mmKay

@Amandine Yeah, I've experienced weird stuff like that with sleep (; , besides seeing a ghost when I was a kid and some short astral proyection / lucid dreaming relative recently. I'm noticing my limbs fall asleep WAY faster and easier now. - Funny how sleep affects our intelect haha. Beggining of day 6. Woke up in the middle of the night after dreaming that I had indulged in two sugar sprinkled pastry slugs ( actually the other day I also dreamt that I had found couple of grapes in my wardrobe -wth?- and instantly ate them ). I felt kind of dissapointed after walking up, confused if I had betrayed my commitment or not lol. Woke up again around 10:30 because of an alarm that I had forgotten to turn off for today. Lied under the bedsheets 'bout half hour more, feeling quite weak , underslept and probably dehydrated, with little initiative to start the day since my goal doesnt require me to do anything besides healthy eating. That's staying the top priority for these 6 weeks, but I will add as a secondary goal to really upgrade my knowledge about health. This will give me something specific to focus on besides the important meals, work and consistently sharing this. Basically researching the sh*t out of this field. This will be primarely a research phase, not embodying phase. I'm talking seeking understanding of theory and practice of nutrition, fasting , fitness, sleep, bloodwork, supplements, grocery shopping skills and techniques, convenient eating strategies, improving breathing, posture and striving to create a custom diet for my particular body and lifestyle. All of this, understanding that it's actually a very long term process. Mind/body direct experience of reactions to food , exercise or techniques, and trust in intuition will remain my judges for discernment and guidance. Most likely I'll have little time in January between work and the fact that I'll be intensely building my camper van. That will be another challenge for healthy eating. The challenge officially ends 1st February. During these 6 weeks I'll be very strict and promise I'll put my best effort. After that, I still have to decide. I foresee a commitment to a healthy living , but I still need to define by my own terms what this actually means. I think I may have thyroid issues as the symptoms somewhat fit me. I'll look into it. Anyways, as usual felt quite weak going out of bed ( around 11:30) , and I did it with no particular goal. Stood up, did some light stretching movements like sitting in deep squat, cobra pose and reverse bowing with my arms in the air. Also found some place to free hang for a couple of seconds. This is what felt the most. I'll be doing more of that . Period. Somewhat improved physical energy. Did the oil pulling - tongue scratching and didn't even wash my teeth as It's not smelling at all for now. I'll do that before work at 6pm. For breakfast, I had the leftover spinach from the bottom of the bag, half of a new bag of Iceberg lettuce, the lemon juice I had forgotten to pour in yesterday ( lol ) , quite a bit of olive oil, pink salt and powdered black pepper, with three tomatoes and one yellow bell pepper that I had first soaked in vinegar / tap water and then cut up in chunky pieces, because I noticed I prefer to chew on the whole pieces rather than having to keep stabbing little pieces with my fork. After 15 min I felt full and left 3/4 of a tomato and some green leaves for later. I think a whole lemon is too sour for a salad. I'll try using just half next time or go for some vinegar. Feeling energetic andsharp for now. Gut ain't complaining. Did 10 min of deep and slow breathing meditation that woke me up even more + some crawling around the room and dynamic stretching before sitting down to read. At 6 I'll start preparing for work. L8er!

Finished having my last meal of the day around 9 PM. Had 450g of frozen brussel sprouts that I steamed together with 2 onions that I cut in half, 2 peeled carrots and 3 garlic cloves Actually I popped open a jar of olives while food was in the steam cooker and I stabbed 'bout 6 on a toothpick. When buying I looked at all the labels to make sure they don't contain added sugar. These are just olives, salt, citric acid ( vitamin c ? ) and some antioxidant additive, which is in my opinion quite clean for food in a jar. They also are pausterized, which is probably not ideal. I had couple of them and then proceeded to observe myself. The intense salty - sour flavor induces crave. After I had one, I wildly wanted more, more and more. Also it looks like the sourness isn't gentle to an semi-empty stomach,. There was definately some mild kind of reaction. I don't think these will be a staple of my diet, even though they are relatively cheap, tasty, convenient, packed with calories and perhaps healthy. At least not during this challenge. TBH, I was surprised how good the onions, carrots and garlics turned out. That's DEFINATELY something I'll be doing more of in the future. About the brussel sprouts, I ate like 10 and threw the rest in the garbage. I don't like how they taste even with salt and pepper. Side to side with the other veggies they tasted crappy and artificial IMO. I'll try steaming non-frozen brussel sprouts somewhen soon. In between these last 2 meals I felt some withdrawal and craving for intense tasting food and stimulation. It's not completely gone yet. There was a moment where I almost shed a tear thinking about some of my favorite cereal or donuts. Don't worry, you will find equally good tasting recipes with time. Leave this time for experimenting with this different diet. Sometimes I catch myself fantasizing if I could make work a life where I ate whatever and played videogames and just BS around. feels tempting, but remember, you've been there. Also felt kinda empty and somewhat not at ease. I'm familiar with this feeling. Boredom is existential. I kept listening to the audiobook and I lost some interest in the topics he was covering, I already had eaten and reported my experience of last meal here, and saw couple of videos in YouTube before I stopped myself from going on a unconscious spiral of binge watching random s^it. Just sat there on my couch covered with a few blankets experiencing the present moment. I wasn't able to feel complete in the now. Maybe withdrawal from carbs, overstimulation and entretainment, IDK. I'm also not playing videogames or watching that much stuff. I don't want to fall in downwards spyrals of unconscious behaviour. Gotta get used to being fulfilled with little stimulation. I play-fighted with my little brother trying to immobilize eachother. I didn't feel weak after the meal, even though it felt relatively heavier on the gut compared with the horse-sized salad I ate this morning. Also I feel that gave me more energy than anything else I've done during the day. I think I'll wait till I pee one more time before going to bed as the veggies I ate contain water and I won't drink anything. Got my 4 blankets in place, 1 and half hour since dinner and had light cardio with my bro. Sounds like a recipy for good night sleep this time. I'll just pop an audiobook and set it to turn itself off after 45 min, so I don't have any artificial light or screen time directly before bed. - Damn my feet get cold the whole time - Merry Christmas L8er!

