Johnny Belgium

If I stay up past 21h00 (9pm) I get an overwhelming hunger attack like clockwork. It doesn't matter if I'm already full. And sometimes I get a bad feeling. Like when I make a social gaffe. For instance, recently a female friend hugged me, and I lifted her off the ground in a bear hug. I was cringing afterwards, worried I overstepped a boundary. With Mindfulness, you can make Cravings and Bad Feelings go: poef (gone). When you feel overwhelmed, welcome that feeling, and sit with it. Say to the feeling: "Hello there, I will take care of you". Do not run from a bad feeling. Do not push it down. Do not react to it either. Do not indentify with your feeling. Remind yourself: "This feeling is not who I am". Experience your feeling with awareness, curiosity and objectivity. Accept that it is there. Often, when you look into your feeling, you will realize that it is not substantial, and it will dissolve. If a storm is brewing in your mind, or a harmful urge is trigg...

I weighed more than 120kg, was addicted to Cigarettes, Alcohol, Weed, Junkfood, Social Media. I had high Cholesterol, Fatty Liver and was Pre-Diabetic. I was home on disability. Now I weigh 89.5kg, my Bloodwork is healthy and I'm working. What helped me a lot to stay motivated is watching YouTube videos every day of Health Science and testimonials of Addicts. There is a proverb in Dutch: "Out Of The Eye Is Out Of The Heart". It's more about relationships, but you can also say that if you don't constantly remind yourself of your goals, you might forget, and fall into a bad routine. peace ✌️ 💜 

Nonkel Jan's Gezonde Ghetto Kooktechniek :-) 1. Gezond Eten Kort Samengevat Eet echt eten. Voornamelijk planten. Niet te veel. Vermijd calorierijk fabriekseten vol met Suiker, Vet en Zout. Eet natuurlijke producten. Vermijd Rood Vlees: Lam, Varken en Koe. Vermijd Alcohol. Als je weinig Dieren Producten eet, dan moet je goed op uw voeding letten, en supplementen nemen. Uit mijn blog: If you eat mostly plants, you need to supplement! The supplements you have to take are Vitamin B12, Omega-3 EPA and DHA and Vitamin D3. The rest can be done with a complete diet. Obey the daily recommendations of supplements. Get your blood tested regularly for deficiencies specific to eating mostly plants. Eat meals that consist of: 1/4 Whole Grains: Oats, Buckwheat, Spelt, Wheat, Barley, Rice, Quinoa, Bulgur, Farro, Millit, Whole Grain Pasta, Whole Grain Bread, Sweet Potatoes,... 1/4 Pulses: Lentils, Chickpeas, Beans, Green Peas, Soy Products,... (Pulses are the edible seeds of the Legume plant) 2/4 V...

I believe moderation is a lie. For me at least. I learned that the hard way. If you want to quit an addiction, you have to say goodbye to that habit forever. But being too ambitious about your new resolutions can paralyse you.  When I was fat, for a period there I took long walks. Even though my foot hurt, probably from my weight. Then my brother wanted to do "De Dodentocht": a Belgium-famous 100km 24 hour walk, and do it before my 95 year old grandfather died. My grandfather was an avid walker, and had done that challenge multiple times. Even as a pensioner.  I decided to enroll as well (€60), with the ambition to loose the weight in time, and then just stopped walking. I think because the task was too daunting. I didn't do the walk. My brother, skinny, was at the start. He made numerous mistakes that he was warned about. His walk was hell. It was raining buckets and his feet were wet for instance. He was carrying bottles of water that weren't necessary. Wrong shoes....

  Click here to read my short guide on how to lose weight without getting hungry. (no profit motive) Read my blog for short and sweet stories about sobriety, mindfullness, happiness, eating whole foods, psychedelics... and more. (no profit motive) Good luck on your journey! If I can do it, so can you! 🖖💜🌱 peace

Motivation is really important in making good choices in the present moment. I used to be cynical (stupid) and rejected this idea. But it finally got through to my thick head. Willpower is more a matter of insight, tricks and tools, than of fighting your own mind. One of those tools is a strong motivation. One trick to be motivated is to think of the person you will become in 5 or 10 years. Every 7 years, all your body’s cells are replaced and you are a different person. You must be kind to that person, who is not you anymore. If you wouldn't harm a random person on the street, you shouldn't harm the new person you will become. Give future-you the best chance possible. As an act of kindness towards a fellow human.  Become aware that you are making choices every day. Those choices, every single one, will determine the life of future-you. When you are about to engage in harmful behavior, including alcohol, nicotine and junkfood, think of yourself in 10 years time. Choices become ...

