Ozempic - Ever heard of it? A groundbreaking weight loss drug 💉 that's taken the world by storm. It made me wonder why... Do we not know what's required to manage our weight? That's not it 🤔 we know because it's simple, but it's not easy. I'm writing to aid the implementation process:
Shopping Malls 🛒 My suggestion? Don't go there unless you absolutely have to. Don't escort a friend or colleague to the shops, let them go by themselves. Don't take a 'health walk' there neither. This is my version of staying away from temptation because when you go to the mall you'll smell all sorts of things that will stimulate hunger 🍟, you'll hear all sorts of things that will bring back BBQ memories 🍖, you'll see all sorts of colorful sugar bombs that excite your reminiscing taste buds 🍫 🍬🍭. Don't test your capacity to endure temptation; avoid it entirely. Eat From Your Pot 🥘 You'll be amazed at what happens to your waistline once you commit to eating only that which is made in your kitchen. But if you've differed with the madam and she's left you to fend for yourself the next point below is for you. Turn to the Streets 🥜 🍌 🍊 🍉 Feeling hungry? Take it to the streets. Buy the snacks on offer in the form of fruits, roasted maize, nuts, avocados etc until you find your way home to have a proper meal. I haven't found any man attributing their big belly to street food. Water 💧 💩 Drink lots of it and do it early. Staying properly hydrated provides a myriad of benefits and key among is easing any potential constipation by keep things moving along. Think of water as a poop softener. The more you poop the better and lighter you'll feel, at least that's the case with me. Get Active 🚴🏿♀️ 🏋🏿♂️ 🏊🏿♂️ 🤸🏿 My advice? Win the morning because you have less control over the rest of your day. If this is impractical, whatever alternative time of day is convenient you better get the job done with no excuses. For those that don't have the self-drive to get active I recommend that you consider hiring a trainer. You eliminate the thinking and simply focus on execution. Most trainers offer a trial workout and it's enough for you to decide if you enjoyed the session enough to show up again the next day. Whatever you decide, expose yourself to as many different things (boxing, aerobics, running, weights etc) to discover the kind of exercise you enjoy. You'll likely be consistent with an activity that's fun for you. Coffee ☕️ A strong cuppa Joe early in the day tends to help a great deal with appetite suppression. Try it. Another side effect, at least for me, is it stimulates bowel movement. Mind Your Liquor 🥃 You'll probably cut a ton of weight by simply turning a drink offer down, but for those that can't opting for lite beers and plain water mixers will make a huge difference in the long run. ❗️Hangover tip: a glass of water, a banana 🍌 and multivitamin💊 right before bed can help suppress hangover symptoms you might experience the next day.
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I recently signed up for the project fit marathon after gentle encouragement to do so from family. I was initially resistant because I didn’t feel particularly ‘fit’ but I jumped in it anyway and realigned my focus to measuring progress in my real life fitness project and answering the question "how do I objectively measure fitness?".
Resting heart rate The heart is a muscle* and your resting heart rate is usually an indicator of how strong that muscle is. In general, the lower it is the better. You can use technology to get reading via a smart fitness watch or blood pressure machine, or you can manually estimate it placing two fingers between the bone and the tendon on an artery located on the thumb side of your wrist. When you feel your pulse, count the number of beats for one minute. ❗️Readings are best taken first thing in the morning before anyone has had an opportunity to frustrate you. *The heart muscle of athletes is larger in size than that of ordinary, sedentary people due the physiological response it has to exercise. Excellent Fitness Rating
Above Average Fitness Rating
Average Fitness Rating
⚠️ If the reading obtained is less than what's outlined above then your fitness rating is poor. 12 minute Cooper test It’s simple - Run as hard as you can for 12 minutes on a measurable track or treadmill. Once done check the categories below for a fitness rating. Excellent Fitness Rating
Above Average Fitness Rating
Average Fitness Rating
⚠️ If the distance covered is less than what's outlined above then your fitness rating is poor. 2.4 kilometers test In this test, individuals run a distance of 2.4 kilometers as fast as they can. The time taken to complete the run is used as an indicator of cardiovascular endurance. Excellent Fitness Rating
Above Average Fitness Rating
Average Fitness Rating
⚠️ If the time obtained for distance covered is less than what's outlined above then your fitness rating is poor. VO2 max VO2 max is a measure of the maximum amount of oxygen per kilogram of body weight per minute of activity your body can use. To measure it, you can either use technology in the form of a smart fitness watch to estimate this value or manually calculate it from running a predetermined distance. For simplicity purposes, If you perform the cooper test or the 2.4 kilometer tests outlined above then the following formulas are applicable: VO2max = (22.351 x kilometers) - 11.288 for the cooper test, and VO2max = (483 / time) + 3.5 for the 2.4 kilometer test. The other albeit unrealistic option for the majority of my readership is a lab test. ❗️Quick tips to improve this metric are weight loss and high intensity interval training. Excellent Fitness Rating
Above Average Fitness Rating
Average Fitness Rating
⚠️ If the rating obtained is less than what's outlined above then your fitness rating is poor. The relevance of fitness testing is measuring your baseline so you can easily observe improvements or deterioration in fitness. Train, recover, eat and sleep well consistently and fitness takes care of itself. I personally use a Garmin 55 to tell me the truth about my cardiovascular fitness reality. A desire to become more than I currently am made me ponder 🤔, and repeatedly ask the question - “How do you eat an elephant 🐘?”. This desire is not unique to me, it’s embedded in many of us. It’s what drives ambition. I decided to ask and answer this question in my quest to evolve.
