flowboy

Apologies, I'm tired

Ah, 77 commandments! Such an upgrade from the original Ten Commandments. Learn to think for yourself

no pasta at all! Also, probably not rice as a main dish. Or potatoes. Sweet potatoes are okay as a side dish, but most of your plate should be vegetables that you prepared yourself. And eating more healthy fats like olive oil, avocado's/avocado oil, nuts (no peanuts/cashews though), coconut oil. Eating a lot of healthy fat helps burn 300 extra calories a day and it's great for you. Very controversial, I know, but what whe thought was true about fat turns out not to be.

Life purpose! As a man, you have to have something that you devote your life to that isn't her. In fact, it has to be more important to you than her. If you don't have that, that means that without her you'd be a lost boy. And she knows that, and that will cause her to slowly lose attraction, and you to act needy. I'm surprised no one's mentioned this. Should be common sense especially in these circles.

It's probably because wheat flour based products are terrible for you. This doctor is legit. Wheat is also one of the first things Leo recommends giving up, did you happen to watch How To Shop For Healthy Food?

I would switch back. The hulls of rice are taken off by the largest population of rice eaters for the longest of times, for a reason. Do you think people would traditionally go through the tedious work of peeling rice, if it wasn't necessary? Think about that. They contain arsenic, which is a poison, and indigestible lectins which irritate the lining of the gut and put you at risk of leaky gut and autoimmune. @Raphael If you don't tolerate caffeine well, here's another way to increase neuroplasticity - microdosing. I've increased my brain power by a lot lately because I take small amounts of psilocybin 5 days a week. Personally, I noticed cool things like learning new skills more quickly and learning to prioritize quicker and more effortlessly. (I had difficulty prioritizing, it cost me a lot of brain power) It also cuts procrastination dramatically for me. Puts me in the zone. Increases my drive and energy. Makes me less distractable. Here's some articles and sources on it: https://observatory.synthesisretreat.com/neurogenesis-can-psilocybin-help-grow-your-brain-cells https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0211023 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30604183/ https://www.psypost.org/2020/10/international-study-finds-79-of-individuals-who-microdose-with-psychedelics-report-improvements-in-their-mental-health-58391

Don't know what I was complaining about last time. I should have just been quick and acted immediately. Today I am fine, programming away with the airconditioner on my face and it works. Turn it off however, and within ten minutes my thoughts start to slow down and my power of will disappears. And I don't really notice it. It's like boiling a frog. Every time I take the astragalus + rhodiola rosea combo, I have a good driving lesson. So that's nice. I feel under too much pressure right now. Organizing a trip with the guys seems to fall on my shoulders because no one else thinks it's important to plan ahead. Also, I started a website project with a friend, but haven't figured out how to make time for it. And I have to, because I really want it to happen. I'm just stressed and the symptoms are there: - 3 items on my to-do list for after work, instead of one - Pile of undone dishes. Gotta turn this around before it becomes a bad week

Well, where are you looking? On the street? At work? People bond when they have meaningful and challenging experiences together. So in my experience you aren't going to find high quality friends amongst coworkers or customers very often, but doing something that's daring and meaningful to you. Pick up a new hobby that you always kind of were curious about but didn't feel like you were ready for it. Go on retreats. Seriously. If you do personal development related group activities, you can find friends that are willing to grow with you. The more vulnerability is required, the more deeper the bonds you can form. Actually if you compare the first and last page of my journal, you'll see that it's way different. I used to LIVE in procrastination. Every day was living like a zombie and closing my eyes to the mess, then zoning out behind youtube or netflix. Now, I wake up every day with a plan that gets me closer to my goals and execute on it. Sometimes I still get a bad day, sure. Growth comes with backlashes. Expect them or you'll have a bad time Well where does confidence come from? For me the answer was: being sure about what I'm doing with my life. So I went for that and it worked. What would your confidence come from (or rather, what is your lack of confidence connected to, when you feel it?)

You're not going to convince him. You can win an argument, sure. But that will just piss him off and make him dig in his heels more. All wasted energy. Move out as soon as possible. Improve your health using functional medicine and diet. Just be doing really well and show him that, maybe in a few years he'll come around. All you can do.

