Johnny Belgium

Our gut and brains evolved for hundreds of millions of years in nature. Civilization has created hyperstimulating products that hijack our primitive reward system. For instance. We are programmed by evolution to seek out salt, fat and sugar. So corporations make products loaded with those. We are programmed to achieve goals, so corporations make video games. We depend on others in nature, with social media we can connect to everyone in the world. And organizations, legal or otherwise, sell drugs that chemically trigger a reward directly, like alcohol, tabacco, cocaine or weed. Sometimes an addiction can be productive. Like a work addiction, an exercise addiction or an addiction to optimizing your diet for health. But productive addictions can also lead you down a harmful path.  Dopamine is the motivation chemical. It actually releases in anticipation of something exciting. You get your first hit of dopamine before your behavior. Another name for addiction is habit-forming. When you...

Hi there! It is so great that you are curious about staying healthy. Think of your body like a super cool, high-tech machine. To keep it running fast and strong, it needs clean air, just like a car needs clean fuel. Smoking is like putting sticky, black yucky stuff into that machine. Here are the most common and "big" boo-boos smoking can cause: 1. The "Balloon" Problem (Lungs) Your lungs are like two big, bouncy balloons inside your chest that help you breathe.  * Trouble Breathing: Smoking makes those balloons stiff and full of "soot" (like from a fireplace). This makes it very hard to run and play because you feel like you're trying to breathe through a tiny, pinched straw.  * The "Big Sick" (Cancer): Sometimes, the icky chemicals in the smoke make "bad spots" grow inside the lungs. These spots are very greedy and don't let the healthy parts of the body do their job. 2. The "Pump" Problem (Heart) Your heart is a str...

The blue light of the tube flickers against the peeling wallpaper. You sit there, a lump of meat in a chair, deciding how to kill the clock before the clock kills you. You’ve got two bags. One is filled with fried salt and the other with bitter weeds. Here is how the body pays the bill. The Bag of Potato Chips: The Slow Suicide You reach in. The grease coats your fingers like a cheap sin. It’s thin, it’s crispy, and it’s a lie.  * The Heart’s Heavy Toll: It’s all saturated fats and trans fats. They crawl into your arteries like sludge in a rusted pipe. Your blood pressure climbs the ladder while your heart gasps for air.  * The Salt Sting: The sodium is a desert in your mouth. It holds onto water, bloating you until your skin feels like a tight suit that doesn’t fit anymore.  * The Sugar Spike: The refined starch hits the gut and turns into sugar. Your insulin screams, your energy peaks for a second, and then you’ve got the crash—leaving you emptier than when you started....

In no particular order... 1. SOAKED OATS Soak some Oats or Muesli in Soy Drink for a couple of hours. Oats are very filling and nutritious. For one thing, they lower bad cholesterol. 2. CANNED GOODNESS Eat canned beans and other canned plants for an easy meal. You can eat them cold. Maybe add some Oil, Salt*, Pepper. 3. MICROWAVE WOK Some people are paranoid about the magic of the microwave. But Chef Mike is actually one of the healthiest ways to cook your plants. The trick is to use low watt and long time settings. About 15min-20min on 350W. You can buy wok vegetable mixes or cut cheap vegetables yourself. Put them in a glass Pyrex bowl, no need to add water. Add some Canned Beans for protein. Add Oil, Salt*, Pepper. With enough water, you can cook Rice with Chef Mike. 4. FRUIT & NUTS As a quick snack that doesn't need any prep or a fridge, you can eat Fruit and Nuts. Nuts are high in Protein and Healthy Fats. Eat only a handful of Nuts per day and some Nuts can be unhealthy i...

