Dlavjr

I have, and I was told there was nothing out of the ordinary.

It depends on how strict you want to be with fasting, but ideally you want to not be consuming calories at all. Even "zero calorie" drinks I try to avoid, because things like sugar alcohol can break a fast. I usually stick to black tea or black coffee, and I drink a lot of water during my fasting periods. But again it depends on your goals and how serious you are about it. https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/what-breaks-a-fast#supplements Certain things will break a fast but not ketosis, so if you wanted to combine the two (which I've heard that keto and IF go hand in hand, I myself have never done keto) then you can just focus on the keto aspect. If it's better for you, you can always start by only fasting during the weekdays, just to get used to it, and then focus on calorie counting on weekends. You're better off easing into it and finding success over time then diving headfirst and failing.

Intermittent fasting is just a 16:8 split. Fast for 16 hours, eat for 8. You can also do 18:6 but that's harder. But you can choose your window. I eat from 12-8 cause I'm usually up pretty late and the hungrier I am the harder it is to sleep, though that problem is starting to go away. But if it works better for you to do like 9-5 or 10-6 you can. Turning down tempting food offers is just learned discipline, there's no real trick that I've found for it, but whenever I start heavily craving something I just drink some water or unsweetened tea and keep busy. There's no real harm in indulging here and there so long as you're confident that it won't throw you completely off track, usually on the main holidays I stop worrying about diet and just enjoy myself. Don't put too much fixation on weight loss or anything, just learn to love eating healthy and listening to your body and the rest will follow. Nowadays even when I do binge, the aftermath is so horrendous that I just sit in regret and want nothing else but to get back on track. When you primarily eat healthy, the difference in how you feel when you indulge in a donut is much more prominent, and sometimes that's enough to keep you away. Also, a great trip I learned about going out to eat is to ask for a to-go box right when you get your meal. Put half of it in the box and don't touch it, keeps you from the temptation to finish the whole plate.

Intermittent fasting has been doing me wonders so far, it's just a matter about staying strict and consistent. Also, one weird little trick I've learned to keep me from overeating is after every meal, I chew gum. If you keep doing this, and be sure not to eat again for 3-4 hours, eventually your brain will register the gum as a sort of "end of meal" ritual, and once you start chewing it you're no longer hungry. I'm not sure if it's a permanent fix, but it's worth it for me. Little rituals are great to kinda reprogram your brain. Definitely meal prep though, or at least plan out your meals in advance, just to ensure that you stick to your portions. When I first started intermittent fasting, by the time 12pm rolled around and it was time to eat my eyes were 3x the size of my stomach, and I'd make an excessive amount of food. Granted I wouldn't eat again till 7, but I wouldn't recommend that route. Even if you choose not to fast, meal prepping/planning is a must.

I'm in sales, and during a meeting we were told about a story where one kid was going door to door selling insurance. It was his first time in sales, and the other salesman were screwing with him and told him that his sales pitch should be "I'm selling insurance, but I'm sure you don't wanna hear about that". The kid took it to heart, and he went to over 100 houses in a day using that lousy pitch. Evidently, he made two sales in his first day. The point is, if you have drive and persistence, you're eventually gonna land something. I'm not saying to hit on women with terrible skills consistently, you'll have a better rejection to success ratio if you better yourself, but even if maybe 1 out of every 100 women wants to sleep with you, if you talk to 100 women, one of them will likely sleep with you. You won't make any progress by thinking about it. Just do it, be mindful, and pay attention to what works and what doesn't. Your skills will increase, and maybe 1 in 80 women will sleep with you. Over time, maybe 1 in 70. I relate pickup to sales, it's persistence that'll get you progress over all else, and you gotta be prepared to disregard when you get rejected and just move right on.

I've heard all about it, it's been pushed for some time now, and I've tried it before but I was never consistent. Some of the biggest questions I have are, when is it best to go to the gym, before or after I break my fast? Are there certain foods that I should have at certain times, for example should I have a heavy carb based meal for my last meal to hold me for the fast, and should my first meal be a light one? Any tips and tricks from those of you that have done it would be appreciated. My goal is to shed the excess fat in my torso, and also still eat enough food to make some gains at the gym. I'm struggling with the ever tedious skinny fat and as a former binge eater I'm wondering if intermittent fasting will make it easier or harder to reach my goals.