Written for the nicest girl from Brussels I know. ❗️For plant based nutrition advice, don't turn to a rando like me. Instead, check out the following website by actual dieticians that studied and got a diploma:  https://veganhealth.org/ ❗️WARNING ❗️: If you eat mostly plants, you need to plan carefully and supplement.  You need to eat plenty of legumes (Beans, Chickpeas, Greenpeas, Lentils, Soy Products | dried raw legumes need to be soaked in plenty of water for minimun 12 hours, then cooked for a minimum of 60 minutes), Whole Grains, Vegetables, Dark Leafy Greens, Mushrooms, Fruits, Nuts and Seeds, Herbs and Spices. You need to take a multivitamin that includes Vitamine B12, Vitamine D, Vitamin A, Calcium, Zinc, Selenium, Iodine… Also take an algea sourced Omega 3 DHA and EPA supplement. Do not exceed the daily recommendations of supplements! If you are not used to eating lots of fiber, introduce whole plants into your diet slowly, to give your gut bacteria time to adjust. B...

!WARNING!: If you eat mostly plants, you need to plan carefully and supplement. You need to eat plenty of legumes (Beans, Chickpeas, Greenpeas, Lentils, Soy Products | dried raw legumes need to be soaked in plenty of water for minimun 12 hours, then cooked for a minimum of 60 minutes), Whole Grains, Vegetables, Dark Leafy Greens, Mushrooms, Fruits, Nuts and Seeds, Herbs and Spices. You need to take a multivitamin that includes Vitamine B12, Vitamine D, Calcium, Zinc, Selenium, Iodine… Also take an algea sourced Omega 3 DHA and EPA supplement. Do not exceed the daily recommendations of supplements! If you are not used to eating lots of fiber, introduce whole plants into your diet slowly, to give your gut bacteria time to adjust. Be aware that you may need to avoid certain plants that you are alergic or intolerant to. Only use stainless steel or glass cookware. Aluminium, copper or non-stick pots and pans leech toxic chemicals into your food. Use stainless steel or wooden utensils. Plast...

I am sober 126 days, after about 3 years of struggle, trying to quit. Sobriety is the ultimate high. My mind is working much better. I feel great, and motivated, now that I am not chemically messing with my reward circuits. Being sober, I recognize my own previous Junkie Logic in my friends. One thing in particular is that they cannot imagine never getting high or drunk again. So they come up with all sorts of tricks and rules to try and moderate. Only the weekends. Only at parties. Only once per month. I know someone who keeps their stash at another addicts house, to create a barrier, thereby exposing their friend to their addiction, when they end up showing up at their place several times per week. And it's all steaming BULLSHIT. It's Junkie Logic. They all fall off the wagon eventually. A friend said not long ago that they were going to quit for a month, after having psychotic symptoms. A week later they said they used again, but it's okay, "they have it under contr...

Don't get your medical advice from randos like me! For advice on eating Plants from actual dieticians, check this FREE website:  https://veganhealth.org/ If you eat mostly plants, you need to supplement! The supplements you have to take are Vitamin B12, Omega-3 EPA and DHA and Vitamin D3 . The rest can be done with a complete diet. Obey the daily recommendations of supplements. Get your blood tested regularly for deficiencies specific to eating mostly plants.  Eat meals that consist of: 1/4 Whole Grains: Oats, Buckwheat, Spelt, Wheat, Barley, Rice, Quinoa, Bulgur, Farro, Millit, Whole Grain Pasta, Whole Grain Bread, Sweet Potatoes,... 1/4 Pulses: Lentils, Chickpeas, Beans, Green Peas, Soy Products,... (Pulses are the edible seeds of the Legume plant) 2/4 Vegetables including Dark Leafy Greens (Arugula, Kale, Sprouts,...), Mushrooms and a little bit of Seaweed for the Iodine.  Use Herbs&Spices. As desert or a snack eat Fruits and Nuts. Click here for my complete guide...

