of small things to do and I managed to only study for 75 minutes. I ate 2100 calories. This week I will really be strict about not breaking my food plan.

[Not me]

Ok woke up too late to have time for journaling yesterday. I read some articles about the negative effects of smartphones like destroying concentration and I decided I can't let my phone destroy my growth. I have been using it quite a lot recently so now I decided I will check it only two times a day: after and before school. Other times I will keep it in airplane mode or do not disturb mode so that I only use it for listening to audiobooks. Also anything I need to write to my notes I will do it at the same time with checking my messages. In other times I will just throw it into my bag and not look at it.

I binged yesterday. I don't have much to say about that. I was fully in control of my actions and I realized this is the moment I should stop but I just didn't. I feel like I couldn't yet create strong enough distinction between me and the entity creating the urges. Now after the binge I can feel the distinction much clearer. I feel even stronger than before and I feel like I learned a lot yesterday. This wasn't a defeat. This was a step forward.

My waist this morning was 77 cm and my weight 82,5kg. I ate 3200 calories yesterday. I studied for two and half hours.

[Not me]

Fasted for 20 hours yesterday and then ate two moderate meals. I couldn't sleep at night because I had pains all over my body despite taking painkillers. I again realized that the more salt I eat the more cravings I have. Yesterday I could easily separate myself from any cravings and I feel myself getting better and better at this.

 I instantly feel much more focused now that I don't look at my phone so often. I got more homework done and felt much better. I realized that the real reason why I want to be really fit is to inspire others and show them what kind of amazing change is possible. I also had an insight that maybe I should start trying to use law of attraction to change my state. I did it yesterday morning when I was feeling down and imagined myself going to see my friends with full energy and really having fun. It worked well and I felt like king the rest of the day .  I also changed the language of my phone to Portuguese so that I will learn it faster.

I studied for 3 hours, meditated for 40 minutes and ate around 1800 calories.

[Not me]

Yesterday there was a car accident near where I live. When we heard that of my old friends had died there we were all shocked. I still can't understand that he's gone now. I could imagine how it would have been if I had been in that car. That made me think how close my own death could be. I could die in a week or in a month. I really can't know if it will happen. I was in this "I can't believe this"-state the whole day. I always think that when these kinds of things happen I should somehow change my values or the way I live but I really don't know how. Maybe just live more fully and do more of the things that are important to me.

Now I only have three normal school days left and then the exam week begins. After that school ends. Feeling like I have too little time to study because I have so many subjects. But I have always done quite well in my exams no matter the situation so I'm not worried.

I meditated for 30 minutes, studied for two hours and ate 2800 calories. Still having some trouble noticing the cravings as not me.

[Not me]

I'm starting to realize just how much shrooms have opened my mind. It's hard to describe but I feel like I'm able to see things more deeply. I see more alternative ways of thinking and I there's a sense of clearer understanding of things. Of course I can't be sure if this has happend due to meditation or shrooms but I would bet shrooms have a big role in it.

I have realized or rather remembered that all of my problems and unhelpful states happen because of the perspective I have at that moment. If the perspective is negative I will percieve life as hard and go into victim mode. Somehow I don't feel like just awareness and presence are enough. They help me to detach from those states but I won't get to this enthusiastic positive state. This is why I will make it a practice to change my perspective to something more positive (for example how this situation is benefiting me) every time I'm in an unresourceful state. I feel I often go into negative states when I'm tired or hungry  or when things go wrong but I'd rather feel good at those moments.

Ate 2700 calories yesterday, meditated for 10 minutes and studied for two hours.

[Not me]

I had a preparation camp for exchange students last weekend and I din't have time to post here yesterday. I made some good friends there. The camp leaders were chill and we had so much fun. It was really nice to meet people with similar interests.  Hearing cool stories of people's exchange years made me very excited. 

Once again I realized that I'm way too much in my head and that's what creates my problems. When I was there on the camp I felt like I had no problems because I was constantly talking with someone or we were doing something so I didn't have time to go into my head too much. I also realized I don't need to eat as much as I have thought. I didn't have any hunger there despite not sleeping a lot and eating much less than I usually do. 

Last week I only got a couple of low carb days but they definitely helped with the heartburn so I will continue going low carb this week. Most of my time will probably go into studying this and the next week.

This morning my waist was 85,5 cm and my weight was 81,8 kg. Yesterday I studied for 90 minutes and ate 2100 calories.

[Not me]

I'm getting more and more in touch with my body. I feel a huge difference between eating clean foods and eating shitty foods in how I feel. And as I eat I can feel when my body has gotten enough food even if I would still want to eat. It feels so natural to be in touch with the body and listen to it. When I don't have body awareness it's so damn easy to overeat because I'm not aware of the discomfort that comes from eating too much.

