White sugar – getting the lows after the high

I have given hp taking added sugar completely. So no more sugar in coffee, tea etc. I feel generally feel much better.

In foods also I have almost cut down on items which have added sugar like cookies, juices etc.

But we had Christmas. How can you celebrate Christmas without the Rich Plum Cake. All rules fall by the way side when I get to identify a really good quality plum cake. After all Christmas comes only once a year and I get to eat a plum cake only at that time.

So when I got the opportunity to get a really good plum cake, I ended up buying 3 boxes. I shared the cake with our guests who had come for lunch with us. The rest of the box I ended up eating by the time I went to sleep.

The next morning, when I got up, I was feeling so exhausted , I had to force myself out of bed.

Sugar had done its job. After the high of Christmas, I was was having a massive low. If you have given up on sugar , then the drain is even more I guess.

Since that day I am wondering on what I do with the remaining two boxes of the rich plum cake.

The bottom line is that sugar completely messes up with the body. While drugs get a bad name for addiction, in my opinion sugar comes very close. Its difficult to give up. After a high you get a low which can only be covered after another round of sugar.

A simple rule – avoid refined sugar at all costs.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

The One thing giving you a pushback

Energy, Fear, Human Brain, procrastination, Productivity

The human brain is designed for ensuring your survival at all times. Given that most of us – especially those who live in democracies are generally safe – the brain does actually does not need to do too much for survival. But because that’s the inherent design, things can’t be changed.

Which means that the brain will pushback on all kinds of new things that you think of doing, because it inherently means that it will need to work more. If it works more it will consume more energy, which in turn is a risk if there’s a sudden need for survival issues.

I have been trying to analyse everyday – sometimes successfully and sometimes without success – at which points did I face resistance or pushback, which caused me to procrastinate. There’s actually an interesting podcast which Dean Jackson and Dan Sullivan used to do called The Joy of Procrastination. They had an interesting take, that you should actually plan your day based on the procrastination points that you face everyday.

Once you realise that the pushback or resistance or procrastination or fear means that the brain is thinking that new work is involved, it could actually be good for you. So thinking in these terms, I am working now each day on trying to identify one point of resistance and then actually do that thing. Sometimes it has been writing an email to a prospect, sometimes its a difficult conversation with a colleague.

I am not sure if all the activities that I have done are actually becoming successful but there’s a great sense of relief after I do the thing, where I was facing push back.

While I am working on that aspect I am also trying to figure out, how I can make the Domino effect come into play, when I am doing these things which are giving me a pushback. I will keep you posted if I can build an “algorithm” which can help me make me geometrically more productive because of these activities.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Games – constraints – enjoyment

constraints, ego, Energy, problem solving

As children we love playing games. If we don’t have any games to play, we even create our own. Even when we create our own games, we tell the others about the “rules” of playing the games. You can’t have any game without rules because then the children won’t know how to play.

However within the rules, the children have so much fun and so much creativity. Even professional sports have well defined rules , but each player playing the game, is different in the way she plays. We love sports simply because we see how players use their talent to win against the competition.

However when we are faced with challenges in our work life, we end up thinking of all the constraints because of which we are not able to achieve our dreams and goals.

If we were to think of problems and constraints as rules of the games that we are supposed to play , wouldn’t life become much more enjoyable and fun. We would be at our creative best in trying to find a way out of the situation.

Children don’t have a fear of losing therefore they find different ways to win within the situation. If they lose, they dust it off within minutes and are ready to play the next game.

Our problem is that our ego comes in the way and we adopt a fixed mindset. This ego creates fear, which in turn stops us from trying out different things.

If you have been reading my blog posts, then you will know that fear is a way that our brain plays games with us so that it can conserve energy.

As with games, the more you practice the game, the better you become. Similarly the more problems/constraints you work on the better you become at solving them. Go at them with ferocity

Till next time then…enjoy life

Carpe Diem!!!

White sugar – not listening to my own advice

Energy, Health, sugar

I must have written multiple posts on the drawbacks of eating white refined sugar. Along with corn syrup it is one of the biggest killers in modern life, being a direct cause for blindness, kidney failures, obesity etc. The biggest problem is that all the sugar related diseases crop up suddenly. They keep getting bad to worse in the background and then suddenly appear when the situation has deteriorated to such an extent that I have seen people suddenly lose their eye sight or a small wound suddenly getting infected with gangrene and having to be amputated.

We are having the festival of Diwali , in India, going on for the last 4-5 days. We Indians have a sweet tooth. The amount of “sweet” dishes we have in each of our different cuisines is mind boggling. If you think of at least 16 different broad regional cuisines and at least 30 different sweets in each cuisine, you are looking at close to about 500 different types of sweets. In addition we now also have different kinds of chocolates, cookies and cakes / pastries.

Now during the main festival on Thursday, we had a whole lot of sweets of different kinds which were had laid out. I ended up eating a lot, because there was a huge variety, I got tempted and wanted to try all the items. I actually didn’t realise that I was consuming so many since they were all so tasty. At the end of the day, I am also human and I given in to temptations.

The next day when I got up in the morning, I was feeling so “low” on energy, that I was worried what was wrong with me. After having a couple of glasses of water, I started feeling a little better and started thinking for the reason. Then it struck me that it was the sugar which was playing games with me, since I had eaten so many sweets.

I am flabbergasted that I had not heeded my own advice, I keep telling everyone not to have white sugar based products and generally I have given up on eating all kinds of items which have sugar or corn syrup in it. But I did not listen to my own advice and paid a price for it.

If feasible always avoid white sugar and corn syrup and be more healthy.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!