I think Dave Asprey is awesome and I listened to several hours of interviews with him yesterday. But I think he has one blindspot. For many people, caffeine causes many problems, others are not so sensitive. He's not so sensitive, so he just thinks everyone is like him (we all make that error sometimes) But for people like you and me, caffeine causes tiredness, stress, anxiety, heart palpitations, terrible sleep, addiction, dependency, and ultimately burnout. I cut it out completely and have been without tea or coffee for over a month (some decaf once every 2 weeks or so). Feels great because I have all the energy back, but I'm also relaxed and can sleep. So much better. You've probably seen alex becker's videos on why caffeine is horrible and robs you of your energy, so I don't need to post them here. I think some people can just digest it better and think everyone is like that. Nope. If the half-life of caffeine is 7 hours, that means that at night you still have a quarter of your morning cup and a third of your lunch coffee in your system roughly, which messes with your deep sleep, hurts your recovery and makes you feel groggy and in need of coffee in the morning. Fuck that. If you want polyphenols, use a lot of olive oil and you're set. Don't risk adrenal fatigue syndrome and put your body through that shit day in and day out, I'd say. Warning: quitting caffeine is hard. I've quit smoking and caffeine both multiple times, smoking is more brutal, but caffeine is a close second and way more sneaky. First 7 days are shit. The next 2 weeks are okay, careful not to slip up because it's everywhere and every person fucking drinks it. After 30-40 days you're better than ever.

Yes, few years. But you'll have a lot of sex in those years if you keep going like this! The goal should be to develop yourself, not just to find a relationship. Would you want to stop growing once you have a girlfriend? Probably not. So as long as pick-up is growing you, do it. I see it's working for you as a gateway to exploring and healing many aspects. Also it's good to do other self-development work, such as therapy weeks, retreats and workshops of any kind that speaks to your curiosity. That also helps to find high quality friends, which is much more important than girlfriend. Good quality friends accelerate your learning curve, provide emotional stability, good feedback and heal your lack of connectedness. And really help with girls, because if you have great connections with friends, you'll draw positive emotion and non-neediness from that. When you encounter the girl that you want to be in a relationship with, you'll know. Relationships are like money. They come not when you hunt them directly, but when you are having fun, not even expecting them. Did those qualities spill over to other areas of my life? Yes. The way it worked for me is: hitting on girls made me realize I needed confidence. But for me to feel congruent, I also needed a life to feel confident about. On every approach it kind of plagued me in the background that I wasn't living the life I wanted. That I wasn't working toward my dreams. That my vision was not clear or I was procrastinating on it. I realised that doing these things I deep down knew I should, would give me confidence and help me feel proud of myself. So I started writing a vision for my life and working towards it. Discovering my purpose (don't get hung up on that, it's not always a clear sentence like Leo wants you to think). Now that I am actually doing that (having a clear vision and working towards my dream), that actually gives me depth and confidence that I could not have faked. I'm happy about how I'm spending my time and I know where I'm going. That is powerful. People sense that. It took a while but I realised that although I had many ups and downs (backlashes and periods of laziness/escapism), I was not going to quit. This vision thing was real, affirmations work, I was really changing dramatically and becoming someone I thought was really cool. That someone doesn't procrastinate. Ironically, today I procrastinated all day. So I'm still not perfect in that area. But it happens so rarely that this is really unusual (I was thrown off by the massive heat today) But I've made dramatic changes and my self esteem is through the roof because of it. So yes, it spills over because it makes you want to work on the other areas too.

I think you've got your inner jihad by the balls and things are really moving for you now. I think you are incredibly brave for tackling your growth by doing the difficult things that trigger you. I know that is a path that works, because it's what I did. When people ask me these days how I became so confident/developed (not to sound arrogant but that really happens), all I can think of is I did what you have started doing: whatever I feared most, but deep down knew I needed. I think you should keep doing exactly this for a few years, just hold steady and make discoveries. Keep your journal. Take opportunities to dive deeper when they present themselves. Things will massively shift for you.

So proud of you man. You got traction and are making amazing progress! This is amazing

It's interesting that it took me wasting a full day to realise it: my brain doesn't work with this heat. I tried to ignore it for a long time, being proud that my heat shielding curtains were enough. They weren't. What's coming up for me is a sense of victimization. I feel screwed over that I'm living in a studio that gets SO hot in the summer, due to the way its windows are facing. I feel sorry for myself that it doesn't have climate control. I feel sorry for myself that the air conditioner that I bought is not nearly enough, and to really have a good temperature to work at I would just have to move. And probably I would have to be able to afford a more expensive place, WITH air conditioning that works. It's so god damn important. I'd rather have the heater not work and just wear six sweaters, than try to work in a hot apartment. It doesn't work. I haven't even get started today. I don't even remember what I did, but it was something along the lines of: my morning routine took way too long, then it was 10, then I got distracted reading about health stuff until about 3pm, then I realised I was sleep deprived, my brain didn't work as normal and took a nap. The nap took me so deep that I didn't care to wake up before an hour later. Awake again, I realise that my apartment is too hot and it's time to install the air conditioner again. Which I did. And just this profound sense of powerlessness. The thing that I'm always fighting against. I just need much more money to be even comfortable. AC is expensive. I can't give up 3 months of productivity every year! Not in the startup phase. And yes I'm working on that, but it's slow, and I need my brain to work properly and not be overheated. Blah blah blah. My typical drama. I acklowledge it. I thank it for looking out for my best interests. Got a nice cool breeze going now. Found out my air conditioner actually DOES have an option to change direction. All of last year I believed it was just a design flaw that the cold air always went downwards. And felt even more victimized about that. Turns out I can change that Can't believe how much time I wasted. Damn. It's 7 now. nine hours after I planned to get started. So in the past my reaction would have been: well fuck it, I planned to do 8 hours, so I will just drink some coffee and work deep into the night. But I know that doesn't work. Ok, let's do something useful with the rest of this day.