Q: How do you eat an elephant? A: One bite at a time. It means waking up everyday, getting after it, pole pole, en route to becoming an ‘elder’ in streak society. Consistency is king and progress, no matter how small, compounds and eventually snowballs into BIG wins. The success stories we admire today are a culmination of hours and hours of someone beating on their craft, taking small bites at every meal sitting (read day) before you even had the chance to marvel at them. 🗣️ "Do something every day that brings you closer to your dreams." Q: How do you eat an elephant? A: By finding the courage to hunt the beast. The burden of ambition is the weight of wanting more and simultaneously being intimidated by the beast you have to face to get it. Mental realignment is critical, and it’s all about seeing it, and literally tasting success before it even happens. The law of attraction, when actively applied transcends you long before you achieve your desired outcome. 🗣️ "When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it." Q: How do you eat an elephant? A: By picking yourself up when you get trampled on before charging again. You’re going to get dragged and stepped on before you even get close enough to take a bite of the elephant. Accepting that you will fail before you succeed dilutes the impact of falling short and provides the impetus to keep swinging. 🗣️"Victory is always possible for the warrior that refuses to stop fighting." Last weekend I found myself dragged into a discussion about the gym and some of the messy situations people find themselves in. I was asked for my take as ‘Ba Yama’ ku gym.
🗣️”I don’t care how far someone pushes their chest out or how often someone flicks their hair, the gym is the one place that consolidates people that want to be better. People that want to look and feel better. And because there’s a baseline people are trying to build on, insecurities, if left unchecked can creep in and nothing feels better than words of affirmation in times of self-doubt.” The unscrupulous among us speak this love language fluently in environments where the volume is never loud enough for the recipient not to hear, but for the civilised folk it’s fuel and encouragement. I’m drawn to the positives of any situation so for a better gym experience I encourage the lingo. To be clear, it's the simple English, no code, no hint hint or requirement to read between the lines kind of lingo. See someone looking good? Tell them they look good without any extras (😍 ❌) . You’ll make their day, I promise. See someone showing up everyday? Tell them you admire their consistency. You’ll be the reason that they show up again the next day, and the days after that. See someone in your space? Smile 😊, greet them 👋🏿 and keep it moving. You’ll help them feel warmth and friendliness. We all need more of that in a world where everyone is too gangster or too much of a 'somebody' to greet those around them. Be kind, it's contagious, so spread it every chance you get. See someone changing the temperature in a room? Tell them they're on fire 🔥. You'll help yourself by finding inspiration to light your own match and push through your workout. Why? 🦁 Because when you are affirm others you often identify the traits you would like to have, and if you’re someone with a basic desire to improve, these are the things you’ll gradually develop. If you stick around lions long enough you’ll forget you’re a vegetarian and develop a killer instinct. Note: These aren’t one-off events. Nobody ever got tired of compliments. I've been in my head lately and I've been trying to find my way out. After excessive thought chaos a solution to my mental stress presented itself in the form of meditation. I've had an on and off relationship with meditation and I know I haven't been loyal, but I need it. So do you. I'll tell you why.
