Judy2

hi there:) i dimly remember asking about this before, but can't remember the conclusion we came to. so i was vegan for six years and started eating eggs and dairy again two years ago. i eat dairy-based products mostly for protein, but usually gravitate toward the low-fat products. and i mean really low fat, sometimes the 0.1% (still single-ingredient and no added sugar). i eat other healthy fats from nuts and high-quality oils, but i've been wondering if swapping the dairy for higher fat varieties would be a good call? it's something i started wondering about because i consume a lot of artificial sweeteners, which are also low calorie but not necessarily healthy and i'm so used to the indigestion, but tbh my body doesn't exactly like them. they're still hard to cut out, though, but it's something i would like to work on. i'm sure i'd also be able to enjoy plain low fat yoghurt, but anyway, this still got me wondering about the fat percentage of choice. lower fat products are lower in calories, obviously, but i'm not sure if the swap to higher fat dairy would have a huge impact on my total caloric consumption in a day....i'd probably find ways to balance this out, although protein might be slightly lower overall, then? maybe not concerningly low, but a little bit? or maybe there are other concerns to be had with 3.5% yoghurt that i'm not even aware of? for example saturated vs unsaturated fats?

i do experience a lot of bloating, though. any guesses why this could be, aside from the sucralose lol? Germany:)

that is crazy. aren't you super bloated? do you live in Germany? Alnatura's the best:)

yes, i actually made a commitment to cut out protein bars a couple days ago:) i already eat a lot of fibre and fruit, maybe even too much.

my neighbour's stomping woke me up last night, and it's just super triggering overall. makes me feel so trapped. people say i should relax more, but i don't know how i possibly could. i can't wear headphones 24/7. i could move to a new place, but that's not so easy to find, and it's not guaranteed that it will be any better there. i try to be reasonable and stop playing victim, but it's usually not working out. and then the despair just grows all the more.

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@PsychedelicEagle yes i've gained a lot of muscle mass since last year but i've also gained body fat. if i just went on a cut, i'd look alright, but idk how to go on a cut without harming my mental health and i wouldn't know how to eat sustainably after that, either. i am not sure if counting calories works for me. i know exactly how to do it but things could tip over very quickly and feel more harmful than helpful and make me very anxious around food.

@Osaid thank you for sharing your perspective:)

yes, i can literally feel my brain fighting to just accept that i can still be pleasant and soft at a higher weight. i would like to be those things, of course. i don't know if this is what you mean but yes, when the body lacks resources it responds to external stimuli differently and also processes emotions slightly differently. that can look like hyperarousal or it can also look like depression. i've also been much more prone to experiencing dissociation at low weights.... and having a very cloudy, foggy, borderline delirious inner monologue. you assume i haven't but i have gained weight since last year and also exercised a lot and built some muscle, but i'm really uncomfortable in my body. you wouldn't think that, but even just having more weight on my body does change the way i carry myself a lot. and i just know i'm prettier when i weigh a little less...in fact i get sad every time i see myself in the mirror and think my complexion is pretty, but it all goes to waste because my size is so wrong...i just don't know how to go about that in a healthy way. going on a cut or diet might not be the best for my psyche, but i don't know what habits/dietary guidelines to pick up to be healthy and lean long-term (without experiencing too much querulousness, as you say). you underestimate how tough it can be psychologically to have a history of restriction and then figure out moderation, of all things. ....i do try to be hopeful about it, though, and trust that one day i'll figure it out. please be aware that this is a vulnerable topic for me and something i usually battle very silently on my own:) please don't say anything mean.

what did the practice consist in?

yes i can see that. it could even be a type of neurological "disorder" if it happens a lot. really fascinating:)

@PenguinPablo i looked into it briefly and basically from a neurological pov, an OBE is a sensory mismatch when your brain receives (or produces?) conflicting information on how the body is positioned in space. (and of course it can get much deeper than that, but that's the basics.) i get this a lot when i take afternoon naps and my sleep is very light. that's when i'd be prone to getting close to waking up but my body is still asleep, and sometimes i confuse bodily sensations or feel as though there is the sleeping body and my other body with which i can be in slightly different positions. this has also gone as far as feeling as though i got up and walked through my apartment, only to realise that i had done so in a dream-like state and my real body was still in bed.

