Sleepwalker

@Jonas Thank you for explaining all the steps. I failed to understand the "how to" of dealing with this problem, but you literally solved it for me I'll certainly apply the advice. And again, thanks to all of you. I would never have expected to get so much detailed information and that there are people who would be this eager and determined to help me with this issue, willing to invest their time and patience just to give me proper advice. You have no idea how much I appreciate it. God bless all of you.

@kurt I understand now and thank you. I'll keep it in my mind

@kurt Yes, you were right about my values, but really they're everyones values. Every human craves happiness, peace and contentment. ...I just thought about what you said and to be honest, I feel like all my attempts to lose weight were already trying to serve those values (obviously without much success so far). One of my top values is feeling good in my body and all of my actions were just ment to fulfill this need. Maybe I didn't express my problem clearly enough at the very beginning. I have self-imposed eating "rules", but I'm not starving myself to death or punishing myself and I have no interest in being anorexic. I WANT to eat and live as healthy as I possibly can and that's what I was actually trying all the time. For me, looking good and losing weight is just a quite important component of achieving that healhy lifestyle, but it all boils down to feeling good in your body. So, to make this very simple: should I RESIST eating a bunch of junk-food or am I ALLOWED to eat it? In light of my higher value to feel good in my body, the answer would be: resist! And that's exactly what I was trying all the time and struggling with! The truth is, I am struggling to live that HEALTHY lifestyle. I'm not talking about a struggle to maintain an extremely unhealthy low-calorie diet, but about maintaining a balanced and healthy one. I'm kind of a sweet carb addict and that's why this is so difficult for me. My family is making it even more difficult, because they don't live healthy either. For instance, I'm doing really good for maybe 3 days and all of the sudden I find the house full with all possible kinds of junk-food which I cannot resist. If this wasn't the case, I most probably would have reached my goal a loooooooong time ago. I talked with them, told them to hide their sweets from me. They would always do it for a couple of days and then just forget about it. I place my last hopes on the possibility that I won't live with them when I go to college. Because this is such a struggle for me, should I let go of trying to live healthy? Letting go of trying to maintain a healthy lifestyle would be like letting go of feeling good in my body. OR I'd have to feel good in my body regardless of my lifestyle and physical appearance (perhaps ideally?) I am soooooo confused right now. Thank you for trying to help me, you have no idea how much I appreciate your advice. and I'm sorry for being this annoying.. I guess that my situation is a little more complicated.

That sounds amazing! Thank you so much for sharing this, it's so insightful and inspiring. I always used to choose "change" instead of acceptance. The concept of self-acceptance made sense to me, but to change simply seemed to me like being more useful. Now I really get to believe that acceptance may be of more importance and more fulfilling. Btw acceptance seems to be a passive process, there isn't much to do. but is there anything specific or practical that I can do that could support it? @kurt And another thing. So now, because I "let go", what exactly am I supposed to do about my eating habits? Am I allowed to eat as much until I feel satisfied, even if it's more than I should be eating and could possibly lead to gaining more fat? If I got this right, the eating habits will eventually stabilize over time? I really kind of fail to understand this one. Perhaps I got it wrong?

@kurt There's no need for me to try to convince myself that the idea will work. Because you did it already I'm really impressed right now.. because people usually describe me as being very stubborn. Nobody could give me a good enough reason to let go, so I used to believe that it's difficult to help me and that I'm kind of hopeless. I will try this and thank you.

@kurt I want to believe this with all my heart. It isn't really that difficult to let the desire go, but it is difficult to deal with the outcomes of that decision. Worst case scenario: obesity? I'd like to let the desire go, but what if I end up being on a worse position than I'm right now? I'm afraid that the feeling of anxiety, because I failed to fulfill this need, could easily creep back on me, worse than ever before. However, thanks. This sounds really helpful so far. It could work and I'll consider doing it. I just need some time to get used to this idea and convince myself that it'll work..

@Jonas I am aware that good and bad are created in the mind, but regardless of that, I'm still operating as though they're real. For instance, what I care about are the results that "being fat" will give me in the external world: unattractiveness and rejection. And yes, subconscioussly, I label those results as bad. But how couldn't I, who would judge me for doing that? I still don't want those outcomes. I understand that "bad" isn't connected to them at all, but am I supposed to feel good about them, or even neutral? No, sorry. There are certainly people who can feel that way about those (and I tried in the past, too), but I seem not to function in that manner. I cannot tolerate those outcomes. I had to accept them in the past and all the depression and emotions that came with them. I already had a long history of self-acceptance and emotion-acceptance and never felt any sense of relief during that time. Whatsmore, it lead to hopelessness and even suicidal thougths, because I had to tell myself, "yeah that's my shitty life and I'm supposed to accept it, even if I'm stuck in the same place forever". After that, I came to the conclusion that that's more painful than trying to change. Maybe you're right, but just up to a point. I used to think that way before, too, until I realized that I actually don't have control over my thougths. Nobody has. If that would be the case, I would always choose to think positive and to feel happy. But I'm not choosing the thoughts which pop up in my mind. I used to blame myself constantly for having negative thoughts. But they just appear. All I can is choose is to believe them or not... Of course, you have a little control about your thougths, when you consciously choose to think specific thougths, but since the majority of your thougths is subconscious, fact is that you can't control all of them. After I found out about this, it was the first feeling of relief about this situation. I always used to think that I'm to blame for these kinds of issues and this information helped me a lot.

