November Update

Hi, everyone!

I know I’ve been basically MIA for the last month, but I have not been idle. I started re-reading “4-Hour Work Week” by Tim Ferriss and started to take the lessons to heart. Instead of just reading the book I started taking the proactive steps that he recommends to accomplish my long-term goals.

There was one question asked in the book that really struck home and pulled me away from blogging for a while.  “Are you inventing things to do to avoid the important?”. Sadly, I was doing that, a lot. This blog was one of the things that I would use as an excuse for why I wasn’t writing my book. I justified ignoring my book on the grounds that I wrote for my blog, but the result was zero pages of book and dozens of blog posts of varied quality. I was using my creative energy towards something that wasn’t in line with my long term goals.So, I wrote that question on a post-it, stuck it to my monitor, and got to work.

Another concept in the book that altered how I work throughout the day was going on a “low-information diet”. I realized that I spent hours on sites like Facebook each day and it really didn’t benefit me. What did I gain through hours of scrolling and reading articles? Sure, I was “informed”, but how did that help my life? The information I read online would anger me or tempt me into debating someone online for no reason, but that create anything. It didn’t help me with my book, it didn’t earn me more money, it didn’t increase the quality time I had with my partner or friends. All it did was take up my time and drain my  mental energy.

Now, I have a Chrome app that only allows me to go on Facebook for 10 minutes per day. The result? I still get the information I need to be “informed” and if I need to get in touch with someone or ask for help on Facebook then 10 minutes is plenty of time to do it. I got hours of my life back each day and I have been redirecting that energy towards improving my daily life and working on my long term creations.

The most important accomplishment in the last month was my writing. I finished the first draft of my book. I went from a blank page to about 40,000 words in 25 days. I would trade over a year of Facebook time for a completed first draft, a month was a very small price. My second accomplishment is my meditation practice, it is still incredibly difficult but I meditated 28 days out of November and I’m up to 20-minutes a day. I have also started training myself to dance with poi, which at this point has done little more than make me realize how uncoordinated I am with my left hand, but I’m enjoying it.

There were other accomplishments as well… cooking new meals weekly, running or biking almost every day (including a 10-mile run), relearned Trigonometry and pre-Calculus on Khan Academy, started a daily Stoic reflection, and teaching myself GIS and data visualization on Coursera. By re-evaluating what I spend my time on and discarding the things that weren’t in line with my goals I ended up with plenty of time in the day. Instead of scrolling Facebook, doing dishes three times a day, or checking emails, I’m working on things that will help me move forward in life. I still clean and check emails, I just don’t do them as a way to put off the difficult work I should be doing. I had to ask myself, instead of spending 15-hours per week (or more) surfing Facebook, what else could I do with my time? How would my fitness level improve if 1/3 of that time went to exercise? Could I become fluent in a foreign language, subject matter, or musical instrument if I spent an hour a day focusing on those instead of reading political blogs? Am I using my time in a way that is going to help me experience the things that I want to experience?

So, now that I have my time somewhat under control, what are the other pain points in my life? What behaviors do I have that are not taking me to my goals? The first one that stands out is alcohol consumption. In November I consumed 52 alcoholic drinks (and I’ll probably drink a couple tonight at Naughty Bingo). I am not saying I should abstain, alcohol consumption can be justified as both a goal of life (it brings pleasure) and as a tool for long-term happiness (helps make friends), but it is clear that isn’t the case for ALL my drinking. Those 52 drinks last month equal about 2.5 lbs of fat from calories (roughly), and it also cost me around $200. Not only that, if I drank more than 3 drinks in a night my average time running the next day was 9 minutes, if I drank less than three drinks my average running time the next day was 25 minutes. Drinking clearly comes with some direct and indirect costs. My plan for December is to cut alcohol consumption in half, so only 26 drinks during the month and only one night with over 3 drinks.

How I spend my money is another place that could be improved, particularly when it comes to books. Right now my bookshelf has 44 unread books, 3 books I’m currently reading, and 16 completed books. All of these books were purchased in the last two months. I need to re-evaluate how I decide to purchase books. So, I’m taking all my credit card information off of Amazon. If I want to purchase a book I need to enter in the card information by hand each time. I’m also going to try and put a 48-hour waiting period on all purchases (is there an app for that?). I can’t think of a single scenario where I need a book in a tight time frame. Also, no new book purchases until my “unread” shelf is down to ten books, which means I either read 34 books or I realize that I will never read them and I donate them to the used bookstore down the street.

