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diet

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  • Super healthy foods you simply must eat every day

    If you’re a complete newbie to the healthy lifestyle like I was a few years ago, not to mention that I was super fat as a kid, there are two pieces of advice that helped me the most to start taking care of my body better.

    The first one is go for a type of exercise you dislike the least. That helped me go from hating exercise, to being okay with it, to loving it a few years later. By using the search mode principle, I found some exercise I was okay with it, and then continued from there.

    The second advice is: add a few healthy foods to your diet, to slowly start transitioning to a new healthier lifestyle. Luckily there are a few types of foods that are super healthy, tasty, don’t need lots of preparation and are inexpensive.

    These foods will provide you with the perfect package of micronutrients – antioxidants, fiber, vitamins, minerals and other healthy nutrition properties.

    Even more importantly, they will trick you into slowly starting to love healthy food instead of junk food. Here are super healthy foods I eat almost every day (at least 4 of them in a day):

    • Berries
    • Avocados
    • Nuts
    • Broccoli
    • Olive oil
    • Green tea

    Blueberries super healthy

    Blueberries or any other type of berries

    Number one on the list are blueberries. Berries are a type of fruit that contains the lowest amount of sugar and high amounts of antioxidants, fiber and vitamins A and C. Next to that, they are delicious and don’t need any heavy preparation.

    You just wash them a little bit and enjoy their superior taste; or you can add them to many other foods like yogurt, oatmeal, on top of protein pancakes, and so on.

    Blueberries are great for your brain and prevent memory loss, they help prevent urinary tract infections, and are generally delicious for your health. The only downside is that they aren’t the most inexpensive food, but they’re absolutely worth the cost.

    • Every day, eat a small cup of blueberries as a snack
    • Sprinkle a palm of blueberries on some of your favorite dishes
    • When it’s hard to get fresh blueberries I use frozen ones, which is not ideal, but still an option
    • Alternatively, you may go for raspberries, goji berries, acai berries or blackberries (but those cost more)

    Avocado

    Avocados are considered to be one of the best superfoods. They contain lots of healthy fats, soluble fiber, vitamin E, folate and potassium. They help keep your blood sugar levels stable and your eyesight sharp.

    The downside is that they have a very specific fatty taste, they’re rich in calories and they can be a bit expensive if you go for the organic ones.

    I don’t like them so much that I would eat them alone or in a salad, but I eat them daily in a smoothie that I make for myself. Well, to be completely honest, my girlfriend makes it for me.

    • Avocados are a great basic ingredient for a smoothie
    • You can also add them to a salad or make yourself delicious guacamole sauce
    • Just eat them in moderation, since they’re packed with calories

    Nuts

    Nuts are a great source of healthy fats, they taste delicious and serve as a very handy snack. They help lower “bad” LDL cholesterol and raise “good” HDL cholesterol, they’re generally considered as one of the best brain foods (trail mix) and you can take them with you everywhere you go.

    There are many different types of nuts – almonds, walnuts, pistachios, almonds, brazil nuts, cashew, macadamias, and so on, so your taste buds will never get bored.

    As you probably know, nuts are considered to be allergenic food, so be careful about any potential allergic reactions. Peanuts are the most delicate ones, because they aren’t even technically nuts. And most importantly, don’t eat too many of them, because they’re rich in calories.

    • Eat a handful or 20 – 25 nuts every day as the perfect snack
    • Try different types of nuts and find the ones that work best for you
    • Always add a few of them to your favorite smoothie, together with chia and flax seeds
    • If possible, buy organic nuts, but don’t eat too many of them if you want to lose weight

    Broccoli super healthy

    Broccoli

    The two foods I used to hate the most are broccoli and olives. I was flicking olives off my pizzas and I thought to myself: who eats this weird green alien tasteless vegetable or whatever the hell it is. Today, broccoli is my number one favorite food. I couldn’t survive without broccoli now.

    If you’re wondering how I started liking broccoli, it’s simple. For a week or two, I forced myself a little bit to eat it, and then your taste changes. You can really reprogram yourself quickly for whatever you like. We’re able to adjust really quickly (especially your brain), the only unfortunate thing is that we usually adjust to worse habits.

    But now back to broccoli. It contains sulfur compounds, which help fight cancer. It’s rich in protein and antioxidants. It contains a lot of vitamins A, C and K as well as folate. You can steam broccoli really fast to use it as a side dish, add it to a salad or make a soup out of it.

    It keeps your tummy full for a long time. Already by only looking at a nice piece of broccoli, you immediately know that it’s super healthy.

    • To every main meal, add broccoli as a side dish
    • You can make a fast and easy delicious broccoli soup a few times per week

    Olive oil

    Olive oil is packed with healthy fats. It helps lower “bad” LDL cholesterol and raises “good” HDL cholesterol. Olive oil keeps your artery walls smooth and cholesterol-free, and it’s also rich in antioxidants. I use exclusively organic cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil.

    For cooking, I use coconut oil, and as salad dressing I always use tons of olive oil. If I somehow don’t eat a salad in a particular day, which rarely happens, I eat a small tablespoon of olive oil or flax oil. My girlfriend is always surprised at how fast I can empty a big bottle of delicious olive oil.

    • Add a little bit of lemon and tons of olive oil to your salad
    • Eat a tablespoon of olive oil with your lunch
    • Only adding olive oil to your diet is far from as healthy a lifestyle as many imagine, but it’s one small step towards it

    Green tea

    Green tea is an extremely healthy and tasty beverage, filled with antioxidants and just a strong enough stimulant to wake you up and brighten your mood without messing with your sleep pattern, as long as you don’t drink it in the afternoon or before sleep.

    Studies show that green tea helps fight heart disease, cancer, stroke, Alzheimer’s disease and keeps your gums, teeth and bones healthy.

    Green tea also helps burn fat and improves physical performance. Green tea has also been shown to improve blood flow, lower cholesterol and help with other health issues. There are mixed opinions regarding coffee, but everyone agrees that drinking green tea is very beneficial to you.

    • Drink only water, fresh-made mild lemonade, green tea, green drink, nothing else
    • Drink one cup of your favorite green tea between breakfast and lunch, and one between lunch and dinner but not after 4 or 5 PM, if you want to get quality sleep. Green tea may interfere with absorption of some minerals, especially iron, so drink it between meals instead.
    Super healthy foods
    My super healthy food pack for 2 days.

    Other super healthy foods

    There are many other healthy foods I eat almost daily. I eat different kinds of seeds, lots of eggs, oatmeal, quinoa, yogurt, tons of green veggies (salad, kale or spinach), a piece or two of seasonal organic fruit, and some types of beans and lentils.

    I add cinnamon to some foods and to lemonade. Sweet potatoes are also considered to be a nutrient-rich food, but I don’t eat it since it’s not popular in my country. I also take a few core supplements daily with one of my main meals.

    But these are add-ons. The first step you can make is to add the six mentioned foods to your diet. When you go grocery shopping, just add them to your cart without even thinking. Most of them don’t need much preparation and you can consume them immediately. And all of them taste delicious.

    Homework
    • For one of the snacks during a day, eat a palm of blueberries and nuts.
    • With one of the main meals, eat a cup of broccoli as a side dish or add it to a salad.
    • For a salad always use olive oil or eat a small spoonful of it during lunch.
    • Between meals, make yourself a green tea or two.
    • Make yourself a delicious green smoothie with avocado, seeds and a few green veggies. Just don’t add too much other fruit in it. This takes the most effort, but it will also benefit you the most.
    • From this point on, slowly improve your diet by removing juices, sugary food, fried food and so on, step by step. But first learn to love a few super healthy and super delicious foods.

    Add these things to your shopping list and start eating them daily or almost daily. Your body and your brain will be super grateful to you, your mood and your energy levels will improve including your overall health.

    It really takes zero effort to add these things to your diet, and they do taste delicious. If not for the first few times, then after a week or so. Bon appétit. Enjoy there super healthy foods every day.

  • Tricks to eat less that will help you lose weight without any suffering

    There is a very important fact in the fitness and weight loss industry, emphasizing that you can never out-train your diet. Your losing weight goals are 80 % done in the kitchen and 20 % done in the gym.

    Regular exercise is absolutely important and you have to do it if you want to be/look fit and gain some muscles, but for losing fat, an elaborate diet is what counts the most. There is some simple math behind it.

