Dream Yoga Practice - Two weeks of practicing awareness of the senses

Two weeks ago I started the practice of all day awareness again more seriously. I have been doing this practice before as well, but loosing track of it again and again. Basically starting all over again each time. But this time I have been practicing it almost continuously in my waking time for two weeks. And going this hardcore and committing to it fully has resulted in some noticeable changes in my perception.

In this post I will explain to you, what I did exactly and what the results have been.

How aware are other beings? - To me it looks like some deep thinking is going on here

When I first started out with the practice of all day awareness a few years ago, I focused on a maximum of three sensations at once. Quickly this became an easy task to do. So my mind started running awareness of the senses on auto pilot. And this time here I already noticed a difference. This time, for two weeks I committed fully to it and tried to make it as difficult as my mind could handle. Because the lesson #1 of the dream yoga guide on dreamviews suggested you can hold many more object in conscious awareness at once than only three. So I just tried to be fully present with as much sensory input as possible. This caused me to have a remarkable insight. I already knew from teachings that awareness is not the same as experience. But I did not know how to understand this.

When I tried to focus on as many sensory impressions in parallel as possible, my mind was struggling so hard to divide the limited awareness on the different sensory streams, that it gave up and separated awareness from experience. In other words, I could feel my awareness hovering above the sensory input. And know it is easier for me to tap into this awareness. Before this insight, I could concentrate my awareness on only one particular sensation (the breath for example). And it felt like this sensory experience was needed to stay aware. But awareness is different. You can automate to concentrate on the breath with little awareness. But becoming aware of everything you experience is so incredibly complex and overwhelming, that is not possible with concentration. For that to happen you need to concentrate on awareness itself and let all experience flow through it without conscious interaction.

Basically those intense two weeks of staying present of the senses showed me that awareness is not the same as experiences. Awareness is also not the thoughts that occur. But we identify usually so much with our thoughts that we think that is what we are. But at the core awareness is something different. I am thrilled to explore it further.

From here on I will definitely continue and intensify this practice. It is both challenging and incredibly rewarding. I will also train my ability to become conscious of awareness itself. This is still difficult for me. And when I need to be particularly focused, it is more difficult for me to feel awareness.

My feeling is that whenever this practice does not yield the results, you hope for, than you need to intensify it. There are always more sensory input you can become consciously aware of at the same time. Just becoming fully aware of all that you feel with your body is more than enough for month of serious practice. Add to that all the sounds at a busy place or of a multi-layered song and you have enough for a good year of practice.

Secondly to the feeling of having a separated awareness, this practice improved my regular meditation. Coming out of meditation and going into, already as much aware as you can, will lead to increased results. Before it was my habit to feel relieve when the time of meditation was over and drop down to a lower degree of awareness going about my day. But keeping the meditation (awareness) up as much as possible all of the time, will make results come much faster. This practice is at the same time rewarding because it brings the good feeling of being in the moment to every day experiences. I will give you an example: Yesterday I was sitting on the train and waiting at the train stations for a total time of 6 hours. Usually this would have bothered me (to say the least, as I do not like travelling that much). But the act of concentrating on every little sensation and not allowing myself to slip out of the present moment for very long resulted in a super clam and euphoric state. At end of the trip I existed the train and walked a few hundred meters to my apartment. On this walk I almost had to cry because of the beauty I experienced. Being super aware of my body (every normal sensation already felt incredible), the wind on my skin was blending in so beautifully with all the other sensations, it was a great.

And as I just started out with this practice, I can only imagine where this practice can lead to in terms of becoming more present. At first is counter intuitive and will require much conscious effort. But think about, how your life (if you are like me) your education has pushed you out of being and into analyzing, planning, focusing, thinking and operating. Your whole life you are spending in the future or the past. And you might think this is an exaggeration. But take some powerful psychedelics and find yourself catapulted into the raw present moment without a conception of future our past and you will appreciate how little you actually are in the present moment. And with this practice you can feel your way back in the present moment. I would guess it is a long way, but so are all other spiritual practices.

For my part, I can say this is the greatest practice I have come about so far in terms of practicality and enjoyment. I struggle with formal meditation for more than one hour in my regular schedule. But this practice I can do almost always. I find it the most difficult in conversations with other people. There I reduce it down to one sensation, to make sure I can also follow the content of the conversation. But this I have found improves my listening skills. I can fully listen, because I become instantly aware whenever I put my own thoughts on top of what is being said.

On the other hand this practice becomes more challenging during work, which requires being focused. But even then I sometimes find that I have unused mental capacity to keep some awareness of the present moment. Usually if my mind is let loose, then even during mental work, I tend to start day-dreaming unconsciously on the side.

I highly recommend this practice of awareness of the senses in addition to other spiritual practices. For lucid dreaming this practices has yielded mixed results. I cannot say for sure if it has increased my number of lucid dreams. But this is also not my main goal with this practice for the moment. In the lucid dreams I did have, I was satisfied with the stability though. 

Leading guidelines for an optimal diet

How do you define an optimal diet? A diet that increases well-being and longevity. Are there objectively measureable nutrients which you should look out for? Calories, Micro-nutrients, vitamins, antioxidants etc. are all things we can measure today in a food. But there are big differences between what we can measure in the lab and what ultimately happens in the human body.

