CMacD

I do lots of squats, deadlifts, bench & overhead presses, bent over & cable rows, chinups, dips, weighted chin ups & dips. Sometimes full body workouts, sometimes split. 5-15 reps like the first reply said is a good idea, I tend to loosely do 5 sets of 5 reps if I'm trying to get back into optimal shape, but once I'm getting pretty strong & lifting bigger weights I tone it down to 3 sets of 5... but also throwing in more reps when I get bored or sick of stuff. Full body is better for training more exercises per week with recovery time, but I like running and MMA training and stuff so I sometimes split it just to spend less time in the gym.. or running late, or whatever. Or if there's PR I want to hit that I know another exercise I just did is maybe going to throw off I use it as an excuse to do less that day... but yeah, full body is good. 30g at a time is BS, any bodybuilder or powerlifter over a lean 200lbs is probably eating more than 50g at a time lol. Kinobody Greg eats most of his day's protein in the first meal he breaks his fast with. I'm not advocating getting super big or saying you even need that much protein to build muscle, but you can absorb more than 30g at a time. You don't need to eat every 2-3 hours, you just have to hit the proper amount of calories & right ratio of macros to slowly gain lean mass. Looking back over the last month it's going to matter more that you hit your calories & macros every day more than what time of day you ate the food.

I think that's why some people propose why some eastern religions believe in multiple lives, because one life is clearly way too unfair for karma to be real

Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada

I think it's more of a balance than just hating yourself for eating certain foods. If I intermittent fast, only otherwise eat fruits, veggies, and clean carbs, stay physically active, what's wrong with eating a burger or omelette or chocolate bar, fried chicken, etc.. if you actually have the room for the calories? I am a big fan of "if it fits your macros" type dieting. Oops, I missed that you already mentioned you try fasting... I had much success with it, I'm sorry that you'r having difficulty .I find caffeine can help you not get as hungry or irritable during a fast, btw. Of course that can get addicting if you rely on it every day, but I am happier a lean caffeine addict than a fat non addict. To be honest the leanest I've ever been I still ate chocolate every 2nd day, if you count a cliff bar probably every day... cheese almost every day. I can show a picture if you want but I probably getting close to 10% bodyfat, depending on who you ask... but most people would say I seemed in pretty decent shape. (worked out a lot too) I don't feel like there's anyone on earth that actually only eats fruit, vegetables, and boneless skinless chicken breasts, or whatever people's ideal "pure" diet is. So yeah my advice is to get a rough feel for the macronutrients and calories in the food you eat, establish how many calories you need to be eating daily to be maintaining your goal weight, or losing weight... and enjoy whatever you're able to enjoy, just cut yourself off when you're going to go over your calories or specific macronutrients. Tracking the exact amount of calories & macros you're taking in is a huge step, it's easy to lie to yourself that you're "kind of trying to watch what I'm eating" but you fuck up day after day because your day of food is untracked and unknown, just some vague bullshit. If you know that you need exactly 2000 calories a day and you weigh your food and look up how much calories it has, it's a lot easier to hold yourself back when you straight up can honestly recognize "hey, this extra meal IS going to make me gain weight, no question about it" rather than "Meh maybe I'm just a bit more hungry today, I need this" Tracking your food might be daunting because you'll realize the amount you like to eat in one meal is like all of your day's calories... that's how it was for me. So I accepted intermittent fasting, I wait until the evening to eat one big satisfying meal, and then a smaller snack before bed.

I disagree with the tight criteria due to how subjective music is, I can find a Trap/mumble rap song inspiring due to the well-produced beat and lyrical themes of rags to riches intertwined with all the disses and showboating. but here's one that will fit the thread: I correlate the beginning sounds to waking up from sleep (the character awakes from a coma at the beginning of this game so it tends to make one's mind go there if they're familiar. at :38 seconds in it makes me think of your mind kicking in after you awake (something Sam Harris brings up in "Waking Up" is a good little pre-dose of enlightenment is that you always kind of notice it takes a few seconds for the context of your life & it's problems to hit you as thoughts... you can be in a super stressful life situation but for the first 5 seconds after waking you have a weird little freedom where you just roll around sleepy in a state of no-mind) In the case of this video game/story the character has been in a coma for 8 years so a tonne of trauma is probably hitting him at once, and I correlate those first couple mid-bassy pulse sounds at 42 seconds to him at least re-remembering some of the good feelings of pride, duty served, lives saved, battles won, combat high... etc.. and then the rest of the buildup to that sub-bass drop just kind of makes me apply it internally and I reminisce over growth and training & learning... lots of failures and learning experiences/hard work building up to a momant of importance at that sub bass drop where the song kicks in full volume. I dunno, it's a very personal interpretation and ... whatever. It would be cool if someone else that's played the game thinks of something similar. (Also I have aspirations to fight MMA so I really attach myself to the warrior persona of Big Boss/Solid Snake, making it resonate with me more)