    Here’s how many calories you burn (rough estimate) in 30 minutes of exercise:

    • Walking: 150 kcal
    • Weight training: 220 kcal
    • Cycling: 250 kcal
    • Swimming: 300 kcal
    • Running: 300 kcal

    And here are the calories in some relatively small meals and snacks (again, only rough estimates):

    • Egg: 80 kcal
    • Banana: 100 kcal
    • One slice of pizza: 240 kcal (yes, one slice)
    • Snicker’s Bar: 250 kcal
    • Big Mac: 563 kcal

    You can eat a Big Mac in 3 minutes, and then you have to go running for an hour to burn it. If we take a step further, 7,700 calories are roughly 1 kg of fat together with water (or 3,500 kcal equals 1 lb of fat). So if you eat 500 calories over your TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure), you will gain 1 kg of fat in two weeks.

    Now, there is a lot of debating going on out there over how accurate these calculations are, but at the end of the day, if you eat more than you burn, you get fatter and if you burn more than you need, you lose weight. It’s a simple rule that can’t be avoided. And it’s much easier to dam up calories than trying to burn all the excess you consume with exercise.

    It’s so easy to eat 500 calories. It’s so hard to burn 500 calories.

    The main problem is that when you start to exercise, your appetite goes up. That’s why many people get disappointed when they start to take care of their bodies. They feel much better after exercise, they put in the hard work, but their appetite also goes up and consequently they eat much more and don’t see fat loss as quickly as they would desire.

    And even if you stuff your face with healthy food, you gain weight. If you want to lose weight, you simply have to curb your eating appetites. There is no other way.

    Weight loss

    Tricks to eat less

    If you want to lose weight, you have to control how much (quantity) and what (quality) you eat. You do that by making smart big and small eating decisions.

    Big smart decisions are the decisions of how you design your eating pattern in general – the number of meals you eat, what time you eat them, the typical meals you like and their size. You have to know your macros and how you will meet them. Besides that you have to know your body very well and how it resonates with different diet approaches. You do that by testing.

    Small smart decisions are all the small things that prevent you from eating that one banana or chocolate bar too many per day. They’re small tricks that help you keep the discipline and really stay within the bigger plan (macro calculations, eating pattern). Small decisions are the details you have to be careful about. As they say, God or the Devil are in the details. Diet is no exception here.

    Now let’s look at 15+ tricks to eat less that will help you eat less in order to lose weight and be healthier. If you are prone to overeating as I am and your body weight fluctuates like the tide, these tricks may actually change your life.

    How to lose weight? Portion control, portion control.

    Be smart about shopping

    There is a saying that fitness professionals repeat over and over again: “5 minutes of willpower in the grocery store is much easier than a week of willpower in the kitchen”. Make sure you aren’t hungry when you go shopping, and buy only healthy food.

    Have a list of things you need to buy and don’t get tempted to buy anything that will lead you to a temptation later on. Have a rule to not have junk food or sweets at home at all!

    Tricks to eat less

    Skip a meal or do intermittent fasting

    One great way to eat less is to skip meals. If you ate too much at your last meal, skip the next one. From time to time, skip breakfast or dinner for a few times in a row. Not eating after 6pm at all may also help you a lot.

    As an alternative, you can also do intermittent fasting and introduce periods in your days when you don’t eat at all. Test a few different approaches to skipping meals and find the eating pattern that works best for you.

    Brush your teeth

    When you crave a snack in the evening, go and brush your teeth. It’s a signal to your brain that the time to stop eating has come. Your hunger can go away like that. And if you are a little bit lazy, you know that after eating, you’ll have to brush your teeth again, and who wants to do that?

    Drink plenty of water

    If you get really hungry, drink lots of water. Well drink lots of water anyway, but when you are hungry, drink it even more. It can also be with a few drops of a freshly squeezed lemon.

    Just know that if you do it before sleep, you will go to the toilet several times and that may disturb the quality of your sleep. Drinking a glass of water before every meal can also help a lot. As mentioned the good news is that drinking water is extremely healthy for you anyway.

    Always have broccoli in your belly

    Organic broccoli is the most awesome and healthy green food in existence. You can see how healthy it is even by only looking at it. Half a kilo of broccoli only has 170 kcal and 15g of protein.

    And trust me, you feel very full after eating 0,5 kg of broccoli. If you’re feeling hungry, just eat some broccoli. Make sure you always have some broccoli in your stomach. It’s that simple.

    Healthy food choices

    The hunger test

    Imagine a really healthy food you like, without sugars or fats (fruit doesn’t count, except for avocado). Preferably a green vegetable – broccoli, spinach, salad, whatever. If you feel real hunger, you’ll have no problem eating your favorite green vegetable.

    But if you just go “no, no”, I want pizza, a chocolate bar, French fries, chips or whatever, you’re probably not really hungry. It’s emotional hunger.

    If you are really hungry, slice some carrots and pickles and eat them with some hummus. No? Then you aren’t really hungry.

    Go for a walk

    Feeling super hungry? Distract yourself with a productive and healthy activity. Go for a walk and eat something healthy when you come back. Sometimes distracting yourself works.

    Just make sure that you don’t overeat after you finish with the selected activity. There is a thin line when you go too far with hunger and you just want to eat everything afterwards.

    Eat slowly, especially when you cheat

    This is the hardest one for me, but it does wonders. There is a thing called mindful eating. It means that you eat really slowly, paying full attention to the food. You do slow bites and try to engage yourself in the eating activity with all of your senses.

    When you do that, not only do you eat more slowly which is super healthy, you usually also eat less. You pay more attention to when you’re really full.

    There are a few tricks you can employ to eat more mindfully:

    • Closely examine every bite of food before you put it in your mouth – texture, color etc.
    • Keep switching the spoon from one hand to the other or eat with your non-dominant hand
    • Take a few bites with your eyes closed
    • Eat with chopsticks
    • Make sure you take one bite at a time
    • Take a break during your meal
    • Chew 25 times every bite
    • Be thankful for the meal before you start eating – say a prayer or just think about how lucky you are

    The signal to your brain that your stomach is full comes with some delay, so eating slowly helps that the signal doesn’t come too late, when you already eat twice as much as you should.

    Use smaller plates

    Always put your food on a plate

    To better control how much you eat, always put your food on a plate. Never eat out of a bag. Never just take food out of the fridge and put it in your mouth. And never do it above the kitchen sink, stuffing yourself with fruit, for example (like I do sometimes and my girlfriend doesn’t like it).

    On second thought, don’t just put food on a plate. Prepare it. Slice it, cook it, decorate it, whatever. Give yourself time to play with the preparation and while you do it, think about a reasonable portion size.

    Always put your food on a plate and always eat only sitting at the table with no exceptions. Especially don’t eat in front of a TV. Eating in front of the TV is the opposite of mindful eating. You get lost in a TV show and just eat and eat, with no idea of how much you ate.

    Using smaller plates may also be used as a psychological trick to not put too much food on a plate and to see small portions as big enough.

    Under 200 calories snacks

    Always have a few “healthy snacks under 200 calories” with you for an emergency if you are really hungry or your sugar levels drop. Never wait until you’re extremely hungry and then eat twice as much as you should.

    Instead control your appetite with small non-caloric healthy snacks. Examples of those kind of snacks are:

    • Small banana with a few almonds
    • Greek yogurt with a piece of fresh fruit
    • Carrot with hummus
    • Cup of blueberries
    • Avocado
    • Cucumber salad
    • Olives and a few slices of cheese
    • Apple
    • Shrimp cocktail
    • Protein bar

    Tracking calories

    The number one thing weightlifters and gym rats usually regret is not paying more attention to their diet when they started exercising. Most weightlifters claim that tracking calories changed their life and the speed of progress.

    Tracking calories significantly helps you stay within your macros (protein, carbs, fat, fiber, vitamins, minerals intake), stay in a moderate deficit (if you are cutting) or surplus (if you are bulking), and it always gives you a chance for a second thought over whether you should eat something or not.

    Now, I don’t track my calories daily, but I have a big spreadsheet with all the calculations for my typical meals that I usually eat in a day. Since I like to simplify my life, I have a few typical meals for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks, and I have a standard meal plan for high-carb and low-carb days.

    I know exactly when I overeat, and I try to balance that by skipping meals. Going through the macros of my typical meals really opened my eyes as to why I had such big problems losing weight. Because food contains so much more calories than you think.

    It’s so easy to overeat. A good rule that can help you eat less is: don’t put anything in your mouth before you log it.

    Get enough sleep

    Getting enough quality sleep is very important for your health in general. A lack of sleep causes stress, puts additional pressure on your body, you usually feel hungrier and it messes with your self-discipline. So if you want to eat less, go to bed early and make sure you get enough sleep.

    If you stay up late, you will want to eat more, especially unhealthy snacks. Who likes to cook at midnight? If you’re tired because of a lack of sleep, you will want to eat even more the next day.

    Because your self-discipline will be poor, you’ll have no problem eating lots of unhealthy food. You have to be smarter than that. Get enough sleep and your appetite will go down.

