Month: July 2017

Happiness is something we all experience, but what may surprise you is that the feeling is the same regardless of who you are, where you are, or how you became happy. Whether you are a millionaire or a homeless beggar on the street, we all experience the same feeling of happiness regardless of the source. Perhaps the millionaire feels happiness when his investments make an amazing return for him while the beggar feels happiness when someone hands him a handful of pesos that allows him to get a place to spend the night, a warm shower, and food in his stomach. That feeling: happiness. It is the same regardless of who you are, where you’re from, and your circumstance in life. There is no better happiness because you have more money, or a poorer happiness. It’s the same feeling.

I feel happiness every time I see myself in the mirror, step on the scale, or put on a pair of pants that would have been laughably small for me two years ago. Trying on trousers at the store and finding it difficult to find a pair that fit because I’m thinner than the average man also makes me happy. I’m in the same size pants as I wore when I was a LCpl in the Marines.

I felt happiness when I was overweight; sure. It was for different reasons, but I felt it then, too. Only now, I feel it because of successes in my diet and fitness. Every time I hit 100+ push ups? Happy. At or under 165 lbs? Happy. Look in the mirror and see a healthy man? Happy.

Is it automatic? Not at all. Losing weight, in and of itself, did not change my perspective. Other aspects of my life did not change: work is work, responsibilities are still there, and the bills keep rolling in. Losing weight because you want to find happiness may not be the best goal because you really need to figure out what it is that is making you unhappy and perhaps try to fix that instead. However, it’s it’s your health that is making you unhappy, losing weight and getting healthy will help.

Happiness is not being beautiful, rich, or successful. There are plenty of beautiful, rich, and successful people who are unhappy. The trick is to find what brings you happiness and pursue those things. If you’re goal oriented, set attainable goals. If you think that the mere fact of losing weight will change your life, you are in for a disappointment. Losing weight can help make it easier to change certain aspects of your life, but surprisingly, not much else. Just because I’m 150 lbs lighter doesn’t make my resume any better. It doesn’t inflate my paychecks, nor did it bring me any amazing opportunities. It did allow me to begin running, and I now am competing against myself by working toward increasing my pace and distance running. I find happiness in successes there, but just losing weight didn’t make me a runner. It gave me the opportunity to start running.

Happiness is not a permanent state. It’s something we feel every now and then in those fleeting moments between everything else. It’s impossible to be in a constant state of happiness, although there are times when we can feel contented and happiness can last a while; it’s just not a permanent state. It’s also possible to be happy about things. That’s why memories of happy times are so powerful. They have the ability to allow us to relive a happy moment or time.

I’m happy now. I am happy a lot lately, and losing weight has been a big part of that, but it’s not the main source of it. I have found happiness in many aspects of my life that being healthy and fit have allowed me to experience. Find your happiness and make it happen.

Warning: This topic may be a little too much information for some people, yet it’s a question I’m asked regularly. I figure if people have the guts to ask, there may be many more who don’t yet are curious. Don’t read further if you’re squeamish.

You don’t poop as often on Paleo. Some say this is due to your gut biome not getting the right nutrients or some other spin on that. I’ve taken probiotics and other products in an attempt to make myself more regular, and none of them worked. Why? Because my body is operating very efficiently and it rids itself of biowaste when it is ready. There are many reasons for this.

Decreased volume of food intake. I eat about 1/4 of the amount of food I used to eat, and that’s being generous. I used to eat so much food that I cringe thinking about trying to eat one meal’s worth of food throughout an entire day now. I don’t think I could do it! With the reduced volume is a reduced rate of waste.

Increased quality of food. The food I eat now is cleaner, more natural, and whole. It takes the body longer to digest, and it takes more energy for my body to digest. This makes it stick around a little longer than the bad foods did. This, coupled with the decreased volume, make for very dense biowaste. Also, the higher quality of the food, the more of it is digested which reduces what is released as waste. Meat is a good example. People who eat a lot of meat don’t tend to create as much waste as those who eat grains. Vegetables create a little more waste, but not a lot more.

Fiber helps things. Truly, it does. I eat more veggies or add fruit to my diet if things are alarmingly slow. Fish oil has helped me, too. When all else fails, I go out for some Greek food, and something about it gets me going within an hour.

