"It is my firm belief that good music is one of the most vital ingredients in creating a better world for all of us." - Zephyr
Water
Yes. You heard. Water.
With comfortable chairs, increasingly appealing workplaces, and a “pile of work that keeps us busy from 9am to 12pm, 1pm to 6pm and 8pm to 10pm”, it is easy to overlook drinking water. Often, many of us do not reach for a glass of water till we are thirsty. And that’s too late. The aim is to drink enough water throughout the day, so that we never feel thirsty.
Common workable solutions include using a much larger glass, a bottle, or a jug at work. A jug can continuously be used to replenish the glass that you sip away from, every 10-15 minutes. A lot of people are fat, to put it simply, because their bodies are too acidic. To regulate blood pH and acidity, water most definitely helps.
And get this, a little birdie on a tree told us that Victoria’s Secret models drink at least 3 litres of water a day. To put that into perspective for you, if you only use small glasses, use 15.
Food: Go Natural
If you can’t grow it, don’t eat it. It is that simple.
Now, if you’re an everyday human like us, you’re probably not going to stop muffins, cakes, chocolates, pickle, bread, noodles, sweets, protein powder, sugar, salt, butter, jam, wraps and dairy, tomorrow morning.
If you want to get lean simply though, you have to start keeping this line in your head just before mealtimes. “If you can’t grow it, it’s not food.” If mom or dad asks, “would you like rice or noodles tonight?”, you would answer, “rice please.” Chicken or mock meat? Chicken. Noodles or bread? Neither. Prawn dumplings or grilled prawns? Grilled prawns. Not only will your waistline thank you, your acne and complexion will too.
Exercise
We understand that this can be daunting for someone who does not do any. Enter dumbbells.
Before human beings dwelled in cities, we were basically running around on plains, mountains, in forests, near seas and so on. Humans didn’t look any less attractive then, or well they wouldn’t have been compelled to reproduce, and we probably would not exist.
In that day and age, the exercises were hunting, throwing, pulling, pushing and so on, as nature and survival called for it. That’s what we suggest. Keep it simple. Dumbbells are as effective as rocks were to ancient humans, with handles. Even if you’re a startup entrepreneur who spends 15 hours in a room or an office, all you need to do is buy a pair of dumbbells that weighs 10kgs each to start with.
For 15 minutes a day, you will make a commitment to get off your work chair, and start with something simple. Before this, you will make a commitment to buy the dumbbells. They’re not scary, they don’t bite, they don’t talk back. Buy them.
Jumping jacks are perfect (preferably in front of a mirror so you can see what you are doing) to warm up. 2-4 minutes of jumping jacks should be enough to get your blood pumping and to break a slight sweat. Also, there is no excuse for someone who doesn’t own dumbbells; yet.
Next, you will split your body into 7 body parts or groups and do one body part a day, for a total of 7 per week, with the dumbbells. Google will be your best friend assuming you’re a newbie. Search out just 1 exercise for each body part. On Monday you may do legs. On Tuesday you might do back.
For each exercise/body part, you will do 6 sets of 8 reps. Rest for 1.5 minutes in between each set. This should be manageable for any grown adult who is in reasonable health.
Before you get excited, you’ll have to stop everyday, because the commitment is 15-20 minutes and the sets will be finished. You might find yourself asking, “that’s it?” 2 weeks later, you may choose to enjoy the compliments coming your way.
Rest
What’s that you ask?
You must live in Asia, or Singapore! On one of our recent visits to Vancouver, Canada, we realized that people do exist today who start winding down at 7pm. By 9pm, it’s lights out. By 5am, they’re up to exercise and by 8am they’re at work. “But what about all the people who messaged me on WhatsApp? What about Facebook Messenger? Viber? WeChat? Twitter? My Instagram inbox? And who do you think is going to answer my 6 e-mail accounts and Facebook Pages Mr.? Replies don’t write themselves you know!”
We know. We also know, that the choice to look at your phone, and devices (yes there are too many), is yours. You may argue, but the truth is that unless someone’s got a gun to your head, you have a choice in everything that you do.
If your argument is that you have a crazy schedule, without all the devices, we sympathize with you. Poverty, lack of a good job or career, overwhelming family commitments and responsibilities, a bad turn in a financial crisis, physical disabilities or maybe even working for a startup. As gigantic as the task may seem, you have to start to reduce the number of responsibilities you have, to have a healthy life. Just say “no”. Entrepreneurs who’ve learnt from their over-committing mistakes earlier in their careers will agree.
If your life runs on a daily cycle like most humans’ lives do, you need to do less, to rest more, and get compensated as much as possible for what you do. That’s the key to success, and, rest. Rest enables you to then do better work in the decreasing number of hours you work the next day and so on. This is an upward spiral. Entertainment is now easily available on devices and it winds you down after the day. Right? Certain types of live entertainment would but here’s the rub. If it’s on a device, it actually wakes you up.
We’ll leave out the scientific mumbo jumbo but we will repeat, if you’re looking at a device with a screen, in close proximity, it wakes you up. Good Night.
