Let’s Go - My Journey to 100%

[Cdsnuts]

I have a binaural beats playlist on spotify. I remembering it helped my back in the days when I crashed. Guess I can listen to that again while I meditate.

I'm just saying.....if you're having that much trouble with the brain not settling during meditation, binaural beats will "push" your brain into the state you need it in. Not sure of the quality of what you're using, but it would be better then NOT using it during this time.

[LetsGo]

After my first weeklong experiment with tribulus triggered an upswing all by itself, I took a break from it for a week and restarted it, but it didn’t have the same effect the second time. I’ll probably need to take a longer break, but if it’s a way to reliably force myself to have an upswing then I think that would be nice. Or if it could strengthen or prolong an upswing, that’d be great. Maybe after a full month break from trib I will give it a try again, but of course it could be a fluke and maybe it won’t have that effect ever again, in which case at least I have higher-quality tribulus. I still have a hint of the tribulus taste in my mouth even a week after I stopped taking it, so it must take awhile to clear out of the body and for the tolerance to dissipate.

Anyway, I’m back in the gym now, and I’m doing sprints at the park on the non-gym days. (I found a better place to do the sprints, it’s a lot easier when I do them in a loop around a beautiful 300 meter long pond.) I’m doing the herbal rotation as always. My weight is down 20 lbs, and I’m hoping that adding the muscle back will help my testosterone and give me more upswings. As part of that, I’m watching my calories and protein to ensure I’m getting enough.

I want to get to that point where I’m having upswings more frequently. I hope that finally being militant about doing the sprints AND the lifting, 7 days per week combined, will lead to more progress and upswings.

I’m in a slump symptom-wise, and I feel like my testosterone is still low. I know morning wood isn’t the end-all be-all, but it’s an accurate barometer of testosterone. It’s usually like a 1/4th pre-erection kind of deal, which is better than nothing (which it was for many years.) I’m not sure that I’ll be able to benefit from the andosterone prohormones since my testosterone is low, so I will probably have to wait until I’m getting consistent morning wood, or an upswing, and then start it then, hoping for it to sustain the upswing a bit longer or something. Back when I tried the other prohormone, I felt nothing positive or negative from it, aside from terrible insomnia. So maybe your testosterone has to be high enough for it to do anything.

I feel like I still have brain fog, like I’ve had it mostly the whole time, except I think during upswings. I’m not sure if it’s brain fog or just the effects of not getting enough sleep, though. Somehow I’m able to do fine at work, including complicated legal stuff - so I don’t know if it’s really brain fog. I can think clearly, but I sometimes feel disconnected from everything, and spacey.

I’m trending upwards in the sleep department as I instituted a strict no phone in the bedroom rule. I still feel an urge to waste time on it, but I’m cutting back. Possibly the best thing would be to do a digital cleanse as CD said, although I don’t know what I’d do with myself. All my friends are 130 miles away, and I do need my phone to talk to clients and stuff. It will be nice when I no longer reflexively reach over to where my phone usually is, when I’m having trouble falling asleep. I just need to train myself to turn off. Also the phone embargo is helping me with NoFap. It’s probably the absolute key to it, for me. The longest I’ve gone this year was a mere 4 days - which is not good. Back in 2017 I used to go 14 days without any effort, because I really had almost no libido. (My brother told me that was completely normal libido, which was shocking to me, but everyone is different. Pre-fin normal for me, in my late 20s so this wasn’t a teenager thing - was every day. If I took off a full day I couldn’t concentrate on anything.)

The fact that I have had some libido progress, and upswings, should be encouraging and it should mean that I didn’t lose all my gains. Also back in December and January I had a good upswing, and another one in March. So… that’s not nothing, even though it’s not great. With things more dialed-in, I should start feeling less shitty in a few weeks or a month.

Years ago, I used to feel like such an old man every morning as I got out of bed, and I don’t feel that way anymore. I never feel refreshed, I never feel full of life and energy, but I also don’t feel like I’m a dead man walking.

And now… it’s bedtime. Shockingly, I’m actually tired around midnight, and not 2:30 AM. If I could reliably get 7 or 7.5 hours of sleep every night, it would be a game changer. 8 hours would be amazing.