    Your picture on the fridge

    You can also go a big step further to stop yourself from overeating. You can take a photo of yourself in a swimming suit, nicely showing your excess of fat. Make sure that the picture is as unattractive as possible. Stick a photo of you clearly showing the excess of fat to the fridge and it’s going to be a nice reminder to walk away.

    Fat you pic on the fridge

    Make yourself a cup of green tea

    Interestingly, I often overeat because I feel a lack of energy. I want to operate at 100 % capacity all the time, which is ridiculous. My underlying assumption is that if I eat more, I’ll immediately have immediately more energy. It doesn’t work that way, except maybe with sugar, but soon a sugar crash comes and that makes you even more tired.

    If you’re like me and you want to eat only because you’re tired, get yourself a cup of green tea or coffee instead, if it’s not too late. A piece of dark chocolate also picks me up nicely and the desire to overeat slowly goes away.

    Many people also reported that a chewing gum helps a lot when they’re hungry. Find one caloric acceptable snack that picks you up when you’re tired. Assuming you are already following a healthy diet throughout the day.

    My wrong underlying assumption is that I will have more energy if I eat more. What are your false assumptions and beliefs?

    Wire yourself to enjoy hunger

    If there is one thing I hate, it’s being hungry. Nevertheless, I try to rewire or reprogram myself not to hate it. Much like I hate hunger, I also used to hate broccoli and olives, and now I love them.

    Fasting has always been an important part of a healthy lifestyle and even spiritual life. There are many physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual benefits of fasting, if you do some research on it.

    With intermittent fasting, I’m slowly learning to love being hungry and enjoy it. I focus myself on feeling light, I can feel how my discipline is building up, and at the end of the day I am very proud of myself for having stayed in a caloric deficit.

    If you learn to enjoy hunger, you can always control your portions and how much you eat throughout the day.

    Minus 20 % rule

    A good trick you can use that will help you get in that 500 kcal deficit is to serve yourself 20 % less food. When you have food on a plate, cut away 20 % and throw it away, give it to your dog, share it among others or whatever. At every meal, prepare yourself a full portion and then cut off 20 %. Be proud of yourself when you do that.

    If your TDEE is 2500 calories and you do that, you will eat 500 calories less. A 500 calories deficit every day will lead you to losing 2 kg (4 lbs) in a month. That’s the healthy limit of losing weight.

    When you do the “minus 20 % rule” just make sure you don’t add additional meals to your eating pattern or somehow else compensate for the food you cut off.

    Eat foods that fill you up first

    As we said, drinking a glass of water before a meal may help you eat less. Similarly, you can eat a salad or a soup before the main meal. They are both light in calories and fill your stomach quite a bit. Foods with lots of protein and fiber also keep the hunger away for longer.

    Healthy snack decisions

    Avoid empty calories

    Last but not least, avoid empty calories at all costs. Empty calorie foods are all foods that contain high amounts of calories and sugars, but have zero nutritional value (protein, vitamins etc.).

    They are also very easy to consume as main meals or snacks, and you can almost eat unlimited amount of them. One bite like that too many and you can already be in a caloric surplus. Make a rule to simply not eat foods and drinks with empty calories.

    • Drink water or herbal tea instead of juices, sodas and other sugary drinks
    • Don’t eat fast food at all, or only do it on rare occasions
    • Drink alcohol in moderation
    • Be really strict about how much sweets and desserts you eat
    • Watch out for unhealthy salty snacks like chips and pretzels

    People really use these tricks to eat less

    You may be thinking that this all sounds nice, but these eating tricks are only in magazines to entertain people. That isn’t true. Go to the gym, talk with athletes, join online health and fitness communities, and you will soon realize that people who are fit or lost weight really employed these kinds of tricks. They work, you just have to do it.

    I do most of them and they help me lose weight nicely. So pick a few tricks to eat less you like the most and start them doing immediately. Don’t wait for tomorrow or next Monday, don’t wait for the next summer or the perfect moment, do it with your next meal.

    Your next meal is an opportunity to make smarter eating decisions and to be more kind to your body. Just do it and good luck. Now you know all the major tricks to eat less.

  • Easily lose weight with intermittent fasting

    I love to experiment with different diets and eating patterns. In the past 10 years, I’ve been vegetarian, vegan, fruitarian, high fat raw eater, and I also followed macrobiotic, paleo and keto diets just to name a few. I experimented with all different kinds of variations until I found my perfect diet and eating pattern. Well, it’s not perfect since I am continuously improving it, but you get the point.

    Even though I can easily adjust to a different kind of diet and stop or start eating certain types of food, I hate being hungry. I really do. If I don’t eat when I’m hungry, I get moody, my energy levels get low and it’s really a special kind of torture for me. I feel like I’m going to die. It’s probably because hunger is closely connected to feeling unsafe, and eating is one of the most primal needs.

    You can easily guess then what my initial thoughts about fasting were? Well yes, something like in spite of all the big benefits of fasting, there is no way I’m starving myself. Luckily, my experimentation nature and curiosity are much stronger than any fear, negative feeling or any displeasure or dislike.

    A few months ago, a friend mentioned intermittent fasting to me. Intermittent fasting is a light version of real fasting and starving yourself, but more about it soon. It sounded like a good idea, and even if my body, emotions and mind were kind of protesting hard, I decided to give it a try. Only for a few days, to see how hard it is for me to follow and what the results are.

    I lost 3 kg (6.6 pounds) and almost 2 % of body fat in the past two months and I love it.

    That was a result exclusively from intermittent fasting and switching from car to bike. My training levels stayed pretty much the same (excluding bike rides). Intermittent fasting definitely works for me, so maybe you should also give it a try. In this blog post, I will explain the basics of intermittent fasting and you can then decide if it’s worth trying or not, or at least research it more.

    Intermittent fasting

    What is intermittent fasting?

    Intermittent fasting is a cycle between a period of fasting and a period of non-fasting. It’s not about which food to eat and how much, but when you eat; or even more importantly, when you don’t eat. You have a strict timeframe for eating and when you don’t eat anything (not a single thing), you only drink water. There are many different types of intermittent fasting, to name the most popular few:

    • Leangains: Fast for 14 hours (women) or 16 hours (men) and eat in the 8 or 10 hour time frame
    • Alternate day fasting (ADF): 24 hours of fasting followed by 24 hours of non-fasting
    • Eat-Stop-Eat: You fast for 24 hours once or twice per week when it suits you best
    • The Warrior Diet: You fast for 20 hours every day and eat one big meal, like cavemen did
    • The 5:2 Diet: On two non-consecutive days you eat 500 calories, on other days you eat normally
    • Spontaneous meal skipping: You skip a meal when you feel like it or after overeating yourself

    There are numerous other combinations and variations. When you are in the non-fasting period, you can eat only one or two big meals or many smaller ones, you can enter the non-fasting state in the evening or in the morning, there are many variations.

    There is no other way to find the best one but by experimenting. You have to find the pattern of eating that best suits your lifestyle, the one that your body gives the best response to and, even more importantly, the one you can really follow. That’s what I did.

    I tried to fast for one whole day. Several weeks. No go, I became very moody and the only thing I could think of was food. My productivity and happiness dropped to zero. Then I tried the Leangains method and surprisingly, it was hard for me only for the first two days.

    I accommodated the diet a little bit to my previous knowledge and my individual situation. Eating late is not good for me because of the acid reflux, and I do gain weight faster if I eat at night. So I decided to fast from at the latest 5 pm. It’s also easier to fast if you include sleep time in the fasting period. So I stop eating at 4pm or 5pm and eat breakfast the next day at 8am or 9am. Many people prefer to skip breakfast, but that’s what works for me.

    I also know that eating big meals isn’t good for me. I tend to overeat and my stomach doesn’t feel well if I eat really a lot at once. So I eat several smaller meals during the non-fasting period, ideally every 4 hours, which makes 4 meals. I also have high-carb, mid-carb and non-carb days, depending on whether I’m training or not.

    The main secret to why intermittent fasting works

    There are two main theories for why intermittent fasting works. The first one is that in the fasting state, your body starts to burn fat because it lacks nutrition (energy) from food. The second one is simply because you consume fewer calories (assuming you don’t eat like a pig when you aren’t fasting).

    You can find the second argument for nearly every diet, since the theory behind is that the only thing that matters when it comes to losing weight is that you mind the calorie intake. Nevertheless, let’s look more closely at both arguments.

    The fast state

    These are two states your body can be in. The first one is the fed state, and it starts the moment you are eating all the way until the food is digested. Digesting and absorbing food can take hours. The digestion time depends on what you eat, but it’s obvious that digesting a steak takes much longer than digesting a piece of fruit.