Abour 5 hours have passed since last meal with little to no hunger or negative effects. No headache anymore, which is great. What persists is this chronic bodily exhaustion. And why wouldn't I be exhausted. I tend to sit all day in my room. Being a low-carb diet digital couch potato. The idea is that it will take my body 'bout two to three weeks to adapt do the diet change. But I think diet can only get me so much physical energy. I switched audiobooks since I noticed ( after bout two hours ) the one I was listening to was more about the history of the food industry. I wanted some more concrete ideas at this moment. So now I'm listening to the Primal Blueprint and it looks like this guy really does have health down. Since I went through my workout phase at 17 and lost interest in it, what caught my attention for now was the idea of low intensity exercise like walking (and occasional all-out sprinting) as the ideal physical conditioning. Inspired, I grabbed my phone and went in my pijamas and flip-flops to take a walk around the beach with the audiobook in loudspeaker. I felt like an old grandma at first, taking little steps and even struggling to keep my upper back straight. Some minutes passed and I could feel tiny improvements to my energy levels. I wetted my feet in the freezing water and then sat down on a big-ass rock for 'bout 10 min, just taking in the sunlight, which is another recomendation from the book. He's right. I'm most likely getting very little vitamin D from lack of exposure to the sun. I don't know how crucial that is or how the difference feels in direct experience. Came back home. That felt good. It's really common sense how moving the body contributes to physical wellbeing. That's most likely the next step for growht in this area. I wanted to do some light stretching before heading out but I really had little energy to even stand up. I'd say that walk gave me a good boost for now. Also felt quite less cold when I came back. Probably blood flowing increased my temperature. I still wasn't THAT hungry but I noticed myself in this limbo where I didn't want to lie down, go for a walk or keep sitting so I took some time to cut up one whole avocado and half zucchini in slices. I know how delucious zucchini is when lightly fried with some olive oil and sprinkled with salt. Almost tastes meat-like. But I didn't want to fry anyting at least this first week so I just put a tiny bit of water into a pot and out 'bout 12 slices of zucchini. It got the job done. Tasted good, no gut complaints and I'm feling peaceful and light. - I threw the rest of yesterdays carrot soup as it smell funky and I didn't really wanna eat it. So I dumped it onto the roots of the avocado tree that's growing in my garden. IDK if it does anything but I guess it gets some nutrients from stuff like this (?) They looking good, but not ready. Too sad last year someone broke into my garden last time and stole about 25 of them. I actually put 0 time to take care of them : / L8er!

As far as eating, I made a HUGE BOWL of salad - 3 sliced up tomatoes, 1 large red bell peper, a handful of spinach and another one of iceberg lettuce. Bunch of pink salt that I kept pouring over as I ate the top coat, olive oil, some black pepper and - holy shit - I just realized that I have squeezed a whole lemon into a cup and forgot about putting it into the mix. Now it's just sittin' there. And I was wondering how come it ain't sour. My vegetables aren't organic and I forgot to buy baking soda to wash them. I just thoroughly rubbed them under tap water. Welp. I was about to put the first fork of leaves into my mouth as I remembered that once again I had forgotten my ritual. I pulled the fork out of my mouth, clapped and rubbed my hands, took a deep breath and focused on the self-imposed importance of this moment of eating. The battle took about 25 min of chewing, where I had to take 2-3 breaks to rest my jaw. I didn't want to have any avocados to see how it feels to get satiated only on these vegetables. I thought I was full half way through the plate, but pushed myself through it to see how " overeating " feels on vegetables. I ate a horse-sized bowl of food and the gut ain't complaining besides some mild diharrea-like green poop, no brain fog, no worsening of bodily weakness (quite a boost of energy tbh). And actually I dont feel stuffed. I feel satiated and peaceful. I know the ideal would be to just sit by yourself with the plate to eat completely mindfully, but for now I feel that an audiobook is some cool company for eating, specially for such long time. It makes it somewhat exciting compared to the stimulation of ready to go snacks that are super convenient, quick, instantaneous , easy and energy spiking that allow you to forget about putting thought and effort into nutrition and be off to the next thing. L8er!

@Amandine (; Happy holidays to you too!. Yeah true, https://cheatdaydesign.com/75-different-names-for-sugar/ - I didn't think about toothpaste containg sweet stuff. Over the last couple of days I had a feeling that that's something I'll have to drop or upgrade, and made sure to not to ingest any of it by rinsing off few times. Also the Oil pulling with olive oil and tongue scraping I'm doing first thing in the morning is doing miracles for halitosis and my oral health ( I used to have to chew mint gum constantly as any non-fresh smell bothered me). Deodorant is something I thought about upgrading as it contains alcohol, aluminium and irritates my skin. Not a priority though. Haha, I hope there won't be any Christmas cake. I non-judgementally told my dad about the challenge I have set myself ( he is 64 and and has been drinking coffee, eating bread, butter, sugar and cheese for his whole life), making clear it's something I'm just experimenting with for myself and not imposing on anyone else. I'm sure there wouldn't be much conflict besides few weird looks. He's remarkably chill and also healthy despite his life long smoking and night drinking history- probably because he smokes weed to relax before bed and eats 'bout a ton of garlic a year. He even rolled me one that time I asked him as I wanted it to hang out with some girls LOL. He's a tough guy to pin on the spyral. Hes got some conservative blue worldviews and conspiracy theories ( jews running the world, anti-refugees, reptilians, etc. ), his life is pretty much is about getting money and creating a business related with cars (stage orange), but honestly who doesn't chase money these days. He's aware of the huge ecological disaster we are part of ( stage green) with animal slaughter, plastic overload, ocean waste dumps and air pollution, tells me quite often about that one time he hugged a tree and he could feel that it comunicated with him, and besides his extensive knowledge of physics, chemistry, history and electricity knows a fair bit about quantum mechanics. If they decide to do any kind of dinner orwhatever I'll just come over with my tupperware with cut up veggies and eat nothing off the table. Anyways, Day 5 began around 9 AM Once again slept pretty bad. Went to bed at around 11 pm and instead of succumbing to my habit of playing some League of Legends I decided to lie in bed and keep listening to the nutrition audiobook after setting it on a timer to turn off after 45 mins. I thought I had made some groundbreaking discovery by noticing that one reason for me getting improper sleep may be that my feet are freezing even under two blankets. So I scavenged two more from around the house and now I was getting some seriuous heat. Turns out I fell asleep on my left arm, it went completely numb and combined with the fact that the soup I had had quite a lot of water I woke up 2 hours later to pee. I felt destroyed. Really weak, physically sick and somewhat dizzy as I went to pee. Intuition is telling me I'm not consuming enough calories. Makes sense since most foods I ate used to have lots of carbs and added sugar is a easy way to pack in some easy calories into food. OR, it just happened that I broke my REM sleep cycle. Most likely a mixture of both. Fell asleep again, woke up probably around 7-8 AM and just lied in bed enjoying the contrast of my cold room and warm blankets. Sometimes I wish I had a pee bottle near me to avoid having to go to the bathroom, but then again there is extra enjoyment of going in the cold and comin' back to the heat. I thought about water fasting the whole day, but I'll leave it for next week as I feel I need more calories for now. This Saturday one week will have passed and I will experiment with adding some high quality eggs, meat or canned sardines and mussels ( yummy) to see how I react. Or instead of that I'll just go for lentels, but they usually feel really heavy on the gut even though I chew quite carefully. I'm not working today. Most likely I'll do some meditation, stretching, light cardio or biking and I'll keep chipping away at the LP course.