[johnsmith]

There's an app called "Freedom" that I would highly recommend. Chris Bailey recommends it. I bought a life time subscription for it. It's great for blocking apps, and websites on all of your devices at the same time. Time is money and an app like this can save you a lot of time. I don't have the will power to fight internet addiction etc. on my own, but this app definitely helps.

[Cdsnuts]

There's an app called "Freedom" that I would highly recommend. Chris Bailey recommends it. I bought a life time subscription for it. It's great for blocking apps, and websites on all of your devices at the same time. Time is money and an app like this can save you a lot of time. I don't have the will power to fight internet addiction etc. on my own, but this app definitely helps.

Wouldn't buying a flip phone do the same thing. Then you can use it for what it was meant to be used for, calling people.

[johnsmith]

Wouldn't buying a flip phone do the same thing. Then you can use it for what it was meant to be used for, calling people.

Haha, yea it definitely would. I didn't know you guys were into flip phones. That's awesome. Flip phones also give off less EMF's etc.

[Cdsnuts]

Haha, yea it definitely would. I didn't know you guys were into flip phones. That's awesome. Flip phones also give off less EMF's etc.

Honestly, I loved the flip phone era. It just felt more like a phone and it was always pleasurable to hang up on someone by flipping the thing closed. It's just not the same on a smart phone. That being said, I was the last hold out of all my friends to get a smart phone...finally had to break down and get one in 2012. Now, simply because of it's capabilities, it's impossible for me to go back, although I do miss my Razor......lol

[LetsGo]

So I’m closing in on 2 weeks of being fully back to the workouts, including sprints, and so far I’m still deep in a downswing. Obviously these things take time and I know that by now but it’s still annoying. I’m still a long ways behind where I was when I first quit gluten, when I started getting morning wood every day and more frequent upswings. I don’t really know that I’ll be fully recovered later this year like I was saying, but we’ll see how things go.

I end up eating most of my calories for the day in the evening after my workout of the day. I can’t really think of stuff that I’m doing wrong except that I should get more sleep (I’m improving in that area). We’ll see how a long NoFap streak goes, not sure it will have a major impact but it’s something that has to be done anyway and it’s not like I experience pleasure from it anyway.

I’m not sure if I lost all of my PFS-recovery gains, I think I may have. Damn Covid.

[LetsGo]

I’m not sure if it sets me back if I fap every 4th or 5th day.

If so then I need some kind of new strategy to deal with it. It’s not even real strong libido but I just feel compelled to act on it when it’s there. I don’t go to any adult websites, but still. Not sure how detrimental that is or if that’s like the one missing piece that will make my progress a lot faster.

[MungYarlon]

I’m not sure if it sets me back if I fap every 4th or 5th day.

If so then I need some kind of new strategy to deal with it. It’s not even real strong libido but I just feel compelled to act on it when it’s there. I don’t go to any adult websites, but still. Not sure how detrimental that is or if that’s like the one missing piece that will make my progress a lot faster.

This issue is, though, your condition could be tied to POIS. It's something I've always struggled with, and something I never knew others didn't experience (i.e. brain fog, memory issues etc. after masturbation)
Postorgasmic illness syndrome - Wikipedia

[LetsGo]

This issue is, though, your condition could be tied to POIS. It's something I've always struggled with, and something I never knew others didn't experience (i.e. brain fog, memory issues etc. after masturbation)
Postorgasmic illness syndrome - Wikipedia

Thanks for the reply, but I don’t get any of those symptoms after I ejaculate, and I have never really struggled with premature ejaculation except in the early days of PFS. I don’t think it’s likely that in my late 20s, I would develop POIS coincidentally at the exact same time as PFS, and if I did, it would be caused by the PFS and it would go away when I cure my PFS. So this isn’t a lifetime issue that I would have to deal with.

I do get a total loss of libido after ejaculating, and then it takes several days to get any libido back, whereas pre fin I had a vastly better and stronger libido with strong morning wood every day. During upswings my libido quickly rebounds after ejaculation.

I feel like my situation is just straight PFS without any other disorders on top of it.