Dark and intense colors are an indicator of antioxidants

I recommend to trust our senses in choosing between different options of natural food sources. It is best to go for the vegetables with the brightest and most intense colors, the most complex flavors and the greatest aromas. Going this route will lead us away from animal foods and towards a variety of wild plant foods. Wild edible greens, flowers, fruits and berries provide the greatest amount of beneficial micronutrients. Our domesticated vegetables on the other hand maximize calories and weight over flavor and nutrition. Because that is what you usually pay for at the grocery store.

So the best solution would be in my opinion to collect most of your green vegetables and salads directly in nature and add in more calorically dense foods like nuts, seeds and root vegetables from the store. Get yourself a comprehensive guidebook which you can take with you when you go out collecting edible plants. I can recommend this one in german language.

One of my favorite meals is the following green super-food smoothie:

• Wild edible greens               100-300g
• Frozen spinach                     100gr
• Spirulina                               10gr
• Wheatgrass powder              10gr
• Cacao powder                      5gr
• Flaxseeds                             10gr
• Nuts or seeds                        20gr
• Banana                                 100gr
• Dates                                    15gr
• Stevia                                   1 tablet or drop
•  Lemon (with peel!)              1 slice
• Ginger                                  10gr
• Beet juice                             100ml

I recommend blending the greens first, with as little water as possible. Later add the powders, flaxseeds and fruits and blend a second time. (In a high speed blend I blend for 30 seconds twice.) That way you are not left with any big chunks of the tougher leaves.

In this way you will maximize your nutrition while reducing your grocery bill. Because if you wanted to buy the same amount of nutrition from the store you would have to buy much larger quantities of the vegetables that usually sells there. But you can also find exceptions like kale, red cabbage, some broccoli-types and spinach.

You can also start to grow your own highly flavorful vegetables. Try out some different herbs in the smoothies or salads and you will discover that they greatly increase the variety of flavors.

If you want dive deeper into the topic of optimal nutrition for longevity, I recommend the book “How not to die”. There you will find the scientific background on which to decide what food are healthy and nutritious and which are not. I would like to point out though that these studies usually focused on foods that are available at grocery stores. So you will not find many nutritional studies on wild edible plants in that book as well. But I guess it is save to estimate that many wild plants have similar nutritional density to the commonly consumed herbs like rosemary, oregano, marjoram, peppermint or berries like goji, acai and amla. As these foods have the highest concentration of antioxidants, we can assume that highly flavorful wild plants have similar properties.

Why strive for such a diet?
Increasing the nutritional density of your diet will make you feel energized and all around better. Your mental and physical capabilities are certain to increase. As a reader of this blog I guess you are interested in achieving higher spiritual and personal goals, you are generally interested in learning and improving your life. This is a great challenge besides the daily hassles and duties you likely have to fulfill. Therefore it is wise to fuel your mind and body only with the greatest fuel available.

Only then can you truly maximize your potential. You will feel the effects on your mood - you are able to treat the people around you in a nicer, calmer and more understanding way. That’s when you can really appreciate and see the effects of a highly nutritious diet. You can design a diet that is so off the chart amazing and nutritious that you will feel so alive it is incomparable to any standard modern diet. Once you have experienced the effects of such excellent nutrition, there will be no chance you want to go back to eating processed food. It will instantly increase your capacity to practice things like all day awareness, mindfulness, meditation and concentration. Eating becomes one more aspect of your life where you act with full presence and mindfulness. While eating the most nutritious and flavorful foods it is impossible not so savor and mindfully appreciate every bite. Your taste preferences will change within the first two weeks and afterwards you will like natural levels of sweetness and bitter tastes.

Our modern health challenges show us clearly three things. We are not adapted to calorically dense food because we can become overweight, which has health consequences. We develop inflammatory diseases, which develop because of a nutrient and antioxidant poor diet. And lastly we are not adapted to properly judge our caloric requirements in a sedentary environment. We were used to get a lot more daily exercise.

Two ratios are out of balance:

• caloric intake and caloric expenditure
• micro-nutrient intake to micro-nutrient requirement

What role do animal product play in a diet focused on high nutrient density

The most basic problem with animal products in that scenario is the relatively low concentration of secondary micro-nutrients and especially antioxidants in combination with a high concentration of calories and protein. Those circumstances make it really difficult to argue for the inclusion of animal foods. To the contrary certain amino-acid (like Methionine and Leucine) and fatty acids and cholesterol are likely to have negative health implications. The opinions, whether such nutrients are good or bad for our health, diverge. So it would be saver to eat the foods where there is no such consensus among scientists. And those are antioxidant rich plant foods. There is no consensus about whether such foods are healthy or not. The more antioxidants a natural food contains the better it is for our health in general. This goes even so far that a variety of plant foods are so rich in antioxidants that they have historically been used as medicine. An example is the indian gooseberry called amla. It is most antioxidant rich plant food discovered so far and has a long history of medicinal use for a great variety of ailments.

Animal foods can certainly have a place in a healthy diet. But in a very limited quantity and they must come from the cleanest sources. Because toxins accumulate upwards throughout the food-chain.

Can cheese be healthy?