Mostly the do nothing technique and the most common one (where you release thougths when they come into your mind), I don't know how it's called... The first 6 months I meditated just about 20 mins every day, the next 12 about 30-35 (I never rushed to increase my meditation time, I always supposed that it was enough) and the last 6 months about 40 mins. Also, there are at least 12-15 days a year in which I, for some reason, didn't get to meditate (forgot it, or willpower drastically dropped etc). Could it be that that's the reason why my meditation isn't effective? Because of those "cheat days"? Btw I always wondered, what exactly will meditation do for me for these kinds of problems?

I've been meditating for 2 years by now. I never felt a significant change so far.

Hi to everyone who's reading this... I'm glad to finally get this out of my system. I started noticing that I've carried a heavy burden for quite a while. In some way, I consciously refuse to let it go. It's not that I can't, but I'm not sure that I want to. I think that I want to carry it with me until the end, until I reach my goal. My burden is the need to look a certain way in order to be happy. I posted this here, and not in the fitness & health section because I don't want to ask you for fitness advice, but because I noticed that this simple, seemingly harmless and small issue in my life started to toxify into a serious emotional problem that doesn't allow me to live normally. Now, I deliberately chose to focus on fixing this aspect of my life (my looks) and I already kind of know what the next steps are, but I need somebody to tell me if I'm going towards a good route and if I'm making good decisions on this path. Actually, in the last few days I started wondering that I'm doing myself more harm than good by trying so hard to reach this goal... All of this stress and anxiety, because I often make mistakes and overeat and don't manage to reach my goal quickly enough (and I'm trying really hard) and all of this doubt in myself, have led to the outcome that almost every day I go through some of these emotions, depending on how strictly I sticked to my self-imposed eating rules and diet. Just a few days ago, I've had the first day in months in which the voice in my head finally shut up and it hadn't had anything to criticize (I weighed myself on that day and I lost a lot of weight), of course, until I overate again. I started wondering if this is the right way to go towards, because of all the stress and anxiety which may influence my mental health. Although, I can see how reaching this goal would be beneficial to my life and it would solve many other problems (at least, I believe that with all my heart), it would raise my confidence and solve my problems with communication, social life and intimacy. I can see how this missing piece would fit in the overall picture of my life and connect many other parts. On the other hand, I started to doubt this approach and to wonder if it's authentic. In other words, I'm not sure if the confidence gained by fulfilling this goal would be solid, strong and long-lasting, because it would depend on the look of my body. This seems to me more like hiding an insecurity about myself, by fixing something in the external world, than being trully confident. I think that true confidence is internal and that it doesn't depend on circumstances in the outer world (like the look of your body). So I started thinking, what if I simply let go of this goal and accept myself exactly as I am, without changing anything? What if I just let go and allow myself to be happy? Well, I came to the conclusion that I'm not able to do that... It's not that I don't want to, but I simply don't feel that it's in my power to allow myself to be happy after I would let go. It is almost impossible for me to create any mental picture in which I would be happy after letting go of this goal, this desire to look pretty, this burden, which makes me so unhappy because I struggle so much to get there.. and at the same time, gives me hope for happiness in the future. It gives me hope, because I know that it is out there, that I don't ask for any extreme change... it is achievable. In my situation, if I would be able to perfectly control myself, it wouldn't take me even 2 months to achieve it. It is so simple and achievable that I'm embarassed that I'm still not already there. Theoretically, I could let go of this burden, but I already can imagine what the outcome would be. Just then, my life would turn into hell. It would be pure misery and depression. If I would accept myself and my life without changing anything, I would be stuck on the same place, with the same toxic people, with all the same results and outcomes in all aspects of my life. It would be so depressing that I couldn't handle it. I also considered combining self-development with self-acceptance and doing both simultaneously. I came to the conclusion that it doesn't work this way for me, or at least, not right now. I struggle very much to understand how they function simultaneously, although I am open for trying it again if you have some suggestions that could help me. Therefore... is it really that bad if I continue going down this road and continue pursuing this goal, although I am aware that I'm focusing on a very petty thing right now? Anyway, when I come to the end of this road and conclude that it didn't make me happy and give me the confidence and fulfillment I expected... only then, I will know that self-acceptance is my only salvation. But for now, I feel like I have to go down my current road and see where it will lead me. I would really like to hear whether you consider this decision as being valide and good. Thank you for reading this and thank you in advance for your help.