I relate to this a lot, especially with human aging being apparent... It seems like bullshit that you are probably going to be on a slow decline physically and cognitively starting... I'm going to say 36 just because I'm 32 and hopefuly (lol) but I'm sure there could be a sad reality that it's much younger, like 27... and if there's exceptions (late bloomers) it's probably just because they didn't put a peak effort into life during their peak years. Like what a cu** life/god is to make you peak at 27 but have to stick around and die naturally at like 80, I'm not even halfway there yet and life is likely just going to suck more & more until then.

I've always get fairly mundane episodes of sleep paralysis once or twice a year. I think I'd usually have a mini dream or hallucination that my mom or someone is trying to wake me up, and I'm trying my hardest to move but there's just this kind of heavy tired feeling keeping me from doing so... or I just calmly realize I'm having sleep paralysis and wait for it to pass. BUT one time about three years ago during a particularly depressive & stressful time in my life (maybe coincidental, maybe not) I had a more violent intrusive episode. I was taking a nap in the day and drifted off into a dream. In the dream I am pulling out of my driveway and on the first block as I drive away I notice a gorilla is raping/screwing a dog from behind... because I'm still all dream delerious I drive on for a minute, but then suddenly a bit of lucidity kicks into me and I'm like "there's not gorillas on the street in north America, what the fuck is this?" and as I look back I semi awaken from this dream... only to be in a weird special version of sleep paralysis where every possible bad sensation in my torso is firing at once. I feel LOADS of adrenaline dumping in my chest, and my heart is clearly palpitating very very violently, I'm maybe even feeling chest pain. I am feeling extreme dizziness and pretty much every possible sensation that could hint to me that I am about to die. I can't say I saw a presence but I felt like I was being psychically attacked BADLY. It was actually the moment that I rationalized to myself that there's clearly nothing I can do to stop this and "it's going to be whatever it's going to be, if I'm about to die I might as well embrace and experience this" that it stopped.

The shitty thing is I used to romanticize being depressed and boast about how I hate life and am going to shoot up a mall one day, prefer violent or dark music, etc... I actually want to move on and enjoy life and all of a sudden it's like I am being re-reminded of why I was such a miserable edgy person in the first place, and being pulled back into it. I can accept that life has no meaning, nobody thinks I'm special, there's no personal god, etc. etc. if I could just be good at stuff, and win more. I don't need it all, I do need *something* though.

It doesn't matter what I do, the same symbols of failure keep following me around; if I get a hold of one thing, I let something else slip. Like, no matter how hard I try to clean up around myself all the time something ALWAYS ends up out of order somehow... if everything visually is organized something somewhere around a corner has gone into disarray, almost like a demon follows me around and anything that isn't fresh enough in my mind to practically have a photographic memory of will be *deleted* or messed with in some way by the universe. Every time I get pulled over I have an expired insurance card to give the cop (even though I have a current one... somewhere). Like I swear to God, even though my one is current & I know where it is in my glove box, so mote it be I swear to CHRIST that by the next time I get pulled over, I will have been robbed or have freaked out in anger over losing *something else* in between now and then, and I swear to god in a few years when I get pulled over again I am going to pull out an expired insurance card from years ago and look like a dipshit in front of the cop... because that's just my curse. It's not just that though, if I work; I will forget something in front of someone and be embarrassed.... so I try to work as least as I can (not just because of that but whatever). So I try to play a video game for fun; but even still I fuck something up and get an earfull from a teammate, or insulted by a cocky enemy. I'm having a really hard time trying to convince myself not to commit suicide. Two days ago I left the dentist w/ a prescription for antibiotics for a root canal, I fold it and put it in my jacket pocket. I tell myself "it's in this pocket, just don't touch anything until you get it filled" well I go pick up my girlfriend and do a bunch of running around and end up feeling really exhausted and feeling like a nap... figure whatever. I wake up too late to make the pharmacy. Next day I let it get way too late and I'm running at the pharmacy at the last minute... don't I reach in my pocket and feel the prescription so I think, only to pull out the receipt for the dentist Like, when I was younger I would have just gotten away with waiting an extra day, now I swear to god it's like Murphy's Law is just 100% in effect for the rest of my life now and anything I don't immediately address gets fucking swallowed by this turd universe, I hate it. What's worse is actually believing the type of things many say about the universe being mental instead of physical opens up the portal to me believing in a special frustrating type of paranormal majik poo where forgetting things doubles in physical reality as them being fucking lost as well. (I mean I don't know if I really believe this, I'm probably just a dumbass, but if you really want to start entertaining magic and miracles then isn't it just oh so fucking great that the only experience I have of these phenomenon frustrations that keep me busy over nothing productive) I actually self harmed over this, of course it seems ridiculous to get upset over this one instance but the combination of the way these things just seem to follow me around like a curse is just so maddening. What's even worse is I am MOST likely to actually lose my mind as if I'm intoxicated once I get in a rage OVER being forgetful.... I just start thrashing things around and throwing things, not even knowing what I threw where. It's a negative spiral that's going to be the end of me I feel. There's so many other things wrong with me, this life is such a joke I could vent for ever and ever and ever... it's not even just this, I have had my ego bruised and shit on in every possible way... of course everything is relative and there's still practically infinite people below me but in the context of my life I am the most pathetic motherfucker there is. I don't even know what could help me, so far in the history of human life there has not been one proven thing that actually ends one's misery (the nature of subjective experience will keep that unprove-able forever I believe)