Two LSD trips, years apart, and the Pixar movie Coco, gave me the insight that cynicism kills the love in my heart. Years ago I was going to watch the Pixar movie Coco during the peak of an LSD trip. But we watched the beginning and I deemed it 'too happy' and vetoed it. We switched it off. For years I was a cynical doomer. I would bathe my mind in bad news and make cynical jokes. Cynicism gave me pleasure. I wanted civilization to crash. I didn't see the good in people. I rejected positivity and optimism. I wasn't depressed, though. But I made others unhappy with my negativity. Then some 5 years after switching off Coco, I gave the movie another shot, again on LSD. Psychedelic means "The Mind Manifested". On psychedelics, you can become aware of how your minds works. Watching the beginning of Coco again, I realized that "Cynicism Kills Love". I felt it. The mechanism was laid bare by Lucy. I realized I had to open my heart for the sentimentality of ...

Things from my past keep surfacing in my mind. More often than not, unpleasant things. Things someone did to me, or things I did to someone that make me feel guilty and cringe. Often these actions were words. These things will only go away when your mind goes or you die. However, with mindfulness, you can learn to carry them with you. Instead of letting them drag you down.  Split yourself in two, when unpleasant thoughts surface. Split into the storm, and an observer of the storm. Experience your negative thoughts and emotions with the energy of curiosity instead of fear. When you become aware that your thoughts and emotions are excited, stop and ask yourself: what is this mind formation? Don't push it down. Don't try to run from it. But don't identify with it. Don't engage with it. Say to yourself: these thoughts and emotions don't define me.  Take your mind to the present moment: to your breath, your body and your senses. Let the storm in your mind float away. Tra...

You can choose to live a life of intentionality, of mindfulness and awareness, instead of living life on autopilot, lost in thought loops about the past or the future. People take numerous actions every day that decide the difference between living to a healthy old age, or dying prematurely, or worse, becoming handicapped. Some unhealthy actions build up over time. Like eating too many calories, too much bad saturated fat, too much salt, too much not-moving-your-body, too many short nights of sleep...  Some actions are more like a lottery. For instance, 60% of cancers are due to lifestyle. (10% inhereted, 30% environment) Tabacco, alcohol, processed meat and red meat cause cancer. Every time you expose your cells to these poisons, could be the time you cause the DNA mutation that triggers cancer.  It could be the very first cigarette you smoke, or the 100 thousandth cigarette that gives your body cancer. Every drink of alcohol could also be the one that gives you cancer. Or ev...

When I got diagnosed with schizophrenia, it became my new autistic obsession. I would infodump on people about the major psychotic episode that led to my diagnosis. The schizophrenic author of the book "The Center Cannot Hold" said it didn't define her, and I disagreed. It does explain who you are, I thought. But I now think that's a mistake. Mental Health diagnosis are clusters of symptoms that suggest a certain treatment is needed, as opposed to another one. I am not experienced enough to know if this is the correct approach. Different diagnoses often have overlapping symptoms. Psychosis,  for instance, is a symptom of many different diagnoses. I started thinking I might be something because of Valerie. She had a borderline diagnosis, according to her father on a chat with my brother. I thought I might be narcissistic because of my black and white thinking at the time. I didn't want to flatter myself with a more fashionable diagnosis. I thought I might be border...

My Mind Works Better.  My memory and concentration is much improved. I am present. I am witty and funny. I don't repeat myself. I'm adaptable. I'm creative and motivated. I feel and understand much deeper. I have the best words. I Enjoy Life More.  If you don't dampen your feelings with drugs (including alcohol and nicotine), you enjoy the simple things in life. You enjoy what is most important: other real life living creatures and plants. I love small talk with my neighbors. I love banality. I love living every moment. My Stress Is Much Lower.  Because of tolerance, which is the brain seeking out a baseline (homeostasis), drugs (including alcohol and nicotine) are not only the cure to your chronic stress and depression, they are also the cause of your stress and depression. Your brain adapts to being high or drunk, and the moments you are sober, you will be dysregulated. You need your drugs just to feel normal. After a few months of sobriety and withdrawal, you will fe...