@Oppositionless do OBEs occur for you shortly after falling asleep or shortly before waking up? is there a relation to how light your sleep is, how well you remember dreams, or a tendency to experience sleep paralysis?

i haven't fully experienced either but have had glimpses of both. in my understanding, the two are quite distinct. you don't "need" one to experience the other. during an OBE you still experience yourself as a separate entity travelling through non-physical dimensions. but there can also be experiences of unity/God realisations occurring during these journeys. God realisation is the dissolution of the sense of a separate self (basically you flip inside out and become everything). leaving the physical body is not necessary; rather, God realisation is a metaphysical recontextualisation of what it means to be/have a body in the first place. the body can still be here as part of your consciousness, no problem with that. your visual field doesn't have to change for God realisation to occur, either - of course it can, but that's not the core of it.

my father is also overweight. but he also has very questionable views on nutrition. my brother is ripped, though. dentists have literally told me that i should consider having surgery for my jaw because it's so narrow. so i'm not making that up:) i know you don't believe me but i have direct experience of being at different BMI ranges and how people treat me differently in relation to it. sure, BMI ~11-14 maybe isn't perceived as that attractive (though there was one thirty-something-year-old dude messaging me recently on the basis of Instagram pictures from many years ago when i was an anorexic minor and said he wanted to meet me? don't know what's up with that but it's creepy; and several people have said i looked so cute when i was emaciated - yourself included). but the real problem is i've had direct experience of being maybe BMI 22ish vs BMI 17 or 18, and at 17/18 i wasn't healthy at all, but unfortunately, that's the kind of skinny that people can still think of as healthy, and that's also when i got more attention than i ever did at healthier BMIs (where i also felt more stable with my behaviour independent of the BMI charts). that's incredibly painful to deal with.

my mum and grandma are both overweight and i worry a little bit that it's in my genes (ugh). but my mum was very skinny when she was younger, it's just that menopause hit her bad. so i wonder what habits i can pick up now to epigenetically prevent this kind of fate....exercising a lot is the only solution i've come up with so far. my idea is i'll get so used to it that i'll still want to exercise a lot when i'm 50, and then menopause won't be so tough on me. if anyone can think of something else, those tips are very welcome, though.

sessions with my therapist are just so weird. i can't tell if it's because he does a good job, better than therapists i've had before, or if it's simply weird and not necessarily good. at the beginning of every session, he asks what my wishes or goals are. we pick a topic, and then he ask three or four times as we talk what it's like for me to talk about a certain topic, and urges me to give a name to the emotion. usually there is no emotion other than amusement and smiles, and i try really hard to give a proper answer but all that ever comes to mind is "it's fine". then we just circle around different topics and he asks a lot about how certain things connect to my past, and basically it's always the same questions on repeat...and it all just feels so fake to talk things through? like so unnecessary, and it doesn't do much other than make me feel super awkward giving interviews about myself that don't do anything. i hate talking about myself in that kind of setting, it feels so wrong. i feel so stupid trying to play along with that game and just speak about random associations forming in my head, and most of the time i don't feel anything anyway. we've never once come up with a solution, either. it's simply such an odd game when he pretends to care and i answer mechanically, but he doesn't actually care and only says all those things because he thinks they'll shift something inside me, which they usually don't.

i could also sit at home all day and be miserable. Italy would have been an option, too, but my Italian got a bit rusty and i'd like to take a class to get back into it before i book a trip there. in the UK, i can speak English, i know my way around London, but i've never travelled further up north, even though the Lake District and Scotland are on my personal bucket list. there's nature and beautiful architecture all over the country and, depending on where you go, the ocean. this is also the reward trip i had promised myself to go on for finishing my undergraduate degree, since that was quite hard for me mentally.....and i need to get out for a while and explore. i think that will be good for my mind. besides, i live close to an airport now, so i'm primed to want to pollute the environment every time i look up at the sky.

(:

really looking forward to it now!

@integral thank you!