I also need to figure out how to make friends, as lame as that sounds. It is tough as an adult in a new city to meet people, particularly when I work from home. I’ve started working through Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People” and it has some great tips that I’m going to proactively use, but I’m such an introvert and homebody that it is hard to force myself out of my shell. Luckily, Wilmington has a ton of opportunities for me to do social things around my interests (Dungeons and Dragons, board games, yoga, fitness, rock climbing, vegan, spirituality, etc). This isn’t really an area that I’m wasting time or energy, it is an area that I haven’t dedicated resources to like I should. Instead, I have gotten in the habit of focusing all my friend energy into Facebook (don’t get me wrong, I love my connections on there, but I need something more physical in my life).

So, that is how my November went. I didn’t announce a lot of this stuff ahead of time because I’ve found that announcing something actually discourages me from accomplishing it. Saying “I’m writing a book!” feels like it is productive when it really isn’t. It is better for me to write a book and say “I wrote a book!”. Looking forward to making that announcement is an incentive for me.

I’m looking forward to December and to seeing how my new goals and projects work out. I may try to blog a little bit, but only if I feel a real drive to do it. It can be stressful sometimes, but I try and remember to not take any of it too seriously. The point of life is to have fun, not to be 100% productive. If I have a few days (or more) where I accomplish nothing, that’s cool. Sometimes you need to lounge in front of Netflix with pizza and Oreos instead of going to the gym. Immediate pleasure is sometimes reason enough to do something.

Planning Kills Productivity

Planning is often a form of procrastination for me. Instead of accomplishing my goals I will use all the resources available to me to plan how I will get things done. I’ll pour over maps for future runs instead of getting outside and running. I’ll prep complex budgeting spreadsheets instead of focusing on work. I’ll fill out paperwork to start a business instead of creating value. I’ll make lists of all the things I want to try (yoga, martial arts, rock climbing, surfing, etc) instead of going out and doing them. The planning process will never end because perfection is unattainable. The time for action will never be perfect or, as Tim Ferriss’ says in 4-Hour Workweek:

“Someday” is a disease that will take your dreams to the grave with you.

I prep and I prep and I prep because it gives me the illusion of progress. But really, all the preparation is taking me further from my goals. Time and energy are wasted. Moments of my life are gone that I will never get back because I was planning instead of doing. The most amazing experiences of my life happened because I took action, not because I was prepared for it. Even when I did fully prepare for something the plans disintegrated almost instantly. It is like we used to say in the Army, “the enemy gets a vote”. There are outside, unforeseen forces that will throw a wrench into any plan, and the more specific the plan the more likely something will fuck it up and discourage you.

If I want to train for a marathon I am much more likely to hit my goals if I have “Run or bike every day” in my daily plan than if I have “Monday: 0845-0930hrs-Run 4 miles, Tuesday: 0810-0910hrs-Run 4.5 miles, Wednesday:….” because all it takes is one late morning or missed day and the house of cards falls. It is too precise, too fragile. General action is more powerful than specific plans.

I recognize this about me and I am striving to improve, and I think I have a system that is working pretty well for me. Hopefully, it will move me closer to my dream life.

 

Meditation on My Mind

I’m really geeking out about meditation and the effects emotions have on our physical and social well-being. Between just finishing “Destructive Emotions: A Scientific Dialogue with the Dalai Lama” and taking a Positive Psychology class on Coursera, my life is being bombarded with research on how the mind and body are connected, and how meditation and our emotional state can affect our health. So, here are some random things on my mind…

• Being stressed out fucks with your immune system which increases the likelihood that you will get sick, and can even prevent vaccines from being as effective
• There is the positive feedback loop between practicing meditation and cardiovascular health. When people practice lovingkindess meditation they improve their interactions with others, which improves their cardiac vagal tone, which increases their ability to connect with other people, which improves their cardiac vagal tone… and vice versa. Meditation helps improve relationships, which improves health.
• Improving the cardiac vagal tone is linked to better regulation of your heart rhythm, glucose, and inflammation, as well as improved attention, emotions, and recognizing social cues
• The mind is part of the body and requires just as much care as our muscles and bones.

But, how does meditation compare to other practices that encourage love and connection? Can we study how secular meditation benefits the body and social relations, and compare that to highly religious people who don’t practice meditation? Or maybe people who volunteer a lot or play team sports?
If practicing lovingkindness benefits cardiovascular health, do negative emotions damage cardiovascular health? Do we see the same benefits in other types of meditation? What would happen if we started implementing mindfulness and lovingkindness meditation as part of our educational system? Or our workplace? Or covered meditation mentorship with health insurance? Could we see a decrease in health issues and social issues?

I don’t think meditation is a panacea to social and individual problems, but it certainly can’t hurt to encourage people to take a few minutes each day to focus on love and live in the moment.