After experimenting with many different diets and eating patterns, I have found my most favorite diet. I feel best, when I eat one meal in the evening, consisting of a raw salad, followed by steamed vegetables and most of my calories coming from nuts. I make the salad-dressing out of blended nuts and use nut-butter as a dip for the steamed veggies. Every day I also sprinkle about 20-30grams of ground flaxseed over my food. That way, I end up with about 50-80gr of carbs which are very slow digesting and therefore my insulin levels should be very low for most of the time.

But in the past I have also encountered one problem with this diet. I lose too much weight. Insulin levels might be so low all of the time, that it just does not allow for major muscle growth. In general intermittent fasting, caloric restriction and a plant-based diet all reduce circulating IGF-1 levels. In general this is good if you want to increase longevity. But on the other-hand too low levels of IGF-1 might cause slowed tissue-repair and reduces muscle-mass. This goes hand in hand with my experience: Sometimes I have sour muscles after a workout for up to a week. This is definitely not what good recovery looks like.

Why dairy and no other animal products?

So my idea is to include dairy (I will start with goat and sheep milk) into my diet. Dairy is well known to cause an insulin spike even without carbohydrates. The proteins in milk are the cause for this and also have an impact on IGF-1 levels as they are high in leucine. I choose to include dairy over eggs because milk is comparatively low in carnitine and choline. Those two amino-acids are problematic because the gut microbiome and then the liver will convert them into a carcinogen called TMAO. Recent research has shown that this substance might in fact be the reason why animal products can cause cancer and heart disease and not the saturated fat or cholesterol content. Therefore eggs and meat are problematic. Dairy on the other hand does contain very low levels of both amino-acids. Cheese contains 15mg of choline per 100grams, whereas 100grams of fresh egg already has 251mg of choline. The level of choline in eggs is 30 times higher than in cheese when compared on a caloric basis.

For the purpose of including a calorically dense food that increases insulin and IGF-1 without carbohydrates, I will choose goat-milk in the form of well-fermented cheese for the beginning. In my opinion this is the least likely to cause allergic or otherwise negative reactions for two reasons. Firstly goat milk is less allergenic than milk from cows containing a certain type of casein.

Goat-milk from grass-fed free-range sources is the most ethical animal product?

For many years I have spent my summer-holidays hiking in the mountains of Switzerland. There you will see large areas of forest-free pasture where many goats, sheep and cows are grazing. The areas are oftentimes too high or too steep for any other agriculture to be possible. The only way to produce any form of food from these areas is to use them as pasture-land for animals and use their products. I have seen the cows and goats go to the milking stations on their own without any stress or resistance at all. Many newborns are among the animals and you can observe that only the additional milk is taken for human consumption. This resembles the ideal of animal treatment and how to obtain milk. So by buying free-range milk from that area I am sure it is produced in that way.

Efficient metabolism of cheese when on a high fat low carb diet

The high fat content and absence of carbohydrates in cheese fits well into my dietary regiment. On a high carbohydrate diet the inclusion of animal fats might be problematic. So the common combination of bread and cheese is likely to be suboptimal for health. A high fat intake is known to suppress insulin sensitivity. That means the same amount of carbohydrates requires a larger amount of insulin to enter the cells. With a (very) low carbohydrate intake this is not a problem, as there is little glucose which needs to enter the cells. Secondly the high saturated fat content of milk is good addition to the mono- and poly-unsaturated fat I am mainly getting from nuts and seeds. This keeps the overall level of omega-6 fats lower and in a desirable range.

First benefit of cheese consumption

After the first two days of incorporating cheese into my diet, I observed the first benefit of doing so. On a low carb diet, I am still struggling with muscle twitches. I have them whenever I eat less than about 70-100gr. of carbohydrates per day. But after the meals that included some goat-cheese, I observed a decrease in this phenomenon. I usually have the twitches all over my body. My theory is that it is caused by low insulin levels. Without insulin some nutrients cannot enter the cell so readily and maybe my muscles lack magnesium. Dairy-protein is known to cause an insulin-release, which might just be what I need, when I eat my one meal a day after fasting for about 23 hours. I guess there must be a balance in hormones over the course of the day. It is good to have low insulin most of the time, but while eating there should also be a spike in insulin so that the nutrients can enter the cells. And with a plant-based low carb diet, the insulin-release might just not be sufficient to absorb all the nutrients in only one meal. Therefore I will continue to observe the effects of dairy on this regimen. Should the muscle twitches not get better over time (after inner-cellular magnesium levels had the chance to increase) I will switch to a higher carb content of the one meal coming from fast acting sources like white rice.

But so far I want to stick with the high fat diet, because it seems like starches aggravate my scalp psoriasis.

Results: Two weeks of including cheese in my diet

I can certainly say that my body has adjusted to eating certain kind of cheeses and also the aged cows milk cheeses. I could observe that it caused me no problem at all. But an experiment with eating yogurt did result in some digestive issues. I would guess that store-bought yogurts are not thoroughly fermented.  Sudden changes in my carbohydrate level will still results in those mysterious muscle twitches. Whenever I have days where I eat only nuts, seeds, a little cheese and vegetables, they will come back. I have found that I need at least 70-100 grams of net carbs per day to prevent those twitches. In the beginning the cheese seemed to stop the twitching, but I would guess that this came from the higher protein content which my body converted partially into glucose. With a low protein intake of around 50-70gr per day, I need more carbohydrates to compensate. If I add up those numbers, I am still eating a high fat diet. Compared to other low carbohydrate dieters, who consume a lot more protein, my combined protein and carb intake is on a similar level. It is common for ketogenic or low-carb dieters to consume more than 100gr of protein per day and up to 50gr of carbohydrates. So total calories coming from non fat sources are similar in both diets. But I choose to limit protein consumption because it has been shown to increase longevity in a number of animal studies.