The why Focus and mental clarity🧠 Daily meditation, without question, levels 🆙 my mental game. I feel sharp, fluid and calm. The mental energy I derive from morning meditation feels just as good as Starbucks coffee on a cold winter morning🥶. It picks me up and provides me with supreme verve and focus. Anxiety suppression 😌 Meditation has helped me channel my inner Bruce Lee - 'Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water my friend.' My interpretation of this quote is go with the flow, be flexible and adaptable to whatever situation you find yourself in. I try not to be anxious about about anything because if it's meant to happen, it will. If it isn't, it won't. In-between all of that I remain formless, shapeless, like water. Impulse control That urge to respond when you feel verbally provoked? Consistent meditation will reign in that impulse. You're less likely to have an emotional outburst when your mind has been decluttered. You'll become fully aware of what it really means to think before you talk. The how It's simple; sit down and keep your mind quiet for 20 minutes per day. That's it. Well, that's the summary of it all but there's various forms of meditation and many make it out to be more complicated than it really is. What works for me and likely anyone else yet to attain monk status is sitting down somewhere dark and quiet, back upright, chin up, eyes closed and you taking deep, long breaths into your belly and slowly releasing your breath out through your nose. Rinse, repeat. Maintain focus on your breathing, and only your breathing for 20 minutes straight. The idea behind meditating like this is to quiet the mind and this approach was concisely explained by J.J. Connolly — 'Meditation is concentrating the front of the mind with a mundane task so the rest of the mind can find peace.' It's simple, but it's not easy and those that find the practice unbearably boring have the untamed minds that actually need it the most. Why 20 minutes? Because that's the sweet spot to derive any real benefits from the practice. 1 minute, 2 minute, 5 minute 'mini' meditation does the same for your mental wellbeing as jogging from your front door to your backdoor does for your physical wellbeing. Next to nothing. Put in the time if you want results. The where Anywhere dark, quiet with a firm and comfortable surface. I typically meditate on a stool. This works for me and I'm sticking to it. If you're in the zone and you can handle it, then please, by all means, do what you see monks and other meditation enthusiasts do 🧘🏾♂️. 📖Side note: The first book I ever read and appreciated on the topic of meditation was Success Through Stillness by Russell Simmons. If you can get your hands on it then you'll learn a lot more about transformative potential meditation has. Remember my bout with gastritis? What I didn't tell you about that experience was my interaction with the lab technician at the hospital. To figure out what was wrong with me, or rather confirm, I had to get my blood work checked and this meant stripping down and taking my shirt off. As he proceeded to draw blood he asked me, "How often do you go to the gym?", I told him every day. He was amused by that and suggested that gym for me was what food is to an ordinary human being; it just has to be had daily! 😄 "How do you sustain it? How do you 'eat' so much so often?" He asked. This is what I shared with him:
I don't think, I just do Alarm ⏰ goes off and it's time to rumble 🥊. How I feel doesn't matter, and what I think about the weather doesn't matter either -- it's time to 'eat'. Eliminate thinking and ruthlessly execute day in and day out before kaja ka voice has an opportunity to discourage you. I don’t think, I just do. It's not optional, it's mandatory It doesn't matter what's going on around me, I'M GOING TO THE GYM. This advice can be applied to anything that's important to you. There's no debate, there's no multiple choice and it's not left to a democratic vote. I am going to do what I need to do to get stuff done. At the end of the day there's really only two things in life; results or excuses. It's about a system* "Hard work isn't the problem, it's the consistency of the hard work that's difficult." Key word is consistency, and you can't be consistent without a system. Build a system that consolidates the little things required to get the job done. I pack my gym bag and all gym essentials the night before while my lovely wife sorts out my dietary requirements and ensures the beast will be fed. I plan my training and visualize the end goal... me cracking the sidewalk with each step I take and standing out as the evolution of my species. The objective is to clear the path for nothing but execution the next day. You cannot progress with a chipante pante approach to the goals you set for yourself. Be methodical. *I highly recommend the book Atomic Habits by James Clear. You’ll learn everything there is to know about developing habits and systems that set you up for success. I spent the better part of last week grappling with stomach trouble. A bad bout of gastritis pumped my brakes and forced me into sobriety. It’s been two weeks and refraining from alcohol in this short period has me feeling very different and I like it. I think I'm going to stay this way, at least in the short term. Let me share my sobriety experience with you.