 

How I Lost 20 lbs in 8 Weeks

Since stopping the bike ride I’ve been refocusing my energy on my own health. My goal was not to lose weight, but as I focused on my health and fitness the pounds kind of slowly melted off. I know that 20 lbs is not a huge amount of weight and 8 weeks is not an incredibly quick time (my results certainly won’t be on the cover of a magazine in some grocery store check-out lane), but everything I’ve done is something that I think I can maintain long term. The habits are sustainable for me, which I think is going to really help me maintain my health in the long term. There is, of course, the normal disclaimer… this is what worked for me but there is not guaranteed results. I also am not a medical professional, I do like to experiment on my own body and I think the internet provides a wealth of knowledge that allows us to live very unique lives. All I hope from this blog post is that maybe one person will find part of it interesting and be able to improve their own life because of it.
Prologue
On July 8th I started a new chapter in my life. My partner and I decided to stop our multi-year bicycle tour indefinitely. Instead of travelling, we decided to settle down for a bit in Wilmington, North Carolina. I knew that if I did not take very conscious control of my health as soon as we stopped I would become unhealthy very quickly. One perk of the bike tour is I could pretty much eat anything I wanted because I was constantly active. During the ride my weight stayed around 180lbs, a little heavy for my 5’7” frame but I felt good and wasn’t really concerned about it. I had it in my head that I would lose weight on the bike ride because of all the exercise, but that never really happened. It turns out, for me the key to losing weight is mostly my diet.

Luckily, I’ve always had a reasonably healthy relationship with food. Growing up, food was not a major part of my life. My family very rarely ate meals together and the food that was prepared for us was mostly bland tasting. I didn’t dislike food, but there was nothing about it that was particularly appealing (except pizza). My parents were raising six kids and both of them worked full time so we mostly ate canned veggies, pasta, and processed stuff you can throw in microwaves. Not exactly healthy, but that diet did prevent me from having any kind of psychological connection to food that could lead to an unhealthy relationship. I don’t have any type of sweet tooth and am never tempted by donuts, cakes, candy, etc., at this point sodas are actually unappealing to me because the sugar and such is so overwhelmingly sweet that it makes me sick to my stomach. Of course, there are times when my health fluctuated because of my diet, but that was mostly because I was ignorant to nutrition and how to actually cook good meals. A little education corrected that problem.

Admittedly, by the time I stopped the bike ride I had some things working to my advantage. First, my partner is a dietitian and I can ask her random health and nutrition questions when they come to mind. Those questions rarely change my behavior, but they keep my brain focused on health and keep my curiosity going. A curious mind can be a great source of motivation to improve your life. Second, I’m vegan, which means my diet is already pretty heavy in healthy foods. Yes, you can be a really fat and unhealthy vegan (potato chips, French fries, and some ice creams are vegan after all) but if you stay away from the processed foods your diet becomes really low in calories and rich in nutrients quickly.

Phase 1 – CRON and New Habits
When the bike ride ended I sat down and wanted to re-evaluate my relationship with food. What is the purpose of food for humans? For some people, there is a deep cultural bond with food that relates to their family and upbringing. For others, food provides a mental stability and comfort during stressful times. Neither of those is true for me to any strong degree. For me, food is about two things… calories for energy and nutrients for the body. With those two goals in mind, I started playing around with recipes to see what kind of nutrients I can get from what kind of foods. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it turns out fruits, vegetables, legumes, and grains are pretty damn nutrient rich, so I put myself on a vegan CRON (Calorie Restriction with Optimal Nutrition) diet. I actually didn’t know the CRON diet was an official thing until weeks after doing it myself.

The foundation of my daily diet is breakfast. For breakfast, I eat around 900 calories. I have a veggie scramble, a piece of avocado toast, a protein shake, and a piece of fruit. The veggie scramble varies from recipe to recipe but is usually made up of black beans, brown rice, bell peppers, tomatoes, onions, garlic, mushrooms, spinach, and broccoli, with nutritional yeast and chia seeds added in. The protein shake is Orgain chocolate protein powder (vegan), powdered peanut butter, and coffee. Below this paragraph is a screenshot of Cronometer.com after I have put in my breakfast.

As you can see, after one meal I have already consumed my daily requirements for many vitamins and minerals. It is very, very important for every person, regardless of their diet, to be aware of any nutritional deficiencies they may have. I think many people (myself included) are often ignorant to what their body needs and may lack important nutrients like fiber, calcium, potassium, magnesium, vitamin A, vitamin C, and vitamin E (http://www.webmd.com/diet/features/missing-nutrients-in-your-food).