I agree, weed is a little bit more forgiving in most cases by nature however with the intensity that weed affects me personally I find it hard to do recreationally to begin with. Personally what I'd like to see if dosages make a difference, and if weed can be used without engaging it's more negative side affects, just for personal reasons having consistently experienced severe anxiety with weed. I think weed has potential, because it can be productive while not being as intense as such things as DMT or being as exhaustingly long lasting as say LSD or shrooms. Marijuana surprises me, similarly to other drugs it should be taken lightly, especially seeing as though it's high risk for addiction.

It's fascinating you mention that, weed is probably the most abused drug there is, simply for the fact that I've never seen a pothead stop smoking until they're practically comatose. There is no line drawn, nobody watches dosages. At least with alcohol you can count your drinks to gauge where you're at, but in my old stoner days I would smoke endlessly without a second thought, almost feeling a sense of pride in some cases when I did. I haven't smoked weed recently due to a mix of personal development taking priority and also I entered similar states of near seemingly psychosis when I'd smoke, but I'd like to really experiment and see what happens when dosage is accounted for.

I feel like people really understate how powerful weed can get when you've experienced powerful levels of consciousness in the past, and in my experience it's a bit trickier to control because weed has a nasty side affect of anxiety and paranoia. The problem is mostly your resistance to the experience. Relax into it, and only then will you realize nothing is happening. Observe your thoughts as you would any other time. Thoughts of mortifying death are just as meaningless as any other thought. You have not yet seen that part of infinite love includes the things that the ego fears most. You have not yet looked outside of yourself to see the true nature of death. Nothing has changed, you have only experienced another state of consciousness. My advice, remove yourself from drugs for a while, take the time to do some growth through other means, and allow yourself to settle and analyze what you've experienced. Read some books, meditate, contemplate, try to understand and accept that what you experienced was just as much of God and infinite love as all the fluffy nice parts of reality.

How did you manage to sleep so little? I'm finding myself sleeping longer just to avoid feeling the tremendous hunger, especially late at night.

It sounds to me like you haven't ready the book all the way through. When I was reading it, about half way through I started to feel like the message was almost starting to sound like it was pandering to women, but I kept an open mind and completed the book. Upon completion, I understood what David was trying to convey through his lessons. Stay grounded in your purpose, and stay grounded in your masculinity. Appreciate and love women, respect your differences and learn to use your masculinity as a means of polarity and play towards the opposite spectrum, and that's how you'll keep a woman happy and feeling full. Understand the differences, but also understand that both ends are valuable and necessary. The first thing you should be doing is clearly defining your purpose, and understanding where you are on the scale of masculine to feminine, and get in touch with that authentically. Once you're anchored there, women will be more easily drawn to you more on all levels because you have no question as to who you are. These aren't rules for how you should behave, more so attributes of what it means to be masculine. Maybe your issue is that you're taking it personally, rather than reading it as a perspective. Maybe you need to spend some time looking inwards. Long story short, just read the book, and remain open. Trust me, there's no way any masculine man CAN'T benefit from it. Even women can benefit from the book by understanding a little more clearly what defines a man, what they should be looking for, and what they can do to accentuate their masculine counterparts.

As I get deeper into meditation, there are more things I pick up on. When I'm in pure silence, and I quiet my mind, I hear both this hollow void of emptiness, as well as a high frequency hum. I've gotten curious about them both, and I've tried to isolate and investigate them individually, but I can't quite put my finger on where they may be coming from. The high frequency hum seems to be a ringing in the ears, so I can only assume that's a physical phenomena, but the sound of void emptiness still escapes me as an unknown. Has anyone ever investigated the sounds of pure silence? What conclusions can be drawn about the "behind the scenes" of the ever busy mind?