Isn't there a point of no return, where you are truly pathetic enough to really warrant killing yourself? Like I understand if you were only bullied once or twice, or came out on the bottom of a fight or argument looking weak or pathetic that you're maybe a bit irrational to want to end it all, or if you're still really young. I am in my 30s now, still early 30s, but it's still pretty late in the game to think anything in my life is really going to turn around... and only lost once or twice? I have a negative record in everything. I have lost more verbal arguments than I have won by a landslide... I have lost more rounds of online games than I have won by a fucking landslide, I have been tapped out by more people in BJJ than I have tapped out by a fucking embarrassing landslide. Why is it so rare to find someone to honestly tell you that suicide might not be a bad idea? Most bitch-ass people would tell me "everybody feels like that" but that's simply not true. For me to lose in so many ways someone else has to have won, and the human experience is balanced.... if there's a billion lost arguments than there's actually a billion won arguments somewhere else, there ARE winners, I will just never taste that in this life. I hate how alone I've become, I thought I'd find a billion people like me on here but I actually feel very disconnected from everyone else's problems, they all seem petty compared to mine, and I'll bet if I came across this as a year but some things were switched around and the name was changed I'd probably not relate to this stupid rant either. Such a stupid absurd thing this life is, I so much hate that I was born into it. I hate how I'm open to the idea that the enlightenment that could maybe save me from all this doesn't really exist and that youtube gurus like Leo are frauds or actors undertaking a funny little project. I mean, I did meditate 30mins/day for a year straight and experience some phenomenon that seemed to match the path, but the fact that the amount of work it is going to take to achieve anything is completely unknown and subjective and that no teacher can actually get inside of me and know if I'm doing it right just discouraged me from really believing much is possible. Also I'd rather actually just WIN than accept loss to be honest, if such a thing is possible. Psychedelics? Maybe, I kind of like mushrooms, but I can't say they really do much for me once I'm not on them anymore, to me it's kind of like... uhm.. you know.. a drug. I guess you have to do so many you turn into a retard that goes on about how enlightened he is to really "heal"... ugh... That's so cringy I could puke, the noose seems like a far better choice to be honest.