    The second state is the so-called fasted body state. When all the food gets digested, your insulin levels get low. You enter the fasted state 8 to 12 hours after your last meal. Since there is no food to digest or absorb and your insulin levels are low, the body start to burn fat.

    You enter the fasted state 8 to 12 hours after your last meal.

    The main challenge in the whole picture is, of course, that you shouldn’t put any food into your mouth for 14 (women) or 16 (men) hours or even more if you want to get your body into the fasted state. That rarely happens if you are eating based on the standard eating pattern with several meals from breakfast to dinner. So you have to change your eating pattern to not eat for a longer period of time and that usually means skipping breakfast or dinner.

    Eating fewer calories

    You can find many arguments online that fasting really doesn’t work because of the fasting state your body is in but simply because you eat less, which equals to less calories. From my experience, you do eat less when doing intermittent fasting, because you simply can’t eat so much food in a shorter timeframe. If you eat the same quantities, you have a feeling like you’re constantly eating.

    If you want to lose weight, you have to consume fewer calories than you burn.

    The best answer to the question why intermittent fasting really works is that it doesn’t matter. Based on research, (controlled) fasting has a positive contribution to health. Calorie restriction also makes you healthier, if done in the right way. On top of that, you are losing weight. If it works, it’s better to practice it than to argue why it works or doesn’t. And if it doesn’t work for you, you move on.

    Nevertheless, the harsh reality fact is that if you want to lose weight, you have to consume fewer calories than you burn. That’s why we say that you can never out-train your diet. There is no other way. And if intermittent fasting can help you eat less, excellent.

    General benefits of fasting

    As mentioned, there are many benefits to fasting. Let’s look at the major ones.

    Fasting has an extremely important positive role in dieting, health and well-being. Regular fasting doesn’t bring only weight loss advantages, but also many other benefits to the body, mind, emotions and spirit.

    Research has shown that fasting improves your blood pressure, insulin sensitivity and inflammation. It can also reduce chronic diseases, increase longevity, help with brain health and anti-aging, all that mainly because of adaptive cellular responses to handle stress better.

    You learn to manage hunger more properly and practice self-discipline with fasting. Since I’ve been performing intermittent fasting for the past few months, I must say that I’m also managing hunger better. You learn to control your primal impulses better.

    Usually I would go crazy when hungry. Now I only go half-crazy.

    The truth is that there is probably no better alternative to practicing self-discipline than dieting. You have full control over it. It’s connected to your most primal needs and motives. It’s connected to your resistance, basically. You can experiment a lot with it (in a safe manner, of course). In general, fasting is a great way to strengthen your self-discipline.

    With fasting, you simplify your life. With fasting, you can simplify your life to a great extent by eating less frequently. You don’t eat breakfast or dinner, so it’s one less meal to cook or buy. You have to worry less about food and you have more time for other things. If you combine fasting with simplifying your meals, you may get even better results.

    Low hanging fruit

    Other recommendations for when you fast

    When you’re fasting, make sure you only drink water and non-sugared herbal tea. Really don’t consume anything, not even a small bite of an apple or any other snack. It’s not that hard once you get into the rhythm. So the first recommendation is: don’t cheat and don’t lie to yourself.

    Other recommendations when you’re fasting:

    • If you are doing anything more extreme, consult your doctor or a certified nutritionist. Especially if you have a medical condition or if you’re pregnant, talk to your doctor.
    • Drink plenty of water. Never forget to drink enough water.
    • Test your limits. Try to not eat for one more hour after your fasting period is over. Just to challenge yourself and practice self-discipline.
    • If you want your muscles to grow, eat enough protein. You can find many online resources on how many proteins to eat. Proteins will also give you a feeling of being full for a longer time.
    • When you aren’t fasting, eat healthy. Eat tons of green veggies, a moderate amount of fruit, complex carbs and many healthy fats. Avoid sugar and unhealthy fats. Don’t stuff yourself like a pig eating for the last time. Manage your emotions.
    • That will accelerate your metabolism, you’ll lose more calories and thus your weight loss progress will be faster. Not to mention that you will feel much better.
    • Don’t change your diet if you are burned out, stressed out or lack sleep. Absolutely sort that out first, otherwise things will only get worse.
    • Measure your progress. Buy yourself a smart scale, mark on the happiness index how you feel every day, pay close attention to your body and the results you’re getting. You want to follow the philosophy of validated learning to see if something works for you.
    • Listen to your body. Learn to love your body, listen to it and never go against yourself. I’m still learning how to do that.

    The first few days may be tough, but you can do it. I believe in you.

    Homework

    Give the intermittent fasting a try

    If you are trying to lose weight or improve your overall diet and health, I suggest you try the intermittent diet. First, get madly educated. Here are some resources you can begin with:

    • Nerd Fitness – A Beginner’s Guide to the Intermittent Diet
    • Bodybuilding.com – Intermittent Fasting: Science and Supplementation
    • Precise Nutrition – All About Intermittent Fasting
    • Roman Fitness System – Intermittent Fasting 101
    • Muscle for Life – The Definitive Guide to Intermittent Fasting
    • The Number One Secret to Superhuman Willpower – This article describes the benefits of fasting in general with all the links to scientific studies (in most cases). They include stronger willpower, better confidence, improved brain function, better clarity and direction, better overall health, improved motor skills and the quality of sleep, superior productivity and energy levels, stronger emotional stability, deeper life inspiration, better appearance, faster learning and, of course, weight loss. In the article, you can also find good advice on fasting in general, not necessarily intermittent fasting.
    • Reddit Intermittent Fasting Community with people sharing their troubles and experiences

    After getting educated, give it a try. As mentioned, the first few days are the hardest, but then it gets much easier. Give it a try, measure your progress and if it works, persevere, if it doesn’t, pivot to something else. Search and experiment and you will find things that work best for you.

    Even if you don’t decide for a regular fasting lifestyle, at least skip a few meals the day after you’ve overeaten. That may someday lead you to try intermittent fasting.

  • Life metrics and how to define success in life

    Many people will tell you that it’s hard to define success, that you’re operating with a very subjective category. That’s not true. They probably just don’t like maths.

    Mathematics as a study of quantities, spaces, structure and change became so very complex and complicated that most people sooner hate it rather than see the beauty in the way it describes the world; including success in life.

    Basic maths, respect for numbers and, most importantly, measuring are the key tools for every individual who wishes to make progress in personal and professional life and measure real success. You simply have to love numbers and enjoy doing basic mathematical operations when it comes to life metrics and defining success.

    While I don’t understand complex math very well, life metrics and measuring success are the things I do love and master. It’s the only way to see your real progress in life, how successful you are and the direction you’re pursuing.

    If we want to define success and actually measure it, we need metrics. Numbers and basic math operations.

    This is how you should define success in your life and also regularly measure your success progress:

    Health Money
    • Exercise frequency
    • Potential progress of illness
    • Managing your body weak points
    • Regular blood test
    • Body composition (% of fat, muscle size)
    • Aerobic endurance (run a mile, VO2 max)
    • Muscular endurance (push-up test, plank test)
    • Muscular strength (one-rep max)
    • Flexibility (yoga poses)
    • Personal income statement
      • Earned income
      • Passive income
      • Portfolio income
    • Expenses
    • Taxes
    • Monthly plus/minus
    • Net-worth
      • Assets
      • Doodads
      • Liabilities (Debt)
    Career Relationships
    • Your company position (employment contract vs. organizational chart)
    • Public influence (number of interviews, public ratings)
    • Social media influence (Klout score)
    • Work enjoyment (from 1 to 10)
    • Professional connections
    • Your legacy (number of positive ideas that influenced local/global society)
    • Number of close friends you have
    • Time spent with the people you love
    • How much you do for your partner (massage, dinner, etc.)
    • How much you get out of a relationship (giving and receiving must be in balance)
    • How often you say I love you
    • How often you give a compliment to your partner
    • How often you make love
    Competences Mind/Emotions
    • Number of books you read
    • Number of seminars you visit
    • Domain knowledge you possess
    • Number of skills you master
    • Number of tech skills
    • Number of creative ideas you have
    • Your IQ
    • Your EQ
    • How well you are able to control your mind (your maximum meditating time)
    • Your daily Happiness index
    • Number of negative thoughts daily (with use of emotional accounting)
    • Dominating cognitive distortions
    • Number of new things you tried in life
    • Number of breathtaking experiences you have encountered etc.
    • Other metrics as part of your life strategy (countries you traveled to, number of languages you speak etc.)