Conclusion:

By choosing the cheeses which are aged, high in fat and lower in protein, milk can be a healthy addition to a low carbohydrate diet. To limit methionine intake, protein derived from milk must be limited. Total protein intake must also be limited to about 1g/kg bodyweight per day. I personally did not observe any negative health outcomes after almost a month of including cheeses into my diet. By including a generous amount of vegetables and fiber in the diet, any concerns regarding rising cholesterol should be countered. Certain types of mold-cheeses have also been shown to have positive health effects. I even feel that cheese can be particularly healthy for individuals consuming a low protein, low calorie vegan diet. Because this might cause very low IGF-levels long term and leads so slower regeneration after workouts and injuries. Dairy protein is known to raise IGF-levels. And this is the reason why it should be limited and not combined with a high protein, high carbohydrate and high calorie diet. 

OMAD As A Strategy For Personal Development

There are many health reasons for eating one meal a day, but the greatest benefit is indeed on a mental level. By eating one meal a day for extended periods and even making it a life-long practice is like putting up a fence against once desires. It teaches you to control impulses and derive joy and benefits from doing so.

Eating one meal a day is a habit that increase self-awareness

This teaches you the incredibly valuable lesson of how to be in the driver seat of you mind and body. It increases the degree of control you have over your life. If you follow this practice for some time you will recognize how the effects can be felt well beyond the area of food and eating. In my experience this diet alters the way you think and your motivation-pathways. You will develop a state of mind in which you are more likely to resist immediate gratifications and instead look for long-term benefits. It is well knows that this will lead to a happier, healthier and probably richer life. In fact when it comes down to the financial aspect of delayed-gratification, the effects become measurable. Only by saving money (delaying consumption) are you able to benefit from interest, compound interest and future capital gains of investments.

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The inner state of mind is an area where the outcomes of delayed gratification cannot be measured as easily. This is a very personal and individual development that takes place gradually. Being able to stay in a mental place of peace and general well-being without having to search for the next “high” or stimulation from the outside world makes you resilient to circumstances you cannot control. Whole philosophies developed around the idea that the main way to attain a state of lasting happiness is based around working on and molding ones inner mental space.

Stoicism developed in ancient Greece. More recently the movement of minimalism has picked up some ideas of stoicism. But minimalism is mainly focused on external influences. The core idea of minimalism is to attain freedom and happiness through the reduction of possessions. But it fails to deliver the mental concept and attitude required to detach happiness from outer circumstances in general. Many minimalist end up chasing outer experiences, which do not require the possession of physical objects. Excessive travelling and adventuring are common activities that minimalists engage. In that state they are attached to a system that enables them to engage in such a (environmentally) destructive activity. The activity is needed to get the next “high” in the form of new places, cultures and experiences. On a mental level this is the same motivational pathway than people who live the “consumer-lifestyle”, acquiring and changing possessions on a regular basis.

With the OMAD diet, one can take a first step into the direction of detaching from outer satisfaction. The next step could be to learn about the original ideas of stoicism and following such path. With a stoic mind, possessions and outer experience actually become enjoyable. The mind is not attached to them and does not need them to be happy. But they can be used and enjoyed from a standpoint where you are free to actually choose to partake in them or not. Similar to someone who does not regularly drinks coffee. He can choose take it occasionally for a boost in energy, but does not need it to function on a daily basis. He enjoys a boost in energy from coffee and the stoic enjoys a boost in happiness. The addict on the other hand does not experience such feelings and in turn needs the substance to feel normal.

For most people, switching to one meal per day is a difficult change. The adaptation process will reveal certain challenging aspects of ones psyche. But for a person interested in personal development, this is a good thing. It presents an opportunity of mental growth which we usually suppress by keeping busy and cover up by overindulgence in food and other highly pleasurable but also addictive behaviors. We tend to keep busy for long periods of time (work) and then fill the rest of our time with as much pleasure as possible (consumption). So OMAD actually presents the opportunity for much needed idle time. Such times allow us to reflect and develop a broader perspective of life. Introspection falls way short in today’s environment where distraction and entertainment is available for every little bit of free time. Smartphones, TV, Gaming, Food, Sex, Cinemas, Travel, … There is an activity for every length of free time. We do not even have to think for a minute anymore for ourselves and come up with our own purpose.

A certain degree of boredom and true idle time is necessary for creative thoughts. We can never really tap into that anymore. The free time gained from only eating once per day is a powerful tool for transformation in several ways. By facing ones desire for food without giving in to them, one can see into the nature of desires. Observing how it behaves and where it arises. These are interesting insights that can only be gained through careful introspection. As these are individual insights, reading or hearing them might not necessarily teach you much which you can apply for your own life. But spending a few weeks or month eating only one meal a day will bring you some insights if combined with careful introspection into the difficulties you will face.

So let the transformation be a spiritual one as much as it will be a physical transformation for the body.

