Developing Addiction

It seems I’m developing a new addiction:  kite-boarding!

Despite the fact that I have yet to actually ride for any length of time, I find that I am beginning to love kiting.  I love getting out in the water, love being active outdoors, and love the physical/mental challenge of it… including the challenge of staying calm while attached to a VERY powerful kite (more of a parachute really) while in the ocean.

I find that in the evenings I scan the wind forecasts to see if  I’ll be able to kite-board the next day!  And I am upset when the conditions are bad (as they were today).

Now if I can just get up and riding… I may develop a real addiction!!

Meanwhile, it’s great to be back in a place where I’m active and outdoors almost every day.  Big city life just isn’t for me (save for occasional visits)!

When I finally get up and running, I’ll have my wife shoot a short video and post it   Gotta celebrate those small successes!

A Long Grim Battle

For a long time I have been fighting a long grim battle with extreme moodiness and drastically fluctuating energy levels.

Last summer, everything came to a head.  I had a number of extremely stressful events last summer–  and my energy totally collapsed.  I was in bed for a full month.  After years of trying to live healthy, I was extremely frustrated.

I went to a (holistic) nutritionist and got a battery of tests (hormones, brain neuro-transmitters, vitamin and mineral levels, etc..)– and the results were disastrous.  In her words, I had the body chemistry of an 80 year old man!

After a bit more frustration I did what I had to do… I started again.  I threw out all of my assumptions about health, energy, vitality, and mood.  For the past 7 months my entire focus has been on mood and health.  I have read countless books and articles on nutrition.  I have experimented with many ways of eating and many supplements…. and many approaches to fitness.

And I have finally figured out the answers (for me anyway)!

Answer 1. Sugars & Grains are The Enemy

I have completely stopped eating sugars (other than organic fresh fruit/berries).  I have completely eliminated all grains from my diet (wheat, rice, barley, oats, etc.).   I get my “carbs” solely from fresh vegetables and fruits (including sea veggies).  Because diabetes is strong in my family, I limit my fruit intake to a minimum (and focus on veggies).

Answer 2. Nothing Processed (at all)

I call this the “Jack Lalanne Rule”.  Jack famously said, “If it’s made by man, don’t eat it!”.   I agree.  I eat nothing from a box or can now.

The positive way to state this rule is:

Answer 3: Eat Only Real Primal Food

“Real” means unprocessed.  “Primal” means “paleo”…  in other words, foods that hunter-gatherers ate prior to agriculture.  No pastries, no pasta, no rice, no other grains, no bread, no processed drinks,….

Answer 4:  Fat is Awesome, As Is Protein. Carbs Only From Veggies/Fruit (& In Moderation)

I’m eating a very high fat diet… and losing fat pounds at a nice steady rate.  I’m also building muscle (very gradually) thanks to higher protein intake.  While my eating could be described as “low carb”… I’m happy to eat carbs from fresh vegetables (and fresh fruit/berries in limited amounts). In terms of fat, I avoid highly processed vegetable oils.  I eat LOTS of coconut oil, virgin olive oil, raw cheeses, fish oils and ghee.

Results

My blood sugar is now extremely stable throughout the day… even when I miss a meal.  As a result, my mood is also much much MUCH more stable, as is my energy level.

My body composition is changing in a positive direction too–  body fat is very gradually going down, muscle is very gradually going up (as is strength).

In a month, I will have my blood chemistry tested again to compare with the initial results (7 months ago).  I expect to see significant improvement, based on how I feel.

Lessons Learned

One key lesson for me (a reminder really) has been this:  be extremely wary of conventional wisdom (which is usually driven by the corporate media).  For me, the conventional wisdom of “base your diet on lots of whole grains” was a complete disaster.  Is this true for everyone?  I don’t know.  But clearly the high-grain (processed) and high-carb diet of mainstream America is disastrous…producing epidemic obesity, diabetes, cancer, and heart disease.