After eating the avocado salad with spinach, for the FIRST TIME in these couple of days I felt good, as in 7/10 good ( for the next couple of hours ) Despite I was feeling weak, I also felt relaxed and content, as if nothing was missing in my body. Mental clarity also kinda improved but it's tough to measure results. Story time. One of my motivations to do to this challenge ( besides turning 22 and feeling somewhat petty for wasting any more lifetime) was that even though I had comprehended quite profoundly the "meaningless" facet of life down to my bones by a more than 1 year long Dark Night of the Soul, nutrition was still a source of suffering per se. Let me explain. I was capable of completely blissing out during meditation by accepting everything exactly as it is and being in the present moment, or even lying in bed for 15 hours quite often, either just being in the moment or getting lost in fantasies. I was okay with that. During that year my diet went from quite standart mainstream diet, to really sh^t. I'm talking water or dry fasting for 16 hours a day really often, not eating anything and then just binge eating junk food at night like donuts, Mcdonalds, Burger King, cereal, sandwiches, chocolate, muffins, Doritos, Bollicaos. . . etc , besides eating one dish a day during the weekends as I used to work just on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. ( Two side notes: I'm noticing my mouth watering while thinking about all of this, and also the fact that I feel I'm struggling to articulate all of this and I'm sensing this impulse to alt-tab to YouTube and zone out rather than putting the effort to write and share this. So I was okay with anything happening and pretty much blissing out no matter what would happen to me, my stuff, or others, as in just surrendering completely ( at least in theory ) I had stopped inhibiting most of the impulses. And the result is that even though you become a quite more spontaneous person, you also turn into a wild chimp that's guided by what feels best in the moment while avoiding pain and discomfort. You know, the usual things introverts indulge in these days: video games, binge watching YouTube, fapping too much, porn, junk food. . . It felt as if my willpower muscle melted away during this period. I just didn't smoke or drink, I guess because this are habits that I resent because of my parents. But all of this behaviour had their consequences. It gave you a highs and then crashes, mood swings, depressive thoughts, withdrawal syndromes, and it would really deep fry your capacity to focus, meditate or introspect, besides other obvious health dangers. Sooo. . . my ability to bliss out came and went as my body was sending actual physical withdrawal signals of " SOMETHING IS MISSING IN YOUR BODY!!" and creating misery. Yeah, I could have surrendered to the feeling of " misery " and just dettach and observe, but since now I have a different outlook on life I decide not to be like that and do a few things while I'm alive. Also intuition is telling me that this is the correct path and it will be worth it. Lets try it out. At least I can't say that I haven't tried Hedonism lol. *sigh* - It made me somewhat uncomfortable going through this mentally again. Anyways. Made a soup with pink salt, olive oil, black pepper, 5 carrots, 3 garlic cloves one sliced onion ( I luv these last two :> ) and 3/4 squeezed lemon juice cos' 1/4 fkin fell to the ground. Also why do my lemons have more seeds than sunflowers?? having to pick them outta my dishes pisses me off (mindfully) -__- I ate half of the soup with no remarkable gut issues or sleepiness. I'm aware both onions and carrots have some carbs and therefore sugar. I'm experiencing with different vegetables and how they make me feel but I doubt this would give me a sugar crash. Also noticed that eating veggies in soups makes me eat faster and less mindfully since I don't have to put that much effort into chewing the soft pieces of food. Nevertheless it went into my stomach gently. I keep forgetting of the rubbing hands ritual before eating lol. I allways catch myself when I'm already having the first bite. Lastly, now I'm feeling somewhat tired and stiff but most likely that's because I've been a couch potato during this whole evening. Shops are closed tomorrow and I forgot to buy water. GG dehydration. Hoping to get some good sleep tonight. GN y'all.