I cannot stop myself from influencing. Though it often feels compulsive and sometimes a storm of posts happens. Sometimes the incessant wars in the media get to me and I post a bunch of stuff that I later delete in shame. A Whole Foods Plant Based Diet (WFPB Diet) is a healthy way to loose weight. Your mortal SOUL will also feel light if you avoid animal products. I came across a Vegan Indy Horror Movie that is streaming for FREE on YouTube:  A44 (2025) Click Here For A44 on YouTube. I watched some 3min of it, but shut it off I want to watch with friends. It looks like a Larf (Cockney for laugh). A fun B movie. WARNING!: A Vegan Diet must be well planned! Check out veganhealth.org for professional and FREE guidance. Try to respond with LOVE. peace!

Hello. You shouldn't take advice from people that haven't achieved what they want to sell to you. Obviously their insight hasn't worked for them. Like an overweight dietician. A crazy psychiatrist. A writing teacher that has never sold a book. I threw some shade at The Haters in my previous Life Update, and unpublished it because it didn't feel right. Anyway... why should you believe me? My childhood was drama, neglect and abuse... even as a very awkward adult I was bullied. But I'm well adjusted now. Know how to act. I did the inner work. Either I have no ego, or my ego is solid. I like myself. I keep working on myself. I won't say I am happy all the time. The world sometimes weighs on me. But I think I have both feet in reality. And sometimes I feel authentic JOY and LOVE for the world. I was on disability and never had to work again. But for many reasons, mostly to show an example to the kids in my life, I got back to work. I work in a warehouse where I do 30...

A lot of the problems in the world and in our minds are caused by an inability to experience discomfort. We give in to urges and compulsions.  We do not confront shame.  We can't accept an unpleasant fact like climate change or mortality or that we wasted years.  We procrastinate because our emotion is trying to discourage us.  We want to cut corners or quit.  We can't confront that we caused harm.  We can't take criticism.  We can't let go of an old identity that we sunk a lot of resources into.  We fear enforcing a personal boundry. and so on Don't be ruled by emotion. Our minds were adapted to live in a tribe in nature, and our instincts only care about spreading genes, but the world has changed. Our emotions are telling us something. We shouldn't suppress our emotions. But we shouldn't let them be in charge either. If you can accept discomfort, and plow ahead anyway, you will be growing and moving forward.  It's okay to feel bad sometimes...

Ik gaf dit deze tekst ingebonden met enkele van mijn blogposts aan mijn Zuster's kids die tieners zijn en aan hun neef die een jonge twintiger is. Intussen zou ik één stukje inzicht nog willen toevoegen. Dit: Accepteer het ongemak van discipline of je zal moeten leven met de pijn van gevolgen. Veel problemen komen omdat mensen geen ongemak kunnen verdragen. Ze verdragen geen honger of andere dwingende verlangens, ze verbergen en onderdrukken hun pijn, ze kijken de dood niet in de ogen, ze geven hun grenzen niet aan om conflict te vermijden... Nodig ongemak uit in je leven wanneer je beseft dat je er beter zal van worden.  It's okay to feel bad. Pain is a teacher. Hier is wat ik doorgaf aan de kids: Ik hou niet van lange zinloze introducties. Ik wou niet wachten op jullie verjaardagen, want misschien ben ik dan al dood. Deze levenslessen heb ik op de harde manier geleerd. Ik riskeer spot of boosheid (waarmee bemoeit die zich…) omdat ik het beste voor jullie wens. Je doet ermee w...

The GAY character that Happy Slapper Mr Will Smith plays in the philosophical New York Bourgeois movie "Six Degrees Of Separation" (1993) likes to celebrate with SEX. I'm kinda like that as well. Some people like to drown their sorrows. However, when I feel sad, I want to feel it deeply and stay sober. But my trigger for bad behavior is happiness. When I want to celebrate, I drop my resolutions: I eat animals, eat junkfood, spend money, drink coffee... I've been celebrating the annoucement of a Solid State Battery by the Helsinki based business Donut Lab. They appear to have solved every problem with batteries. This is as big as "Hello World". This Old Doomer might even become an optimist. I need to anticipate and be aware of this Happy Trigger so I may intervene between impulse and action. I need to find something to replace my unhealthy ways of celebrating. I will use my own brain to come up with something, and not ask a wasteful AI to think for me. Sex? p...