The rest of my meals are usually much lighter. Lunch is usually just some beans and rice, and for snacks, I stick with a handful of nuts or fruit. Dinner is a meal that I cook out of one of our cookbooks. I don’t aim for calorie reduced meals specifically, but I have changed my habits so that my meals serve the purpose of providing my body with what it needs. That means I’ve started recording my meals into Cronometer.com before I eat them, which is particularly important when I’m out drinking with friends. If I jump onto my phone and record one more beer before I order it at the bar it can deter me from drinking excessively (which is good for my wallet, my waistline, and my mood the next morning). I also drink lots of water, coffee, and tea to keep my body hydrated and stomach full, I eat a little when I start to get hungry to prevent myself from gorging, and when I eat I treat it like a meditation by eating slowly and focusing on the task at hand instead of allowing myself to watch tv while eating. Also, I have adjusted my sleep habits. No computers or phones after 9pm and in bed by 10pm, and up by 7am. Upon waking I would pee and then weigh myself (see below), the act of weighing myself daily seemed to put me into a healthy mindset at the start of the day.

At the end of Phase 1 (about five weeks) I was very happy with the results, but I wanted to continue with the experimentation. At this point, I’d lost 12 lbs and my body fat % was down 4%.

Side Note: On Exercise
I’ve been focusing on diet as the source of my weight loss, but I have been exercising too. I don’t think exercise has been a major factor, though. Exercise is certainly important to overall health, but weight (at least for me) seems to be controlled more by diet. When I was cycling 6-10 hours a day I wasn’t losing any weight, and sometimes I gained weight, but now I am only exercising 2-4 times a week and I’m shedding pounds.
To lose one pound of fat you need a calorie deficit of about 3,500 calories. Exercise just isn’t an efficient way to burn that much weight. You would need to run about 35 miles to burn that much weight, but only if that added exercise didn’t change your behavior through eating more food or moving around less during non-exercise time. In total, I ended up with a 70,000 calorie deficit and I’ve run 76.5 miles in the last eight weeks (there have been some other exercises like cycling and running but those weren’t cardio and were at a pretty slow pace). So, from running I’ve lost about 2 lbs or 10% of my weight loss is due to that exercise. Even if I double that to account for other extra activity that is still only 20% of my weight loss due to exercise, the rest is dietary changes.

Phase 2: Fasting
As happy as I was with the results, my interest in fasting started to come back. I don’t see fasting as a weight loss tool but as a tool for general health and longevity. If I want to live to the singularity and become immortal I need to take care of this meat suit. There is not a lot of tested evidence that shows fasting extends the lives of humans, but the hypothesis behind it seems pretty solid. At the very least, there isn’t a high chance of harm coming from fasting, and there might be some mental benefits. The Stoics believed in fasting from time to time to help you realize how little you really need in life and I think making yourself uncomfortable from time to time is good. Comfort creates stagnation.

I decided to hybrid two different types of fasting into my life. I started with the “16:8” fast. This fast is a daily fast and basically means you have 8 hours per day in which you eat and 16 hours in which you don’t. For me, that means breakfast around 10am and dinner around 6pm, with some snacks or small meals in between if I’m hungry. The rest of the time is a “fast”. The basic idea behind this (and the second fast I use) is that these times without food are good for the body for a couple of reasons. First, when you fast beyond 8-10 hours your body runs out of glycogen and you start to burn fat reserves. Second, when your body goes into fast mode you start repairing cells instead of producing new ones. If your body doesn’t think it needs to conserve resources it will just reproduce cells in large numbers, which increases the chances of poorly copied cells that can become cancerous, but during fasting mode, your body tries to conserve resources by repairing the cells you already have instead of making new ones.

I actively implemented the “16:8 fast” for about two weeks before starting the “5:2 fast”, which is a little more extreme. In the “5:2 fast” you have five days with normal calorie consumption and two days with a limited calorie consumption of about 600 calories. I actually only did this one day a week for the first couple weeks and just started doing two days a week last week. This is still a bit tough for me and I find myself hungry at around 6pm every fast day (about six hours after my meal) but that hunger goes away after a bit. It is tough right now, but I’m surprised at how fast the hunger goes away after some tea or water. It seems to be getting easier with each iteration as well.

Side note: Social Life
So, does this mean I don’t have a social life? Nah, not really. Sure, it is easier for me because I’m an introvert and really don’t want to leave the house more than 2 nights per week, but I still go out and have fun with friends. I don’t take this nutrition plan too seriously, it is just an outline to help my life out and get more healthy, it is a way to see exactly what my body is capable of. When I go out I just do my best to eat meals at home (or pick healthy choices when out) and keep my alcohol consumption to something reasonable. You can be social and healthy, for me, it is just a matter of self-control.