Slower frequency of bowel movements is a normal thing when you’re on Paleo. It’s not something to worry about. There’s nothing that says you need to poop once or more a day. As long as your poop is healthy looking (I will leave it to you to Google that), you are most likely fine.

In just a few days, I will turn 50. That scares me a bit, because it’s a reminder to me of my mortality. Yet, it’s not that I’m afraid of death. I don’t want to die, but I’m not afraid of it. The actual part of being dead is a concept I’m strangely okay with. No, it’s the fact that my body is aging and no matter how much I want and try, physical limitations will begin to creep into my life that I have no power over.

Eating well and getting regular exercise can put off some of those physical effects, but ultimately, the DNA gets damaged and there are things that modern medical science just isn’t good enough to work past. This is something I will have to come to terms with, but I’m not ready for that yet. I continue to push myself physically, to stay fit, to be the best me I can be. Even at 50.

They say 50 is the new 30, and I believe it. I feel like I’m no older than 30, yet I know younger people who see me see an old guy who just happens to be healthy and fit. That’s okay. I have a lot of life experience to draw from that helps me get through a lot of the mundane and stressful situations they have yet to learn to deal with. Me? I’m a pro.

Fifty. I used to think that was old. Now, I think that age is just a number, to an extent. I have many adventures left in me, and lots of things I have yet to accomplish. I live as if I’m never going to die, yet at the same time, I know that my time here, as is everyone’s, is limited. Therefore, I try to live my life to the fullest, to laugh, live, and love as much as I can. I want to cram as much as I can into whatever time I have left, and I’m not going to do it on a couch sitting in front of a TV eating chips. I won’t help my DNA break down by being overweight, unhealthy, and unfit. I’m going out fighting.

Nobody should accept mortality sitting down. There’s so much we can do, whether it’s traveling, volunteering at a charity or organization we believe in, or being around those we love. I try to do all of the above: there’s time enough for rest when I’m dead. I live life to the fullest not because it’s so short, but because death lasts forever and there are no second chances.

Take charge of your life and make it a good one. Get healthy. Get fit. Life gets better when you give yourself the best body to enjoy it in.

This is another weird one. I think I figured out how people back before A/C were able to survive the heat in summertime: they were thin. They weren’t insulated, and didn’t have a layer of fat around them to keep them hot. As I sit outside writing this blog post, it’s 81 degrees outside, and I actually feel chilled. Yes, there’s a breeze that helps with that, but two years ago, sitting outside the way I am right now would have had me sweating puddles. Now? It feels great.

Our bodies were designed to be mostly muscle with just a small amount of fat to allow us to survive a few days or so, augmenting our nutrition with a readily available store of energy when we missed a meal or two. Now, with our easy access to hyper nutritious food, our bodies get fat very easily, and it makes living in conditions our forefathers lived in untenable.

I look forward to going to the Renaissance Festival this year in costume knowing that I can dress accurately in a period costume and I will remain comfortable. In the past, wearing a lot of period clothing kept me very hot and I would become exhausted quickly, not only because I was out of shape and overweight, but because I was overheating. I don’t think I will have that problem this year.

Of all the benefits of losing weight, this is one of the best ones, and I only just realized it. Feeling comfortable on a hot, summer night is truly something I didn’t know was so nice. It reminds me of my childhood, when physical comfort was something I took for granted. Now, I get to have that again, and it’s glorious.

I notice that if I don’t get enough sleep, I don’t lose weight. On top of that, I sometimes will gain weight. I think it’s water weight that I’m retaining, but the fact remains that in my experience, not getting enough sleep results in no weight loss. On the other hand, when I get 7.5 hours or more of sleep each night, the scale is nice to me the following morning.

It turns out that we lose weight in our sleep. As we rest, our bodies are busy using energy that we stored up to keep us alive until we wake up the next morning. The longer we sleep, the more of that stored energy that is used. How is it lost? Well, we exhale it mostly. The rest is turned into liquid waste which is why we typically need to use the restroom to empty our bladders when we wake up.

Our bodies are fascinating and the processes and functions it performs are all finely tuned. We need to learn to recognize these processes and allow them to be carried out properly. Get enough sleep. Not only will you feel better in the morning, but you’ll likely be a little lighter, too.