I feel like my brain has finally realized how to be aware. I'm able to really watch myself going on autopilot through my day. I was even able to stay aware while watching a youtube video. Somehow I didn't get pulled inside the video like I usually do but I was aware of myself and my surroundings as I watched the video. I also feel like I'm quite conscious through the first half of my day when I'm in school but when I come home and open our front door I feel I instantly go into autopilot and start unconsciously doing the same things day after day. I think this might be because my school days are all different but my ritual at home is often quite similar every day. Of course the real reason for this is not having enough awareness but doing similar things every day just makes it harder to stay alert. Thankfully I'm slowly starting to wake up.

I ate 2200 calories. I studied for three hours, meditated for 30 minutes and self-inquired for 15 minutes. I definitely should do more self-inquiry. There are just so many reason (more like excuses) for not doing it. I keep telling myself that in summer when I have more time I will do it. Well luckily it's only two weeks till summer.

Edited May 24, 2017 by Not me

[Not me]

Yesterday I was so focused with my studying. I was in flow all the time and shit just got done so fast. I realized I haven't been very effective at doing anything I do after school. I have been way too distracted to get things done well. I have wasted a lot of time on my phone or doing some random shit. I feel like I should move myself away from all possible distractions and just focus all my energies on getting things done. That way I would also have more time for other things like meditation because I wouldn't be wasting so much time on just being unfocused and getting nothing done.

I have reduced my coffee and caffeine intake to almost zero and it has definitely helped with the heartburn. It is not that strong anymore and it doesn't occur that often. I also realized that drinking too much water somehow makes me really anxious. I don't know why that's the case but every time I drink a lot of water I get really anxious. 

This morning my waist was 85,25 cm and my weight 81 kg. Yesterday I studied for 3 hours and meditated for 30 minutes. I ate 2600 calories. A super effective strategy I discovered for dealing with cravings is imagining a wall between me and the cravings. This makes me able to see the cravings as some kind of crazy animal which is locked inside walls and trying desperately to make me binge. Usually it has been difficult for me to separate myself from the cravings but this really does the trick.

[Not me]

Yesterday was my first exam. It was economics and it went pretty well. The harder part of that course was doing all the exercises from the book. I wrote over 7000 words for those exercises. Today I will have an off day from school and tomorrow a psychology exam. It's funny how my opinions fluctuate between I really want excel in school and fuck school it's a time waster. I wan't study at least for the sake of building my work ethic but I don't wanna take the exams that seriously.

I installed an app called self-control on my laptop so now I can block distracting websites for up to 24 hours. It means I can't access them even if I want to. Yesterday I blocked Facebook and I think I will have to block Actualized.org so that I can only access it in the morning for my journalling. It's study time now and I can't afford to spend time browsing any websites. I don't watch much porn but I also decided to change my settings so that I can basically never access any porn sites again.

One post here on Actualized.org really resonated with me. It was about the law of attraction and said that most people focus too much on what they don't want. I have heard it many times before but somehow I haven't seen it in myself. Now I realize that rather than accepting my problems I constantly feel like I shouldn't have them and go into this low level victim mode. Here are some things I have unconsciously been thinking and probably kept attracting: "Why do I have this pain in my arm", "Why can't I stop binge eating", "I don't want to be fat", "I don't want to overeat", "Why am I always unfocused and tired", "Why can't I focus during my meditations". Also in social interactions I focus on the things I do wrong and am not good at instead of all the things I do well. Now I will apply deep acceptance and love to all of these problems and detach from them. Then I will change my focus to: "I wan't to eat moderate meals like lean people do", "I want to be lean". I will focus on the feeling of being focused, and in social interactions I will focus on the thing I do well.

2900 calories yesterday. I ate too much but was able to prevent total destruction. It was hard because I had crazy cravings after eating some bread but I din't give up and ate healthy foods for the rest of the day. I studied for three hours and meditated for 30.

Now it's time for a cold shower and a productive day!

[Not me]

Wow I have now done 27 weeks of exercises from the six pillars of self-esteem and I can say I definitely feel more confident than when I started. There are four weeks of those exercises left. After completing them I will probably start doing shadow work in the mornings.

Yesterday was going so well and I had 1700 calories by the evening. Just amazing self-control. Resisted strong craving like ten times throughout the day. I was still hungry in the evening so I decided to have some chicken and then some cake which we had on the table. I new I was in control but I was just so hungry. I ended up eating 3400 calories. Again I didn't let it go for long, just until my hunger was gone but in that time I managed to eat quite a bit of it. Self-acceptance is difficult when you are feeling so shitty afterwards but I'll do my best.

I studied for five hours and meditated for 20 minutes.

[Not me]

Five days of school left. Time goes so fast it's almost scary. I have four exams and then one more day of school after that. The amount of partying after school ends will be mind blowing. I won't have time for that. My kind of partying will be going to a zen retreat . I will go there on next Saturday and stay there for two weeks: one week of retreat and one week after that. I won't be journaling there so this will be my last week of journaling for a while. 

Progress feels so damn good! After I stopped competitive sports I haven't really experienced that clear signs of progress. The progress has always been very suddle and I have only noticed it looking back at the previous year or month. Compared to when I did sports I felt myself progress almost every week or even every day. But now with fat loss I'm experiencing it again. I can clearly see in the mirror how my body changes day by day. It's so exciting! This morning my waist was 85 cm and my weight 80,1 kg. I still have pains in my shoulder so I can't lift weights but the progress is still pretty good.

