So, I don’t use the gum as intended. I actually skipped smoking and went straight for the gum. It’s a dopamine/pleasure thing. Instead of eating or drinking to feel good, I chew gum and drink some coffee. Anyways, mindfulness helps, but the meditations only last an hour or so max. I eat more flavorful and healthy food when I’m on my diet/lifestyle change, but my appetite is excessive. anything that creates pleasure, acts as a substitute for eating more than I need to.

So, between periods of meditation, when I eat, I need to eat just enough to not be hungry, but not so much as to be full. The problem is my stomach is larger since I became obese, so my appetite’s larger. Cannabis, nicotine, alcohol, etc. give enough satisfaction between meals I don’t need to go back and eat more when I’m not physically hungry.

I have a vaporizer, but I lost it, so in the meantime I’ve been chewing nicotine gum. Nicotine on it’s own is fairly low in harm without the other things found in tobacco smoke. I also have adhd, which results in lower dopamine and a frequent search for pleasure.

Meditation works while I’m doing it, and helps in between, but I need some way to bridge the gap because I crave food or drink, etc. when I’m done meditating. If I really want to drop weight, I have to find other ways to produce enough dopamine.

I can do this with coffee/caffeine, spicy foods, my adhd medication, dark chocolate, nicotine, cannabis, alcohol, strong cheeses, bright light/sunshine, exercise, video games, social interaction, dhamma talks, psychology lectures, petting my cat, working on hobbies, burning incense, sexual experiences, hot baths, self-massage, stretching, journaling, etc.

It’s just been hard to balance these things without over relying on one or the other. And i tend to feel guilty by successfully losing weight using substances. Especially if I going to do a fundraiser for the surgery in the end, I want my methods of weight loss to be something most people can do too.

Sorry if this post is too long, you could just skim it if you want to, I’m not sure how to trim it down.

I have a very difficult time sticking to schedules, it’s just a part of my, relatively uncommon personality type (infp according to meyers briggs). However, by striking off the word schedule, and just keeping “Daily Routine”, I have been able to adapt to things like this, I just keep the list of things, and do different variations of them and allow more flexibility in time slots.

The diet I’ll be using is a tweaked version of the specific carbohydrate diet, which is designed to keep Crohn’s disease in remission, and has mental health benefits also.

Also, you don’t really need to go through everything below too much, it ended up just being mostly a brain dump which helped me realize, upon review, I already live a full and busy life full of meaning, which was nice to realize. It reminds me of the mexican fisherman story if you’ve ever heard it, if you haven’t and you’re curious, I’ll link it in my next post.

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So, not that you need details, but a plan would be sort of like this: wake up, have coffee and adhd medicine, wait for about 30 minutes before breakfast (necessary for my specific medication), have breakfast (eggs with onions, veggies, homemade hot sauce, and maybe some salmon on the side), listen to music, rest a little bit and have half my gum, or when I find it, vape, start my daily projects which vary from hobbies to studying web dev (not sure how much of each I’ll be doing),

have coffee with cocoa powder stirred in every here and there until ~10 am, then switch to decaf, exercise (treadmill, sword exercises, bodyweight exercises, etc.) stretch a bit, snacks in between meals of a small quantity of walnuts, some fruit, and sometimes olives, homemade fruit juice and carbonated water sodas 1-3 a day (30% juice max, 70+% carbonated water), meditate or journal, or rest, just working with my mind and emotions, lunch, potentially a half glass of wine – but not every day, brushing my teeth while watching dhamma talks or psychology lectures (my main entertainment that I watch), run and feed my cat for her snack time, feed her lunch, sit with her after lunch, possibly while journaling/watching videos.

Vape as desired once found (nicotine gum is much more expensive than homemade vaporizer fluid mg per mg of nicotine), possibly nap/meditate for 15 minutes not quite falling asleep, ideally read a little every day, try to complete some projects and brainstorm on others, self-massage once a week during the day, sexual experience once a week during the day (most convenient time for me as less people are around), have my lunch, organize and clean a little, work on maintaining my electronics, dump the bucket of water under by bathtub faucet(it leks and the seal that seals the drain pipe to the tube is gone right now, so it goes into the roof of my garage and has to be captured so that doesn’t happen), shower every other day(I have to use my parent’s shower and my mom’s always home, so it makes me uncomfortable), informal meditation throughout the day of 10 seconds to a minute, routine tasks like getting my prescriptions filled and finding the coupons for them (my health insurance under my parents ended in november, but I’ll be getting some soon), cook every morning, and cook ahead of time for several meals every couple days. Begin fermenting soybeans, sauerkraut, and homemade wine for probiotic effect and to save money.

In the evening play some games, have a large glass of dry red wine, a slice of extra sharp cheddar, some walnuts, and a pickle. Hang out with family, talk with online friends and acquaintances, feed the cat, have dinner, stop nicotine use ~ 2-3 hours before bed so the stimulant effect wears off, maybe another small snack, preferably no more wine, but for the first 2-3 weeks I’ll be liberal with it, have a melatonin and take my other medicine, go upstairs, turn off the main lights and turn up my salt lamps for their reddish light, meditate and listen to relaxing music and fireplace sounds, and go to sleep. I can also use cbd hemp as desired, thc has become unenjoyable for me since my last major psychiatric problem occurred (and thankfully that hasn’t recurred), it’s too psychedelic for me no to use daily, and I save it for occasional spiritual-related use (and only the delta 8 variety, which is legal in my state, whereas the natural delta 9 is not). Cbd sometimes helps me, but I find it only helps when I crave it, I think my body knows when I should take it and when I should not.

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So, basically, a chaotic routine, which has many things the same each day, and many things different. Without the daily variation, I kind of end up wanting to pull my hair out, lol. Pleasure aka kama is a concept I like in Hinduism, though I’m mostly Buddhist, there are aspects of other religions I quite like, and I do also pull from Christianity, Hinduism, Yoga, and Shamanism of various types. Again although, I’m primarily Buddhist in my approach to spirituality. I also pull from psychology, psychiatry, biology, philosophy, ethics, and other sciences, subjects, and areas.

I plan to make a weekly meal plan for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks. A weekly priority list, brainstorming lists, a rich and meaningful life plan (an idea from a YouTube psychologist), a values list, a meditation list (types and such), a list of forums where I engage socially, and entertainment list (I want to start reading and listening to books again), a hygiene and grooming plan, a study plan (I want to learn web dev, 3d modeling and animation, math, biology, and several other things), a list of SMART goals(specific, measurable, achievable, realistic/relevant, and time limited), and a few other lists and plans, a list of herbal and non-herbal supplements to buy or make(I need to make a salt supplement for example as I tend to run low on sodium).

I’m actually a very busy, productive, and hard-working person it turns out, even though I rarely think of myself as such, usually viewing myself as lazy because I get tired a lot and make lots of time for rest in the day. Thanks for encouraging me to write stuff out, it really helps, and since I tend to be verbose, the way you cut them down into concise point is very helpful. It helps me take excessively detailed and broad ideas and narrow them down.