Artists who have completed a work, often fall into a depression. As if they have no purpose, now that they have achieved their goal. I heard a proverb, I think from Vietnam, that says "When you are on a mountain, and you see another mountain in the distance, you want to be on that other mountain." I'm probably butchering it. I was with friends on a mountain in Albania, and indeed, they saw another mountain in the distance, and risked their lives to get there. I had to think of the Vietnamese saying. I stayed behind while my brain was giving me all sorts of scenarios that they had fallen to their deaths. I tried to just enjoy the waterfall I was at. No one died, but they did encounter dangerous situations. I would have frozen in fear. Thich Nhat Hanh says of walking meditation, to realize with every step "I have arrived, I am home". Enjoy the present moment. Don't live in an unreliable past or a hypothetical future. Just enjoy the journey. Brazilian writer Pa...

This is the story of the year I spoke to God. Schizophrenia is still somewhat of a mystery. I had a psychotic episode when my dog froze to death at my mother’s place. I hadn't even touched alcohol then. When Valerie died.  I hadn't touched drugs then. I had a psychotic episode when I tried to bring down capitalism with internet comments. That coincided with quitting weed. I had one when I was on the green stuff, at a time when I had a new boss who was a bully. There is some suspicion that schizophrenia is an autoimmune disease. Basically your immune system attacks your brain as if it's an enemy invader. The Keith Flint episode coincided with quitting weed again. My best friend and dealer had a psychotic episode, so I lost my hook up. He had started messing with his anti-psychotic medication, because he felt a little high when he didn't take them. When he was in the psychosis, he kept taking acid and XTC, smoking weed all day, and was out of control. He was unreachable a...

They think Buddhism is 2500 years old, having started in India. It's illuminating to hear monks like Thich Nhat Hanh speak about psychology of thousands of years ago, and realizing that nothing much has changed about the human condition. For how awesome our minds are, they are also a mess. Everyone is a unique snowflake, but we also go through similar states, even 2500 years ago. Samantha means to stop, to be calm, to be awareness. Vipassanā means to gain insight, to see reality. Stopping and ordering your thoughts and emotions will help you immensely. We are constantly stimulated, constantly reacting and thinking. We will suddenly feel stress or insecure because of a thought. A thought will make us upset at someone over nothing. We start arguing in our head. Sometimes we need to stop and nurture our mind. Go for a walk, don't play music and stop and be with your mind. Switch off the tv, put the phone out of reach, and work through your shizzle. We need watch our thoughts with ...

❗️Warning!!!: If you eat mostly plants, you need to plan carefully and supplement! Click here to read my complete but concise guide to eating mostly plants.  Or don't get your nutrition advice from a rando like me, and read this FREE website instead:  https://veganhealth.org/ You need to at least supplement vitamin B12, vitamin D3 and Omega-3 DHA and EPA. Don't worry, the cave people took them as well. 😉 Obey the daily recommendations for supplements. Don't take supplements willy-nilly. You can poison yourself with supplements. The following link is an excellent resource for health related topics:  https://www.mayoclinic.org/ This post is the culmination of 10 years of research and development. For free, from me to you. 🤲 ULTRA SHORT VERSION: Make a one pot dish with: A Flavor Base, 1/4 Whole Grains, 1/4 Legumes, 2/4 Vegetables including Dark Leafy Greens, a little bit of Seaweed and Mushrooms, use Herbs&Spices, as desert or snack Nuts and Fruit. Drink Water, Decaf ...

When I was into a serious drug addiction, I would stack my addictions. I would hold drug sessions, take acid, combine it with a space cake, XTC, joints, cigarettes, alcohol, eat junkfood and watch hyperstimulating media like horror movies. The tendency is to push it as far as you can take it. Some people have multiple screens on their desk, playing YouTube, playing music or podcasts, while having a screen for studying or work, while gaming and vaping and drinking energy drinks. Add weed and alcohol after 18h00. Or make that 16h00. People accumulate habits that they don't want to let go of. Addiction expert Anne Lembke says you can get addicted to anything. She had a client who was addicted to getting intoxicated by drinking too much water. Anne Lembke herself was addicted to romance novels. You can have a procedural addiction. Addicted to a behavior like pulling out your hair. I was addicted to getting into debates online, thinking I was particularly intelligent.  The private capit...

