This is an interesting observation, I’ve had others say the same thing. It is ironic though because I remember having a lot of anxiety, almost no confidence, no motivation, and underlying depression most of the time at that age, those negative feelings that haunted me were what drove me to change.
I remember taking this picture how I had to force myself to smile to look like I was happy with my girlfriend and her mom (I’ve cropped them out). Today I have much more consistent energy levels throughout the day, and I am no longer riddled with anxiety as I once was. I still get depressed from time to time, but it doesn’t feel the same, before it was like a hopeless crushing depression and thinking my life was absolutely terrible, now it’s more of just shorter periods of feeling of being emotionally drained, and feeling down, occasionally, which I believe is normal for if you’re a human living in this broken world system. I have much more motivation and drive to go out and do things, and grow and learn than I did before. I would say I am definitely happier now.
http://i.imgur.com/qdKZ3b3.jpg
Every time I see someone post before and after pictures on nofap I get really encouraged, so i thought I would also contribute my own photos.
I got pretty good at giving what looked like a genuine smile, although, it rarely ever was. I can vouch for feeling more grounded now.
There’s probably a 2 year gap between the first photo and when I started really changing my life around, during those two years I really only focused on my diet by cutting out fast food, then when I realized how much diet could affect my energy, I adopted other things like nofap and quitting alcohol and cigarettes.
Me on the left was about 4 or 5 years ago, I was smoking cigrettes, drinking beer often, fapping around 2 times a day, and eating like shit. Burger king almost every day, drinking shit tons of sugary beverages and consuming whatever I thought was enjoyable. I figured I was young and my body could handle it. I had a girlfriend at the time. I was 21 or 22 years old in this photo.
Photo on the right was taken yesterday, I’m 26 years old (as of April) so those 4 or 5 years have probably had some maturing affect on my appearences but I also contribute these differences to a combination of lifestyle changes. I have quit drinking all alcohol for alittle over 2 years now, I haven’t smoked cigarettes in a little over 2 years, I have majorily cleaned up my diet and have been doing very low carb for about 2.5 years now, but I have cut out fast food for the past 4 years. I have been on a consistent nofap streak for a little over 2 years. I have been inconsistently working out for the past 2 years (trying to make it more of a habit).
I believe all of us here deserve a great amount of commendation for battling against our culture to become closer to what we were disigned for. All of us are struggling every day toward the light, all of us here have so much potential to unlock when we seek after truth and what is good.
If I could turn my shit life around I know you can too. I have made accomplishments but I have not completed the journey by any means. I am still in the process of growing and learning and I will be until the day I die. It takes a long time to turn around 15 years of abusing yourself, but with each step toward truth and what is good you will become a better man.
There were a lot of symptoms that lead me to want to try out nofap, some of the bigger ones were my inability to perform with my girlfriend at the time (the one I had a bad breakup with) there were countless times where she told me “it just doesn’t feel like there’s any chemistry, or animal instinct between our interactions” and I would always rub one out before she got home so I never wanted to have sex while she was in the mood, and I didn’t really understand why I couldn’t get aroused at the time. As you could imagine this created a lot of negative tension between us.
Also I had high anxiety and even higher social anxiety, I was always awkward around her family and never really engaged much with people unless I was forced to, or I would wait until the uncomfort of being quiet became worse than the uncomfort of engaging, which if you could image, was an all around uncomfortable situation regardless of how you looked at it. I Also suffered from a lot of brain fog most of the time, and even though I was able to get solid grades at the time, I had to really put in more effort than I would have had to now.
I was tired most of the time as well, no matter how much sleep i got. I do have to say that diet increased the positives in all of these areas I’ve mentioned, but nofap took it to an entire new level. I am very glad I am on nofap, I plan on sticking with nofap for the rest of my life.
My desire has skyrocketed, and I often get erections with no stimulation now. Something that very rarely happened before. I have felt more chemistry with women this past year than I have for a very long time.
My morning wood has come back, something that disappeared for a while. I did date a girl for 8 or 9 months that recently ended (we just broke up about a month ago for logistical reasons, we both didn’t want it to happen but it was the right thing to do at the time.) And since we both were waiting until marriage to do the deed, there wasn’t any expectations for sex but there were many times where it was extremely difficult to not have sex with her, and I was extremely aroused around her almost every time we hung out, which never happened before with other girls when my lifestyle was all messed up
I currently do not have a partner, after my break up with her a little over 2 years ago I decided to no longer have sex until marriage, so it will be hard mode all the way.
LINK – Pictures before and after nofap + other lifestyle changes. (4-5 year transition)
;