To find peak health, energy and fitness… I had to experiment with my own body- through direct experience.  You can find a diet book and research to support nearly ANY kind of approach to eating and exercise.   It’s not the research or opinions that matter–  it’s direct experience–  what happens to your body, mind, emotions and energy when you eat a certain way?  When you exercise a certain way?

Through lots of experimentation, I have finally found a way that is leading me back to peak health and fitness.. to a body leaner and stronger than I had in high school and college.  Just as importantly, it’s leading me to happier more stable moods… every day, throughout the day.

Other Benefits

At age 44 I’m taking up new, fun and exciting activities.  My newest hobbies are Kite-surfing and Stand-up Paddleboard. I do very little “training” anymore– preferring to just be vigorous and active every day (by walking, snorkeling, kite-surfing, paddling, swimming, and doing a few basic calisthenics).

I can’t promise that this approach will give you tremendous results.. but I do encourage you to experiment with different methods to eating and moving your body.

Give this approach a try for 21 days and see how you feel.  Here’s a great book to get you started with this experiment:

The Primal Blueprint: 21 Day Transformation

(PS:  21 days is a good standard for your nutrition and fitness experiments.  Whatever approach you are testing, give it at least 21 days in order to really feel the results (good or bad))

 

 

 

Future Pacing

A vital requirement for getting healthier is the ability to “future pace”.

This is an NLP term.  It means to see, feel and experience the (desired) future as if it is real and happening right now.

I believe that the reason that people choose normalcy over health is that they really don’t know how AMAZINGLY GREAT health feels!  They can’t put themselves (psychologically) into that future state.

Instead, most people focus on the discomfort of the getting healthier– the inconvenience of eating differently, the social challenges of eating differently, the physical discomfort of exercising.  They focus on these because they are more immediate.

Compared to the ease of being normal, these challenges feel very unpleasant.

Future pacing can bypass this.  The more you can imagine FEELING AWESOME, the more motivated you are to achieve that result.  Health isn’t about looking great.. it’s about feeling great:  energized, happy, passionate, vibrant and alive!

Helping people imagine that… and then see it and feel it vividly… is the challenge of the coach.  The more we can do that, the more we will help people!

 

Psychology Again

As I stated in my last post, the biggest barrier to becoming healthy is the need to be abnormal.

In other words, the challenge is a psychological one.  You don’t really need to become an expert in bio-chemistry!  You don’t need to understand all of the complexities of nutrition.

The main challenge is to break the emotional conditioning that has been programmed into you (and me and everyone).  To be healthy, you must re-program your beliefs and emotions regarding food, fitting in, etc.

Most health programs focus on the details of diet and exercise… and they totally neglect the HUGE psychological challenge.

Most people need specific strategies and support for:  breaking limiting beliefs, breaking emotional conditioning, breaking physiological addictions,… as well as creating strong healthy beliefs, re-conditioning their emotions, and establishing healthy lifetime habits.

So that’s where my research and experimentation is taking me… I’m exploring methods that will help people change their psychology in order to create health and vitality.

And, as always, I am first experimenting on myself…

Results to follow…..

Fat Merchants

For quite a while I had a very judgmental attitude about fat people in America (ie. most people).  I would return from a trip to Asia and be shocked anew by the fat and obesity and sloth of the American people.

I am still shocked by it.  It’s an outrageous situation- one that Americans accept as “normal” (and therefore, somehow OK).

However, I don’t have the same harsh judgement about these people, because I now realize that the health situation in America is caused by something far more sinister than laziness and sloth.

Why have Americans become so fat and unhealthy so quickly?  My grandmother’s generation didn’t have this problem.

The answer lies in the food supply.  The corporate takeover of the American food (and drug) supply has caused the epidemic of fat, obesity, cancer, heart disease, and diabetes.  Mega-corporations now control most of the food that Americans eat.  They have stripped that food of nutrients, added chemicals and hormones, and altered the genetics. They have purposefully added chemicals and ingredients to make their franken-food addictive (sugar, fat, salt, caffeine, MSG, and other cheap addictive substances).