Next Step
Now that eight weeks have passed I feel like my diet is under my control. I am enjoying the meals that I eat daily and I like how much healthier I feel. I have more energy, am sleeping better at night, and I’m more productive at work and play. My mood and sex drive have both improved as well (I track all these things daily because I’m a nerd). For me, the next step is to keep this dietary plan while implementing an exercise plan. I want to be stronger. So, hopefully in eight weeks or so I can update you on that and have some measurements that show progress in strength as well as weight loss. (And hopefully I remember to put up some new photos soon… it has been a while)

Week 7 Update

Overall, this week went pretty well. I wasn’t perfect in my routine, but who is? I have found myself really bored with my body weight workout. All I’ve been doing is a day of push-ups and a day of planks (the house I’m currently in doesn’t have a place for my pull-up bar), I’ve seen some nice improvements but I find myself dreading the workouts because of boredom. To help remedy this I’m going to start using this workout 2-3 times a week and use push-ups and planks as a progress measurement tool. On a related note, I’ve seen almost no growth in my chest or arms since starting this routine. Part of this is probably because of human error and inconsistent measuring, but most of it is that my routine hasn’t really made muscle-building a priority. The only exception to this is my thighs where I am seeing pretty consistent shrinkage, I think I store a lot of fat in my thighs as well as my waist. As my weight approaches a level that I’m more comfortable with, and once I move into my own house this week, I will start focusing more on muscle production. My performance and health will improve if I have strength underneath the fat I burn away.

I have also started taking two Coursera classes (one on writing and one on data visualization), and I’m also using Khan Academy to improve my math skills. I’ve hit a rough patch with my book writing and am having trouble getting myself over it. It is a struggle but I am still working towards it.

My nutrition work has been going really well and I think I’m going to start to stray a little bit from it. I think a cheat meal (or day or evening or something) each week will help keep me motivated. Ideally, I’d get to the point where having things around the house daily wouldn’t be a huge temptation or become a slippery slope, but I’m not there yet. Maybe in a couple of months I can enjoy just one alcoholic drink or small treat daily, but right now I’m going to just allow myself one night a week to not worry about calories.

The measurements (What is being measured: This weeks measurement (Change from last week, change from day one)–

• Weight: 164 lbs (-1, -14)
• Waist: 33.5 inches (-.5, -3)
• Neck: 16 inches (+.5, +.5)
• Chest: 39.75 inches (-.25, -.25)
• Left Bicep: 13.5 inches (+0,-.5)
• Right Bicep: 13.25 inches (-.5, -.75)
• Left Thigh: 23 inches (-.5, -1.25)
• Right Thigh: 23 inches (-.5, -2.25)
• Left Calf: 14.5 inches (-.25, +0)
• Right Calf: 14.5 inches (-.25, +0)
• BMI: 24.93 (-.17, -2.13)
• Body Fat %: 19.00 (-1.10 -6.02)
• Average Daily Calories: 1802.14 (-56.14)
• Average Waking Mood: 6.29 out of 10 (+.14, +3)
• Average Midday Mood: 7.29 out of 10 (-.43, -.14)
• Average Evening Mood: 7.86 out of 10 (+.29, +.57)
• Average Morning Sex Drive: 5.71 out of 10 (+.14, +.29)
• Average Midday Sex Drive: 6.57 out of 10 (+.57, -.29)
• Average Evening Sex Drive: 6.14 out of 10 (+.43, +.43)
• Walked: 7.25 Miles (-3)
• Total Walked: 90.5 Miles
• Ran: 11 Miles (+-5.25,
• Total Ran: 70.25 Miles
• Biked: 52.5 Miles (+28.50
• Total Biked: 103.75
• Pull Ups: 0
• Total Pull Ups: 196
• Max Pull Ups Set: N/A
• Push Ups: 196
• Total Push Ups: 1,778
• Max 2-Minute Push Ups: 68
• Plank: 900 seconds
• Total Plank: 3,210 seconds
• Max Single Plank: 300 seconds
• Meditated: 75 minutes (+5
• Total Time Meditating: 325 minutes
• Average Nightly Sleep: 7.93 hours (+.61)
• Daily Orgasm: 5 out of 7 (-1)
• Blog Posts: 6 out of 7 (-1)
• Foreign Language: 7 out of 7 (+3)
• Work on Book: 1 out of 7 (-5)
• Khan Academy: 5 out of 7 (+5)
• Coursera: 5 out of 7 (+5)
• Resting Heart Rate: 54bpm (-8, -5)

Currently Reading:

• “Destructive Emotions: A Scientific Dialogue with the Dalai Lama” by Daniel Goleman (Psychology and Science – Career Development
• “The Gift” by Hafiz (Poetry)
• “The Great Hunt” by Robert Jordan (Fiction, Audiobook)
• “The Ego is the Enemy” by Ryan Holiday (Personal Development)

Fasting Days

Yesterday, I posted a quick up post on Facebook about my fast (see the bottom of the page) and received an unexpected response. I was trying to be a little tongue-in-cheek about being hungry, and I was exaggerating my feelings, but someone took it pretty seriously. I share some blame in the confusion, but I think his response was out of line (for a couple reasons).

