This week’s weigh in is up on YouTube. Great gains (or losses I guess) made this week. Last week my weight had gone up quite a bit, and I did manage to lose most of it again this week. Made some gains in happiness, too. Figured some issues out I was having with exercise. All around a pretty good week. Let me know what you think of it with a comment here or there. If you enjoyed the video please leave a Like. Subscribe and click the notification bell if you want to be immediately notified every time I post a video to YouTube. Thanks for all the support. I hope you’re having a great week. Peace.
Still adjusting to the new schedule so I allowed the vlog posting to get delayed. Things I’m working on this week, prioritizing! So here is last Wednesday’s vlog because I do want to have a vlog up for every week, even if it’s posted a little late. It’s on word choice and how words matter. The words you choose to describe a situation can change the meaning to your mind significantly. Specifically it can change something from a moment in time to an immutable character trait. So it’s important to watch your word choice because words matter. Leave a Like if you enjoy the video. Subscribe and click the notification bell if you want to be immediately notified every time I upload a video to YouTube. If you have suggestions, criticisms, ways I can improve, please leave a comment down below or on my YouTube page. Hope you’re having a great day. I know I am. Peace.
Here is this week’s weigh in. Numbers are a bit up. I did decide to go off keto for the tail end of the class and that did result in a bit of weight gain. And I’m ok with that. I made a decision and I’m willing to live with the consequences. There were some lessons learned as well. Leave a Like if you enjoy the video. Subscribe and click the bell if you want to be immediately notified every time I post a video to YouTube. Leave a comment here or there letting me know what you think about this week’s weigh in. Hope you’re having a great week. Peace.
I’m 48 years old. In less than half a year I turn 49. By conventional wisdom I’m supposed to be too old for a lot of things. Statistically speaking the better part of my life, time wise, is over. I’m heading into the period of winding down and accepting what life has given me.
At the beginning of last year, when I was 47, I started my ketogenic journey. Now I haven’t been able to weigh myself in the last two Mondays because I’m away on training. But as of my last weigh in two weeks ago I was just shy of 100 pounds lighter than when I started. But I’m supposed to be too old to lose weight. It’s just too hard at my age.
Up until last year I spoke only one language. Ok, technically speaking that’s still true. I’m only fluent in English. But I’m working on learning Portuguese, German, and Spanish. Saturday morning I took an Uber ride with a woman who is a native Spanish speaker and she complimented me on my pronunciation skills. I’m not fluent by any stretch of the imagination. In fact I’d say I have a long ways to go to get that level in any of the three languages. But I’m clearly able to take in a new language and do it correctly. But I’m not supposed to because I’m too old to learn new things. In fact it’s at this point that they say I should expect my faculties to start declining.
And job wise I just started a new career. I’m here doing my training as we speak. At a time when I’m supposed to be on the glide slope toward retirement at a career, I’m just taking off. But I’m supposed to be too old to be considering starting over in a job. I don’t have the years left in me to have a full career if I start over today.
But I’m choosing to get into shape. I’m choosing to learn new tricks. I’m choosing to start over. Why? I don’t know how much longer I have on this planet. None of us does. I could be half my age right now and still could be gone tomorrow. So I choose not to plan based off of a predetermined schedule that’s been arbitrarily foisted on me. I don’t worry if I have enough time to complete the tasks. I just worry about today.
And today I’ve decided I’d like to go to bed tonight a little bit better a person than I started this morning. Today I’ve decided that I don’t want to waste any of the time I have left on silly things that don’t make me better. After all I don’t know how much more of that time I have. Today I’ve decided I’ll start walking down paths that make me happier, including career paths. I don’t know how far I’ll get down the path before my time comes up, but who cares. I’d rather spend however much time I do have left on a happy path than I would being given twice as much time to walk down a miserable path.
Wake up each day with one mission. Be happy today. It doesn’t matter where you are in life. The beginning, the middle, or supposedly near the end. Take whatever time you have left, long or short, and just use it to be happy. Even if you’re supposed to be too old to start over, do it anyway if you aren’t happy with the way things are. Better to go out smiling not reaching your new goal than to go out sad living up to the expectations of acting your age.
Here’s to a new and brighter future at any age. Have a great day. Peace.