They have also spent billions of dollars on propaganda campaigns to program Americans to eat this garbage.  They are the ones who donate “educational material” to schools to “teach” kids about “nutrition” (ie. program them to eat the garbage).  They control the US government and how it regulates food and drugs.  They control the media (through direct ownership and through the influence of billions in advertising dollars).  They control the mainstream medical schools and journals (through massive “donations” and other bribes/gifts).

The result has been a total reprogramming of what and how Americans eat.  The majority now eat mostly processed corporate food that is highly addictive.  Though most fat Americans want to lose weight, they find that they can’t break their addiction to the toxic garbage they have been eating.

At this point in America (and much of the world) it is impossible to eat healthy food if you eat at a restaurant.  To eat healthy at home, you must shop only at health food stores… and even then only in the organic produce and bulk food sections.

Processed food in “health food” stores (in a box, can, or bottle) is, in fact, made by the same mega corporations as the food sold in regular groceries  (nearly all processed health food companies are now owned by companies such as Coke, Cargill, General Mills, etc).

The American people’s greatest sins are not gluttony and slot- they are gullibility and conformity.  Despite a mountain of evidence to the contrary, most Americans continue to act as if  their government, their corporations, and their media are trustworthy.  They continue to believe that the people in these institutions really don’t mean them any harm. They continue to watch and believe TV and the “news”.  They continue to value “normalcy” over health.

The reason it’s so difficult for Americans to be healthy is that to do so, you must break completely with mainstream American society.  You cannot be both “normal” and healthy in America… because sickness and obesity are what’s normal.

To be healthy in America, you must become a “health nut”.  You must avoid the restaurants that everyone else eats at.  You must avoid the food that everyone else eats.  You must live a lifestyle completely different from everyone else.

For most people, this is psychologically too difficult.  They value fitting in more than being healthy (unconsciously).  It’s simply too difficult to fight against the entire culture.

This is exactly the situation the food and drug companies want.

Unfortunately, these companies are now taking over the food supply internationally.  Year by year, they extend their reach into Asia, S. America, and the rest of the world.

For example, Japanese people– once among the healthiest in the world– are now increasingly eating packaged, processed food.  They are getting fatter and less healthy.  This is happening everywhere in the world.

So here’s the “inconvenient” and difficult truth:

At this point, to be healthy you must be different and “weird”.  You must become a “nut”.

You can be “normal” or you can be healthy, but you can’t be both.

New Pet Project

I just returned from a cruise (a seminar at sea) in the Caribbean.  The seminar was great and I had a wonderful time with my wife, my best friend, and her Mom.

However, I was also greatly disturbed by most of the other people on the cruise.  If you’ve ever been on a cruise, you might know what I mean:

Most were extremely overweight.  They had trouble going up and down the stairs.  Some had walkers, or moved around in scooters.  When I see such scenes, I sometimes feel like the only sane person in a mad house.  I ask myself, “doesn’t anyone else realize how sick and insane this situation is?”

I find the health situation in America appalling (which is being exported to the world thanks to food and agriculture mega companies).

My heart goes out to these poor souls, most of whom have no idea why they have become so addicted to processed chemicalized food and a sedentary life.  They don’t realize how they have been programmed by hours of TV.  They don’t realize how their own bio-chemistry has been hijacked and manipulated.  And they look around and see that nearly everyone else is overweight, in pain, etc…  and conclude that it’s “normal”.  Normal it may be, but it’s certainly not a natural or sane situation.

Which brings me to my new pet project– developing a system of health and fitness training.  I’m slowly working on this, with the goal of eventually helping people wake up from the nightmare and achieve strong, vibrant, lasting health.