    How you should measure your success in life? Compare…

    • Your current metrics on different life areas
    • Your past metrics on different life areas (past month, year etc.)
    • Don’t compare yourself to others too much (only healthy competition is okay I guess)

    If the table above is confusing, don’t worry. In this blog post I will explain everything in detail. In addition to that, I’ll try to explain why regaining the love for numbers can help you a lot with succeed in life. Even more, in this article you will learn:

    • Why you should love numbers and play with them at regular intervals (as the only real definition of success)
    • Why we’re usually afraid of measuring our real progress and success in life
    • How numbers can help you avoid the fake feeling of progress
    • What and how you should measure in your personal life as success factors (with example of metrics)
    • Other practical advice and a free document you can download (success metrics matrix)
    • Why you should compare your success and metrics only to your past results, not other people

    How to define success and life metrics

    Why we usually hate numbers as metrics of success

    In the field of management and business, it has long been known that you can only manage the things that you can measure. Every professional plan and monitoring strategy first needs the analysis of the starting point, then the goal or the final outcome, followed by a preordained path, keeping all the agility along the way, and last but not least the desired speed of progress.

    All subjective evaluation in that matter is futile. Firstly, because it’s incredibly hard to admit the truth of where you are to yourself and secondly because your brain and intuition are all too limited in their abilities.

    Numbers describe by far the most realistic state, everything else is just beating around the bush and avoiding the bottom line. Because numbers reveal the truth, that’s why people are usually afraid of them.

    It’s much easier to live a lie than to admit the truth to yourself. Even harder is to measure real progress and how successful you are when you go into action because progress is usually much slower than you expect and want it to be.

    Here is the first important lesson regarding life metrics and measuring success in life. The main reasons why we love to avoid numbers and measuring how good we are:

    • We hate to admit where we stand to ourselves
    • Progress is usually much slower than we expect
    • It’s much easier to lie to yourself that things are better than they really are
    • If you don’t measure things, you can enjoy the fake feeling of progress
    • Life is already tough, so why be even harder on yourself

    Numbers are the ones that force you to face reality and accept it. Only numbers can show how successful you really are. Number are the ones defining success. It may be emotionally tough, but thankfully we have a tool for measuring progress.

    You have to see what you get out of numbers and measuring. You may lose your illusions about life and where you stand and how successful you really are, but tricking yourself into believing that you’re improving something even though you’re staying in the same place doesn’t make any sense.

    Here’s an example. A tough one, but it makes a point. People love to avoid numbers, even when things relating to their health start to get really serious. Do you know how many diabetes patients don’t measure their blood sugar levels and watch their diet? Even when people risk losing their sight or getting their limbs cut off. Their body is in real danger, but they still tend to avoid numbers that could help them manage life better.

    Vanity metrics and fake definition of success

    Besides avoiding measuring altogether, here is another more or less emotional trap of defining and measuring success. When we start measuring, we all like to measure things that are giving us a feeling of progress and fake feeling of success.

    We like to measure things that make us feel good about ourselves and how successful we are, even if it’s only a fake progress or fake success.

    Therefore you must be very careful how you set your life metrics and how you measure success in life. With vanity metrics you can lie to yourself about how hard you’re working towards the goals, but you’re actually choosing the easier path that doesn’t lead to any real results.

    You’re running in a hamster wheel and at the same time measuring your false effort only to feel a little bit better.

    Here’s an example – a scale. A lot of people get excited when, after a few days of starving, they lose a couple of kilograms, but in reality they did a lot more damage than good to their body.

    Losing water and muscle mass that results in a scale showing less weight is an unrealistic display of progress. So you always need a real combination of metrics that reflect your actual progress and success. In your personal as well as your business life.

    In business, a CEO who only monitors how much money the company has in the bank and the income statement just before the year ends in order to optimize the profits is a very lousy CEO. With all the technology available and existing science on how to monitor business progress, from the financial, customer, marketing and other business functions’ aspects, it is very sad that someone would steer the business ship with extremely limited information.

    It’s no different in personal life. A successfully set system of measuring progress and success presents an incredible advantage in life, because it enables real discipline and consistent validated learning about yourself. And validated learning means faster progress because you get insights into what works best for you.

    Only real, actionable metrics can help you figure out which approaches lead to what you want the fastest and which approaches can maybe even bring setbacks in your personal case.

    Therefore, a part of your success metrics must always also mean experimenting in the search mode.

    If we go back to the previous example of a scale. You decided to lose weight and get fit. You don’t measure only how much a scale shows, but also your fat percentage, cardiorespiratory capacity, muscle strength and endurance and so on. With the right set of metrics you can change your workout and diet every few weeks and see what gives you the fastest progress.

    The bottom line is, you want to avoid vanity metrics of success because of the following reasons:

    • You don’t want to look rich (while having lots of debt); you want to be rich.
    • You don’t want you and your family to just smile for the picture but really be happy in everyday life.
    • You don’t want your scale to show a number as low as possible, but be really fit .
    • You don’t want to just have a job, but you want a job you love and make a good living out of it.
    • You don’t want to gossip in a bar about world news and happenings, thinking how smart you are; you actually want to read a book a week and improve your knowledge and competence level.

    Fake feeling of progress

    It’s right to grow fond of numbers and measure progress and success in both personal and business life. This is the only way to admit your actual starting point to yourself (where you are), make a plan of where you want to go while staying completely flexible on how you’ll get there.

    Loving numbers and metrics can also help you measure how fast you’re progressing towards being really successful in life and, equally importantly, enable you validated learning about yourself and the World (with experiments and tests that you do). And validated learning means having insights into how to shape your superior life strategy to make sure your progress is the fastest and to achieve your maximal potential and success.

    Numbers are the ones that show that you aren’t only doing meaningless work but rather forging results. When you get to numbers and bottom-lines, all bigmouths run away. When you look at numbers you know how successful you really are.

    When talking about personal development and success in life, there are five basic areas that you should regularly measure in one way or another. What and how you will actually measure greatly depends on your life strategy, but measuring and progressing on all five areas at some point will really help you to achieve your peak potential and be ultra successful in life.

    Here are the areas you should measure and greatly contribute to success in personal and professional life:

    • Health
    • Money and career
    • Closest relationships
    • Competences
    • Mind and feelings

    I should, of course, warn you that there is a big chance that you’ll be disappointed when you first start following metrics and figure out your real state and your starting point. As I mentioned, we love to lie to ourselves about where we stand in different areas of life.

    The way psychology works is that you often describe yourself to yourself a lot better than the actual state is. This is why we all like to avoid measuring success so much.

    Still, the sooner that you admit the truth to yourself, the faster you can make progress; the truth itself often motivates you for work. And it’s not all that dark. As you will see, you stand better in some areas of life than others.

    Now let’s dive a bit deeper into each of the five mentioned areas.

    Stay fit to have great sex

    Health

    Health is the first area where you need to make use of maths skills and measure your success in life. Much like you take your car for regular car service and much like financial statements show the health of your company, you have well-developed metrics that show how healthy your body is. A

    healthy spirit can only live in a healthy body and hundreds of pages have already been written on the benefits of a healthy lifestyle.

    There are a few key areas you should measure when it comes to your health:

    1. Potential progress of any illness you have
    2. Managing your body’s weak points
    3. Regular blood tests (one a year)
    4. Body composition (% of fat etc.)
    5. Aerobic endurance
    6. Muscular endurance
    7. Muscular strength
    8. Flexibility
    9. Other biofeedback you can gather with devices and are interested in

    In the past, I personally strongly neglected this aspect, but now I’m trying to slowly take care of my health a lot better. If you neglected your health in the past, progress is incredibly slow and demands a lot of iron-clad will, endurance and discipline.

    Statistics show that incredibly few people manage to lose weight in a healthy manner and even fewer have enough willpower to get fit.

    The state of your fitness level is often a lot worse than you imagined. One visit to the gym can quickly show that you’ve been neglecting your body for years and years. And if you decide to get into shape, it’s right that you get help from experts (personal trainers), together with the right metrics, professional work programme and consistent measuring of progress.

    Progress can be slow, but in a few weeks, you will see the first results, as long as you stick to the set training program. The good news is that the first results will motivate you to continue on your path of becoming fitter. This is how you become more and more successful regarding your health and fitness.

    If you’re a newbie in taking care of your health, please really do start with certified trainers who have good references. Otherwise you can do serious damage to your health, especially in the gym. Afterward, when you take care of strong fitness foundations with a personal trainer and you’re ready to exercise on your own, there are many apps (nutrition trackers, exercise trackers, etc.) that can help you measure your real progress.

    wealth growth

    Money and career

    By far the clearest benefits of measuring things in your personal life are shown in the financial field. Money is already connected to numbers by its very nature; it’s after all a piece of paper with a couple of numbers printed on it. And you either manage your money or you always have a lack of it. That’s usually the rule.

    Money is definitely one of the success factors in life. And you either manage your money or you always have a lack of it.