When he read my post he said that he thinks I have an eating disorder. Here are my problems with that:

• If you aren’t my therapist you shouldn’t be trying to diagnose a serious mental health issue
• If you are my friend and are concerned about me you shouldn’t be calling me out in a public place about the potential for a serious mental health issue
• By classifying my fasting as an eating disorder you minimize what people with true eating disorders deal with
• My intermittent fasting (one day a week with about 600kcal while the rest of the days are around 1800kcals) is tracked heavily by me to make sure I get all the nutrients I need. I can pull up cronometer.com and show exactly how much of each vitamin and mineral I get. This is important because every diet (including veganism) has potential deficiencies if you aren’t careful. Unfortunately, I wasn’t careful in the past and wasn’t getting enough fiber and the essential vitamins that come primarily from vegetable sources. I would recommend everybody running their diet through cronometer.com once in a while to ensure they don’t have any glaring deficiencies.
• My eating habits are centered around science and being healthy, which is a significant improvement on what my nutrition practices were in the past (which included lots of fast food, ignorance to what my body needs, emotional/stress/boredom eating, dehydration, etc).

So, all I can ask is that if you have questions about someone’s health because you care about them you should ask them in a private message instead of publicly calling them out.

Original post:

Theory: On my fasting days* I will have more free time because I won’t be cooking/preparing food and I reduce my workout to a more moderate level.

Practice: All my free time goes into reading research about fasting and planning my meal for the next day. Now I just need to decide, tomorrow do I want to make a potato and kale enchiladas with roasted chile sauce, lasagna with spinach and a mushroom marinara, or a spicy vegetable gumbo.

PS: I went with the lasagna with spinach and mushroom marinara… it was delightful.

Week 6 Update

I’m feeling a little ill, so this is going to be just a basic update on measurements. I do have a few notes:

• I’m really proud of myself for working on a foreign language four days this week, working on writing my book six days this week, and blogging every day (and occasionally twice a day)
• I fasted on Tuesday and plan on continuing to do that
• I’ve started drinking once a week or so socially
• I’m going to start using Khan Academy to reteach myself math. I don’t really want a career in math or anything but learning it (much like learning a foreign language, reading, writing, and meditating) is a way to exercise my brain and keep it healthy.
• I currently weigh less than I did when I was in the military… which is pretty cool

 

The measurements –

• Weight: 165 lbs (-2, -13)
• Waist: 34 inches (0, -2.5)
• Neck: 15.5 inches (+.25, 0)
• Chest: 40 inches (-.5, 0)
• Left Bicep: 13.5 inches (+.25,-.5)
• Right Bicep: 13.75 inches (+.25, -.25)
• Left Thigh: 23.5 inches (+.25, -.75)
• Right Thigh: 23.25 inches (0, -2)
• Left Calf: 14.75 inches (0, +.25)
• Right Calf: 14.75 inches (+.25, +.25)
• BMI: 25.1 (-.29, -1.96)
• Body Fat %: 20.1 (+.35 -4.92)
• Average Daily Calories: 1858.29 (-59.57)
• Average Waking Mood: 6.14 out of 10 (+1)
• Average Midday Mood: 7.71 out of 10 (+.86)
• Average Evening Mood: 7.57 out of 10 (+0.14)
• Average Morning Sex Drive: 5.57 out of 10 (+.57)
• Average Midday Sex Drive: 6.00 out of 10 (0)
• Average Evening Sex Drive: 5.71 out of 10 (-0.71)
• Walked: 10.25 Miles (+.25, 83.25)
• Ran: 16.25 Miles (+10.75, 59.25)
• Biked: 21 Miles (+11, 51.25)
• Pull Ups: 0 (-11, 196)
• Push Ups: 418 (+309, 1,582)
• Plank: 675 seconds (+585 seconds, 2,310 seconds)
• Meditated: 70 minutes (+20, 250)
• Average Nightly Sleep: 7.32 hours (+.18)
• Daily Orgasm: 6 out of 7 (0)
• Blog Posts: 7 out of 7 (+2)
• Foreign Language: 4 out of 7 (+4)
• Work on Book: 6 out of 7 (+6)
• Resting Heart Rate: 62bpm (-14, +3)

Currently Reading:

• “Destructive Emotions: A Scientific Dialogue with the Dalai Lama” by Daniel Goleman (Psychology and Science – Career Development
• “The Gift” by Hafiz (Poetry)
• “The Great Hunt” by Robert Jordan (Fiction, Audiobook)
• “The Ego is the Enemy” by Ryan Holiday (Personal Development)

Fasting

Yesterday, I completed my first fast based off the 5:2 diet (I hate the term diet, but whatever). The basic concept is to reduce your calories to 1/4 your need two days a week and consume normal calories five days a week. The rough estimate for this is 600 calories for a man, so I went with that. After some research it turns out my daily caloric needs are closer to 1500 than 2400 (remember, the calorie recommendations are based on an average and none of us are truly average). So, next time I’ll probably try to do the fast with about 400 calories instead.