Here is my weekly weigh in video. Very happy with this week’s results. Also happy with a new product I’m trying. Watch the video to get the low down on how things went this past week. If you enjoy the video please leave a Like. Subscribe and click the notification bell on YouTube if you’re interested in being immediately notified every time I upload a video to YouTube. Hope you’re having a great day and a great week. Peace.
Here is this week’s weigh in. Gained a smidge this week. I know why, and I’m ok with the why. I explain in the video. Also an employment update. Check it out. Like the video if enjoy it. Leave a comment here or there letting me know what you think or how I can be better. Subscribe and click the bell if you want to be immediately notified every time I post a video to YouTube. Have a great week. Peace
There used to be a show on I loved to watch called American Gladiators. The show had many events all of which were designed to pit weekend warriors against the professional gladiators. The idea was simple, compete in an event against the gladiator doing the best you can and if you did well enough you’d get points. Collect enough points and out score your fellow weekend warrior and you won.
Each individual event had its own challenges. Powerball required you to be fast, but also agile. You had to meet the dual goals of getting soccer balls into the baskets and avoid being train wrecked by a gladiator. Or Assault, where you had to advance toward the gladiator who was shooting tennis balls at high speed your way. Get hit you were done. To take it up a notch you’d have to stop at certain stations to attempt to shoot and hit a target located right behind and above the gladiator. Assault required you to stick your neck out to make the shot. The event I’d like to focus on today is Hang Tough.
Hang Tough was simple in concept. You start on one platform holding onto a gymnastics ring. And then you’d swing from ring to ring, attempting to land safely on the platform on the opposite side of the field. There were a couple of minor hiccups, though. First, you were working against the clock as you were holding up your entire weight by the hands as you went from side to side. Anyone who’s been on a jungle gym knows that the longer you go the more tired your arms get. If the warrior’s grip gave way before he or she reached the other side they’d fall and lose the event. Oh, and there’s the small issue of a gladiator coming your way on the rings from the opposite side, intent on taking you out. And I don’t mean dancing.
The rings were spaced such that you could reach the next ring while still holding on to your current one. You didn’t have to let go until you were assured you had a good grip on the next ring. But the presence of the gladiator could rock that boat. Sometimes you’d have to quickly move from the one ring to the next and couldn’t test your grip first. And on some occasions the warrior, in an effort to dodge the gladiator, would have to let go of one ring before even grabbing the next.
Life can be like Hang Tough. It’s nice when you have the time and energy to go safely from one life choice to the other. Being in a position where you can test your “grip” on the new life event before releasing the past one is awesome. But sometimes life throws you a curve and you’re left with a decision. Go before you know, or stay the steady course and risk the gladiator.
Maybe you get lucky and dodge the gladiator safely. Maybe you get lucky and the gladiator’s grip gives way before yours. If you’re not so lucky and the gladiator catches you, now you have a lot of extra weight on your shoulders to deal with. The gladiator, and life, try to drag you down.
Then again maybe you’re that person who decides to be bold and go for it. You understand the risk. If your grip isn’t true you fall. But if you grab that next ring securely you’re past the danger and on your way to victory. You just have to be willing to assume the risk and live with the consequences.
The consequence, of course, being you fail, and fall. Cool thing about Hang Tough was that many a warrior fell, but all would go on to compete again. Failure was embarrassing. A bit regrettable. But never fatal. So they’d pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and get right back to competing.
What set the risk takers apart from the guys who played it safe wasn’t so much that they’d take the risk, it was the understanding that even if you risked it and failed, you still could come back and succeed.
So remember this week to Hang Tough. And if you’re the risk taker, do so boldly, knowing that as long as you’re willing to accept the risk, even if you lose you can still win in the end. Have a great week. Peace.
This one will be short but sweet. Yesterday I crossed a milestone with my blog here on WordPress. I now have over 100 followers. I enjoy putting posts up on here but there really wouldn’t be much of a point if it wasn’t for all of you following me and reading (and sometimes watching) them. I am eternally grateful for your support and truly hope that what I am sharing with you is helping you to be the best versions of yourselves. Have a great day today. Peace.
The weekly weigh in video is up on YouTube. Good results this week and some great news to get to share with you all. Watch the video to find out. Leave a comment here or there telling me what you think or if you have suggestions on how I can improve the videos or myself. Leave a Like if you enjoyed the video. Subscribe and click the notification bell if you’d like to be immediately notified every time I put up a video. Have a great week. Peace.