    There are two categories you should measure when it comes to your money and how successful you are:

    • Personal income – How much money you make and keep after your spendings
    • Net-worth – How many assets you own (after deducting all the debt)

    If you’re good at acquiring and managing money, both numbers should be increasing over your lifetime. There can be temporary situations when they don’t. You start your own business, an accident happens, you make a bad investment, a financial crisis comes, etc. It’s a part of life. Remember, being broke is a temporary state, but being poor is a state of mind.

    But only having enough financial literacy, together with proper measuring and management, can tell you if you’ve made a stupid decision regarding your money or were just unlucky; and how much damage has been done to your wallet and financial situation.

    Well, despite the occasional ups and downs, you want to be in as good financial health as possible. Thus you want to manage your money very carefully. If you want to do that, you have to measure.

    As with all the measuring, a consistent analysis of where you are financially comes first. You wouldn’t believe it, but many people don’t have a clue. I hope you are not one of them. Technology today enables you to track your money consumption and your net worth very easily. You should always know what kind of a financial shape you’re in and how your spending habits look.

    The interesting thing is that when you first start to track your spending habits, a few additional good things usually happen:

    • A consistent analysis quickly shows that you spend way too much money on certain things you don’t need. Expensive coffees, snacks, lumber, clothes, You get data about where and how you can save more money.
    • Additionally, budgeting, entering and tracking every individual cost contributes to you giving another thought to whether you really need something new to buy. As a result, you spend less money, especially on stupid things. You start to manage your potential emotional purchases At the end of the day, the main idea is that you spend less than you earn.
    • You start paying yourself first, which is the most important rule of successfully handling money. You become so intrigued by personal finance and managing your money that you want to take care of your investments before you spend your money on anything else.

    Even more demanding, but consequently also a lot more useful, is managing your wealth and seeing how your net worth grows. You can quickly realize that achieving decent yield with your investments is incredibly difficult, and increasing your wealth is a strenuous and long-lasting process.

    Actually, there are two paths to financial abundance in your personal life:

    • You take care of income explosion and cost control by starting your own business, for example, and consequently make so much money with one move that all your future financial needs are covered. It’s a risky business, but it can be done.
    • You slowly and carefully make sure that your savings grow and that you make good investments. This path is a lot more difficult if you don’t measure your progress regularly. But luckily a slightly bigger net worth every month means a lot bigger wealth in the long term, if you invest smartly enough.

    Again, it all depends on your life strategy. Nevertheless money is definitely one factor of success. Thus you should become really good at managing it.

    Career

    Besides money, career is also one of the life areas where metrics and management are a necessity. It’s slightly more difficult to measure career progress, because you also have to use slightly more subjective metrics, but it can be done.

    There are many metrics you can choose from and they greatly depend on your career goals. Examples are how much you earn, your position in the company, public influence, social media influence, how much you enjoy your work, the number of professional connections you have, etc. If your career is important to you, you can always find a set of metrics that show realistic progress in your career life.

    Stronger together

    Your closest relationships

    The quality and depth of every (intimate) relationship depends primarily on the number of hours you spend with the person enjoying positive, playful emotions. This includes planning, creating things together, following common goals, doing things you both love, relaxing and enjoying life and, in the case of intimate relationships, we can also add making love.

    The only time that really counts and contributes to the relationship quality and depth is the time you spend together full of positive feelings. Fighting or sitting in front of the TV doesn’t count. Everyone immediately knows when there is positive time spent together with other people and when there isn’t.

    Once you measure how many quality hours you spend with your intimate partner and other people you love, you can quickly get embarrassed. You realize how people who mean the most to you in the world you sometimes unintentionally neglect and consequently also don’t live the entire potential of the relationship.

    Many times, you may even have a false belief of how much quality time you spend with the people you love. But when you subtract sleep, working hours, commuting, housework, fighting, you may find that you spend way less time with people you love than you should. If you don’t measure, you don’t know.

    A simple analysis can show that things are even worse. After analyzing data, you may figure out that you spend more time with people that give you headaches in life and aren’t even close to you (like work, toxic relationships, etc.) rather than spending it with people who bring love, happiness and joy into your life.

    Maybe because you need emotional drama in life, maybe because you’re addicted to work, or for whatever other reason. It’s something you don’t want to do. Numbers help you manage such things.

    Measuring how you spend your time also shows your priorities and values. Only by actually measuring how you spend your time can you figure out what your values or priorities in life are and where they’re leading you. If your close relationships aren’t at the very top of your priorities, there’s a big possibility that you have lousy relationships in your life. And it’s hard to be successfull in life without deep and meaningful relationships.

    Besides measuring how much quality time you spend with the people you love, there are many other things you can measure. Here are a few examples:

    • How much you do for your partner (investment in a relationship)
    • How much you get out of a relationship (giving and receiving must be in balance)
    • How often you say I love you
    • How often you give a compliment to your partner
    • How often you make love
    • Number of close relationships you have in life

    Same goes for children. Children spell love as T-I-M-E. Spent quality time together. And not only children, same goes for all other relationships you care about.

    Now, the point of measuring is not to take all the romance out of relationships. It’s not like you have to write down every single thing you do and every minute you invest. It’s more about taking a week or two every once in a while to observe yourself and other people you care about, and becoming aware of what’s going on with your relationships based on fundamental relationship metrics.

    Are you getting closer to the people you love, or is there an increasing distance? Do you enjoy the time you spend with the people you love or are you constantly fighting? Love won’t miraculously solve your personal relationships; proper management (day by day) will.

    Understand the process

    Competences

    Now let’s move on to developing your personal competences. The first thing you should measure is how much time you spend on the idiot box, also known as the multi-media ad player or even better known as the television, and how much time you spend lost on the internet.

    They are the two biggest enemies of your personal development and progress and success in life. Including acquiring new competences. You’ll be surprised at how much of your time they take. Unless you’ve already dealt with these big time wasters.

    An average person spends at least 10 to 20 hours a week in front of the TV, programming themselves into a diligent consumer, wasting their precious life. The only people who get anything from the television are those on the other side of the screen.

    In the second step, compare the time you spend watching TV and browsing the internet to how many hours a month you invest in your knowledge and the development of your other competences – by studying, going to seminars, reading books and similar. You’ll also probably be surprised.

    An average person is close to zero investment in themselves, those who give their best maybe get a few hours a week. That’s very lousy considering how many competences and talents an individual can develop and how important they are in the knowledge-based society.

    Compare 0 or 1 hour of reading per week to 20 hours of watching TV. It’s a very bad ratio.

    Once you openly admit to yourself how little you invest in yourself and your progress, you quickly change your perspective on time wasters. Remember, you should invest into yourself, because it’s the best and ultimate investment that exists.

    There’s power in knowledge, and in the creative knowledge society, you strongly lag behind if you don’t invest into yourself. In the long term, whining about how tough and unfair life is won’t help at all, but competences undoubtedly will. With competences, the world is your oyster. Only with competences you can really succeed in life.

    Here is what you should be measuring when it comes to developing your competences and success in life:

    • How much time you spend reading (and other ways of developing competences)
    • Domain knowledge you possess
    • The number of skills you master
    • Your IQ (if you dare)
    • Your EQ

    Success in life

    Controlling your mind

    And finally the most difficult one. The quality of your life and how successful you are strongly depends on whether you control your mind or your mind controls you. That’s the basis of Buddhism and a few other, especially Eastern, religions and philosophies.

    The main tool of strengthening control over your mind is meditation. Measure how much time you can spend sitting in the same spot, focused on one point (or thought or your chakra) and you’ll find how strong your control over your mind is.

    If you don’t meditate regularly, you’ll be very disappointed. After a few minutes, thoughts will start forcefully entering your mind, parts of your body will start itching, you’ll feel incredibly uncomfortable.

    The less time you can do this for, the more your mind controls you. If something is not really itching you. ;) The more the mind controls you, the more negative thoughts this usually means. The more negative thoughts, the lower the quality of life. The more suffering in life, the lower the level of consciousness.

    The positive thing is that the more you meditate in life, the more you strengthen the muscle of control over your mind. And if you do all this with an inner smile and not with struggle, you’ll also be able to live a much happier life in general. You learn to carry the inner smile with you.

    Here is a simple measurement then. The longer you can meditate, the more control you have over your mind. The more successful you are in life. Now sit down somewhere quiet and test yourself. Face the ultimate metric of mind control.

    Taking feelings into account

    Your feeling are closely connected to your thoughts, so here’s the place where we should mention them. People love to neglect their feelings. The best way to give more attention to your feelings is by regularly observing them, listening to them, understanding them as well as managing them.

    The best way of listening to your feelings better is the so-called Happiness Index. Every morning or evening you mark how you feel on a scale.