Anyway, it went pretty well. I had my only meal at 11am and it was a huge bowl of veggie tofu scramble and a half-portion protein shake. I’m trying to get as many nutrients as I can for the amount of calories that I take in, and that means lots of veggies and a little nutritional yeast to pull things together. Next time I’m going to cut out the tofu and replace it with black beans, that’ll give me more bulk by replacing the fat with protein.

I really didn’t feel too hungry until around 6pm, but that eventually passed. Drinking water, green tea, and a little bit of coffee was also a big help at keeping my stomach full. I’m sure going to bed around 10pm also helps because that means I’m asleep for a lot of the fast. Unfortunately, sleep didn’t come easily last night. I didn’t really feel hungry but my mind kept drifting towards what I would eat the next day. It was kind of weird. My sleep was kind of shit, I kept waking up and tossing and turning all night… I don’t know if that was because of the fast or because of other factors (Higgins moving around, the temperature being a little hot, etc).

I think I’m going to make a weekly fast part of my routine. It went well and if I do it on my running rest day I don’t feel like I’m hurting myself. In addition, I’ve realized that I am accidentally doing another type of “fast” diet, the 16:8 diet. In the 16:8 diet you try to consume all your food in an 8 hour window and “fast” for 16 hours a day. I already kind of do that, I usually don’t have my first meal until around 10pm and my last meal is around 6pm. I think I’ll just formalize that now.

Overall, this was a successful experiment for me (I love experimenting on myself). I realize that trying to find these kind of “hacks” can be a bit silly, but I think they have potential when you are already on solid footing with the basics. My health/fitness routine already has the essentials… nutrient-rich plant-based whole foods diet, regular exercise, lots of water consumption, a scheduled and adequate sleep schedule, minimal alcohol consumption, etc… so I think these hacks can keep me moving in the direction I want. Even if it doesn’t work out that way, at least I tried something new for myself. There is always value in that.

 

Worry

I meditated today for the first time in over a week. My practice was thrown off by the trip to St. Louis and returning to Myrtle Beach has been stressful because we are in the middle of trying to move to Wilmington. I wish I would have stuck with my practice in St. Louis but, unfortunately, I found myself caught up in the day-to-day and am always kind of embarrassed that someone is going to catch me meditating. I don’t know why there is a bit of shame or discomfort about it… I should probably work on that.

Anyway, today was likely the most difficult 10-minute meditation I’ve ever had. I couldn’t get my mind to calm down at all and I felt like I was dragging through the whole thing. I beat myself up and judged myself a little bit, but eventually I just let the wild mind happen and made the best of it. My mind mostly wandered from worry to worry in my life, but upon examination I realized that my worrying was mostly a waste of time. Almost everything was beyond my control, or the things that I had control over I was already doing the best I could.

This election season is the most batshit terrifying of my life. Both primary candidates are unacceptable by most of the electorate and one only seems appealing because of how awful the other one is. There are all types of things to worry about how the President and government will run next year… but that’s the thing, we shouldn’t worry about that at all. It is 100% out of any of our hands. Our votes don’t really matter (particularly outside of a dozen or so “battleground” states), and even if our vote does matter all we can do is go to the voting booth in November and vote. We shouldn’t waste any real mental energy on it at all. Getting angry or afraid of the future only damages our own happiness.

I’ve also been stressing about finding a suitable house in Wilmington. I thought we found one but someone swooped in and turned in their application before us. I was angry at myself for not acting more quickly, except I shouldn’t be angry at myself. The past is the past, it is unchanging, it is a waste of my life to concern myself with it beyond using it as a lesson to change my behavior in the future. And I’m doing just that. I’m doing all I can to make sure we are in a position to apply quickly when a suitable house comes up. It is probably worth thinking about this process occasionally to make sure I am truly doing all I can, but when I am convinced that I’m doing all I can I should stop worrying.