BTW, headache completely gone today (:

Thanks @Amandine ! I'm glad you are digging it. I'm also enjoying sharing the day by day of this challenge. That article is gold btw, it literally narrates evertything I have went through these couple of days. Funny I didn't think about googling " quitting sugar" before doing this haha. Anyways, just came back from work. Energy levels were REALLY low, till the point where I took a 5 min toiled break just to sit down with the lights off. Pain in leg muscles, right foot tendon ( may be caused because of weared out shoes, gotta get myself a quality pair since I work standing all day) and upper back and traps. There weren't that many clients in the morning, so I as I saw they were giving out free massages in the kitchen I just walked over and without talking pointed at my traps without saying anything lol. Not going to say that all Thailand and Thilippine people have inborn massage skills, but it just so happens everyone in the kitchen does have some magic hands and most of them couple of years of exp under the belt, so thats something I was grateful of as I growled in pain during the massage. That breakfast avocado with salt and pepper gave me some energy but not enough to cut through that "sleep-dept-hangover" as coffee with sugar or some candy breakfast like a sandwitch or bagel would do. It's outrageous how these things spike energy. Nevertheless I'm not interested. I'm looking for long-term steady energy, bodily but mostly cognitive sharpness. Again, it sucks to be doing this while working with appealing (very unhealthy) food. Smells induce craving thoughts, quite often. I just notice them and dismiss them with the power of full commitment ( " there is no alternative" , as in I won't eat any of that because I have decided not to) They also decided to bring a special Italian Panettone cake for us to share, and even though no one directly offered me a piece, I looked at it dead in the chocolate chips and said NOPE, turning 180 degrees and walking away. One of the things I noticed work for me, is that If I dont think about junk food, imagine it's flavours, picture different dishes, or even have their names in my head, I can get by using way less willpower. I just think about something else or shift my focus on the sensations of my gut and overall body in the moment. So in a sense writing about these things in retrospect is somewhat harming me, but I'm willing to deal with this. Reminds me of that one time I meditated looking at a cookie, and caught myself salivating, having constant impulses to grab it that I had to inhibit, rationalizing why I should eat it right then ( like " yeah, I'll just chew it and spit it out" - wth lol). Way easier not to have such things at sight or just hide them in a shelf if they belong to your roommates or family. As I was driving home I noticed myself in a vegetative- really low energy state, and thought of taking advantage of the situation by experimenting the effects of doing some light exercise on energy levels. First, I packed my bowl full of iceberg lettuce, spinach olive oil, lemmon juice, one avocado and himalayan pink salt, ate it, and It feels and tastes quite damn good. Didn't feel like cutting up and washing any other veggies for the moment. I'll do that later during the day. Then I shuffle danced to some Oliver Heldens music for about 3 min and I have to say it's quite amazing how cardio draws physical energy from nowhere. That's something I'll be doing more of. -- It's cold in my room and it bothers me. I will be looking for solutions. I'll be back.

Beggining of day 4 Slept 5-6 ish ours. I feel worse than hangovered tbh. I guess that's what it takes to pay the sleep dept for the last 3 days . I feel sore from carrying the overload of groceries yesterday, and I',m guessing the brocoli and spinach I'm eating isn't enough protein for my muscles to recover. Also woke up with some mild diarrhea. Reminds me of baby poop, as is the gut is reacting poorly to the veggies. Yeah may seem gross to talk about feces but there is value in tracking it. You'll see it as well when you go through this. I'll have just an avocado for this morning as I'm just going to work for 4 hours today and think about what's next when I come back. I ain't having no coffe to energize for sure, screw that. If I had bit more time I'd do some light exercise for energy but I'm already running late. L8er!

First three hours were good as I ate steamed brussel sprouts and broccoli with pink salt before going to work. Also had a quick freezing shower that boosted my energy before heading out. After these 3 hours, I started feeling bloated, had flatulance, felt like my stomach was upset and in constant pain ( 4 / 10 ). Definately not how I think It should feel with an optimal diet. Intuition is telling me it will take about one or two weeks of this kind of eating before I start feeling good. Now I'm just getting used to actually digesting. Also, some craving and desire for tasting and satiating food appeared, as I was in contact with aromatic and desirable looking food for the whole time. Don't get fooled. It's poison. You've been there, and you ate it for years. You know how it ends. Was feeling somewhat down, but I reminded that there is no choice, literally, as I'm fully commited. And that helped me to get in a better mood. Just ate one avocado during this time, since gut was feeling irritable and I didn't want my food to touch anything from the soja and oyster sauce infected kitchen. Damn the avocado slides in nice. I belive the perfect diet would feel somewhat like eating avocados the whole time. It doesn't give you a rush, no brain fog and it ain't no stone for the gut. So I decided to take the access I have to good avocados and get myself a whole box. Why wouldn't I, if I'm going all in? Hoping to finally be able to sleep for more than 4 hours tonight. GN

Experienced 5 / 10 headache for the rest of they day. I'll eat more than what I think is enough just in case I'm not getting enough food in my body. Not feeling sleepy at all, but weak. I know this feeling. Sore muscles and tiredness was fixed eating some meat last time I went vegan for couple of weeks. I'll wait it off for this first week, and then maybe introduce some fish products or lentels for the protein intake. Ate tomatoes, letuce and olives ( not sure how good they are for me yet, all ingredients are okay, besides of the fact that they are pasteurized. Since I'm not strict with my time besides of what I'm eating, I watched some personal development content as eating. Ended up bad. If I'm not putting attention to the feelings of my gut I get the same bodily feelings as in anxiety. I need to actually focus more on the food while eating. I'll bring some vegetables to work and have a cold shower now. I feel like it's going to be a tough next 7 hours in work as usually carbs give me enough energy to get through the shift, and sometimes even coffe. I'll report back at night. PD: possibly crappy writing because in rush.

Couldn't fall asleep. Weird alert state + Monkeymind chattering + the gardener making noise with his leaf blower didn't precisely help. Next time I'll use ear plugs for naps during the day. Besides that, I experienced a 6.5 / 10 headache during these 2 hours. I'm not distracting myself from the pain. I see it as addiction leaving the body. Also doing my best to detach from the experience, just observing and documenting the process.