So I’m on a 24 hour fast. It’s not the first one I’ve done. It’s not even the longest I’ve done. I’ve made it over 48 hours fasting. Being fully keto adapted I can go a day or two without food easily. And I do so regularly to promote autophagy (your body killing off unnecessary cells) and weight loss.
When I first started fasting as part of my ketogenic lifestyle, though, it wasn’t so easy. I was keto adapted and used fat as my primary fuel source. I had plenty of fuel on board. So going without food intake wasn’t a physiological issue, it was a psychological one.
In our society we’re used to having food available at all times. Which means we’re used to eating any time we want. The idea of willfully going without food just went against my mental programming. And that’s not even counting the way our brains are hardwired.
Your brain fears scarcity. And there’s a good reason for that. Way back in the day, food wasn’t available 24/7. So when you had a chance to eat your body sent you signals to make sure you didn’t miss out. Who knew when the next available meal would come along. It’s a survival mechanism. The first time you fast, and probably the second and third, you’re going to be fighting some pretty strong urges to stop fasting. So here are a few suggestions on how to start fasting in a way that’ll be easier on you.
First, eat a big meal right before your first fast. I know this seems a little counterproductive but the idea is to make the first fast easy so that you lessen the urges and get your mind comfortable with fasting. If you start out on a nice, full stomach your brain is less likely to panic and you’ll last longer before it becomes concerned about the lack of food heading its way.
Second, and it goes hand in hand with the first step, make the big meal breakfast or early lunch. This is all about timing. Have the meal timed so that by the time you’re starting to waver on your commitment you’re about to go to bed. Sleeping gives you eight easy hours of fasting. If you started the fast around 8am or 9am and go to bed at 10pm you’re only having to hang in there for 13-14 hours, a little over half a day. Then you add the 8 hours of sleep in and you just fasted 21-22 hours. Even if you go with the early lunch plan because you’re a little wary, and eat the meal at 10am or 11am, your first fast would be 19-20 hours. You’ve taught your brain you can go nearly a day without food and be fine.
Third, have distractions ready. If you’re just sitting there thinking about how you’re fasting you’re thinking about food. And that’s just making it harder on yourself. So have pre-planned distractions. Like a book to read to keep your mind off of things. Maybe have a Sudoku app on your phone to play if a hunger pang arrives. Play a round or two to get yourself past the urge. Just make sure that whatever your distraction is it doesn’t play into the desire to have food. Like if you must have popcorn when watching a movie at the theater, that would clearly be a bad choice. Or hanging out with someone who you usually only meet for meals would be a problem because you’ll focuse on the food you aren’t having this time. Also, avoid strenuous activities like hiking or other sports as that will increase your bodies desire for food making things rougher. On a side note, once you’re used to fasting you’ll be able to exercise during a fast but I’d still avoid heavy resistance exercises.
Fourth, stay hydrated and keep your belly full of acceptable liquids. Water is fine on a fast and won’t end it. Coffee and tea, so long as you don’t add anything to them, can also be consumed on a fast. And they have the added benefit of encouraging fat burning. So drink enough to give your belly the sensation of fullness.
The final step is to be mentally prepared in advance. Tell yourself to expect the hunger, and remind yourself that it’ll be more psychological than physical. If you’ve mentally prepared it won’t be as much of a smack in the face. It’ll be part of the plan. When the hunger hits, and your brain is demanding food, you’ll remind yourself that you expected this. You just need to be patient and the hunger pang will go away because you know you have plenty of fuel on board. Even someone of lower body fat who has keto adapted for the health benefits has way more fat on their body then they could go through in a day. So just know in advance that you’ve got this and you will muscle through.
Those are my go to suggestions for handling your first fast. And probably the next couple of fasts as well. After I had fasted a few times and built my time up I stopped having issues sticking with the fast. And now I just fast for as long as I choose no problems. Give it time and you’ll get there too. And don’t be hard on yourself if you don’t make it all the way on your first few attempts. Go as long as you can and know you’ll go a little longer the next time.
I hope this has been helpful. If you have any other suggestions for making a fast easy please leave a comment below. I hope you’re having a great day. Peace.
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