Similarly, I have some interpersonal stress going on that involves some other people… but I can’t control other people. I can express how I feel and hope they change their behavior, or I can alter my behavior to “punish” them or try and hold them accountable, but if those actions actually make my life worse then I should just let it go. I only get to control my body and my mind, but those are the most important things. 99% of my life experience comes directly from my body and my mind, the rest is just noise. That is where I should focus…

• If I feel like my body is unhealthy I can cut out unhealthy food and habits, eat better, and exercise
• If I need more money I can sell things I own, cut out unnecessary bills, or try to work more
• If my mind feels unstimulated I can start reading more or watch a documentary
• If I’m unable to focus I can change my environment to make it more suitable for creation
• If I am having trouble sleeping I can cut off the computer 2 hours before bed and get into better sleep habits
• If my mind is a wild beast that can’t be tamed I can meditate or barf my thoughts into a blog post

Nearly every aspect of my life is within my control. And the things that are outside of my control I shouldn’t worry about because they are outside of my control. By focusing on them, stressing about them, letting them create anxiety, fear, or anger I let them creep into other parts of my life and give them control. I forfeit my relationships, happiness, and health when I worry about things that I can’t change.

So, I will strive to do better. I will work on me and not concern myself with the rest. My happiness belongs to me.

Week 4 Update

I wasn’t able to do an update last week because I was in St. Louis. That trip was a bit of a hiccup in my life routine, but overall it went well (I blogged in more detail about the results of that here). Even after returning from St. Louis it has been a struggle to get back into the routine of things. We went up to Wilmington one day to look at houses and my mind/energy has really been on those things. I neglected my meditation and much of my workouts (except running). It looks possible that we will be moving to Wilmington next week (yay!) and that means this next week will be kind of stressful and busy but I’m going to try and at least do my meditation and push-ups.

I originally planned on starting intermittent fasting this week, but I think I’m going to wait until we are settled in Wilmington (if we move up there), I am just not in a good mental place to be introducing new challenges yet. I think it is important for me to change things up and add new things every four weeks or so, but with life being a little chaotic I am going to postpone that. I haven’t studied any German or written my book in the last two weeks and I need to re-evaluate my priorities and techniques. It may be that studying German on my own isn’t the best way to do it and if I truly want to learn it (and maybe I actually don’t, it may not have value to me) I may need to take a more traditional class. Writing, on the other hand, is something that I am confident that I truly want to do but I haven’t been able to find or implement a system that works for me yet.

Here are my current measurements, with the normal disclaimer that human error and variations in my body like full bowels, hydration, etc can create inaccuracies. I’m still happy with the direction things are heading… burning fat and getting stronger.

It is set up like this Measurement: Current (change from two weeks ago, overall change). For example, my weight is 166 right now so it will look like this “Weight: 166 lbs (-7, -12)”. I lost seven pounds in two week and two and twelve pounds since “Day 0” (July 8^th).

 

• Weight: 173 lbs (-2, -2.5)
• Waist: 34.5 inches (-.5, -2)
• Neck: 15.75 inches (+.25, +.25)
• Chest: 40.25 inches (+.5, +.25)
• Left Bicep: 13.5 inches (-.25, -.5)
• Right Bicep: 13 inches (-.5, -1)
• Left Thigh: 22.5 inches (-.5, -1.75)
• Right Thigh: 22.5 inches (-1, -2.75)
• Left Calf: 14.75 inches (-.25, +.25)
• Right Calf: 15 inches (+/- 0, +.5)
• BMI: 25.24 (-1.06, -1.82)
• Body Fat %: 21.17 (-0.01, -3.85)
• Average Daily Calories: 1793.57 (+96.71)
• Average Waking Mood: 5.575 out of 10 (+0.145)
• Average Midday Mood: 6.86 out of 10 (-0.57)
• Average Evening Mood: 7.07 out of 10 (-.07)
• Average Morning Sex Drive: 5.43 out of 10 (+0)
• Average Midday Sex Drive: 6.14 out of 10 (-.57)
• Average Evening Sex Drive: 5.785 out of 10 (-0.355)
• Walked: 25.75 Miles (N/A, 63)
• Ran: 21 Miles (N/A, 37.5)
• Biked: 6 Miles (N/A, 20.25)
• Pull Ups: 68 (N/A, 185)
• Push Ups: 325 (N/A, 1,055)
• Plank: 8 minutes (N/A, 25.75)
• Meditated: 30 minutes (N/A, 130)
• Average Nightly Sleep: 7.77 hours (+0.16)
• Daily Orgasm: 9 out of 14 (N/A)
• Blog Posts: 8 out of 14 (N/A)
• Daily German: 0 out of 14 (N/A)
• Daily Write Book: 0 out of 14 (N/A)
• Resting Heart Rate: 60bpm (N/A, +1)

Bonus! Here are some charts. The first is my daily weight and the second is my weight change from day to day. You can also see all kinds of notes and measurements and stuff on this google doc. I will also be uploading new pictures to the shared folder later today (as always, the pictures are nude so don’t look if that will freak you out).

Currently Reading:

• “Destructive Emotions: A Scientific Dialogue with the Dalai Lama” by Daniel Goleman
• “The Great Hunt” by Robert Jordan