@Siim Land Cool, you've got some damn good results using this diet. Still, I wonder why there's so much information out there that stresses a high carb intake for building muscle mass. But thank you, this was so helpful and resloved a lot of my confusion about this topic. I'll definitely give it a try

@Siim Land Now you got me really curious.. I was dabbling with a ketogenic diet for a couple of weeks in the past. Let me ask you, how did you manage to gain muscle on a ketogenic diet? I decided to quit it exactly because the diet seemed NOT to be appropriate for putting on muscle mass. It is very effective for fat loss, though. But building muscle? What about carbohydrates? I've researched this so deeply and in detail, that I simply cannot emphasize enough how important it is to eat lots of carbs when trying to build muscle, carbs that a keto diet cannot provide. Yes, protein is a key factor, but it isn't enough. You HAVE TO take in carbs along with it. They fuel your workouts and give you the energy to maximize muscle growth. I'd like to hear your opinion since you've managed to break these facts.. I suppose that you probably can build muscle on a keto diet, but very slowly and just up to a certain point, after which the muscle gain starts to platoe. or maybe you just have really good genetics, so the diet could work out for you in such a way. I don't know what exactly the composition of your diet did look like, but the most accurate ketogenic diet contains about 25% protein, 5% carbs and 70% fat.. Well, how did you feel? Did you ever feel dizzy or without energy on your workouts due to the lack of carbs? I experienced that a lot on my keto diet. I felt very very weak and tired.. Therefore I concluded that it isn't optimal for building muscle, because I wasn't able to lift heavy..

Does anyone have some experience with dirty bulking, or in other words - eating junk food to build muscle? I've recently been involved into bodybuilding and stumbled upon this information. The idea seduced me really quickly I'm female and my body is very pear shaped, therefore I'm currently working to build muscle in my upper body to look more proportional. As far as I'm concerned, to build muscle, you need to be in a caloric surplus and this is the initial bulking phase. But during that period, you'll necessarily gain some fat. Now, does it really matter on what kind of food I'm bulking, as long as I track my macros and make sure I get the proteins, carbs and fats necessary for muscle gain? Why would I have to cut bread and sweets on a bulk, as long as they stay in the range of my macro intake and I don't go overboard with the surplus? Do they prevent or interfere with the muscle growth, or have some other negative effect on the process? What exactly makes the difference between someone who bulked on healthy food and someone who bulked on junk food, besides, obviously, that the first way is much healthier? Correct me if I'm wrong, but even if you're eating all healthy (with the intention to gain muscle), you'll get fat no matter what diet you're eating, simply because you're in a caloric surplus. I think that muscle gain comes always with at least a little fat gain. Now, there are some ways in which you can gain muscle and lose fat at the same time, but in the rule, this is the fastest and most effective way for muscle growth. Yes, this way I'll probably look really bulky and shitty for myb half a year, before I go on a cut, but the other method would take me probably as twice as long. I've been struggling with my body shape for quite a long time, so I'm kind of really needy for some tangible results. Don't understand me wrong, I don't want to go all crazy with dirty bulking, hell no. I care about my health, but I'm asking if it's ok, for example, if only 500 calories of my overall daily intake is junk food (as long as it suits my macros). Thanks in advance, I'm veeery curious whether this shit really works!

Recently I've been thinking much about this topic and it has been a big question for me, too. I'm not a psychologist and I can't claim that my opinion is "the right one" but anyways I'm going to share it with you. Perhaps you can find some value in it. I think that you should embrace your negative thoughts as well as the positive ones. The majority of people labels the negativity as "bad" and tries to avoid it by any means. By doing this, you neglect your negative thoughts and they literally crave your attention more and more. Therefore, they have to be acknowledged and accepted as well. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that you should let every negative thought automatically pull you into its mood. Actually, I've been working on positive thinking for the last few days because it simply allows me to perform better in my day to day life. I always try to stay positive and cheerful, especially when I go out and socialize. I noticed that being positive is actually crucial in social situations and that I cannot allow myself to be negative around other people anymore. I leave the negative thoughts and emotions on the side until I have some alone time in my day. Then I set aside 30 mins to feel those emotions, to dedicate my attention to them and do what Leo actually suggested in this video. I also meditate every day and use the do nothing technique. Those are the times in my day when I allow my monkey mind to go absolutely crazy without judging it. This way I manage to embrace both, positive and negative thoughts. I hope that this is a good approach for living life and a good way to "blend" those contradictions of positive and negative thinking. Hope that this was helpful

I get your point, but I don't feel about this community like I would about a religion. This community consists not only of like minded people, but of open minded ones. We are here to question ourselves and to grow together, not to agree with just one major opinion without even questioning it and follow the herd like sheep. Religion (most of them) asks you to believe in something, if possible, without distrust. This community doesn't ask you to believe in anything. Btw there's nothing wrong about feeling certain and secure because someone agrees with you, as long as you're still open to another opinion. Just be careful that you don't get caught up in your own dogmatism. There's nothing wrong about having a support network, or at least a high-quality and conscious one like this. Actually it certainly will help you to grow so much more than you would on your own.