March Aims

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Since the beginning of the year, my health has been going in the right direction. I haven't stuffed any colds this year, I feel that I have more energy and I'm doing more exercise. I've cut down drastically on the sugar in my diet and I've learnt a lot about health that I didn't know before.

There has been set backs, like the teeth incident last month, but even that has turned out to be positive as I took the opportunity to learn more about what people could do to take care of their teeth. Also, I'm still drinking too often to get drunk.

From this the experience of the last two months and from what I've read, I'm confident that if you want to be healthy, you can. It's up to you!

Here are the targets for this month


• To maintain a sugar free diet.
• To experiment with low carbohydrate diet. At first, I want to take notes on the effects of eating or not eating carbohydrates on the teeth.
• To backup internet research on teeth with conversations with professions from the industry.
• Read up and publish a blog on Vitamin D
• Cut down on the number of days I drink, especially the number of days I drink more than 3 pints (UK measure)
• Exercise 14 times. I also want to include swimming and tennis this time.

February Health Targets

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• To remain sugar free. I'll make an exception for a 'custard tart' in Macau.
• To stay to only two caffeinated drinks per day.
• To do strenuous physical exercise 10 times this month. I'll also start researching how other people are exercising.
• To drink more water.
• When I’m at home, to prepare healthy food at home.


Health aims are not the direct focus this month. The focus is ‘Getting Things Done’. I finish work today and I want to get a ‘business mindset’ and focus on what I want to achieve this year.

To do this;

• I’ll write down the three or four most important things I want to achieve the next day. This has already started. (Exercise might be included in this)
• To write about the good things that have happened that day. I’ll write for 10 minutes each day on this. This will start tomorrow.

January Health Round Up

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Late, but I spent the weekend away at Sun Moon Lake with my girlfriend.

January Health Round Up

The (refined) sugar free month. Nearly but not quite.

Known times I had sugar

• Two bread rolls made by my girlfriend.
• 26th Jan - baked beans that come with an English Breakfast
• 30th Jan - last day teaching at a school. My youngest class presented me with a cake. After group hugs and a lovely card with letters from all the students in that class, I felt I couldn't say no. Also had a cup of cola that day.


I feel healthier but I'd find it hard to say why. I'm definitely feeling better now than at the start of the month. Also, I can see a lot easier what effect drinking has on my energy levels.

Around about the 11th I had a persistant headache. I felt bad as I haven't had any sugar but I still wasn't feeling that good. I checked a Patrick Holford book on nutrition to see what he said about sugars. I discovered from this that its not only sugar that affects the blood sugar levels. Many other things do as well, so from that review, I cut down on caffeinated drinks. It was cold and I was drinking 7 or 8 cups a day. I now drink only two. My replacement drinks for the other teas and coffees has been boiled water. It's good and it keeps me warm.

An indirect benefit of having a ban on a certain type of food, is that you get to say no more often. I quite enjoyed saying no to sweets and it feels good.

Conclusion

Being sugar free is good and I think I've got a health boost from it. I intent to stay sugar free.

Fitness

I did strenuous training five times. I went running 3 times and walk for more than 3hrs two times. I think I can do more.

Alcohol

I had 16 non-drinking days
I had 6 moderate drinking days
I had 9 heavy drinking days

Drinking days were a little up from normal. I turned 40 in January, which I think accounted for some of the increase.

On the positive side, I've been much more consistent with drinking water whilst drinking alcohol, especially at home. It's starting to feel more natural now.

That's my health round up. I think I succeed in having a lot less sugar than normal and I feel confident that this will become a habit. I'm also happy that I've changed my caffeine habit to something more moderate. I see that I don't do enough exercise and would like to do more.

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Getting Inspiration from Others

Me, Steph and two performers from Fuerzabruta


Fuerzabruta - Water Dance








A couple of weekends ago I was blown away by people being creative. First, I saw some friends playing at Vicious Cicle, Taipei. It was great seeing friends making fantastic music. I particularly liked it when Ben Smith sang his own song about being 'addicted to smoking' and then Ben Seal sang a song in Chinese. After that I went to Fuerzabruta, which to put it simply, WOW! What they did with lights, dance, music and performance was brilliant. Also, they completely change the audience and performers relationship - with the audience being very much part of the show - amazing fun.

As for inspiration for being healthy, I've decided to look into health sites recommended by Leo Babauta. Leo Babauta has changed his whole life around in the past few years, including quitting smoking, losing a tonne of weight and going from a couch potato to running long distance races.

Here are the sites he's recommended

Mark's Daily Apple is a site that focuses on health from an evolutionally point of view. He believes that pre-agricultural diets are the best diet for humans, as it is the diet that human bodies are most in tuned to. He also believe that exercise should be either short and intense or long and slow as this form of exercise would fit our pre-agricultural lives better.

Fitness Black Book promotes the ideal hollywood body over that of weight lifters. He seems practical and is aware that people have lives where you might deviate from the 'healthy lifestyle'.

Zen to Fitness seems to focus on a simple approach to staying fit.

Fit and Busy Dad is exactly what it says. A busy man, with five children, who manages his life well so that he is fit and healthy too.

Fitness sportlight is written by two bloggers and guides people through various health missions.


I have only scanned these blogs and I've already learned a lot. Certainly, after reading some of their posts, I realise that there's a long way to go and many things to try out before I can think of myself as fit. But that's exciting in itself.

Enjoy and if you know of other useful health blogs then please leave a message.

Spiderman Ben sings Chinese