so my current situation is the following: i got my undergraduate degree in English literature last winter (after 5 and a half years; usually this degree should take 3 years). it took me 2,5 years longer due to some mental crises along the way and the fact that, despite loving the language, i didn't have anything meaningful to move toward while studying it. had i known what i want, i could have done it in 3 years..but i don't know what i want and that is an ongoing problem. i am now in a new city studying psychology, but this is another undergraduate degree, as the German system does not allow you to convert to other subjects for the master's. i like psychology and there are several subjects i find really interesting, for example social psychology and also the neurological foundations of cognition and affect, which is something i don't know a lot about and it's rather enlightening to learn about. in general, psychology has always interested me on a personal level. it's just very intense in terms of the study load and i feel bad that basically the system considers all my efforts worthless as they are still considered "studying" rather than "working". i am experiencing a lot of stress trying to figure out my situation as i am not quite content living in a tiny apartment and still essentially not getting paid for all the effort i put into whatever it is that i do. i have good work ethic and i also experience a strong need in general to put my skills to good use, be appreciated for them, and feel like people can actually benefit from the things i am good at. i had hoped that maybe i could combine studying with already starting to work on the side, but that's something i haven't made much progress with so far. i love English, but i am not sure if the linguistic structures alone are meaningful enough for me to centre my entire life's work around, if that makes sense. i also don't want to be teaching very basic linguistic structures (like how to build the present tense in English) to German kids who are just starting to say their first words in English. but i do really love speaking in English. sometimes when i am on my own, i basically narrate to myself what i am doing, or when i do my make-up or cook, i'm essentially imitating an ASMR video lol. the confusing thing with languages as a career path is that they seem kind of devoid of meaning or like an empty shell, at least when it comes to rigidly teaching grammar or mechanically translating. i think for me this has had it's own appeal in the past, and maybe also personality-wise, it's been a relief or coping mechanism for me to reinvent myself as a competent speaker of different languages that aren't my native language...but i still wonder if that is "enough" for me as a career - and somehow, i don't think it is, and this has also been why i felt that i lacked meaning during the five and a half years when i was studying E lit. for me, it's not about how i say something, but what it is that i say, and i do want to speak and write meaningful words. so the whole picture looks different once we start talking psychology/maybe even sociology (or literary analysis, although that seems a little too far removed from having an impact on reality), and this add some dimension where i can maybe share some wisdom or personal insight - but there isn't necessarily a degree for that, or if there was, i'm sure it'd take five more years to get in Germany. i have three years of experience working as English teacher for adults (online), but that's not enough to make a living by any means. besides, my adult students' motivation is close to zero (as they have to attend as part of their training) and that isn't exactly fulfilling for me as a teacher. my hourly rate is pretty decent, though, so i just kind of tolerate it for now, because it's not like i have any other alternatives at the moment. in addition, i have applied to become a substitute teacher at a state school in the city i'm in now, but i'm not sure if this is actually worth it. it should give me some insight into the system, for sure, but the salary will be much lower than that of the teachers who have master's degrees. i've considered getting a master's (which would have to be related to my first degree), but i left that open for now, as i don't want to invest 2 years into a degree without having any idea if it reflects my career goals in the long term. to be honest, i'm just kind of frustrated with the German bureaucratic system and how it basically requires very specific combinations of degrees to get permission to work in any specific field. i can't just get three master's degrees to then figure out what it is i actually want. i've considered simply starting a website (i do not know how to do that - should i pay someone to create one for me?) and just putting myself out there, offering some kind of language coaching to adults/high school students who are about to do their A-levels. i think i'd enjoy working with that demographic as they should be going into it with some degree of intrinsic motivation and maybe there is demand for it, if only i start putting myself out there. i never tried that, so maybe that would be a start? and i don't have to do it forever, but maybe giving it a go would feel better than waiting and just thinking about the billion things i technically could be doing one day? the entire idea is basically that i want to participate in society and as i use other people's products and services, i'd feel so much better doing that without relying on my parents'/the state's financial support, but by being part of some kind of exchange system where my skills are actually worth something, i put them to good use and the appreciation pays off, so that i can finance my own consumption. sorry if this sounds super cryptic, it's just something i've been thinking about a lot. basically i need to experience a little more self-efficacy than i presently do, and i wonder how to achieve that. that's been quite stressful trying to resolve and i'm a little desperate by now. sorry for all the details; i'm just trying to paint the entire picture here and am hoping someone can maybe give some advice on how to deal with this entire situation?

....these past few days, i've finally brought up the courage to book my summer holiday....i'm going to England and Scotland, and i've started looking forward to it immensely. originally, i had thought that i would go only as far up north as Edinburgh, but then i realised the Highlands are even further north. hadn't booked my flight back anyway, and in an impulsive moment i decided that i should travel as far as Inverness. scary, and this feels very wrong and impulsive, but i'm also really excited now. i wrote a paper about a Scottish novel (Sunset Song) a couple of years ago, and now i've had this idea that i could go to Aberdeen, too, and see the villages where the novel is set.

would you mind sharing what company/organisation she works for?

@Joseph Maynor so i have to start making snacks for my grandchildren today, i assume. and try to be healthy and happy... shoot.