Sweet sleep 💤 I sleep through the night and I’m not drooling by the time I wake up. I don’t wake up to pee and the struggle to get out of bed isn't as bad. For those that say "I'm not a morning person", sobering up might just convert you. Ready, aim, fire 💩 I cut the booze and now I go to war in the bathroom twice daily. I'm a human grenade launcher and I feel fantastic. I'm lighter on my feet and unburdened. I haven't experienced a digestive process as efficient as this since I was a toddler. Flu vibes and the throat itch 🤧 Ice cold beer and other chilled drinks before bed can trigger mini flus that aren’t serious but noticeable enough to irritate you and others. If you're unfortunate, mid-conversation mucus 😪 might roll down your upper lip to help smoothen the discussion. Itchy fingers and loose lips 🤳🏿 🫵🏿🗣️ Ever said something after a couple drinks and regretted it? Or decided to tell someone how you really feel, good or bad, after a couple shots of liquid courage? Sobriety maintains impulse control and gives whatever base of wisdom you might have some solid support. Resist impulse and you'll save yourself a lot of headaches with a properly fitted head to mouth filter and text resistant fingers. My appeal today is for others to try and incorporate an 'alcohol fast' for a week (as a start) and see how you feel. You can do this voluntarily or wait until you end up like me; experiencing pain akin to going into labor but without the joy of a baby. This morning as I braved the cold weather to make my way to the gym I asked and answered the question “What does a summer body look like?” Answer: Beach Body. Most will agree that a summer body is often thought of as a leaner, more aesthetic physique. The whole beach body at a pool party kind of thing - Well defined 6 pack, chiseled chest, toned arms filya, and for the ladies small waist, flat tummy with other more pronounced features. What do they all have in common? Fat loss. The follow up questions of 'How do I get it?' and 'What should I be doing?' is something I pondered upon and my conclusions are what I wish to share with others. Alcohol Cut (or reduce) this vice and watch your weight disappear. I’m serious 😐 most people will see big results if they just turn away from the bottle. Think about it. Late night drive throughs or drive bys for michopo, hotdogs 🌭 and/or chips 🍟 ? ⛔️ Hangover junk food? ⛔️ Excess sugar from mixers and cocktails? ⛔️ Missed morning gym sessions? ⛔️ Sloth 🦥 tendencies and reduced activity the morning after? ⛔️. Disrupted sleep because you need to pee as often as you snore? ⛔️. When all these things are eliminated and improved upon you’re easily a better, slimmer you. Food You can eat much of what you want but delay when you do so. Intermittent fasting is the least annoying way to ‘diet’. Another is one meal a day (OMAD). It's simple: open your mouth for solids once every 24 hours. If you can pull it off, you’ll see tremendous results and quickly. You'd be wise to make your one meal count by making it a nutritious feast akin to what you'd receive or be presented with at your chilanga mulilo. OMAD exempts water, so please drink as much as you need whenever you need to not wa bwela wagwa ati ba roadrunner said one cup a day🤨. Anyway, a lot of people eating multiple meals a day don't engage in enough activity to justify the piles of food they place on their plates. Sounds like you? Give OMAD a try, or at least try to earn your plate through sweat. Thinking doesn't count so pretending to be an intellectual at the office doesn't qualify. Tea Keep warm this winter 🥶 with multiple cups of green tea 🍵. No sugar, no honey 🍯 - just a green teabag and hot water over and over again. You’ll get used it 😌 and two things will happen; one is you'll loosen your bowels and poop more and the other is you'll give your metabolism and mental alertness a boost. Increase activity This means increasing activity outside a gym or sports facility. It’s simple: take the stairs every chance you get and take walks as often as you can. Those of you with office jobs must make a conscious effort to get up and move every so often. Simple ways to do this are: fetch your own documents from the printer, go and buy your own tumbuwas if you insist on having them in the morning and step out to grab your own lunch rather than waiting to be served. Many of us disguise laziness as productivity when we don’t want to leave our reclining leather office chairs. I want to assure you that those few extra steps add up to big results over time so move more. Gym ➡️ Beast ➡️ Puppy Eyes ➡️ Elevate First, find a gym. Second, identify a beast/alpha at the gym. Third, feed the beast’s ego. Usually, the whole ‘I want to be like you when I grow up…’ works reasonably well. The point is, compliments make people more accommodating and helpful in general, and YOU need help stripping the fat off. Fourth and final tip, is request to train with the beast. You’ll elevate your level of training and accelerate your fat loss by hanging with the big boys and girls at the gym. "Nick, gym ipasa njala!" A friend of mine lamented. He went on to blame the gym for his rapid weight gain and every other physical feature he didn't like 😃. I was greatly amused by this but I felt his overall approach to things, not just gym, was off. Here's what I suggested to him: Sleep deep, sleep long 😴 Deep & long = at least 7 hours of uninterrupted sleep a night in a room with similar features to a cave. I have an alarm for when I should be in bed and I try to be consistent with it. Alarm goes off, so does my phone and the lights. For nights when maganizo 💭 ya paka I opt for a melatonin supplement to help me shut down. It often works very well for me. Poor sleep throws your hormones (especially the ones controlling hunger) off balance and before you know it, your desire for sugary and junk products become insatiable. ⚠️ bathroom breaks can be disruptive to trying to go deep and long with your sleep so you might want to drastically reduce fluid intake an hour or so before bed. Water is your friend 💧 Hydrate early, preferably upon rising with a combination of water and coffee ☕️. 