I struggled with this for a bit and still do after having a pretty startling DMT awakening followed by multiple awakenings through a combination of weed and meditation. Watch your thoughts, observe them as such, see them as passing by, almost as if you're picking up a radio signal. Nothing has changed, you're just aware of what is and what has always been. What seems like a traumatic experience through a dualistic lens is actually the beauty that always was through a wholistic one. It may take time and some serious honesty with oneself, along with days and weeks on end with constantly being in check of your mind as to keep it from wandering off into unconscious paranoia, but you're not condemned to some psychotic existence. Understand that the "mundane, normal, unconscious" ego life and the "nondual, infinite, void" of existence are one in the same. The best advice I've gotten, and what worked for me the most, is that when you start to feel fearful, rather than run away from it, sit in it. Feel the fear. Analyze the fear. Understand it, and let it go. Fear is not necessary, here. You're projecting fear onto an otherwise neutral existence. I had to stop smoking and take everything in while sober in order to really allow myself to soak in what I experienced in my trip, and while there are times where I'll be alone and my thoughts wander off and I conceptualize this "terror", I've learned to feel into it, to watch it. Get to know your true self, and understand how it all connects, then ask yourself why you perceive it to be so "horrific". You're part of an infinite creation of love, you're a facet of the eternal constant, there are many layers to the cake but it's still a cake. Understand that it all exists, and it exists within you, outside of you, and because of you.

The Reddit thread was really good, I saw some sides of the negative affect spectrum. Only thing left at this point is to try it, I definitely relate to the "eat a little too much, then say 'fuck it's and binge" mentality, but that doesn't happen as frequently now that I've stopped smoking weed. I'll try planning out my meals more to be more dense and see what happens, meals like oatmeal with fruit and tuna sandwiches with a nutrient dense salad keep me full for some time, probably two meals like that plus a protein shake should be enough to encourage muscle gain while also allowing my body to digest food and hopefully lean up a little. Thank you for the research on my behalf, though, I'm gonna do some more research myself while I start the actual fast itself.

I'm thinking maybe I'll start off by doing fasting the first 3 days of the week just to expose my body to it, but I'm wondering if that'll just make it more likely that I'll binge eat on non-fasting days. I know I'm asking too many questions and I need to just do it and see what works for me, but I like to have a good idea of what I'm doing before I start.

I've managed to get a pretty good hold on my binge eating problem, but the way I've done so is that I currently just eat like 5 or so small, hearty meals throughout the day and usually have a small handful of nuts or just chew gum in between if I feel the urge to eat more. That's why I'm worried intermittent fasting will re-engage my binge eating, because when 12 rolls around and it's time to break the fast, my eyes will likely be bigger than my stomach. I'm sure what will end up happening is I'll binge when 12 hits, then not eat again until right before the window closes, and I'm not sure that's particularly healthy, but you're right I need to find and solve the root problem and gain self control.

I think this is where the subconscious problem lies for me, is attachment to my own story. I've noticed I have a stronger underlying need for control, and when that sense of control is pulled out from beneath me, I start to get severe anxiety. That's kind of why, in my head, I feel like I need to detach from my ego, because I feel like I'm too attached to the dream. What I'm gathering from all these responses however is that integration and acceptance is key, whereas I've been dismissing ego altogether and trying to force my own story out of my mind.

Lately I've been noticing that marijuana has given me much stronger highs than ever before. This started becoming even more so apparent after my last DMT trip, which you can read about here I haven't touched psychadelics since, because I wanted to let the experience settle. However, nowadays when I smoke weed, I feel like I might as well be taking psychadelics. Today, after smoking a bowl, I completely left my body. I could feel my consciousness meld with the room, I became everything, and felt all sorts of sensations. At one point I remember feeling like I was totally liquid. I couldn't feel a physical body anymore, no physical room that I was in, I had become all of it. How such an intense feeling can't happen from weed, I'm not sure. I closed my eyes and felt eternal and infinite, as if everything I've ever experienced has been pure illusion. Now, normally I'd imagine this would be a liberating experience, but for some reason, no matter how hard I tried I couldn't let go. I tried very hard to let go and allow all the sensations to happen, and let myself become one with everything, but I was overwhelmed with such intense anxiety, anxiety so extreme that it kept me distracted from telling myself to let go. While sober, I'm pretty content in the moment. I've gotten good at being present, letting go of my thoughts, and just going with the overall flow of things. With weed, however, I'm consumed by anxiety, I can't let go of my sense of self, and I end up trapping myself in thought loops instead of letting go as I should be. What is it that I'm experiencing? How is it even possible that weed can get me to have that intense of a trip? I haven't touched psychadelics yet but experiences like these (this one being the most intense) have left me concerned on if I'd get an uncontrollable anxiety on other substances as well. Personally I think that I subconsciously just haven't let go from how my last DMT trip went, and my mind just keeps drifting off there. What I'm experiencing doesn't feel like awakening, as it seems like I'm seeing awakening through an ego perspective, causing the ego to essentially see its own nonexistence. I'd like to overcome this, I feel like I've hit a wall in my progress, any advice is appreciated.