Just had spinach leaves and Iceber lettuce for breakfast. Didn't want to make a salad so I'm able to discern more clearly what is having what ( at least on the short run ) effect on my gut. Had one squeezed lemon and some olive oil as dressing. I'm aware lemon juice has sugar. I'm not concerned about such quantity and I'm staying vigilant for any flavor-crave it may induce. Taste is good, although I felt like a giraffe chewing that many leaves, just instead of having a long neck I have a long d*ck. ( I mean long deck, of pokemon cards. I used to collect them. - Just kidding - Anyways. Almost fell for a trap. Was about to use balsamic vinegar as dressing when I noticed it has colorants. Staying away from that for now as the main concerns are Wheat, Dairy, sugar, soy and artificial chemicals, sweeteners and colorant agents. Feeling kind of week, sore legs, and actually less energetic as when I went to sleep last night. From what I remember letuce gives me somewhat of flatulence. Let's see if that changes over this period of time. I'll have a short siesta if I feel like, or how many I feel like I want. I have a quite big wiggle room for the time outside of eating properly, besides behaviour that may snowball into crappy eating. Anything else is a win. Going slow and steady this time. That means laying in bed till I have to go to work is a win as well.

Okay, kind of felt like a Noob for this fail. Thought walking to the supermarket would be a good idea but I didn't put thought into how much groceries will weight. Ended up walking about 1'5 km carrying 30kg of groceries. With an empty stomach. I had to take couple of breaks because of the struggle and a man in his 50's offered me help, which I politely declined with my noob pride. That's a hit to my subtle misantrophy lol. Anyways, thats a sure way to hinder and disencourage healthy eating. More thought has to be put into minucia like this; Grocerie list on phone Thinking about what do I already have, for how long will it last me and when is aproximately the next time I'll shop. Is going by bike or walking good enough, or I'll be buying heavy things like water so that I take the car or ask for my younger brother for help? Also, this reminds me of the importance of eating before going shopping to mitigate hunger. This is HUGE. It's way more likely to indulge in some fast snack as it has happened to me dozens of times over this last year, where my intention was to have a healthy breakfast but with the hunger and reduced willpower, I end up grabbing some morning pastry with my little brother, that snowballs into shitty diet throughout the day, overstimulates taste buds making tomatoes and letuce taste like amazon prime cardboard, , incites crappy eating the day after as the sugar crash will eventually come, and the downwards spyral begins . . . The last thing is that now I know what's up with that crave feeling I experienced yesterday with the table salted peanuts. As I was shopping I was listening to this nutrition audiobook, and what they said made completely sense and clicked instantly. Table salt is refined in such way that it stimulates the tongue in way more quick and potent way, resulting in what . . . ? Pushing on that pleasure and reward system in the brain, releasing that crave for more response. Crave is definately something I don't want to be having in my diet, no matter if its healthy food or no. Crave is a no-no and will be dissapairing over these 6 weeks. I do have access to himalayan salt. Its about 50 times more expensive than normal table salt. Not a big deal but it's something to consider over the long run.

Thanks y'all! @Anna1 Yeah, saying "nope thanks " to people that offer you sweets and junk stuff is one possible way that I Imagined that I could go down in. It may be an extra challenge walking into Mercadona during the holidays and seeing all the tempting limited edition Christmas poison fudges, chocolates, cakes and stuff. Not demonizing any of this stuff btw, just reprograming it in my mind. And yeah my little brother thought I ate all of the zebra cake in 15 min LOL as it completely dissapaired from the kitchen in a blink of an eye. Now I feel like I understand all those antique sacrifice rituals Yup, staying commited for this 42 days no matter what, and then probably I'll look into some healthy dessert recipes, and yeah, I'll be developing some yummy and convenient dishes. I thought about Gazpacho with no bread, which is quite typical over here and SURPRISINGLY HEALTHY as it is a super mainstream dish, although I noticed that any liquid foods are somewhat irritable to the stomach as it's not chewed or anything, it's just dumped raw blended in there. @Serotoninluv Any favorite recommendations are welcome (; Anyways, beggining of day 3. One more night of Insomnia. If I had to speculate I have slept around 4 or less hours. Kind of a shocking difference from the usual 10-11 hours I've been having for the last year and half. Feeling strangely awake and energetic regardless of the little nap time. Is this the new standard or just a side effect of the diet switch? I'm actually genuinely intrigued. I will be starting my mornings this ancient detox technique I found called Oil pulling, where you basically keep some liquid oil in your mouth for 5- 20 min as it sucks and draws all the sh*t from your body so that you can spit it out. Isn't that bad but kind of damn nasty at the same time. This I've been doing on and off for the last 3 weeks and I'll give it a honest try, even though with this many changes It will be hard to discern what is producing what results. I'm expecting ego backlash and I'm ready for it. I'm not new around here , come and get me (: Also, strangely I naturally felt like meditating before sleep and also first thing in the morning, something that hasn't happened in the last year, nothing out of this world but I'll take it. Anyways, It's 8:53 AM here and I'm out to shop. Peace !

Ate nothing besides some raw red onion, that mildly irritated my stomach and gave me some flatulance, and about two hands full of raw peanuts with some table salt, that actually triggered a familiar behaviour, craving for more food. It may be because my body needed more salt, I actually had had little calories for the day and was legit hungry, OR also quite likely it's binge eating at night bad habit kicking. Anyhow I stopped after that one cup and noticed the feeling of craving. Still not sure if peanuts are 100% good for me. Forgot very often my new before-eating ritual. It will take some effort and time to set in place. Anyways, tomorrow is monday, shops are open, and I'm planning of buying quite a lot of vegetables and probably a whole box of 20 avocados as I may get a discount from work. Also stumbled upon the oportunity of online shopping as organic vegetables are avaliable. Energy levels quite steady. Let's see if I'll have insomnia again. GN