I have an internal struggle, and it was really highlighted watching the "The Dangers of Spiritual Work" last night... basically, I am interested in discovering truth, I've been studying various spiritual perspectives for a few years now, but passively. I've taken psychedelics, primarily mushrooms quite a bit and received some insights on the trips, but I've also never really pushed the limit into anything beyond still being in this "consensus reality" (the one time I had anything close to an ego loss experience I was much too young [17], inexperienced, and flipped out, and I've never quite had the guts to take a massive dose again). I meditated for 30 minutes a day for a year straight about two years ago and ceasing a year ago, I had a few cool moments but eventually hit a point where I questioned how much of this I was really going to have to do to have any kind of real enlightenment experience, the fact that I can't even prove such a thing is real (or even if it was, it seems impossible for someone better than me at it to really check if I'm doing it right, as they can only observe me from the outside and have no clue if the “right practice” is actually happening on the inside), the fact that I care more about seeing a cool vision of a spirit than I care about being enlightened, etc... I decided to give it up. In the last year I've been thinking that although this stuff interests me a lot, I truly want to build a successful egoic life way way way more than I care about discovering truth.. if anything, I naively thought discovering truth would help me build a better material life, but after a while started seeing a lack of any pattern between people claiming to be enlightened and people being really successful in terms of being good at sports, business, art, etc. I still kind of “feel it” in me though, an obsession towards wanting to learn about how reality works, I still want to astral project if such a thing is possible, I still feel an urge to start meditating again, I still love doing mushrooms... but if I had to pick one or the other I care more about being someone my parents are proud of, someone tonnes of women are attracted to, someone everyone is scared to fuck with.. etc... more than I care about self-actualizing. (a big paradox with this as well is that none of these things may be within my ability, any of them can fall apart, but for all I know enlightenment is just some bullshit carrot charlatans dangle in front of my face and it's not possible to attain either) I'm just kind of confused and have one foot in the door, and I don't really know what to do. I guess I'm just kind of venting, I guess opinions would be appreciated but in the end it's my life & I have trouble trusting that anyone knows what's best, one way or another.

I have to admit so far my purpose here has kind of been to whine, and to maybe find people I relate to in rather specific struggles of the ego. I know it's not the purpose of the forum but just finding some kind of friends or connections would be great, as well.

I don't know why, I guess I'm scared to try to realize a nondual truth (say from a strong hit of 5-MeO DMT). Something tells me I'm not going to like it... I guess because I don't feel naturally drawn to it I feel kind of like it'll be bad. I mean, I DO love certain parts of mushroom experiences but it has more to do with just feeling good on them and laughing than anything very serious... mind you there have been insights obtained from the mushroom and even some seeming magickal/psychic phenominon, but that seems kind of separate from nonduality to me.

Well I don't know the answer, I might not be centered on this theme as much as you as there are a variety of personal problems causing me great suffering right now, but spinelessness similar to what you've described is one of them. Getting some experience in a martial arts gym can be an asset, you're going to be forced to just spar with people for training, and after hopefully a year, maybe a few... you'll realize that the average asshole in the street isn't really likely to be good at fighting so you might have a bit more confidence to speak your mind, stick up for yourself, etc. Preferably BJJ as the sparring can get quite real as far as grappling goes, you really get to try your hardest until you are forced to submit... once you start submitting people your own size and realizing you've acquired some skills you might be more confident. The problem might still be a lifelong thing that everyone has to deal with on some level, though. There still might be guys in the martial arts gym that are cocky and so far ahead of you that you'll *never* best them (unless they're 10+ years older than you and the only reason you eventually get them is because they become an old fat fart), and they might rub it in.. there's always going to be something in life that keeps you in line and makes you feel powerless, I guess. We all can't keep one-upping eachother because eventually one will be dead and another in prison. Even just fighting can be dangerous, even the training I'm suggesting has a high injury rate... I'm out for a month at least myself r/n and it's depressing. I also struggle with the insult thing. I play counter-strike:global offensive a lot and the people can be quite rude and insulting.... and I feel like I always come out in the bottom whenever I try to argue with people and people always have my number. Sometimes I think it's a consciousness-level type thing, you will never beat anybody more conscious than you at being a smart-ass. I can be insulted with the wittiest insult ever, and copy it down to maybe use against the next shitbag I come across, only for them to still come up with a comeback that leaves me taking too long to think of my own comeback, and I'm wrecked... What can be even worse is Facebook if I'm in a group with an unpopular opinion... I can get in an argument with someone where if we were alone I'd feel "right", but because I'm going against a popular belief everyone will outlike the comments of the person arguing with me... that's the WORST, I can self-harm over that shit for sure... definitely some good blows to my own face have been had over that, heh heh! Maybe if I keep writing down what I got insulted with and the chain of how the comebacks go I'll eventually know how just about every common bickering argument in the english language can eventually go down... That seems neurotic, doesn't it? but maybe it would actually slowly start making me more successful... but people that aren't so shitty probably have better things to do with their time, which is maybe why some suggest to just walk away from dumb arguments like that in the first place. I'd reckon many here would preach acceptance. Best wishes to you... maybe I'll write more some other time. Sorry if I did about as much or more personal venting over actually offering you much advice..