I studied for two hours, meditated for 30 minutes and ate 2000 calories.

Edited May 27, 2017 by Not me

[Not me]

Yesterday was a happy day. I really focused on my studies and learned a lot of new stuff. I didn't study for that long because it was a beautiful day and I didn't want to just spend all of my time studying. So I took a one and a half hour walk. It felt really good to get moving after sitting many hours. And the weather was just great. It was warm and the evening sunlight looked magical. The flowering trees which are everywhere were really beautiful too. I din't even listen to audiobooks or try to do anything as I walked. I just walked and enjoyed it.

I will study for about five hours today and rest of the time I will spend meditating or exercising. I really think I should move more. I hate when I have to sit for long periods of time because of studying. I can't live my life being sedentary. That's totally unnatural for me and I can only imagine how my health would be in the long run.

2600 calories yesterday. I studied for three hours and meditated for one hour.

[Not me]

I'm still having some issues with heartburn . The only way I can get it to go away is by not drinking anything with my meals. The only downside is I don't know when to stop eating. If I don't drink anything I don't have any cues to stop and I feel like I'm still hungry no matter how much I eat. The heartburn might be caused be eating so many painkillers so I hope it will go away after I stop taking them. I will go see a neurologist on Thursday to see  what he can do. I will again try drinking just one glass of water with meals to stop my eating.

Yesterday there was a really awkward but also cool moment. My parents suddenly started talking about magic mushrooms. And they were all excited about them. They talked about a study where they gave mushrooms to terminal cancer patients and almost all of them experienced great relief from their pains and even said it was the most important experience of their life. Then they started talking to me about it and telling me how I should also listen to the podcast about mushrooms. I was just trying so hard not to laugh  and tried to act like I didn't know anything about the subject. Then my mom even proceeded to talk about lsd to me and how psilocybin and lsd are basically the same. She also said that the problem is you can get bad trips and get fucked up by that. I had no idea my parents knew that much . Then she also said that mushrooms can induce enlightenment experiences but the problem is that if you get them from a drug dealer, you don't know how much you are getting and what the quality is. They were really positive about psychedelics and I wast just amazed.

Yesterday I ate 3000 calories. Looking back to the last couple of weeks it seems like I haven't really been able to implement never binge again successfully. I have lost some weight but I have also ate more than I wanted almost every single day. I have to really start taking this seriously. I know I can do it. I meditated for 75 minutes and studied for 2,5 hours. I was really focused as I studied but mainly I just studied English because that's the one subject that will really be important for my future.

[Not me]

Yesterday I played some video games with my brother and I could literally feel it destroy my concentration, at least for a while. After playing I wast in this high adrenal mode and it was really hard to focus on anything, I tried to meditate but my mind was running like crazy and it kept thinking about the game over and over again. For the last five years I haven't really been playing video games because I have seen them as a waste of time and I still think they are. It probably isn't that bad to play once in a while with friends but I really don't want to waste too much of my life playing video games. Especially after what I have read about them overstimulating the dopamine system.

I realized a funny thing. I often have hard time falling asleep because it's so hot in my room. But yesterday I ate my last meal at around seven and went to bed at around 10.30 pm and I my body was total cold. I even needed to take another blanket because I was freezing. I will try doing this to see if I can sleep even better. I'm not really sure how I will be able to function in the retreat next weeks since we won't be sleeping much there. Perhaps the meditation will get me to stay awake.

Meditated for 30 minutes, studied for 2 hours, ate 1900 calories.

[Not me]

Yesterday I had my English exam and it wen't pretty well. I always struggle with essays since I try to get very high points from them and that makes me think way too much about what is the perfect next sentence. I have two more exams left: physics and mathematics. I will try to get decent grades squeezed out of them but they are not really subjects I'm interested in studying. I think I will make this be my last physics course. I have to focus my energies more on what matters to me.

My preliminary plan for this summer is to spend the first half of it very immersed in meditation. The first two weeks will be spent in the zen monastery and then after that I think I might meditate for six hours every day for the following two weeks. Then probably do some shadow work, exercising, reading and socializing on the side. On the second half of the summer I will focus on socializing. I will read some books about human relations and perhaps do a pick-up program as well. Then I will go out with my friends and to see new people and implement the theory I have learned and have fun at it. During this phase I will meditate and exercise on the side. 

I don't always have my books with me so I've had hard time trying to finish physical books. Now I realized I can buy kindle versions of books on Amazon and read them on my laptop wherever I go. That's really good since the books won't be taking any space and I always have them available. Yesterday I bought The book of not knowing and will start reading it after my zen retreat.

My weight this morning was 79,9 kg and my waist was 84,6 cm. I meditated for 30 minutes and studied for one hour. I ate 2100 calories. It's funny how fast I start to lose fat once I get my calories handled.