What would happen if I would just sleep whenever it's dark out? I'm wondering because today I was pretty useless, even though I went to bed on time. I vaguely remember being awake really early and being bothered by the light. I looked it up and this month, the sun is up at about 5:45, yet I'm still counting on sleeping until 7:30 It was so hot that I slept with the window open to get a cool breeze. However, that way I am not profiting from my blackout curtains, because they are attached to my window. OK so tonight I will only open the window where I can still put the curtain over it. See how that goes. Some famous presidents and other notable people were big on "early to rise, early to bed". I wonder why. Sleep is important, but any 8 hours will do, right? Perhaps they didn't have perfect blackout curtains, and knew that their sleep would be poor if they went to bed late and counted on making up for it after dawn. If we slept whenever it was dark, then we'd sleep 9 hours in summer and 16 hours in winter! That seems excessive. But... people do get seasonal depression (I do) What if that were a sign that people are actually supposed to slow down their metabolism and go into hibernation? And if you don't do that, and try to be happy and productive 16 hours a day, ignoring the season, you fail? I'm questioning everything now.

Why are some individuals more sensitive? Why do some people have lactose intolerance, gluten sensitivity, peanut allergies, and heavy reactions to food additives? And the rest of us seem fine with it? Why doesn't evolution just make us all the same? Clearly it's better to be not allergic or sensitive, right? Wrong. They are the canaries in the colemine for the rest of us. Lactose intolerant people are there to warn us that dairy is bad for everyone. Peanut allergic people are there to warn the rest of us that eating peanuts will kill them slowly. Same with gluten. With sensitive individuals, we have the advantage to know a lot sooner which ingredients are bad news for MOST of us. But with most of us, it seems fine for the first 40 years while it slowly kills us, until we can no longer ignore it. By then, it's really hard to trace back what caused our dementia, osteoporosis, cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes, or heart disease. And even if we're able to figure it out after so long, it's: Too late because we have done a lot of damage for most of our lives Too late because we are stubborn assholes and are set in our ways We need sensitive people to tell us how to live and eat! All of those benefits go out the window if we don't listen, though. Labeling things as a disorder is a way to avoid looking at the message right in front of us.

It's so funny to me that everything that modern humans created to make themselves more comfortable, is coming back to bite them in the ass. Warm showers. Actually, cold showers are healthier. Soft beds. Actually, sleeping on a harder surface is better for your back. Monoculture. Feeding everyone with grains and corn. Actually though, that causes diabetes, obesity and auto-immune. Teflon no-stick pans. Actually, teflon messes with your hormones. Oops. Pasteurization. Actually it changes milk from healthy to unhealthy. Thermostats and temperature control. Actually, being hot and cold is healthy, because we need environmental stress. Comfortable desk jobs, looking everything up on the computer. Actually, that lack of movement is killing us. GMO crops that defend themselves better against insects. Actually, they also destroy your gut better. Coffee! Make you work better! Also make your bones crack better, lower your testosterone and cause anxiety and depression. Computers! For, you know! Porn and stuff, and accelerating innovation to a stomach-churning speed. Turns out looking at screens really messes with your sleep. Oops. Porn! For, you know. Turns out watching hundreds of people have sex damages your brain and ability to focus or interact normally with the other sex. Who knew. Plastic bottles! Cheaper, don't break and cause bleeding. How convenient. Do cause man-tits, infertility and stunted testicular development however. We are just innovating so fast, we have no time to learn the long-term effects of anything. How come people used to know that you had to peel tomatoes? Or sprout grains? Or detoxify corn with lye? Slower pace of innovation. More time to learn what that belly-ache means, and what to do about it. When everything has stayed the same, and you try one new food - and everyone who does feels worse, then you know what it is. You can experiment and find other ways to prepare it. In modern times, innovation is coming at us from all sides, and our method for learning is broken! Belly-ache could mean anything. Disease could mean anything. Because half the things we use and eat are so new, there's no one variable that's clearly to blame. Some things are good. - Fire - Glass - Wheels - Stainless steel - Cotton

Well, I'm done with rice milk! (after this container) It's cheaper than almond milk, so I've been buying rice milk instead. Probably just as healthy, right? Wrong. Not only does rice milk contain unacceptable levels of arsenic, it's also made with brown rice apparently! Brown rice contains lectins, and lectins cause all sorts of problems from acting like splinters in the gut, to coagulating your blood. Yikes. Is almond milk even safe? If it's made with the skins, it's not lectin-free. We already know that soy milk is not great. But: white almond butter is from peeled almonds, and you can blend it with water and recreate peeled almond milk! Who knew.

