The Lord of the Rings Challenge

I will always brother...

 

Welcome, dwarven brother!

 

Congratulations Brother Well Done

 

Day 376

 

Day 35

 

Day 7 complete!

Still felt urges today, brought up by porn memories. The desire to search up one specific thing I've seen several times in the past was quite strong. Remembering that today was Friday and my last reset was on a Friday helped me get through. I want to improve wherever I can, because if I'm not improving, I'm sliding.

Sorry to hear about all your troubles, brother. But, if you recognize that your body wants porn to deal with problems, that's better than not knowing. Knowledge is power, as they say. You can fight the enemy better if you are aware of his tactics. You used to have a job monitoring content on Facebook, right? Of course having a job is important, but it sounded like that job was really bad for you, so I hope you can find solid, clean work soon!

Hang in there, and keep your head up. Fear makes urges more powerful and harder to resist. Try to think of them as opportunities to show more of that same fortitude that got you through yesterday!

St. Martin of Tours, pray for us.

 

Day 13 completed

 

Day 74 complete.

I am good again, no phishing, I think I looked at a few girls profiles that were not actualy necesary for me to see. But all in all good.

Great quote, I will keep it in mind.

Awesome achevement. I bet you will do great in spring, just don’t give up.

 

13 days

 

Unfortunately I messed up yesterday.
It started slowly. I actively searched for porn in the morning but quickly closed the window. thought I had set my head right but I guess that wasn't the case.
A couple hours later I did the same thing.
I tried to convince myself that it was just a slip and moved on.

At that point I was ready to reset my counter and reset my mind... but I didn't. I sort of gave up and decided to go the full M&O. i know, stupid of me.
And that's where we are now. It's been a few hours since then.
I had a bad couple of days (mentally) and I think that's what weakened me. I should have been a bit more guarded in my weakened state!

On the positive side, I'm not feeling as down about it as I used to: The shame that I used to experience after a fall isn't really there.
I'm happy about it (lack of shame), but I also realize that I need to be extremely cautious over the next few hours and days to avoid getting into a relapse loop.

Fuck! I had just become a Hobbit!

@RiseToGreatness Unfortunately, this hobbit has fallen. I am now a Nazgul once again.

Today is Day 0

 

Checking in, things have been going well. I talk to my wife about my problem and that really helps me stay realistic about it. I am currently on a work trip which would usually always make me relapse, being on my own, lonely, nothing to do at night etc.

I am staying strong and it feels good. I have so much more time, feeling healthier and more productive. Hope I can remember these thigns when the urges come.

 

Day 23...

 

Day 369 no PMO. Still doing good with nofap but my weight loss situation is on the skids and I need to get back on the plan.

 

Why don't you try your local parkrun to help you with your weight?

 

Checking in Fellowship Friends!

Day 401 free of MO and day 10 free of porn. I return to double digits of freedom.

For today's topic of discussion, I would like to bring back our attention to rest and recovery.

Hindsight has finally reached me, after 4 very difficult and challenging weeks. I'm realizing to what extent I was not taking care of my self. Yes, I was practicing my regular morning and night meditation..but this was not enough. The damage I was doing, from both physical and emotional stress, was building up. This lead to a relapse of porn substitute and half a porn video, 10 days ago.

I've noticed that even my workouts were a recipe for heightened cortisol release. For those who don't know, cortisol is known as your stress hormone. When you have heightened levels, you are prone to anxiety, fatigue, muscle soreness , disturbed sleep, amongst a few other things. Disturbed sleep makes the situation worse, as you are just increasing your cortisol and exhausting yourself further, also heightening of all of the above symptoms. This happened to me, and it took a stupidly done workout yesterday to make everything click. I was noticing as the weeks would go on, basic tasks were becoming challenging and were making me ridiculously stressed and anxious , sore and fatigued. It was also a mini-lapse with regards to my burnout and PAWs symptoms. My workouts were no longer supporting my recovery, they became too taxing on the CNS(central nervous system for short). In fact, so much so that I started going backwards. In my experience higher reps are not friendly for someone who is going through withdrawal, nor is HIIT cardio, its best to approach a low intensity, lower repetitions and steady pace cardio approach, to support normalizing your cortisol levels and supporting your recovery.

Understand that there are many other variables that will increase your stress, the days where you are experiencing very many urges, your mind is at war throughout the day. It takes energy to deflect your urges and not give in. On those days, rest and recovery is even more crucial. Health cultivation is a key factor, one that I neglected, in moving forward with your journey and supporting victory over addiction and victory over whatever your day to day struggle is.

My next course of action will be to take 1-2 weeks off from workouts, i'll stick to stretching and walking. First week mostly off, as I want to do undo the damage that I have caused. After the two weeks elapse, I will decrease reps and remove certain exercises.

Stay Strong!

@ListenPaul Congratulations on triple digits! You've grown a lot brother.

 

Day 14

 

I agree with you. Sometimes we set some undefined workout goals. Some years ago I started with 10 pushups. Then I increased and increased. I reached 100. Then I reached 120 (in several sets). I also worked on the biceps. I used heavier and heavier weights and more and more repetitions. I don't know what my goal was - to become another Arnold Schwarzeneger? Suddenly after a biceps workout witout a warm-up I felt some injury above my elbow. It lingered for a week. I began to analyze it. The pain was all over my arm. I went to the doctor - he was clueless - he prescribed a lot of heavy anti-inflammation drugs. I took them for weeks and nothing has changed. I had a tingling sensation in my fingers.

I began to read about it and tested for various injuries. It turned out that the pain could come from the neck. There are nerves going from the spine to the tips of our fingers. Sometimes the nerves can be pinched (as a result of an injury, frequent repetions). I began a lot of nerve stretching exercises. It helped a lot.

So my advice - don't overdo with workout. Always start with a lot of stretching (in physiotherapy it's called nerve flossing). In my opinion, moderate exercises (for some people and at certain ages) are advisory - they have a very positive effect on the heart, blood pressure, joints, nerves, stress. This is the lesson I have learnt - it took me about two months to figure that out (2 months of suffering - applying various ointmenst, taking strong anti-inflammatory drugs that didn't work, buying a massaging device, and stressing and reading for hours during that time).

But it paid off. Today I have no side effects. Find your limits and don't exceed them.

 

Morning of the 21st day.

 

Day 205

I was able to start the career! Thank you for your prayers! Now I just have to find a place to live in the city . Pray so God's will is done please!

 

Thanks for the prayer. Yeah I had another urge attack not long after I posted. So I jumped in the cold shower for several minutes, but the funny thing is that even though I came out shivering and shaking, I didn't actually feel cold, so I think I really was close to resetting.

Day 5

Thoughts and urges were more manageable today than yesterday, but it was still a fight, and I'm in a more agreeable mood today, thankfully it's my weekend, so I can rest off this flatline.