Back to the feel-good basics

1. Eating one meal a day

I have spent about three month, exploring the effects of different eating styles on my mood, energy, digestion and general happiness with the diet. Before that I was eating only one meal a day for several month. In the last three month I have tried eating 5 small meals a day, 3 evenly sized meals or two meals within an 6-8 hour window.

Let me tell you my experiences with those different eating styles:

Eating 5 small meals per day, did absolutely not work for me. I hated not being able to eat until I got the internal signal that I no longer want to eat. Stopping before that point required careful calorie counting, or else I would exceed my daily caloric requirement.  The other alternative was to eat mostly vegetables and achieve fullness through volume. But that did not go well for my digestion, the amount of fiber was probably just too much. I had to go to the toilet several times per day. Other downsides to basically only eating vegetables all day long were the cost, the time spent eating and the preparation required to take all the food with me to work.

In the end I was not able to feel as good on this schedule as I did with extended intermittent fasting.

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Eating three meals per day was already better in some aspects, but with my job were I mostly sit at a desk, even three meals were leaving me with too many calories at the end of the day. And I still missed the effects of the regular daily fast. I was eating breakfast, lunch and dinner. I also did not enjoy how much time food preparation took and I was generally not excited about the upcoming meal.

The best concept that I tried in the last three month, was eating twice per day in a restriction timeframe. That gave some intermittent fasting and autophagy benefits. It required less time eating and preparing food and I could eat meals that were satisfying, without them being only vegetables. But after a quite large lunch my motivation and energy at work dropped significantly. And most remarkably, my ability to resist sweets and other temptations, which are available at our office almost every day due to some birthdays or visitors bringing presents, dropped from “not even thinking about it” to “let’s eat it, I am not fasting anyways”. While I am fasting, I do not consider the sweets worthwhile to break my fast and not achieve my goal, but while not fasting the thought of just eating something suboptimal or unhealthy is not enough to keep  me from eating it.

After those experiments with different eating styles and patterns, I can say I learned a lot from them in the sense that they reinforced my desire to live the OMAD lifestyle.

Exercising in the morning, followed by a cold shower is super-charging autophagy and increases the utilization of fat. The endorphins from the cold-shower can be felt for hours afterwards and in combination with green tea produce a super-efficient state of mind for working and studying.

And I have to admit the one meal a day diet produces a very satisfying feeling of superiority. Not in the sense that this makes you better than other people, but in the sense that it produces a superior state of body and mind. It facilitates positive behavior in other areas of life and puts you in the driver-seat instead of the part of you that just chases the next fix. This released energy and time can be used on whatever projects you would like to work on.

I recommend eating one meal a day especially to those who would like to enjoy food to the fullest each and every day. This might be counter-intuitive but the fast creates an incredible degree of appreciation for the meal ahead, taste becomes much more sensitive and intense and satisfaction after the meal is complete without worry of caloric intake.

 

2. Green Tea, Quality Food and Focus on Antioxidant-/Nutrient-Density

While I have never been drinking coffee, I had periods where I was addicted to green tea. But as I was researching more into it’s effects lately I have picked up the habit of drinking green tea again. I think it has more positive benefits than negative ones. And the mood improving properties are so remarkable for me that I enjoy a cup now every day. I steep one tea bag several times so that a lot get’s dissolved into the water. And it also spreads out the caffeine over several hours, reducing the peak concentration.

On business-trips I lately did not have the chance to eat my usual high quality, anti-oxidant-rich, vegetable-based diet. After some time on such a diet it is easy to forget how awful bad food can make you feel. And this is oftentimes food that other people eat as their daily staples. Foods like white bread, sugary cereal and spreads, meat and processed food for example have been part of my diet on those trips. I was invited to eat at restaurant that did not serve any food I would consider healthy. Experiencing the general feeling of uneasiness and sluggishness spreading through my body and mind was revealing once again what I had forgotten about healthy eating: Food is the single most important ingredient of feeling good every day. It’s impact can be felt immediately.

Therefore I will focus again on the antioxidant- and nutrient-density of food. This is just the single best general measure of how good a particular food will make you feel in the long-run. Of course you have to keep individual intolerances in mind. This basically boils down to a plant based diet which in my particular case is gluten-free and high fat. So most of my calories are coming from nuts and seeds and most of the volume comes from vegetables, which I eat raw and cooked. But I avoid eating ketogenic for the moment, and shoot for about 150gr of net carbs per day. That allows me also to include things like carrots, potatoes and legumes. Protein-intake is between 60-100gr per day. Total calories are around 1500-1700kcal on average.

3. Daily Routines – Exercise, Meditation and Balance

I have written in the past about the power of habits. To long-term happiness I think it is almost mandatory to establish a set of positive daily habits. Getting into the routine of doing things, which make you feel good, on a daily basis can make a big difference in the long run. The benefits are often cumulative and depend on keeping up the practice over a sufficiently long enough period of time.

In particular I have found it to be important to include the following things into my day: exercise and regularly moving the body, mindfulness and meditation, balancing energy-intake with energy-expenditure and maintaining relative caloric restriction. As exercise I try to include daily body-weight exercises and dumbbell workouts. 3-4 times per week, I try to bring my heart-beat up to its maximum by HIIT like sprinting or running up a hill until exhaustion. I avoid long endurance exercise as I believe it to be unnecessary for optimal health. I feel short but intense exercise sessions keep my heart and lungs functioning at a very high level.