Ever have people that you just can't seem to outwit or best, ever? But it seems like a rock paper scissors game where other people you're less impressed by somehow seem to deal with them? Certain patterns in both trading insults and competing at endeavors like online gaming & sports seem to convince me that there's almost a deterministic outcome that some people are just destined to beat you, and you'll never get back at.. It drives me insane. I feel like I'd sell my soul to have power over some people. Maybe it's just higher awareness/consciousness. If someone is a higher level of consciousness above you there's very little chance even your highest probability fluke performance will best them. I'm sure I'm giving away that I have some underlying neurotic resentment issues, heh heh heh

I feel similarly and I haven't found the answer, the trauma might not be as deep as yours but I hate how I'm not the wittiest person on earth and in many exchanges of insults I always feel I've "lost". So much so that sometimes I wish I was just in a powerful criminal gang, or had a reputation for having done 10 years for manslaughter so that people would be scared to talk **** to me.

Some coffee, doing some cardio, etc. You're always gonna crash from anything that brings you up, though.

I think simple invisible things like setting intentions and forcing yourself to bite the bullet and finish reading whatever you are, is gonna help the most. I suffer from the same and IMO it's because I am free and every day is fun fun loosey goosey do whatever time, I don't have a serious intention set, I am just collecting information for the hell of it... maybe you're completely different, just my 2c Also, be sure to use the 1.25-2.00x speed function if you're listening to youtube lectures. It's better to actually pay attention and focus on a sped up video than have it play in the background while you click around and don't even listen to it cause the pace of it is too boring. It's gonna be even worse if you're not actually paying attention, though. This is why I think reading is superior to audio learning, the act of reading something requires attention more than being in a room with audio of something entering your ears.

@CMacD Understood, thanks.

I can't say, I haven't learned anything I wish I hadn't, if that's a hint of anything... Some things aren't known facts even if they are practically a reality. Say I'm an aspiring musician sending demos to record companies' A&R guys... say I get rejected all the time. I could say I've learned my music doesn't cut it, and in that moment I'd wish I'd never learned that.. there could be a chance I know how hard I tried & that there is realistically only so much better if any I could do, only so much more effort I could put into it, so maybe I could say I learned I don't stand a chance.... but that's never really a known fact. Nobody can prove or disprove weather someone stood a chance at something until their life is over and it's totally confirmed they're gone... Or like, lets say I try to fight a guy at boxing and he beats me up bad... but you never know how it'll go a different time... but say we fight 100 times and he wins 100, it's still not a fact written in stone that it's impossible to beat him, but it... kind of is a reality that I likely won't beat him. So, if I were to somehow learn for a 100% fact that my chances of being successful at what I want to be successful at were 0, that'd be something I wish I hadn't learned.... but yeah, it's hard to make an actual *FACT* out of that... even though at the end of your life it may be a fact. However, when I'm speaking of "learning something you wish you hadn't" I guess I also think about some of the deeper stuff Leo says... like realizing that you're actually completely alone... maybe realizing some other reality shattering fact of consciousness that just makes me uncomfortable and sad for the rest of my life for some reason, I don't know. I kind of wish I could delete this thread, is that possible/allowed?

I'm not very young , I've been working at a bit of this stuff for a while, I've also wasted a good deal of time. a I guess I'm asking if it's dangerous to be partway into this stuff, wanting to sharpen my awareness, have metaphysical experiences, etc. without going to a "point of no return" where I learn something I wish I hadn't... I have to admit I'm only halfway though that I'm only part way through "The Dangers of Spiritual Work" but I had already got past the message of where Leo says that if you truly feel you want to just have fun in life instead of pursue awakening, that maybe you should just focus on that and give up searching for the time being, maybe come back to it in a decade or two.

If you want to fill in the loose belly skin with abs you're going to have to gain lean mass, that's gonna mean lifting heavy and getting a lot of protein... gaining weight but no more than 1lb every 10 days, so only shooting for 500kcal or so above your TDEE. I'd recommend a lot of different variations of squats, deadlifts, overhead presses, dips, chin ups, and other pulling motions like bent over rows... it's honestly going to be a years long journey if you don't lift at all to gaining a noticable amount of muscle, especially so much to fill in loose skin. Depending on how much loose skin you have it may never quite fill in, you can only realistically add so much muscle to your frame, especially drug-free.

If you could actually prove this to me I'd probably quit.