From a random YouTube suggestion I learned something about myself that was a game changer for my weight loss journey. All hail the algorithm.  For the record: I'm still fat, but I am slowly losing weight and have lost 18kg (± 40 pounds) since I started this journey three years ago. It was a struggle, but I am now on a steady path. The important nugget of science is that about 1/4 of the human population experience a dip in their blood sugar about two hours after eating. This leads to snacking and overeating and obesity. I am a 25 percenter. I am a dipper. With mindfulness I am aware of this, and I know that if I ride out the hunger spike (surf the urge) it will subside in a while, and I won't be hungry anymore. If I give into it, I will get hungry again every 2 hours, and become a circus freak. I eat 3 healthy meals per day, no snacking. I try to eat between 07h00-08h00, 12h00-13h00 and 18h00-19h00. I drink only tea and water in between.  Click here for my post on how to contr...

I know four stoners that became schizophrenics. One of them killed himself in a psychotic episode. His mother came into his house and saw him hanging from the staircase. It kinda looked like he was standing. She was in schock and did the dishes and was talking to him as if he was still alive and just standing there in the hallway. Another stoner I know is living alone in his grandparents house, and refuses to see anyone. The last time I saw him he was talking about wacky conspiracy theories. That was in 2019. Only his brother has seen him since, 5 years later. He used to be one of the most intelligent people we knew. Weed is often depicted as harmless and even as medicine. People make fun of the movie 'Reefer Madness' that is about marijuana making people insane. Some celebrities promote smoking weed as if it will save the world. But it is a flawed drug. It does create schizophrenics. Weed can have very different effects with different people and at different times. It's ve...

My mind is constantly offering me lies, exaggerations and omissions (leaving important information out). Sometimes this bullsh!t comes out of my head in speech and in writing. But I try to be honest and dismiss these false thoughts. That is not my nature. It's a choice I make.  Sometimes I get stuck in my head and get all upset at something that really doesn’t matter. I argue in my head with hypothetical people, and get all overstimulated. I make bullsh!t arguments nobody hears. When I become aware of this, I take a deep mindful breath, I take my mind back to my body, my breath and my senses, I try to learn a lesson and let go of what upset me. Most of your thoughts are worthless. Don't identify with your thoughts. What really matters are your actions. And I include spoken and written words as actions. Your mind is a bullsh!t artist. Just let it go. peace ✌️ 💜 🌱

I look back with nostalgia to my childhood in the nineties. But I mostly miss the culture. The music, the movies, the television. In many ways, it was also still the dark ages. We didn't have easy access to all the scientific information about nutrition and mental health, for instance. We were pretty ignorant of important facts we consider obvious today.  My mother was a schizophrenic that refused treatment and my father once said that "it was his pedagogical conviction that children raised themselves". His profession was high school teacher, interestingly. My mother and father both came from big families, and really, they should have called child protection. We were left alone to our own devices and I ended up drinking liters of coffee every evening, not realizing what it did to me. I made 2 to 3 pots of coffee every evening. I slept only about 2 or 3 hours every school day, but I rarely missed a day of school. Getting up after 2 hours of sleep was tough. I would be a zo...

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...

There is this meme going around that you shouldn't use rational arguments because people only respond to emotional argumentation. In online debates with me, people have even said that my argument is wrong because it is rational and not emotional. For instance, I have argued that a plant based diet is superior, and someone (who claimed to be in politics for the Marxist pvda party) responded to my reasoning that I shouldn't use rational arguments and that people would revolt if they didn’t have their daily piece of animal carcass. The irony or paradox is that "you shouldn't use rational arguments BECAUSE people only respond to emotion" is a rational argument. They should be saying "I feel you shouldn't be rational." And even that is a reason. What is logic or rationality? It is stating a hypothesis of cause and effect. This will happen when that happens. That happened because of this. It's what science tries to uncover. Cause and effect is the fund...

A Plant Based Diet is not a Vegan Or Vegetarian Diet. On a Plant Based Diet you get most of your nutrients from plants but allow for a small amount of animal products. ❗️Don't get your nutrition advice from randos like me. Instead, for advice on eating Plants, check out this FREE website:  https://veganhealth.org/ DO NOT BELIEVE ANYTHING I WRITE.  I started writing this guide at the beginning of my journey. It's a mess, and I now know better. Especially when it comes to supplements. I now take a multivitamin that contains B12, D, Selenium, Iodine... and I take an Omega 3 algea supplement which Plant Eaters anecdotally need. I make sure there is always soup in the fridge that includes Beans or Lentils and Dark Leafy Greens. I still agree with a lot of this advice, but changed my mind on some of it. I advise you to read websites and books by qualified people like: Books: Vegan For Life, Nourish Subscribe to the newsletters of the websites: https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health...