Meditating for 30-60 minutes daily and maintaining a high level of mindfulness and presence throughout the day is a major habit you have to build up to. And it makes you much more resilient in stressful situations and able to react efficiently and quickly to whatever comes up.

The third habit should be to strive for balance in all areas of life. Balancing overeating with phases of undereating falls into that category. As overeating is much more common in today’s western societies it is wise to focus on daily fasting or undereating. My experience is that this has a wide range of benefits. For me it makes eating much more enjoyable, because the body is actually craving the nutrition and the calories in particular. Assimilation and absorption becomes more efficient.

Productivity should be balanced with phases of relaxation. I have struggled with that unknowingly for a long time. I always wanted to use every minute of the day in a productive manner. I even meditated with the purpose in mind to improve myself. Now I allow a good amount of daily mindless activity and allow myself to do whatever I like without the focus on self-improvement in my case. This might be playing video-games or watching a movie/series. Which are things I have not done in years because I considered them worthless activities. But now I recognize the importance of having balancing in that regard too. Otherwise I think that the path of self-mastery and personal development is not sustainable long-term.

4. Deliberate decompression – mindless activity

I want to write about this particular aspect of balance under a separate headline, because it has been my latest major discovery in my personal development journey. For a long time I have been very future oriented in my activities and only considered those worthwhile that would be of some benefit to my future self. That meant constant learning and little actual time being completely idle. Books I was reading not for the entertainment but for the purpose of improving myself and learning something that would translate into some form of benefit in the future. In years I did not watch TV, only about one movie per month and never played any video games. All my media consumption was connected to learning and improving myself in some form or another.

So lately I discovered that I could not keep up with processing and really applying and internalizing all the new information entering my brain. I had to start doing some mindless activities. Just doing something that is enjoyable in the moment. For that purpose I bought a PlayStation 4. Something I would never have thought of buying before. Offline Video-games? What a waste of time. And that’s exactly what I needed to balance out my overly purpose-driven activities. I did not know how much fun playing video games in HD could be. I am still flashed every time by this next-gen graphics. Last time I played video games, the quality was on the level of GTA Vice City, where heads and faces were still (sort of) painted pyramids.

I am maybe playing 1-2 hours, two or three times per week and this leaves me exactly with the feeling I hoped for: “the vigor to get things done, study or work”.

And most importantly I learned, mindless and purpose-less activity has its place in a balanced approach to life. Many people naturally tend to do it after long, hard days at work. It almost a cliché, that the worker, who has to endure a boring and tedious working day, comes home to a mindless-life in front of the TV. That is on the other end of the extreme and probably unhealthier than the constant focus to improve oneself. 

What living with a chronic disease for a decade has taught me about happiness

When I was 15 years old, I got diagnosed with crohn’s disease and colitis. The doctor was not so sure which of both I really had, so he diagnosed me with both. For years before that diagnosis I struggled with increasing stomach pain, diarrhea and missed many days at school. Finally I got treated with prednisone and felt better initially, but the drug made me feel worse in the long run.

I started my search for health and diet on the internet, read many books and was hooked on the path to get well by myself ever since. I saw immediate benefits of the healthy lifestyle and the healthy diet in particular. I drastically reduced the occasions when I drank alcohol and avoided junk food for the most part, because everytime I indulged in it, I felt the immediate negative effects.

Challenges come to us in many ways. Consciously chosen or not.

Finding what works

I have to say though that it was not an easy journey to find out what works and what does not and I am still tweaking my diet around on a regular basis, trying out new things. But I also tend to forget from time to time what did not work and deviate from my protocols and diets, only to find myself in pain all over again. But those periods have become less frequent and shorter. I am now more stable in my good eating habits and avoid big “failures”.

Can you become happier through a disease?

But I have learned a positive lesson from this disease. I am actually very thankful for the path that this condition has pushed me towards. I know this sounds mad to someone who is suffering badly from this or any disease. But I have found that this disease has pushed myself to grow mentally. To learn and grow in areas that I would probably have neglected otherwise. If you would ask me if I wanted to relive the past 10 years without having this disease, I would tend to answer no. Of course you never know how an alternative reality would have turned out to be, but as I am in a pretty happy state right now, I do not wanted anything to be different. I can imagine many different realities without this disease that would not have turned out so well. Without the interest in eating healthy, I would probably have continued to eat meat and junk food. Ending up less healthy overall in the end.

And the things I learned about healthy living were only the start of a much greater journey into personal development. This path I might also not have taken without all that I learned through the research on this condition. And serious personal development work has probably been the biggest factor in increasing my happiness over the last couple of years. Meditation, inner work and contemplation of death for example have shifted my mental outlook in profound ways. Listening to great teachers like Alan Watts and contemplating on his teachings have paved my way to discover greatly helpful concepts to cope with life’s struggles. And I can honestly say I am much happier since implementing several mental practices into my daily life.

Conclusion

The bottom line of this post is that no matter what difficult situations life throws at you, you are most likely to benefit from them as well. Similar to physical training, where you first have to challenge and hurt the muscles in order for them to grow, life-challenges will grow your character, happiness and resilience. And in knowing that, you can actually appreciate the hard times. Seeing hard times as opportunities for growth allows you to search for constructive solutions to your problems. Leaving you better off in the end than without that challenging life-event.