It's Sunday so grocerie stores are closed here in Spain. I'm getting by eating Avocados with himalayan salt and steamed brocoli. It feels soft as it goes in, but still kind of aggresive, as if such food "didn't belong in my stomach", causing some mild discomfort and flatulence. I feel my stomach struggling to get used to actually having to digest food, instead of melting over-processed wheat, processed white rice, and ofc processed sugar. A while ago I heard about the so called " keto flu ", which is basically a group of negative symptoms that appear when your body is switching from using carbohydrates as fuel ( wheat, rice, legumes, potatoes, pasta . . . ) to using ketones aka fat ( avocados, olives, nuts, quality meat, sardines, olive oil . . .) I'm not afraid of loosing the bet and the 1000€. I feel that I am all in, completely commited. No wiggle room at all. For this first week, from Saturday to Saturday, 21st till 27th December, my goals are : At least 1'5 litres of water per day, one bottle. ( grabbed few big chugs as was writing this ) Only vegetable diet, probably mostly raw, steamed or in a healthy soup. I'm talking buying frozen brocoli, coliflower, brussels sprouts to steam them. Raw tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet peppers, avocados , and carrots. I worry about the ones where I eat the skin because of all the pesticides ( they are really nasty, look at some videos in YouTube ). I'll buy some baking soda to clean them later on, for now I'll rub them with tap water and vinegar solution. Woah my poop is green. But I pooped whole lentels that I ate 3 days ago??? Holy sh*t I need to calm down and chew my food. From now on the time I'm eating is sacred for me. I'm commiting to the the following ritual : Clap my hands , rub them together get present to the moment for couple of seconds before putting ANYTHING into my mouth. By this I will remind myself to chew my food properly, taste it, and I will keep visualizing all the positive side effects of an A+ diet. I'm planning to eat some more tomatoes, carrots, avocado and maybe peanuts this night. GG.

First day gone already. Not sure how my diet will look like but I do know it will be full of vegetables. Ate mostly steamed brocoli, avocados, washed Cherry tomatoes and tested out raw peanuts, they seem to be alright ( no alergic reactions ). Lots of negative emotions and physical withdrawal syndromes when the time of the day after work came where I'd usually have some snacks. Headaches, stomach aches, overload of depressive thoughts. . . Also had to apply quite a lot of willpower when bored not to grab a snack. Before bed I didn't remotely feel as tired as mostly. I remember crashing on the couch even with my work clothes on without having energy to brush my teeth before bed. WTF had Insomnia this night for some reason ? Sugar trying to get me tired to lower my willpower so I fall into cravings. GG but NOPE.

It occurs when your skill at something matches the difficulty of the task. It's not too easy or too difficult. Google flow state graph. also, add me on EuWest ( Vurtexmex) diamond adc (;. BTW I would reconsider becoming a profesional video game player as a life purpose for many reasons, as I scratched it off my list quite some time ago after becoming semi-professional and thinking a lot about this. It's about being competitive and beating others rather than being a creator. You are playing to make a name for yourself (fame). You play for status ( the various tiers hierarchy, platinum, diamond, masters, challenger ) You are at the mercy of the game developers where they have the power to change whatever you have been working for the last years in a blink of an eye by introducing new game patches, updates, unbalanced mechanics, etc. You rely on the game being relevant over the time. Games die and new ones arrise. Imagine in 5 to 10 years it's not played anymore and you have to start from scratch with a new one. (like what happened to me) The skills you learn in games do transfer to other ones, but not completely. You want to invest into something that snowballs on the long run. look in the perspective of 30 years + or a lifetime. League of legends creates sneaky emotional addiction to adrenaline rushes, social circles that reinforce playing more, and binds you in a quite average level of development. ( 16 to 30 year olds who also have spent their life playing videogames ) Its a quite shallow activity. No matter what, you are able to sit at the computer and just zone out. And many more. I know you didn't ask for this but I felt like sharing this would be valuable to you. On the other hand, I really do enjoy videogames but it doesn't sinc well with personal development. Sometimes I wish there was a universe where it did (:

Today I woke up to a pile of dishes in the kitchen. This already happened more than once and makes me somewhat annoyed. So I proceed to clean what I think to be the one dish that was mine from last night , only to notice I'm creating a duality between my dishes and their dishes. Humbled by my insight, I proceed to clean all of them, and ended up noticing that actually there were many of my older plates thrown in there that I categorized as " their dishes " on a first glance and that were unrightfully provoking irritation in me. Mildly mind-fucked after realizing my self-deception, gazing at the floor, I realized I was creating a duality between cleaning the dishes / cleaning the rest of the kitchen, and then between cleaning the kitchen and cleaning the bathroom , and this set of breaking duallities kept leveling up : cleaning my house, the streets of my neighbourhood, my country, my continent, ( and ocean as it is its duallity) and actually myself. No i wasn't on lsd at the time, and stil I left it at the dishes as It's a lotta' husle but damn if everyone was aware of this the world wud' be clean. How did non-duallity change your household?

Decided to post this here as It is a mix of various topics . This half baked insight popped into my mind today as I was working and didn't have much time to contemplate. Please bear with me as I elaborate. In the context of Self-Actualization, being literally self-conscious is a great thing, and something that we strive for. We relate unconsciousness, the opposite of self-conscious, with selfishness, ignorance and overall a bad thing, something that we do not want. Somewhere along the way of evolution of language the word Self Conscious became asociated with being shy, hyper sensitive with oneself, uncomfortable, socially awkward and poor with the opposite sex. "Alpha males", or Naturals, are not self-conscious. They are not shy. Therefore they are Confident and are good with girls since they are attracted to confidence. You could argue that having low consciousness makes you confident. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect ( cognitive bias where being more ignorant equals confidence . On the other hand, I belive self consciousness goes full circle in social skills, in some cases. Let's say that you are shy: Self conscious and hyper-aware of your behaviour in social scenarios. You start off awkward and getting in your own way the whole time as you inhibit expressing thoughts and behaviour as you may judge it inapropiate or simply overthink things. Then you learn that anxiety fades once you stop being stuck in your own head because of filtering and micromanaging others people perceptions of you, and express in the moment impulses as in saying spontaneous thoughts or having spontaneous and impulsive behaviour rather than inhibitive. By doing this you reach Flow state and are not shy in the scenario anymore. For me it works like this, I'm self-conscious as in aware of my thoughts and actions but in flow state since I don't inhibit my thoughts or behaviour, I just observe it and don't judge. I belive the problem is not being self conscious, its the judgement and the inhibition , something that the " naturals " don't have since their little consciousness doesn't allow them to judge themselves, per say. Sorry for sloppy writting as I'm late to work. Thoughts ? (:

If All is One , why can't I experience your point of view rather than being stuck in mine?