My model and hero in this area is Jack Lalanne… who lived strong, fit and healthy into his late 90s.

I’m now in the process of building my own strength, endurance, health and happiness in order to be a true model for people.  More importantly, I’m studying psychological techniques to help change people’s addictive cravings, limiting beliefs, etc.

It’s slower going than I hoped, simply because I want to develop something that will really make a difference in people’s lives.  It’s a huge challenge– because it’s a fight against a massive onslaught of programming and bio-chemical warfare.

Indonesia

For the past 4 months I’ve been traveling in Asia, and I return rejuvenated- as always.

During this trip, I visited Indonesia for the first time.  Before visiting, I had no information about the country.  I traveled there with 3 good friends… and let them handle all of the travel arrangements. I didn’t know what to expect.

What I found was one of the friendliest places I have ever visited– and one of the most beautiful.  The people were absolutely wonderful.  And because tourism is not as widespread as in Thailand (Bali is the exception)– you meet fewer jaded individuals.

We visited three places:  Jogyakarta– a university town, Bali (Ubud)– a funky tourist hub, and Bunaken Island– a diving paradise.

Indonesia is now near the top of my “places to visit” list… and I will certainly be returning there.

Migration

After much deliberation, I have finally left San Francisco!  I’ll be living a kind of migratory life that seems to suit me best.

Part of the year we will live in Hawaii (Maui).  Part of the year we’ll be in Asia (Japan and SE Asia).  And a month or two will be spent on the mainland US (mostly in the West).

This is purely for the purpose of “following my bliss”.  The big city life in San Francisco was not good for my psyche.   My wife and I found ourselves getting progressively more stressed, irritable, and unhappy.

The chilly, windy, foggy weather got to us too!

So, true to the Hobopoet spirit, we wised up and realized “we can live anywhere we want”.  We talked about our favorite places in the world-  Hawaii, Japan, and Southeast Asia.   And then we said, “duh, let’s just split our time between those places… in whatever proportion feels right each year”.

So goodbye San Francisco, hello warm sunny tropics!

 

 

 

Nomadic Life

I’m a nomad.  A “neo-bedouin”.  I simply love the variety and challenge of travel.

I have lived in a car.  I’ve lived in a van.  I’ve backpacked around Asia.  I’ve lived in several Asian countries on a shoe-string.  They were all great experiments- interesting and growth-producing.

Over the past few years, however, I’ve been a lot more stationary…  kind of “stuck” in San Francisco. It has never truly felt like home.

That situation is soon to change.  Tomoe (my wife) and I have decided on a nomadic lifestyle that fits our needs.

I, starting this Fall, will be a true nomad–  splitting my time every year between Southeast Asia (probably KL, Malaysia), Kyoto Japan, and the US.  I’ll spend roughly 4 months in each place.

We plan to rent a house in Kyoto.  Kyoto is a fantastic place– the old capital of Japan. It is filled with marvelous temples, traditional houses, and bamboo-lined paths (in addition to a fully modern city).  Kyoto has tons of artists and artisans, lots of students, and lots of health-conscious people.  It has the most vegan/veg. restaurants of any Japanese city I’ve visited.  The city is also surrounded by hills and mountains– plenty of hiking and nature nearby.  It’s an ideal place to spend the summer– which is what I’ll be doing.

Tomoe has given me the task of learning Japanese while I’m in Kyoto- so that’s one project I’ll be focused on there!  In addition, I’ll be doing classes and seminars for Japanese companies (and for my planned non-profit Foundation), doing seminars in other nearby Asian countries (Korea, China, Taiwan,..), and writing & planning lessons.

Kuala Lumpur is a fully modern SE Asian city.  Tropical, diverse… and packed with fabulous food- incredible Indian food (better than India, in my opinion),  Chinese food, and Malay food… and an amazing bounty of tropical fruits and veggies.   It’s a bustling place… but unlike Bangkok… has clean air.  My good friend Kenny (another Georgia boy) already lives there and, next year, also becomes an entrepreneur.  KL is always hot and sunny– a perfect place to spend the Winter– which is what I’ll be doing!