The different levels of ketosis

If you reduce your intake of carbohydrates, your body increases the amount of fat it burns. Lowered levels of insulin allow for a greater release of free fatty acids into the blood. Their utilization by almost all tissues goes up. But the interesting thing is that not all tissues and organs are able to get all of their energy from metabolizing fat. The brain, some immune-cells and mucous producing cells in the gut have a hard time getting 100% of their energy requirements from fat.

From a certain point onwards, the body starts produce ketone bodies as a byproduct of fat metabolism. In highly adapted individuals the brain for example can derive 75% of its energy from the utilization of ketone bodies. It will always require a certain amount of glucose. This can either come from glucose from food or through gluconeogenesis.

Therefore the adaptation to a ketogenic diet has several phases. At the beginning a low carbohydrate diet is accompanied by quiet a high amount of ketone bodies expelled in the urine. This shows that the body is burning a lot of fat, but organs like the brain are not jet able to fully utilize the ketones that are present. Only if the level of carbohydrates are consistently kept very low (<30gr/day) will the body fully switch over.  After several weeks the levels of ketone bodies in the urine should go down. Though this can take up to several month. Once this happened, protein requirements will drop even further.

A critical point during the adaptation phase

But the most critical point is probably the mucous producing cells, lining the gut walls. They require carbohydrate, from which they form the mucous. It is not clearly known if those cells can ever fully do their job without carbohydrates. There are concerns, that this increases the risk of colon cancer. Because cells in the lining of the colon are no longer optimally protected.

To prevent this it is also critical to maintain a proper amino-acid intake. Heavy reliance on muscle meats as it can be found in many keto-dieters is also detrimental to the mucous lining of the gut. Glycine, Proline, Cysteine, Serine and Threonine are important amino acids for those mucin-producing cells. Mucin is the glycoprotein that the mucus consists of. Glycine and proline are usually the amino acids that most people are falling short in. Even though they are semi-essential amino acids, sometime the body cannot produce enough of them for optimal functioning. Gelatin would be one good source for those amino acids. On a vegan diet though, the best strategy is to eat a variety of nuts, seeds and protein rich vegetables like leafy greens and mushrooms.

The adaptation phase is challenging

Few people truly adapt to the ketogenic state, because it is so hard during the adaptation phase. One cannot imagine that there is light at the end of the tunnel and most people quit before they reap the benefits.

Personal experience with getting fully keto-adapted

I have found that I could get into a highly adapted state by a pure water fast. Afterwards I broke the fast with the most low carb vegan foods I could think of. I feel so incredible different than I did before on a higher carb diet (100-150gr/day) that I plan on staying on this protocol for as long as possible. I am also curious to see where this diet leads me health wise and in my mental performance and wellbeing.

I have found the water fast to be an ideal way to get fully keto adapted. As many people complain about the difficulties of giving up sweets or reducing carbohydrate intake, I have found it easy to compress all the withdrawal symptoms into one week and go cold turkey on everything. That’s basically what a fast does and why so many people feel so bad during the first few days. It is quitting a lot of addictions at once (stimulating food, coffee, alcohol, drinks,…)

The great advantage of the water fast for the ketogenic dieter

After even a short water fast (one week)most of your taste buds have recovered and are very sensitive. You are not craving sweet food anymore and if you break the fast with low carb food (avocado for example) you can expect to have a heightened sensitivity for sweet tastes. Even things like avocado, celery and spinach will have a remarkably sweet taste. This sets you up for success on the ketogenic diet, where sweet tastes are usually very subtle. 

Trying out the opposite of the one meal a day diet: Grazing

I have in the past eaten the one meal a day diet for a couple of month. I felt good on it and liked some aspects of it and disliked others.

Now that I am coming off of a prolonged water fast and my body is highly adapted to burning fat, I will continue eating high fat plant based. But I will switch over to several smaller, even sized meals throughout the day. This means, I am going to eat 5 meals of the same size every three hours. Or, as I plan to prepare a smoothie in the morning, I will drink a few sips of that throughout the day.

My rough calculation:

6days/week: 5x400kcal=2000kcal
1day/week: 0kcal
daily average 1.700kcal

After my prolonged water fast I guess my body is efficient enough to survive on that level of calories.

Nuts are a convenient snack for me

What is the purpose of grazing?

I intend to get better nutrient absorption from grazing. I have found that I did not fully digest my meal, if I only eat once a day. This resulted in muscle-twitching leading me to the conclusion that I am deficient in some minerals.

Grazing and low-carb – a necessary combination?

Every time I start eating a larger amount of carbohydrates, I have a hard time stopping myself before the point of being fully stuffed. And even than I find myself wanting more. Therefore I think the combination of high fat and grazing can be a good combination. I even wonder if hunger will ever be a motivator to eat on that eating pattern. I am more concerned about having to stop myself earlier than what I was used to. After the fast I do not want to gain weight too fast. I want to build healthy lean weight.

But I can imagine, that the combination of grazing and high carb low fat might work equally well. Volume is generally high on that diet and the small meals might level out the blood sugar and not cause huge spikes.

I am going to report my experiences with this in future posts...

Did I fast to completion? And my low-carb fasting exit!

My fast to completion officially came to an end. I wasn’t expecting for it to be so short. But it is not surprising either. I started out with a low body fat percentage (visible abs) and overall with a BMI that classified me as underweight. Additionally I proceeded the fast with an active lifestyle: Working, walking, ice skating and body-weight exercises.