I try not to conceptualize what awakening is because I feel like that will lead to delusion, which is what I'm afraid of. I feel like I'm getting tongue twisted by overthinking it, however I think my body is telling me that it's time to stop smoking weed, because all these neurotic obsessive thoughts are only really prominent when I smoke. My experiences with, what I will call "degrees of awakening" (I in no way mean to imply that I'm fully awakened, but I feel like I've had incredible insights pointing me towards it) lead me to believe that enlightenment is achieved through acknowledging that everything is happening in this very moment. What's tripping me up is the mindfuckery that I've experienced in drugs, where I experience different facets of reality and see the endless of the scope of being. I try to let go of my ego because, when faced with these experiences, I have a hard time just allowing them to happen, as my ego immediately senses the danger of nonexistence, and my thoughts run rampid into worrying about driving myself insane, my whole life story being fabricated, etc. I feel a separation in that part of me, again while sober, understands that I imagined my entire life story, and my sense of self is limited to what I percieve it to be. However, another part of me, usually when actually faced with infinity and experiencing the endless, formlessness that I experience through weed and psychadelics, gets an intense sense of anxiety and fear. It's like I understand that I need to let go, but I can't. I feel like I've hit a wall because everything just seems to be looping back into itself, but it seems like the answer for me is to just let myself experience the fear, and let my experiences become one. I think I've made too many separations, too many dualities, and I'm straying further from the point. Correct me if I'm wrong.

That actually cleared up a lot, thank you. I do have a habit of dismissing certain thoughts and feelings as "ego", and it's caused me to create a separation within myself while trying to do the exact opposite. I tried contemplating my fear, but I never tried facing it head on and letting myself feel it.

It's incredible because when it's happening, I can actually feel my ego "sense of self" feeling the fear, there becomes an almost tangible separation that you can see and feel, I'm just not sure how to handle it. I heard once that you can't fight or suppress the ego, but you can coax it into surrender. Perhaps that's my issue, or perhaps I'm conceptualizing this whole process too much and getting caught up in content over structure.

I'm thinking I'm just going to stop smoking weed, because it gives me such intense anxiety that I end up creating an air tight wall of thought and I just get caught up in endless thought loops. It gets me to experience awakening pretty easily, but the experience ends up getting ruined by my own attachment to thought rather than being. I actually found myself shaking uncontrollably yesterday while I was feeling myself become one with my surroundings. For now it's probably better that I ingest what I've learned, and try to just surrender myself. I've begun reading Eckhart Tolle's "The Power of Now", as well, which will hopefully give me some good insights.

Weed has always given me some good opportunities for growth, but now I'm incredibly cautious about recreationally enjoying it the way I always have, because it seems to send me to such a high state of consciousness that it's just not something I want to be doing in social settings anymore. What mindfucks me, is that weed brings me to that state, but I feel such discomfort and anxiety that I can't bring myself to let go. However, when sober, I feel like I have no attachment to anything, but I can't reach that extreme state for longer than a brief moment. I've kind of gotten to a point where I'm constantly creating thought stories and analyzing everything that I experience and I'm just chasing my own tail.

My ego. Trouble is, when I reach a higher state, the ego is what holds me back from being able to fully be absorbed into it. I get this underlying sense of dread, knowing that I'm going beyond my "self", and I can't let go of my attachment.

I'd like to add that similarly to my DMT trip, my experience of oneness and awareness felt extremely familiar, as if I'd experienced it in a dream or sometime in childhood. I felt like I'd begun to remember that I had created everything, but again I just couldn't dissolve the ego no matter how much I tried, I just couldn't let go. Even sober I feel like I'm constantly phasing in and out of awakening, but I can tell it's always through an egoic perspective rather than absolute, I just can't shake it. I have all these intense realizations but it's still seen through the perspective of "I", despite the fact that I'm fully aware that there is no "I". It's clear I'm missing something crucial, I just can't figure out what.