    In the next step, you try to figure out why you feel the way you feel. If you figure out that negative feelings are the consequence of negative thoughts (which they usually are), then it’s right that you face negative thinking.

    The best way for this is the so-called emotional accounting as one of the central tools of cognitive psychology.

    To sum up, here are a few things you can measure when it comes to your mind and emotions:

    • How well you’re able to control your mind (your maximum meditating time)
    • Your daily Happiness index
    • Number of negative thoughts daily (using emotional accounting)
    • Dominating cognitive distortions

    You can’t do everything at once, and the first steps

    Not everything can happen at once. Setting the goal that you will integrate all the life metrics at once and measure how successful you are is unrealistic. You have to make progress step by step, preferably by focusing on one area.

    Too many demanding goals lead to you doing a lot of things badly, which is the same as doing nothing. So step by step, gradually and slowly start with basic metrics in one area and then add new metrics of success. Once you master one field, you move on to the next one.

    It’s by far the best to start with health, since improving health always very positively influences all other areas. But you can also choose the area where you’re currently facing the most problems or you’re doing the worst.

    Once you use measuring and life metrics to integrate new behavioral patterns into your life, area after area, you can also notice the incredible transformation of the overall quality of your life. All the effort that you put in slowly pays off.

    You must never forget that with time, the hard road becomes easy and the easy road becomes hard. Choose the more difficult road that leads into a brighter future of your life. And the more difficult path is the one supported by actual metrics and measuring real progress.

    Start smart

    When it comes to success, compete only with yourself

    Please take another look at the table below. It should be immediately obvious to you why success is not a subjective category at all and that you can indeed measure it, but the only thing that makes sense when measuring your success level is to compete with your previous self.

    Compare your position now with your position a month or a year ago. That’s how you should measure your success; make sure you’re becoming better version of your self step by step. Make sure you improve a little bit every day and every month and every year. That’s how you will become successful and great.

    But by comparing yourself too much to other people, you’re doomed from the very beginning. Why? Because there will always be someone better than you are, in every single area of life. Other people should be a kind of a reference point for you and people who perform better should motivate you to become even better version yourself, but when you compare yourself to others too much, you can quickly start putting yourself in the victim and self-pity mindset, ruminating how life is unfair.

    For example, you can’t compete with someone who inherited millions in assets, if you’re starting from financial ground zero. You can’t compete with someone who has been an athlete their whole life, with the right sportsman DNA and incredible muscle memory, if you didn’t ever exercise. You can’t compare yourself to a monk meditating for hours after your first meditation.

    Compare your metrics with the ones from the previous month or year. Compete only with your previous self. That’s how you can measure your real success in life.

    Health* Money**
    • Exercise frequency
    • Potential progress of illness
    • Managing your body weak points
    • Regular blood test
    • Body composition (% of fat, muscle size)
    • Aerobic endurance (run a mile, VO2 max)
    • Muscular endurance (push-up test, plank test)
    • Muscular strength (one-rep max)
    • Flexibility (yoga poses)
    • Personal income statement
      • Earned income
      • Passive income
      • Portfolio income
    • Expenses
    • Taxes
    • Monthly plus/minus
    • Net-worth
      • Assets
      • Doodads
      • Liabilities (Debt)
    Career** Relationships*
    • Your company position (employment contract vs. organizational chart)
    • Public influence (number of interviews, public ratings)
    • Social media influence (Klout score)
    • Work enjoyment (from 1 to 10)
    • Professional connections
    • Your legacy (number of positive ideas that influenced local/global society)
    • Number of close friends you have
    • Time spent with the people you love
    • How much you do for your partner (massage, dinner, etc.)
    • How much you get out of a relationship (giving and receiving must be in balance)
    • How often you say I love you
    • How often you give a compliment to your partner
    • How often you make love
    Competences* Mind/Emotions*/**
    • Number of books you read
    • Number of seminars you visit
    • Domain knowledge you possess
    • Number of skills you master
    • Number of tech skills
    • Number of creative ideas you have
    • Your IQ
    • Your EQ
    • How well you are able to control your mind (your maximum meditating time)
    • Your daily Happiness index
    • Number of negative thoughts daily (with use of emotional accounting)
    • Dominating cognitive distortions
    • Number of new things you tried in life
    • Number of breathtaking experiences you have encountered etc.
    • Other metrics as part of your life strategy (countries you traveled, number of languages you speak to etc.)
    • * Internal asset – Can grow only linear. Learn more
    • ** External asset – Can grow exponentially. Learn more

    Below, you can download the table I call the life success metric matrix (PDF), completely for free:

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    Enjoy numbers and monitor the progress that you’ll definitely be proud of! And keep track of this blog, because in the future, a lot of time will be devoted to the actual metrics of each individual area of life. This is the only way to really measure your success.

    Homework

    Now you know how to define success and measure it, so take action

    Now it’s time for homework. Knowledge without action is useless. So here’s what you should do:

    • Choose one life area (health, money, career, relationships, competences, mind/emotions). If you don’t know where to begin, start with your health or wherever you lag behind the most.
    • Set some basic metrics of success for the chosen life area. Below is the summary of metrics you can start measuring as the beginning in different life areas.
    • Set a system of how you will measure your progress (Excel, apps, frequency,) and set all the necessary reminders that will help you keep consistency.
    • Also, prepare a list of books you will read in the chosen life area, so you will acquire new knowledge and upgrade your set of metrics when you’re ready. Use the rule that you always go straight for the best knowledge.
    • Measure your progress at regular intervals.
    • After every measurement, make sure you do self-reflection and make a decision on what you will stop doing, what you will start doing and what new experiments you will try.
    • Enjoy your progress and be proud of the discipline you’re keeping. Not many people can pull that off.
    • Never compare yourself to other people. Only compare your progress to your previous self.

    Do you want to be more successful in life?

    Read more about the massive success formula.

  • Manipulating your discipline with transaction costs

    Transaction costs (also known as friction costs) are a very important term in economics and finance, representing costs of participating in the market. In economics, transaction costs are divided into three main categories, such as search and information costs, bargaining costs and negotiations, doing all the legal and paperwork, as well as policing and enforcement costs, representing the legal authorities that make sure everyone sticks to the deal. Transaction costs may also include transportation and communication costs. In short, transaction costs are all the opportunity costs in terms of the time, energy and money it takes to make a transaction on a market.

    For example, when participating in the stock market, you have to pay the brokers’ commission, then there are payments to the bank, government fees, and so on. And if you go to buy one item in a different market-store, because the item is a little bit cheaper there, you have to consider transportation costs, that are again transaction costs and have an overall influence on how good deal you get.

    Logically, transaction costs decrease the net result and financial returns. If you trade a lot, you want to make sure that transaction costs are as low as possible. Because of their impact on the net result, transaction costs play an important role when we’re deciding whether to make a deal on the market or not.

    Very similar every activity that you (want to) do has some transaction costs, and they have a strong influence on your self-discipline. The higher the transaction costs, the more effort and discipline it takes to do a desired activity. The lower the transaction costs, the more easily you take action or enforce a new routine. Knowing that gives you the power to manipulate your discipline by influencing transaction costs. Let’s see how.

    Discipline is like a muscle

    Firstly, you have to be aware that willpower, discipline and cognitive abilities are like a muscle. You have a fixed daily dose of discipline/cognitive power and there’s only so much you can do to stay organized, disciplined, make good decisions and follow your desired daily agenda. It’s totally true that you can train your cognitive abilities and self-discipline (and you should) like you can train your muscles, but a maximum always exists. You aren’t a robot and once you reach your maximum, you simply have to give yourself a break; unproductive or old bad habits will start to prevail, no matter what.

    You probably know the feeling when after following a strict diet for a long time, you say to yourself “I’ve had enough of this s*it” and open a bag of chips.

    As I already mentioned, one way to be more disciplined is to train your discipline muscles. When you’re forcing yourself to do something, whether you like doing it or not, you train your self-discipline. You push yourself to stay more focused and better stick to actions that lead to your planed outcome (goals). The more you push yourself, easier it gets to stay disciplined.

    Discipline and muscle training are very welcome, but a maximum still always exists. Even if you regularly train your discipline, you achieve your global maximum sooner or later. You simply can’t be disciplined 24/7. That’s why you also have to consider the second part of the equation. The less discipline and cognitive power every action takes, the more good actions/decisions you can do/make given your current maximum.

