Remember: progress is not linear. Typically when you first start out there’s a suck phase where you’re just not that great and then they’re a quick progression as you get into the swing of things and that feels great, but don’t let it set you up. Because after that, it can go anywhere. You could be stalling for a long time and then suddenly make a breakthrough where everything just clicks. Or you realize your progress is good, but there’s a better process, so you have to back track or relearn things. Don’t get discouraged! Progress is progress, no matter how slow or painful. And sometimes a back track is part of progress! Even when it doesn’t always feel like it. I think the better sense of progress is “are you becoming complacent?” If you feel like you are, you may not be progressing well. Progress is often uncomfortable, so the more you are comfortable with the uncomfortable, the better you’ll be

Growing up, I kind of hated learning. I studied and did well, but I did it because I was supposed to. Now that I am now longer in school and on my own, I enjoy learning. I get to look into things that I’m curious about, things that are tangible to my life. It’s a very different feeling.

Also, it is my firm belief that this mindset and act of learning new things will keep me sharper in my older years than if I did not have that learning mindset.

Since forever, I would always try to stay awake as much as I could. I would only fall asleep when my eyes were too heavy to keep open. There’s this idea that sleep is a waste of time, but that is not true. It only feels that way because we don’t know what’s going on in the background. To us, sleep is a blank span of time that we don’t do anything. However, your body is deep at work repairing the body and getting it ready for the next day.

From an evolutionary perspective, sleep is a liability. We are unconscious for 8 hours vulnerable to predators. Yet, something is going on that’s supersedes that risk. That’s how important sleep is.

“With sleep, you can make the impossible possible. Without sleep, you make the possible impossible”

We are at our best when we get enough sleep. We think faster and perform better. We also live longer! So it’s not even that if you sleep less, you get more done. You’ll get less done and die sooner than if you got proper sleep.

So instead of thinking “I have to go to bed,” think “I get to go to bed”

Now when I close my eyes, I feel for the gentle tug of sleep. If it’s present, I relax my body and allow my body to take care of itself.

Sleep is self care. Simple as that.

Change doesn’t necessarily occur with a conscious decision. I believe it is best done as a visceral decision where you feel it not just in your mind but also in your gut

Exercise does not help a lot with weight loss, however it is very important in preventing weight gain or weight regain. So in a weight loss program, it can almost act like a locking mechanism preventing or minimizing weight gain

Quote by Daniel Lieberman

I heard this quote and it really resonated with me. The idea is that you can be born with certain genetic disposition such as diabetes or heart disease, however it is your environment and how you interact with it that typically determines the final outcome. If you have a family history of Type II diabetes but you exercise and have a good diet and sleep routine, odds are you won’t become diabetic. However, if you are sedentary, are sleep deprived and eat like there’s no tomorrow, odds are that you will. It’s the classic nature vs nurture and I believe it’s along a spectrum in terms of the tolerances your body will allow (ie how/how much you exercise, eat, and sleep)

There is a tendency for people to lean towards comfort, so when we want to go against that we have to make the action necessary (health crisis/scare) or rewarding (focusing on the long term benefits)

Having clutter can be distracting and prevent you be being focused. I’ve lived with clutter most of my life and my distracted thinking was normalized. When I finally got around to keeping a clean space, I felt my mind was clearer

With any endeavor, you want to set yourself up for success.

In that regard, do not strive for perfection. Perfection is an illusion. That is setting yourself up for failure.

Strive for progress. Don’t let the fear of not being perfect stop you from working towards being good.

Exercise

Sleep

Nutrition

Everything else is secondary to those 3.

Exercise should be a mix of cardio and weightlifting.

Sleep should be ~7-9 hours of sleep daily

Nutrition should be plant based, leaning away from processed foods and more towards whole foods.

Avoid alcohol and minimize sugars.

This is the foundation to solid health.

There is also a mental element: one should be doing mentally challenging things to minimize brain atrophy. Keep your brain challenged

There’s a lot of conflicting data on probiotics, which I believe is due to some unappreciated nuances we may not be aware of.

I think it’s overall good, but the question is whether probiotics are temporary or can we change our gut flora permanently. I think there’s a few points we should consider, one is the loading dose. I think for probiotics to take over, they have to compete against an already established gut microbiome and I suspect one needs a large dosing to overcome that.

Additionally, there are things are prebiotics which help probiotics propagate, or at least that’s the theory. But it makes sense in that you not only need to plant the probiotics, but you need to feed it. This typically involves fiber rich food and fermented foods. I think the fermented foods help feed the probiotics. Also, perhaps sourdough bread may be helpful here, as it’s essentially flour that’s been broken done by yeast and bacteria which are killed during the baking process leaving behind nutrients for the probiotics. Now, it’s also possible that the baking process changes some of the broken down compound, but I’m thinking there should be some that do make it through that are beneficial to the probiotics.

One should remember that it’s not like the probiotics are diplomatic communities, I’d say that it is more like warring tribes with the battle grounds being our intestinal tract and the food we consume. So by adjusting what we eat, we can make it more advantageous for the good bacteria to grow and the bad bacteria to not.

I believe that bad bacteria thrive on unhealthy food and good bacteria thrive on healthy food.

By eating the healthy food we are giving the good bacteria the higher ground and by take probiotics supplements, we are sending reinforcements to win the battles. The question is how many reinforcements do we need and once they’re there, how do we keep them fed? At some point, will we not need to send to supplement? Unfortunately, I don’t have answers to these questions. The GI is a bit of a black box in that regard, but I feel that we may need higher dosing than what is typically recommended. Could be wrong.

Those are my thoughts for now