Newsletter #10

Early in my self-improvement journey, I got locked in my home in Barcelona. It was March 15, 2020, if I recall correctly. The Spanish government, in its wisdom, thought it was a good idea to lock everyone in their homes and force people to work from home if possible. It was supposed to be just two weeks (the famous two weeks), but it ended up being almost 60 days.

In Spain, the rules were stringent. You were only allowed to go outside to buy food, walk your dog, or throw the garbage away. I started buying bread daily and fewer groceries so I could go shopping more often. Later, I found out from friends that they were walking around with pasta in their backpacks. I never thought about this. I went to supermarkets farther from home because they had more organic dairy and eggs. In other ways, I tried to be outside more often and for longer. Something I still do to this day, it is rare for me to spend 24 hours indoors.

A colleague of mine said he would not drink alcohol for the duration of the lockdown. I thought it was a good idea and tried it as well. I failed halfway. Since this experiment, my alcohol consumption has remained well below 2019 levels. I wanted to have some nice food and wine for Easter. Later, I found out that my colleague lasted maybe two weeks. I never told him this; writing this down makes me want to reach out to him.

The main change that happened during lockdown was that I stopped being vegan in the second half of May 2020. I would have stopped anyway with such a deficient diet; the lockdown just sped up the process. My digestion and stomach were messed up. It took me years to recover from this. Besides digestion, most of my muscles were gone, I was tired, and I looked like a zombie (very pale). The main reason I started eating properly again was that I was watching a lot of YouTube videos about how to fix vegan issues. This is not possible. I found this out later by watching a lot of ex-vegan interviews. All my symptoms were common, and the suggested fixes didn’t work. This made me realize that veganism is unhealthy, and I became vegan for health reasons.

I bought cheese and eggs. I made the eggs in olive oil; I had no butter. The eggs with cheese tasted amazing. Something in me said that I needed to try veganism again. I bought two cookbooks, and within 48 hours, I was completely cured of veganism. I returned the cookbooks and bought organic hamburgers and butter from Carrefour. The hamburgers tasted amazing. Now, it is rare for me not to eat meat with a meal.