    Let’s say you have 80 units of discipline per day. On average, it takes 5 units of discipline (with transaction costs) to make a good decision and enforce a desired new behaviour. You can make 16 disciplined decisions/actions, but after that, you’re out of willpower. If you train your cognitive abilities and discipline power, you can maybe reach 120 units of discipline per day. That means 24 disciplined decisions, and thus you’re making progress much faster. But if your (global) maximum is 120 units, there’s only one more thing you can do to get even more disciplined. You can lower the transaction costs in a way that every decision takes fewer units of discipline. If you manage to decrease them from 5 to 4, you get 6 new disciplined decisions, that is 30 in total. Going from 16 to 30 means being almost twice as disciplined and productive.

    Low transaction costs

    Transaction costs and your discipline

    The easiest way to lower the necessary willpower and other resources for making good decisions and following a new desired behaviour is by decreasing transaction costs (or, in some cases, increasing them for undesired behaviour). By doing this, you have more willpower and cognitive abilities available to be more disciplined and organized in other activities during the day.

    The formula for manipulating transaction costs is very simple.

    • You want to automate wherever possible, and minimize the number of irrelevant decisions to zero, so there are no transaction costs at all.
    • For a desired (new) behaviour, you want to decrease transactional costs to the minimum, really going as low as possible.
    • For an undesired behaviour, you want to increase transactional costs to the maximum, always putting new obstacles in your way.

    Let’s look at some practical examples.

    You want to get in shape. Having a bag of chips at home means it takes you almost zero energy to start eating unhealthy food. All you have to do is take the chips out of the cupboard, open the bag and you can start stuffing your face with junk food. The transaction costs are almost zero. If you always have chips and cookies on the kitchen counter where you can just grab the unhealthy snack, transaction costs are nearly zero. Having cookies in your pocket means that transaction costs really are zero. You’re constantly tempted and undesired behaviour takes zero effort.

    On the other hand, if you don’t have any junk food at home, the transaction costs are much higher. You have to change your clothes, drive to the grocery store or gas station, decide which junk food to get, buy it, come home, and only then can you enjoy your snack. It takes much more effort and energy, thus transaction costs are quite high. The further you have to drive, the higher the cost. At some point transaction costs are so high, you rather eat an apple than make all the effort to get to the junk food.

    Let’s look at another example from a different perspective. If you live close to the gym, if you always have your training gear near you, if you can just step through your door and start running or jump into the pool, the transaction costs to start exercising are low. It takes a minimum of your willpower, time and other resources to start training. But if you have to drive far to get to the gym, if you always have to call your friends to find a gym buddy, if your sports bag is not ready etc., the transaction costs are high and it takes a lot of effort to start the desired behaviour.

    By decreasing or increasing transaction costs, you can manipulate your discipline a lot, especially in the beginning when you’re enforcing new desired behaviour and developing new healthy habits. Make sure that it takes a lot to perform an undesired behaviour and that there are almost zero transaction costs for the new habits you want to develop.

    Here are some additional ideas for how you can manipulate your discipline with transaction costs:

    • When you get your paycheck, automatically transfer a certain amount to your savings account. Automate paying yourself first.
    • Don’t just impulsively buy expensive things with a credit card when you are in the shopping center. Make a system with many check points that you have to cross in order to buy an expensive item. For example, first you have to put the item on a wish list, discuss it with your partner, wait a few weeks, find the best price etc.
    • Make your files, folders and apps that lead to your progress easily accessible with shortcuts, bookmarks etc., and delete all entertainment apps and folders that are constantly distracting you. You can also install a web-nanny that blocks your social networks if you use them too much.
    • Unplug your TV and change your programs so you’ll never ever turn your TV on again.
    • Always have a book with you and put one next to your bed. You can also do the same with banana.
    • When you’re doing focused work, turn off your mobile phone (it takes quite an effort to enter all the pass-codes and PINs) and make it hard as hell to open e-mail or any other distraction apps
    • Use e-mail templates with Yesware and automation apps like IFTTT.
    • You can dress yourself the same every day, like Mark Zuckerberg or Steve Jobs did. That’s how you’ll save cognitive decisions and willpower for other, more important things.

    There are many other ways of manipulating transaction costs. Think of the behaviours and habits you want to get rid of and make it as hard as possible to get started. On the other hand, make it as easy as possible to start and perform the good habits and enforce new behaviour. If you additionally manipulate habit triggers and rewards, you will become a superhero of self-discipline sooner or later.

  • Biofeedback

    In its broadest sense, biofeedback is an important and popular trend that can help you stay healthy and have a better quality of life. When I talk about biofeedback, I’m talking about using or being connected to electrical devices and sensors that help you to receive information (feedback) about your body (bio). That’s the simple reason why it’s called biofeedback.

    Having information about your current state of the body can help you take action and achieve the health result you want more easily, for example reducing the pain and stress level or enhancing your physical performance. The greater the awareness you have of your physiological functions, the easier you can manipulate them and take the right actions. The actions you can take are most often closely connected to changes in your thoughts, emotions and behaviour. In other words, you apply data about your body processes to your personal development plan.

    Most frequently, biofeedback is connected to measuring brainwaves, heart function, breathing, muscle activity and skin temperature using sensor modalities like EMG, EDG, EEG, PPG, ECG, REG, HEG, and so on. But since biofeedback is such a cool buzzword, I also use it for simpler body measurements with devices you can afford. With more and more smart and wearable devices on the market, you can measure, observe and take note of many different body functions at home without any professionals.

    Basic biofeedback

    With more and more smart devices, sensors in your mobile phone and different applications, you can measure many variables of your body functions. They’re very good for measuring inputs (calories intake for example), your body function status (heart rate or weight, for example) and the outputs you get with changing your behaviour (brainwaves when meditating or body fat percentage when changing your diet, for example).

    What’s not only a fact of life but also true for your health is that wrong assumptions are the mother of all fuckups. You don’t want to take actions that influence your health based on your assumptions, but rather actions based on actual data that is as accurate as possible. You can manage only what you measure. Thus your set of biofeedback devices should act as a kind of sixth sense that allows you to see or hear activity inside your body and take more appropriate action.

    Here are the variables you can simply measure with smart devices and applications that are easily available to you on the market:

    • Aerobic activities – walking, running, hiking etc.
    • Anaerobic activities – reps, load etc. when weightlifting
    • Blood pressure
    • Blood sugar
    • Body Fat Percentage
    • Body Mass Index
    • Brainwaves
    • Calories intake
    • Hearth rate
    • Lean Body Mass
    • Nutrition intake
    • Sex
    • Skin temperature
    • Sleep Analysis
    • Weight

    By taking a relatively cheap test, you can also get feedback on your:

    • Blood analysis
    • Breathing
    • Hormone levels
    • Muscle tension
    • Many others

    Biofeedback watch

    Devices and applications

    There are more and more devices and applications on the market that enable you to monitor different body functions. In the near future, we can expect even more devices, much more capable ones that will measure an even broader set of functions more accurately and in more detail. Of course wearable technologies and medical devices are also a big business opportunity.

    Here are some devices and applications I use for biofeedback fitness:

    Online, you can find many lists and reviews of different devices and applications.

    Challenges of biofeedback

    There are of course some challenges when implementing biofeedback in your life. The first and biggest challenge is time, discipline and thus additional stress. It’s not easy to examine your day-to day life and status of the body’s processes. It’s important to take things step by step, from basic measurements to the more advanced ones. Automating as many things as possible also makes sense.

    The second problem is the financial cost. You have to invest some money into an application, devices etc. They’re not that expensive, but you still have to spend some money. Again, going step by step and making sure you actually use the devices you buy is the best way to go. Otherwise you’re just wasting your resources.

    Actions you can take

    Based on the biofeedback, you can take different actions for your health, mood and energy levels. Most actions are connected to some sort of relaxation or behavioural changes. Thus biofeedback can’t do magic (yet) and cure you of different diseases, but it can definitely help you manage your body and energy levels better. You also get faster feedback if something is going into the wrong direction, for example your body fat percentage.

    Apple Health Dashboard
    Apple Health Dashboard, Source: Huffington Post

    The most popular actions you can take based on biofeedback:

    • Dietary changes
    • Taking supplements
    • Emotional accounting
    • Exercise decrease or increase
    • Meditation
    • Reframing
    • Changing sleep patterns
    • Stretching
    • Visualization
    • Water intake

    Biofeedback can help you the most with your fitness and energy levels, getting in shape, managing anxiety, stress and insomnia, headaches and other similar tensions. The final goal of all the effort is using all the data for personal development and behavioural changes to optimize your daily life, potential, how you feel and how much you can achieve.

    In the future, I’ll show detailed examples of how I use different devices to gather feedback about my body functions.

    Disclaimer: In this blog post, biofeedback is meant in a very broad meaning of the word, measuring basic health stuff with devices you can buy on the market. The blog post doesn’t give any advice for serious health issues. If you are experiencing a serious health issue, you should consult your doctor.