The first part can be explained as a guerilla marketing campaign by Doritos.

Damn it, I'm going to have to change my soup I've been cooking the same soup for a month now, it's basically Leo's soup but with peas or lentils. But it didn't digest as well as I had expected, it being full of vegetables and healthy fats. My gut was clearly having trouble. First, I blamed the peas and switched to lentils. That was a bit better, but the problem was not completely resolved. Today I stumble upon this podcast and I have a likely explanation: peas, lentils and any legumes apparently contain lectins (of which gluten is one) which are bad for the gut. The peas are already soaking, so I'll do one more experiment: throwing out the water that they soaked in, and cooking them in fresh water. Let's see how that goes. I don't know how to thicken a soup without peas or lentils! Only vegetables in water is just too boring for me. And I don't want to give up hummus! (chickpeas are legumes) But this stuff is very important to me because I am sensitive to a lot of foods, and my ability to focus , have energy and get things done is easily affected.

@RendHeaven Thank you So apparently my brain doesn't really start going full-speed until about 14:00pm. I find this quite consistently. I wonder. Should I be sleeping in every day until 12, and just work until 2am? Is there a natural biorhythm that determines dopamine levels, and is not adjustable by habit? Is it different if I break a sweat in the morning? Is it because the weather is cloudy? It definitely seems to make a big difference. Perhaps tracking these things could help me figure this out.

Going to the train station, kind of sleepy, I felt the urge to get coffee and a chocolate muffin. I went into the store and looked for something that would not violate my rules. Then realised I only had week budget left for 1 item. Had to choose: dark chocolate or smoothie? Chose smoothie. The smoothie turned out to have dairy in it. So I'm looking at it, hungry, but I won't drink it. I'll give it to my friend. That would have gone so differently even a couple months ago! When hungry or sleepy I tended to get whatever I wanted, healthy or not, budget or no. I feel like I'm vulnerable to a backlash right now. I could even enjoy a hand rolled cigarette with that coffee. Oh, to be impulsive and unhealthy again... a simpler time

Ahhhh, good old times...

Need More Punctuality Something keeps happening on Mondays: I didn't plan my next day on Sunday and I didn't clean up on Sunday. Because that is my lazy day and I need that. But it's almost impossible for me to go from lying around watching videos or whatever, to cleaning up and preparing for Monday and going to bed on time. There's no momentum. So I'll try to do it on Sunday morning (planning next day and cleaning up). I'm hoping that way I'll keep some momentum for the rest of the day to also meditate and go to bed on time. I went back to bed today and slept in till 9:30. Now I feel rested but guilty. I still had dishes to do and stuff lying around that I have to clean up. It will be 14:00 before I even make a plan for the rest of the day. That's wasting 5 hours. That's really, really expensive if you've only got about 19 hours a week to realise your dream. Unacceptably expensive. So let's fix it. I also need to adapt my weekly schedule a bit. For the most part it works well, but there are some minor things that I optimized away (double workouts and daily EK practice) and it causes my wind-down time to be a bit flaky cause I can't take the schedule seriously. So I want to be really punctual with it and never go against my own plan and stay in bed again. 32 day No Backlash Streak My habit tracker has been looking pretty good for 32 days! That's definitely a breakthrough, because in the past I'd usually have a major backlash after 2 weeks, and lose at least 10 days of eating garbage until I picked it up again. For the most part, things are working! The schedule is working, the habits are working, the systems are working. But man, is this a hard journey. Waking up and going to sleep at the same time every day. Staying disciplined in following the plan every day. Eating healthy every day. Sounds simple but I've burnt a lot of calories trying to get it right, and I've gotten it a lot more right but am not there yet.

Skipping Skipping Breakfast For the past six months I have aimed to eat the first meal at 12 o'clock. Today I didn't, because I wanted to take my microdose at 8 in the morning. It led to an amazing workflow, and I still have energy left! I ate during work, quickly did the dishes after, so I could start my 'second job' at 19.00. Usually by this time I'm so worn out that it goes slowly and I procrastinate. This time not so much! Could it be that all the willpower needed to stay hungry before noon is actually draining me? I have also noticed that it is hard to have energy in the brain before I have eaten. So I have a suspicion that it's bad for my productivity.