500 mls of water and a cup or two of black coffee is my morning fix soon after waking up. It literally picks me up and gets me going. For the coffee protesters among us, I'd like to suggest you consider spending a bit more money on the coffee you buy before you write it off completely. I've found caffeine to be a cheat code in this game called life, and it might just help you level up as well in the gym and at work. Get moving 🏃🏿♂️ Front-loading your exercise program is a great way to manage hunger. If you're hydrated and you push yourself first thing in the morning all that activity and dopamine will sustain you for several hours. Leave every gym session feeling like a lion or lioness and you're well on your way to dominating your appetite and managing what you devour. Diet? Intermittently fast instead It's common for people determined to look better to radically change their eating ways while they hit the gym. They'll both read and be told many things of how this diet works better for fat loss and that one for muscle gain. We'll stick to the most common goal; fat loss. Deprivation of the things you like, as is the case with fad diets, often yields short term results with mid to long term consequences. Whatever weight you lose is coming back with interest. Intermittent fasting, for those unaccustomed to it, can be uncomfortable but not as miserable as most 'get skinny quick' diets. Sleep well, hydrate and exercise early and you'll be able to stave off hunger until late morning. Do this often enough and you'll look and feel better in the long run. Nshaba 🥜 Plug any gaps between meals with a handful of nuts. Don't like nuts? Other salty cousins such as popcorn 🍿 or pieces of fruit (specifically apples and pears) are great fillers and appetite suppressors to consider. I recently discovered and fell in love 😍 with what I thought was a ‘health drink’…it was relatively cheap, tasted great and more importantly identified as a ‘smoothie’. Everything was fine and dandy until one of the smoothie flavors offended my taste buds with an overwhelming taste of sweetness 🤨. The nutritionist in me swung into action and belatedly started reading the nutrition label. I was shocked! This item served up in excess of 50 grams of sugar per bottle😳 🤯 it was a sugar smoothie! How many of us have fallen for a sugar trap expertly disguised as a health fix? Ginger this, ginger that, health shot this, health shot that 🤦🏾♂️ How can you identify a sugar trap? The simple answer is read the label. The how part is what needs further discussion.
The general rule of thumb if you can’t be bothered to dig deeper papa is this: anything with 10 or more grams per serving of sugar is a sugar trap 🪤. If you have a keen interest in your sugar intake then you’re looking at about 10 grams or less of sugar per serving in anything that you put in your mouth. Biscuits, snacks, juice etc - basically everything. Integrity Check for Alcohol drinkers 🍷 🍺 🥃 Read labels and opt for low sugar mixers that serve less than 10 grams per serving. These usually cost more but your waistline will thank you. If your preference is beer find love in ‘lite’ beers 🍻. Alcohol is empty calories and I’ll translate what this means using words my brother Saviour threw at me: “You can’t decide to have a beer for energy when you start to feel tired.” Easy enough to understand, yes? The only energy alcohol gives you is in the form of liquid courage. 💡A tip for the lazy drinkers among us: use the fat secret website to check the calories of your favorite poison and know that every 100 calories you gulp will demand 20 minutes of walking on average. For more context, this means 6 pack castle lite drinkers need to put one leg in front of the other for roughly 2 hours to burn that off before belly dancing becomes a full time gig. Integrity Check for Regular lads Low sugar, diet and zero drinks 🥤 are better bets for your love handles. Most lower sugar drinks tend to have the tag of ‘low kilojoule’ soft drink. Look out for this. It won’t taste as sweet as ordinary soda but it has an acceptable level of sweetness that you can adjust to. Integrity Basics for Nutrition Labels You get one or all three of carbohydrates, protein and fat in varying quantities in whatever you put in your mouth. Get your eyes on the label and appreciate what’s written there. My beef today is with sugar so that’s what I want you to look for specifically and apply the 10 gram rule. If that’s under control then more often than not you’re not doing too badly. 💡Health gangster tip 😎: I’ve adopted a ‘small bottle, few sips’ approach. I only buy low sugar drinks in minis and I never finish the full contents of a drink in one sitting. I’ll tease my taste buds and then shut down the party till the next meal session. This hack alone has prevented me from using my belt as a waist trainer. It might help you do the same. Conclusion If anything purporting a myriad of health benefits tastes great or is labeled in a manner that suggest ‘health’ in a bottle or packet you should be suspicious. It’s all a bunch of marketing gimmicks. Lastly, remember to check expiry dates of products and if something tastes off, it probably is. Don’t turn yourself into a human grenade launcher 💩 🚀 or wonder why you gain weight when all you consume is ‘smoothies’. |
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