Why did I end the fast?

Given the cold weather I was doing the fast in, it was no surprise that I quickly used up my reserves. But I trusted my body to tell me when to stop the fast. First indicator was that my tongue cleared up. It was no longer coated in white and my breath became much less offensive.

Additionally I noticed a feeling in my throat. I was first thinking it is increased thirst. But it was not relieved by drinking more. So from what I have read, this is the beginning of real hunger. I also had the desire to eat, even though I was confused at first. Because this came so early in the fast and I had expected to go for a couple of more days. But I guess my body went through the issues he had to heal and decided that I should better start eating again. I guess that is a good sign with me weighing 51kg at 173cm after the fast. With a considerable amount of muscle left, it indicates my fat reserves are low.

How did I break the fast low carb?

So I broke the fast, but not in a hurry. I purchased celery and white cabbage to make a juice out of it first. Over the course of 5 hours I drank about 500ml of this fresh juice. Approximately half celery juice, half cabbage juice. It is incredible how good and how sweet even this combination tasted. So the end of a fast is a good point to start on a low sugar diet. Your taste-buds are so sensitive you will get a lot of satisfaction from much lower amount of sugar.

Next morning I continued with a green smoothie with spinach, coconut, flaxseeds and avocado and one date. I made a big shake and took it with me to work. I drank about 100ml each hour. It was a whole avocado in total and about 300gr of spinach.

On the side I drank some diluted sauerkraut juice to repopulate my colon with good bacteria.

I think the most important point of breaking the fast, is to keep the amount of food low. And then it might work with almost any food.

The great advantage of breaking the fast low carb

Many people experience uncontrollable hunger after the fast, when they start drinking fruit juices and eating fruit. This is to be expected, because of the huge insulin spike and blood sugar fluctuations. I experienced the same thing after my first two prolonged fasts. It can be a torture to stop yourself from eating when you mind screams at you to dig in. You have basically cut yourself off from the fuel supply you were using during the fast. Insulin inhibits the use of fats and ketones. Therefore your body is immediately thrown into other metabolic pathways. And those need time to properly restart and build all the necessary enzymes.

Breaking the fast low carb is very different. I experienced no such thing as cravings or hunger. I felt very content with the first sips of the juices. The celery and cabbage juice has probably 5-8 times less sugar than any fruit juice. And given I drank it so slowly, it probably did not cause a considerable rise in blood sugar.

Also the smoothie on the next day was very satisfying. I was not craving more. Instead I was happy that it kept my stomach engaged and working on digesting it. I did not even finish all that I prepared, even though it was only about 800kcal for the day. Would it have been a smoothie of 800kcal of bananas you could be certain, to find me drinking it within one hour and ravenous immediately afterwards.

If you consider the metabolic side, I am actually not changing much from the fasted state. I am utilizing the same metabolic pathways, just that the digestion has to be restarted and the energy is coming from fats that originate from outside the body. From there it is the same thing. And body tissue and proteins that were formerly broken down are now coming partially from glucose and partially from ingested protein.

I am glad, I discovered this way of breaking and entering a fast!

Any issues?

The breaking of the fast this was not without problems. Immediately after my bowels started to move again, I experienced some pain. But I would guess this is not so much related to low carb foods as it is to the hardened feces that formed in my large intestines and that I still did not pass. The pain might be caused by the contractions of the bowels in combination with those stones of waste. So nothing really bad happened and I attribute that to the fact that I was easily able to keep my portion size small. In addition I spread my portions throughout the day instead of having a few big meals.

In another post I will explain why I am now more fully in ketosis than ever before and why I will continue to eat a high fat vegan diet for as long as it is suitable. (Summer with all the fresh fruit available here in Germany might be an exception) There are different levels of ketone adaptation. 

Reasons for fasting to completion

Why fast so long until the body has used up all its reserves? Here are a few reasons I have come across so far and that I find make some sense:

1. The body will have completed autolysis: In theory, when your body’s fat reserves are mostly used up, you also have gone through all damaged tissues and either repaired or used them for energy. This leaves no damaged dysfunctional cells. Making the body efficient and disease free.
2. From this point you can start building healthy tissue. As only health cells remained, you will only generate healthy cells when refeeding. As their DNA is still intact proper cell-replication takes place.
3. All stored toxins have been released from the body. Fat tissue stores most toxins. And once it is gone, with it are the toxins. If you continue to watch your toxin exposure after the fast, mainly through a healthy diet, you should be able to maintain this clean state.
4.  Addictions to coffee, alcohol and unhealthy food have been broken. If you are careful not to engage in them again it is very easy now to stay away from them.
5. Your body has reached maximum efficiency. And if your goal was to get to a healthy bodyweight, then this is a good starting point. You can reap the benefits of caloric restriction after the fast, if you slowly increase your calories again.
6. You are highly adapted to a ketogenic state. This could be the ideal time to start a ketogenic or low carb diet(plant based of course).
7. Probably for the first time in your life (and maybe the only time) you will experience true hunger. This in turn will lead to the awareness that skipping a meal does not cause hunger.
8. When breaking the fast earlier, the body is actually not yet ready to take in food. The process of cleansing and healing is not yet finished.