While in KL I’ll be mostly focused on doing as many seminars as possible– in Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, Taiwan, S. China, and India.  We’ll also enjoy hiking trips.. and of course, lots of diving.

The final 4 months of the year I’ll spend in the USA– visiting friends and family, attending seminars, and recording lessons for Effortless English.

I’ve felt a giddy excitement building inside me every since we decided on this schedule.  Taking to the open road and the open skies….  moving with the seasons…  the nomadic life is calling me again….

The Health and Aging Threshold

There is no doubt at all that we can all age with incredible vitality, strength, health and energy.  We can all have 80-100+ years of incredible vitality… long lives full of life.

There is also no doubt that in our teens and 20s,… and for some, in their 30s,..  it’s possible to heap a massive amount of abuse on the body and still feel relatively decent.

However, there is a threshold– a point at which the chemicals, garbage food, and sedentary life catch up with nearly everyone.

That threshold, for most people, is around the age of 40.

Here’s the common pattern in America–  a person eats badly for decades.  They gradually add fat to their body in their 20s and 30s….  but aren’t necessarily “obese” (though more and more are becoming obese younger and younger).

These people aren’t athletic, but they don’t consider themselves to have bad health.

Then they get near age 40.  The decades of abuse rapidly catch up to them.   More pounds of fat get added.

And it’s at this time they begin to notice other disturbing things happening–  their energy and drive start dropping, their sexual drive drops, their muscle mass begins to slowly and gradually drop.  The vitality begins to seep away.

Most people go into denial and say “it’s nothing”.  Or they pass it off as “normal” aging.  I can’t tell you how many older friends I’ve heard say, “Well, I’m just getting older”.

This is tragic.  To start losing one’s vitality at 40…  and live the next 3-5+ decades feeling ever weaker, ever more fatigued, ever more grumpy,… with a diminishing zest for life….  it is so unnecessary.

The challenge is this–  after the age of 40 there is no more leeway.  When you abuse your body for 40 years, you have no more room for error if you want to be fantastically alive.  At that point, you must adopt a 100% healthy lifestyle.  You must cut out ALL of the garbage.  You must eat such that your hormones will remain balanced and normal. Most people also need a few key supplement.

And everyone needs exercise– both “slow burn” aerobic exercise (ie. walking) and muscle building exercise (ie. weights, kettlebells,..).

The problem for most people is that after 40 (or 50, or 60) years of living a trashy, unhealthy lifestyle- they become addicted to junk food.  Most even connect their identity to the garbage food they eat.

And so most choose to cling to garbage comfort foods– mistakenly thinking that the small pleasures of eating them are greater any benefit they’d get from becoming a “health nut” and eating all that “strange” health food.

Now that I’m on the other side of that threshold… and have become a full-fledged “health nut”, I can say unequivocally that NOTHING compares to the incredible every day vibrant high of super-health!   Nothing compares to feeling constantly energetic… all day long.  Nothing compares to feeling generally happy and emotionally positive… all day long.  Nothing compares to being mentally sharp… all day long.  Nothing compares to having a strong motivation and drive- and a feeling of life purpose and mission… every day.. all day long.

No donut, no bread, no pasta, no packaged chemicalized garbage food of any kind… no matter how skillfully prepared… no matter how much it stimulates the body… can compare to how I feel now.

It’s not too late to feel fantastic.

No matter what your age- you can change now.

You must simply decide that your life, your friends and family, your vitality… are more important that an addiction to garbage food and sedentary TV watching.

Get disgusted with your deteriorated life!  Get passionately excited about what is possible.

And take massive, consistent action.

Once you achieve a feeling of super-health, you’ll never go back… and remaining healthy will feel effortless.

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