Hey man, some goosebumps went through my body when I read your title as its something very similar I did and i'm planning to do again. Turns out there is a whole "hippie-like" movement of people that refuse to rent an apartment and they just live in their cars, vans or RVs. look up CheapRVliving channel on youtube as he is one of the guys with most experience that i've seen around. You will learn a lot from him. Also just google vanlife in general. so many practical tips. On the other hand be careful with chasing such " movie like movements ". once you settle down a bit and have handled your basic needs you may feel the want to do something similar again resulting in escapism behaviour from whatever is you are running from ( commiting to something, judgement from people, introspection . . . ) Anyways these are my two cents. Good luck !

If there is something I stand for it's for sure a simple life ( as Leo introduced me to Lifestyle Minimalism ) , but just one that fits my higher self rather than lower self . Without a bigger vision, the " just being, in a non-judgemental way" leads me towards comfort and distractions, really, as I told, I gave it a good shot. Actually I was confused about what the Authentic self is and had to re-watch the video, so now feel confident saying that my current way of being isn't it. It feels as if literally you coudn't climb Maslow's hierarchy without filling up the gaps of the pyramide in its order, as self actualization and expressing creativity are a level under self-trascendence. At least it's how it felt for me. ( I understand you can do both simultaneously but one without the other doesn't feel right )

Hey guys, finally felt like sharing this after close to 365 days of procrastination (: Note to whoever bothers to read: It's a "short" personal story about my steep but (probably) worth journey of following Actualized.org : Life Purpose, Meaning of life, Mystical experiences, Happiness, Motivation , Apathy and Nihilism. I feel that some of you will resonate. Enjoy! Concise background rant : 21 years old male born in Poland who moved to Spain at 5. Videogames were my life since as long as I can remember. They really sucked me in throughout my life as I really enjoyed them, I developed mastery in some of them, and they also were my way of escaping my upbringing ( bullied in school, feeling shame for being poor ( living in caravans/ in a shack up till 18), alcoholic / mentally unstable / emotionally abussive mother since birth, etc. All I did was school - videogames ( and very often skipping school to play some more ) . I literally barely have memories up till 17 since everything was very routine-like and other stuff I prefered to repress. I used to be deep in victim mentallity and merely reactive towards the world since I felt that the circumstances were stronger than me and also my father used to over-protect me and my brothers by providing everything he could and making my existance as comfortable as possible, which made me even " weaker " Got into personal development at 17 by accident while googling stuff about how to improove social skills to get a social life and ultimately get better with grils sice I had a crush on a chick in my class (actually I was amazed that there was a whole comunity about improoving themselves). Okay. January 2018 I bought the LP course after getting my first real job that I used to save up for my future studies ( having money is cool) . Three videos in, and next thing I know while meditating I get a flash of " go study psychology in university rather than translation". So I freeze the LP course and for couple of months do what's needed to make the switch in my studies since I didn't want to waste any more time. Resistance kicks in because of boring/challenging subjects and I go through a mini crisis. I didn't know if I was just rationalizing my laziness. But I could intuit that it didin't feel right. Shortly after, I had the insight that I wanted to study psychology because it's what's most similar to Personal-development, and I was like " why not study personal develpment directly? " ( also was actually somewhat motivated by a random Tai Lopez video where he was preaching "taking your eduaction in your own hands". Also shortly before that, as I was Journaling, I became aware ( thanks to Leo's theory and his BS detector ) of how little developed Universities actually are, and that the safety ( both the time spent studying and the job they provide later on ) are a complete ilusion. I knew there was no University Major on Personal-development, and that I would have to wing it. I would have to be both the teacher and the student. May 2018 my confident ass accompanied by faith in my half baked LP decide to take my university savings move to Barcelona (opposite extreme of Spain, 1000km away from my family or anyone I knew) to live on my own and get involved in the RSD pick up comunity ( that was the subfield of Personal developent that I chose to focus on after binging for a year or two on pick up theory). Spent around 3k euro on digital programs as I felt it was an investement. It probably was an investment, but . . . As I felt that my horniness/ flawed self-esteem /poor skills with whamen wouldn't let me advance the LP course, and given that pick up provided a clear path for self-actualization with tangible results, it would be the perfect decision. Right? Well, bear with me. As I meditated more and more ( staring at the same wall since 2016, for 20, 30 min daily, up to 60 min for half a year at my peak ) I became more and "numb". The " wins " just felt okay , and the " loses " just felt okay. I was becoming deatached from life. I could feel it was It was building up towards something. Around June 2018 Leo bursted my bubble. The "Understanding Meaning, Value and Purpose" video cracked my reallity ( Highly recommended video, THANKS LEO) I became conscious of how our Meaning-Making Apparatus works, and that my whole life was a house of cards. Everything I belived in was BS from the beggining ! Long story short : We pull meaning out of our Individual / collective asses and hold on to it as if our life depended on it ( Because it does ! So there is nothing to do and nothing to archive. Your problems aren't real. Seriousness doesn't exist. There is no reason to develop yourself. There is no reason to have sex. There is no reason to talk with your family. There is no reason to eat healthy, there is no reason to stay alive rather than killing yourself. There is no good or bad. Whatever you do, is " Okay" ( with capital "O" ) Also, there is no reason WHY NOT to do any of these things. You are left completely groundless with overwhelming and terrific Freedom. It's all up to you. You either create meaning consciously or soak it up unconsciously. Meaninglessness isn't good or bad, it's meaningless. All of this doesn't come across remotely as powerfull by writing it in a sentence as by becoming directly aware of it with your own real-life examples and actually feeling how the whole conceptual framework of your life crumbles down (: Alright. That ah-ha nihilist moment combined with the decision of quitting my old life , confusion about what do I actually want to do with my life, struggle with understanding what I am, existential dread and tons of questioning of my beliefs, escalated into not only a mid-life crisis, but a full blown Dark night of the soul. For months I was consumed by Nihilism and Anomie. Learning how to date lost its meaning and became very shallow. I flunked my expensive RSD program and I didn't care because money lost meaning for me. I had lost my virginity with a hooker because the stigma was gone, and I half assed some psilocybin mushroom trip where I had no major insights. Finding my Life purpose also lost its meaning for me and although I could Intuit that some anwsers were there, I was already chained by resistance and distractions. I felt enormous emotional pain. Loneliness that wouln't go away even around people; a feeling of not being understood & being amazed at how unconsciously others held onto their beliefs, and more extreme levels of confusion by each belief or asumption that I dared to question. I Indulged in addictions, Porn, masturbation, junk food, trash entretainment. . . Sometimes I laid 24 hours in bed for weeks doing barely nothing, besides standing up to pee and grabbing some unhealthy food to eat. (if there is something that I regret from all of this, it's not documenting my thoughts and the shifts in my worldview enough as everything was happening ) Then, after binging on some more Actualized and Byron Katie content something clicked. I learned how to let go. Of everything, any shoulds, regrets, expectations. . . I learned how to Sit and bliss out. Complete acceptance and surrender to the pressent moment without wishing to be anywhere else. I finally became aware of where the main source of happiness comes from. September 2018 I decided to swallow my pride and fly back to my dads home to be become a Squatter ( quite extended practice here in Spain ) so I wouldn't have to pay rent. I seriously considered to just do full time meditation somehow. Interestingly enough I had a chance to join an Ashram in Barcelona since a monk in an orange toga approached me literally at the entry to my house , offering me a free short copy of the Bhagavad Gita, but I after a brief chat I could see that he was clearly lost in dogma, and my desire to join would be corrupted by the desire of grounding myself in some structure/ authority that would tell me what to do rather than having to embrace the paralyzing freedom. First month back was alright. Blessing out doing nothing feels good but it doesn't manifest in cash ( at least directly ). Since im not into Breatharianism or Freeganism, I got a weekend job to get some income, where I'm working till today. After binging on some more of Leo's content, I stumbled across the " You aren't Happy because you don't want to be " video. After that one I really made myself into a lazy slug couch potato. Summarizing : Swallow unconditional happiness ( which screws up your entire motivational system). You don't guilt yourself for anything. You don't reward yourself. I had learned to be Okay with anything, and also, all the rules to live by were gone. No "shoulds" or "shouldn'ts" I was still half-assing meditation, yoga, journaling if I was doing any of these at all, and I was resisting the LP course that had caused me so much struggle. I had some mystical experiences in the past like becoming directly conscious that thoughts come LITERALLY from NOWHERE and had some short lucid dreams here and there, but now after letting go of SO much suddenly for couple of days I started being conscious inside of my dreams sometimes even few times per night; two times I started Astral Proyecting and levitated horizontally out of my body for a short time and flew around my room; that one time I woke up half asleep and had a short no-self experience where I literally lost my sense of self and finally around november I had a two minute samadhi experience where I discovered non symbolic understanding and realized what direct awareness actually means. I became aware of what the fabric of reallity was ( you can call it consciousness, but if you categorize it in any way it dissapears, exactly the same way as if you want to think about silence, any word that you come up with is not it.). I remember looking at the wall for around 20 min doing some neti neti / focusing on Actuallity meditation , and I realized the wall, my body, my perceptions and my thoughts were made exactly out of the same thing! Finally that " all is one " cliche made sense. Cool, but I'm still here, and life is still going on. Yeah, this happened around 7 months ago. Thought it would be a good idea to not " push" myself and just digest the insights. I didn't resist anything, and as you can guess, before I knew I was already caught in distractions / addictions. Since then, even though It's hard for me to suffer unless I go full unconscious mode, I've been stuck in the same rut as from last year since the reallity breakdown of discractions, porn, masturbation, sugar, wheat, junk food and and now also videogames. Resistance has the cuffs on me and the LP course feels like a threat to my ego so I keep sweeping it under the rug after slowly chipping away at it. I rationalize my behaviours because ultimately everything is " Okay ". Right? This is a new challenge. I never had to face addiction . I never had to create Meaning to live by from scratch. (Fun fact , I used to have somewhat arrogant thoughts along the lines of " how can these people be addicted to smoking? Boii, make me addicted to crack-cocaine and I'mma break that sh*t in NO TIME. Lol.) At the beginning when I had quit videogames after 15 years, I did it cold turkey since I had so much motivation to develop my social skills for a reason ( the idea of getting in a relationship was so meaningful ! ) But during the " crisis " I saw that actually, it was meaningful to me because I craved aprooval, both from the girl and from other people for getting such girl. It was ME who created that meaning. Admiting that ALL of my motivation to develop myself was grounded in the desire for girls and aprooval was a tough pill to swallow. So once I realized this, and that family, money, working out for looks , fame, archiving any kind of social status or any other "Social Success" , are no longer sources of motivation and meaning, I'm just left with "doing whatever I want , only for myself". And it's freaking hard and lonely. Developing myself just for myself . I never had to do this before. I was used to allways suck on other peoples meaning and value structures. But now I saw behind the curtains and there is no going back even if I wanted to. Definately subestimated what it takes to be an Autodidact and what it takes to be in charge of your own life . Pretty funny how reallity humbled down my arrogant ass that expected smooth exponential growht lol. Even though I have quite a few ideas about how to break free I'm struggling to pull myself out of the rut even after couple of attempts, and i'm too arrogant in my skill of taking care of myself to ask for help. Any rules I set for myself are weak since I can see they are groundless. Commitments are also shallow since I see how they are groundless. ( I see how I create meaning out of thin air ). Blurry visions that I come up with for my life haven't yet created enough leverage. But yeah, I'll have to humble down again and go for Tony Robbins basic self help, consciously create a structure to live by, and keep chipping away at the LP course. Shoutout to all my fams who are stuck in a rut, and if you aren't , don't worry, you will be ! (: