I’ve been running barefoot (in water socks) for the past month and I’ve come to the conclusion that most exercise in pointless. Making time to work out is a constant struggle for me as I’m sure it is for a lot people. There’s got to be a better way to stay fit rather than forcing ourselves to do meaningless effort everyday.
I think the answer is designing our lives so that physical effort is incorporated into our daily routine. After giving up my car, I started walking a lot more. I realized that as fun as running is, I don’t need to do it all the time if I’m walking everywhere.
It seems like the general attitude in American society is that for every problem we must treat the symptom, not the cause. No one ever questions why we use cars when walking or riding a bike more would ultimately solve a lot of our fitness problems. Not questions the fact that technology is making things easier, while simultaneously making us lazier.
I just finished reading Designing The Future by Jacque Fresco. The book is a blueprint for a resource-based economy rather than monetary-based economy. But one chapter that really stuck out in my mind was the topic of law. Fresco argued that laws are really just a result a result of an inefficient system design. For example, if we used trains instead of cars for transportation then the time and costs of speeding laws, auto accidents and DUI’s goes away. If stop using money then we no longer need laws against stealing. If stop arresting people for harmless drugs like marijuana, then our prison populations goes down.
This same strategy about inefficiency can be applied to how we view fitness. Instead of spending so much time focusing on fitness, we can create lifestyles that naturally incorporate more movement and require more strength naturally.
The people of the Abkhasia and Hunza have the oldest recorded living people in the world with average life expectancy in these places is around 100. What’s their secret to living such a long age? Most of the elders in these communities have no concept of retirement. Most people in these societies remain active up into the day they die. It’s not usual to see people in their 90’s here running 10+ miles a day, then tending to their garden and doing chares around the house. Contrast this with American elders who have the modern conveniences of today, but spend their days sitting and watching TV in retirement communities.
So what’s a person to do without time or motivation to exercise everyday? Design a lifestyle that makes physical activity apart of your life rather than a separate activity that can be avoided. Here’s some examples of how you can exercise just by doing what’d you’d normally do during your day:
Rather than driving everywhere, ride your bike or walk.
If you live near water, use a paddle boat, row boat or canoe versus a motor boat.
Take the stairs instead of the elevator. I do this one everyday, not because I choose to, but I have no other choice. You can’t find any elevators on my ship.
Use hand-cranked or pedal-powered appliances versus electric ones. Examples include human-powered washing machines, blenders, food processors, water pumps and sewing machines. Most exercise machines operate on some kind of pulley system. There’s so many possibilities for converting that energy into something useful.
Convert a bike into a power generator and only use the power you produce to power devices in your home.
Chop wood with an axe for your fireplace rather than buying chemical logs from the store. Try turning off the heat for the winter and only living on the heat from that wood.
Play sports instead of doing mundane workout routines.
Volunteer your time doing manual labor. Clean up a park. Build a house. Start a community garden.
Get a job where you’re paid for doing physical work including a furniture mover, physical trainer, professional athlete, landscaper, farmer, construction worker, bike courier or bike taxi driver.
Exercise is still important in improving our physical well being, but maybe these suggestions will offer new hope to anyone who, like me, as gotten frustrated with the traditional approach to fitness. For now, I’ll keep running barefoot.
Tips For Anyone Making The Switch To Barefoot Running
On another note, if you’re considering ditching traditional running shoes for barefoot shoes or no shoes at all, I’d say go for it. The freedom of running without regular shoes is amazing. I noticed that without shoes, I was more inclined to land on the front of my foot rather then back on my heel. This caused my arch and legs to absorb the shock rather than my knees.
A word of caution. Start slow. Your legs need to adjust from the lack of support. The first time I did it, I ran for about 40 minutes in water socks and my legs were sore for a week. Do maybe 5-10 minutes of barefoot running then switch it back to regular running shoes for the first week or so.
Barefoot Running Shoes
I’d like to eventually get to running completely barefoot, but for now I’ll stick to water socks. It still feels a little strange in public to be running around with no shoes. Also, most gyms prohibit bare feet. The beach seems like a good place where it doesn’t seem as out of place to run without shoes.
I was considering the Vibram Five Finger shoes, but for just running on a treadmill or the street, a cheap pair of water socks works just fine. I think I’d consider the more expensive Virbram shoes, if I was doing a lot of hiking or mountain climbing. The bottom of water socks don’t seem that durable, so I’ll have to wait and see how they hold up.
If you ever had the privilege of living on a Navy ship, then you’ll understand the joys of trying to dry your towel in a berthing. The space is basically dark 24 hours a day with little ventilation and no sunlight. This creates less than ideal conditions for drying towels. After a while, your towel can get damp and smelly if it isn’t allowed to dry. What’s a sailor to do? Out with the towel, in with the air drying.
I’ve been in situations before where I didn’t have a towel. Take the beach. You go out for a swim, then air dry in the sun. Or a couple of times I forgot a towel and was left with no option but to air out. But what’s to be gained from going towel-less? I’m about to find out as I take on one month of showering without a towel
Hypothesis: I’m hoping this trial will teach me little about patience. Towels are items of convenience. It’s inconvenient to air dry. We all want to be dry immediately. I think modern drying devices like towels and blow dryers where invented because we’re all in hurry. Got to get that shower in before work. Who has time to sit around all day to dry out? I think air drying will make be slow down and enjoy the simple things in life.
Your Health and Your Towel
When you wipe yourself off after a shower, all the bacteria on your skin is transferred to your towel. The bacteria combined with moisture from your shower water creates an ideal breeding ground for more bacteria. For most people, this situation usually isn’t a problem if you dry your towel sufficiently after using them and wash it on a regular basis. But who wants to wants to wipe themselves with their own germs. I’m not saying that going towel-less is some kind of miracle cure, but having less bacteria growing around your house can’t hurt.
For some people with sensitive skin, air drying can offer some relief from irritation. Towels can often be too harsh on the skin causing unneeded rashes. Blow dryers can actually damage the hair with too much heat. The cooling effect of water naturally evaporating from the skin and hair provides a nice smoothing effect.
Help The Environment With Less Laundry
You’ve probably seen those signs recently at hotels that ask you to reuse your towel more than once to help the environment. This was actually where the term greenwashing came from. Hotels do this because it saves them money by reducing the amount of laundry they need to do. But having no towels to wash can ultimately mean less water to wash it and less energy to dry it. Imagine how many resources if everyone in the US decided to not use a towel for a week. Heat from the sun is abundant and free. Why not use that as a natural dryer.
We all have our guilty pleasures. Some people are really into buying CD’s. Others are avid movie collectors. I love to read and I love books. Recently, I’ve really been into downloading e-books on my iPod Kindle app. It’s amazing. You can find something you’re interested in reading, buy it and within minutes it’s on your device. Services like iTunes and Amazon.com make media buying quick and simple. But as great as this technology is, it’s making it harder and harder to legally share media it with other people. How can you share your favorite mp3 with a friend without violating copyright laws? How can you resell your library of books when their trapped on a Kindle?
That’s when I found out about media swapping. Most of our media really only has a one or two time use. Watching a movie or reading a book holds a certain value for us. But once we watch something or read it, do we really need to own it so we can do it again? Why not share it with someone else? What’s the point of owning it anything?
There’s a ton of websites out here that will let you register whatever you have in your library, and then allow you search other people’s libraries. Once you find someone that has a book or movie you want, you simply set-up a trade and all you pay for is shipping. So in the interest in saving money and extending my collection, I’m trying 30 days of book swapping.
Hypothesis: Most of my media purchases is on new books. I’m interested reducing the amount of money I spend on books down to almost nothing. By using books from the library and trading with people locally to avoid shipping costs, I figure that I can acquire new books for no costs at all. But more than anything, I think this experiment will teach me about using trading, rather than buying, to solve my problems.
The Rise Collaborative Consumption
The Internet has changed the way that people share. In the past, sharing your stuff involved asking a friend to trade books or to borrow your car for the afternoon. Now the Internet allows total strangers the chance to share their media or rent out their cars. Napster changed the way people shared music. Music sharing used to involve copying a friend’s CD to your computer. Now anyone with an Internet connection and a torrent program can share their music with thousands of strangers all around the world. People who previously didn’t know each other can trade or loan out everything from clothes and media to housing and transportation. This brings to question of why do we even own stuff in the first place? What is it that we’re really buying. Is it the stuff we want or the benefit it provides? I remember from my marketing classes in college that consumers don’t want a drill, they want a hole. We don’t really want movies, we want entertainment. We don’t want books. We want information. Products are really only a means to an end.
How To Buy A House With A Single Paper Clip
Many people dream of one day owning a home of their own. But for most of us, that dream involves a $100k+ loan and 30 years of mortgage payments. Not for Canadian blogger, Kyle MacDonald. Kyle owns his own home Montreal outright. And he did without a mortgage or even using money for that matter. Kyle was one of the first people to prove that you can barter a less expensive item for a more expensive item. Price is only relative to what your needs are.
Kyle’s first trade was a red paper clip for a fish-shaped pen. Then he traded the pen for a skull-shaped door knob. He used craigslist to find other people to trade with until he eventually traded all the way up to house. What I admire about this way of bartering is you start to see almost anything as valuable. Just because might not want a book or CD yourself, you could probably find someone on the Internet that needs what you have. All we need is a system to get us there. Enter the book swapping sites…
Here are the websites I’ll be using for this trial
I’ll be listing on the books I currently have or can get for free and posting them on these sites. In turn, I’ll post that books that I’m interested in reading and trade with other people. I’m interested to see what people out there have.
For most people, their cars are their second biggest expense. According to a 2004 AAA study, the average American spends $8,410 per year ($700/month) to own a vehicle. And that includes everything from the car payments, insurance, gas, oil, car washes, registration fees, taxes, parking, tolls, and repairs. In the 2004 study, the cost of gasoline was $1.17 a gallon. Today, that number has more than doubled and will continue to climb as the supply of oil rapidly gets smaller and demand for it continues to increase.
I don’t know about you, but driving a gas-powered car doesn’t seem to be a reliable transportation solution. Financially, they cause a huge drain on our personal resources. Environmentally, they fill the air pollutants and health wise they kill thousands of people every year. So why are still using them? Does anyone care? Maybe there’s some better solution out there. I’m about to find out as I give up owning a car.
The Cost Of Oil And Why I Think We Got Here
Gasoline was priced at around $0.25 a gasoline from the 1920′s till about the mid-1970′s. 50 years of cheap oil gave rise to a whole industry of cars, highways and buses. People stopped taking trains, ferries, trolleys. They stopped walking less and riding bikes less because cars where getting cheaper and provided more convenience.
This caused people to move out of the cities. They could live in suburban areas and commute to work via highways. Now the commute which was normally done on public transit or by walking or cycling moved to major highways. Now that 20 minute walk to work turned into a 20 minute drive. Almost the same amount of time, just different ways of getting there.
Cars gave people access to shop at locations further from home. Rather than buying products and services from their neighbors, they could drive 15 miles on the other side of town to by stuff from other people they didn’t know.
Companies could now ship their products other countries cheaply. They could take their work farm it out to employees in other countries who could work for less money. Then package it up and ship to somewhere else in the world to sell in stores to people who have cars. Those car people could buy more stuff more often in because they had a car. Because who really wants to carry a 60″ plasma TV 15 miles to their house.
In essence, cars have made us more distant from each other. We’ve moved from creating dense, efficient cities to big expansive suburbans areas. No one wants to live near other people anymore. And it seems like no one really cares about local economies either. Why shop at a local store when you can drive to Wal-mart down the street and buy cheap stuff made in other countries by people you will never meet.
How To Go Car-Less
If you’re thinking about ditching the car and here a few things to consider…
#1 – Where Is Your Job/Business Located? – Income generation is usually the primary justification for buying a car. People say they need a car to get to work. If you live somewhere far from where you work, maybe you should consider moving. What is the true cost of having that job. If you spend $500/month for $2,000/month job that’s $1,500 take home. Wouldn’t make more sense to spend say $200-$300 extra on rent or a mortgage for a place that’s within walking or biking distance from your house? Wouldn’t living in a city give better access to more jobs closer to where you live?
#2 – Where Is Your School Located? – If you have children or you’re in school, consider where you live in location to your where the school is. Consider having your children take the bus rather than driving them.
#3 – Where And Why Do You Shop? – Think about the last five things you bought. Could you have bought them somewhere within walking distance of your house? Do you really need a car to shop or is it just an unnecessary convenience? Do you think you’d spend less money if you had to bike or walk to get something?
#4 – Are You Overweight? – It’s funny that there’s people out there that drive 20 minutes to the gym to run on the treadmill for another 20 minutes only to drive another 20 minutes to work. I wondered what would happen if people started riding their bikes to work? Without access to a car, you’re forced to walk every where.
#5 – Do You Understand How To Use Public Transportation? When was the last time you rode the bus in your town? Could you figure out how to get to work/school/a store with it? Try riding it for a week.
#6 – How Soon Do You Want To Retire? Considering that a car may be costing you $500/month. Eliminating that expense will give you an additional $500 in savings. Let’s say you invested that amount for 20 years at a %5 return. That $208,315 more when you retire. Not only will you be able to save more for retirement, but you need less money to retire and thus be able to retire earlier.
Ultimately, the way we get around isn’t working for us. Maybe when gas is $10 a gallon people will wake up and realize that this system’s not working. Personally, I’m not really interested in working for the next 40 years of my life for the privilege of driving. There’s got to be a better way.
Here’s some helpful resources for going car-less:
Walkscore.com – Use this for figuring out the best places move based on it’s walkablity.
Zipcar.com – You don’t have to go completely car-less. For $25/month you can share a car with other people in your neighborhood by the hour or day. Insurance and gas included.
Aww the cell phone. That little device that we all feel so attached to. One of the few things that most of us feel like we can’t live without. We gotten to the point where it’s also strange not to own one. Try to name one person you know that doesn’t use one.
In preparation for my upcoming deployment, I decided to cancel my cell phone contract. I have an iPhone , so giving it up means saving $90 per month. Over a year that’s $1,000 saved. That got me thinking. Do I really need a plan or can I get all the features of a phone through the Internet? Do I really need a contract I have to pay month after month if I’m not using all my minutes? I’m about to find out as I terminate my cell phone contract for good and spend the next year communicating with people overseas.
Hypothesis: I’m not exactly sure how this one’s going to turn out. I’ve had a cell phone almost continuously for the last 13 years. And now I use it for everything…driving directions, email, chat, text messaging, web browsing and of course calling people. It’s such a modern convenience that I think a lot of us take it for granted. I know it’ll be easy to give up outside the US, but will I need it when I come back home? I think that questioning my own needs is going to make me realize that I don’t really need what I think I need. Who really needs to check Facebook while their away from their computer? Who cares if someone emails me when I’m out. I’m sure it’ll be there when I get back.
The Completely Free Mobile Phone System
OK, here’s what I found to retain almost all the features of a cell phone and home phone without the need for a long term, costly contract. It all centers around using Google Voice as your one number point of contact for everything. Previously called Grand Central, Google Voice is a free Voice-Over IP service that allows you to send and receive text messages and make long distance domestic calls in the US.
Google Voice allows you to forward calls and text from a single number to multiple phones and computers. The advantage is you can choose to answer this calls based what system is cheapest. You will more than likely have access to a landline where we can take calls for free versus a cell phone that requires a contract or prepaid minutes.
Text And Call For Free Anywhere
Receiving Calls
Most of us send receive a majority of our calls and text when we’re at our house or job. A Google Voice number will automatically forward to whatever phone numbers you’d like enabling you to take calls or reply to a text over a computer or through a landline.
For example, say your parents call you at your house. Your Google Voice number would be automatically forwarded to your computer which you can then answer through Google Talk using a microphone and speakers. Or say a friend sends you a text at work. You could receive a notification via the Google Voice app on your WiFi-enabled iPod then reply back through your web browser on your computer. The whole time no one would know would that you’re actually having the whole conversation through a computer.
Making Calls
Outgoing calls and text would work basically the same way. You can use your computer to make calls via Google Talk on your computer. You can also receive notifications of new text messages via Google Talk or use the Google Voice app on an iPod or deactivated iPhone to send text messages from your Google Voice number
The Low Cost Phone System
Once I set-up the system I thought great, now I can basically have all the features of a home and cell phone for free. But the only disadvantage to this system is only works in places that have Wifi signal. Kind of a disadvantage if you want to stay in touch with people on the go. The solution to this….Prepaid Phones. The Google Voice number allows you to set-up multiple numbers to forward your calls to including a prepaid phone.
Calls And Texts With A Prepaid Phone
For calls you can turn on your prepaid phone when you leave the house and anyone trying to call you on your Google Voice will be forwarded to your prepaid number which you can then choose to answer. To make outgoing calls, you just dial your Google Voice number, type 2, then the number you’re trying to dial. When you call the other number, they will see your Google Voice number and not your prepaid number. To make it even easier, you can program the whole sequence of numbers into phone for future calling.
Text messages can also be forwarded to a prepaid phone. The sender’s number will appear as a 406 or 860 number from Google. You can reply to them and the sender will receive a reply back from your Google Voice number. The thing you can’t do is text someone from your prepaid number first or it will show up as coming from the prepaid number. You either have to have them text you first or you have to send them a text from your computer or mobile app.
My Current Phone System
I decided to make my phone system simple and free. I didn’t get a prepaid phone. I just cancelled my contract, but kept my iPhone. It’s stays in airplane mode all the time and when I’m in range of free wifi I turn the wifi on.
This has been working out pretty good for me. About 90% of the time, I’m somewhere where I can get free wifi. I’ve become less concerned with feeling like I have constantly be available for calls or texts 24/7. If I’m out and someone needs to get a hold of me, then they can text me or leave a voicemail and I’ll get it when I’m near some wifi.
Most of the time, I use text messaging through the Google Voice app on my iPhone or through my web browser on my computer. If I need to make a call to someone, then I log-in to Gmail and make a call through my netbook. There’s been a couple of situations where I needed to call someone and I didn’t have my netbook, so I walked to a place that had wifi and used the Talkatone iPhone app to make the calls (for free of course).
Benefits Of Being Cell Phoneless
#1 – It Saves You Money – It was pretty awesome this month to be able to make an extra $100 payment on my credit card bill. Without a phone bill you can make larger payments on your debt, have more money to save and reduce your overall expenses.
#2 – Makes You Less Distracted – It’s nice to be able to check your email, Facebook, sport scores when you’re out and about, but it also makes you less aware of what’s going on in the world. A lot of that information will be there when you get back to your computer.
#3 – Makes You More Social – Not having access to information all the time means you need to talk to people you don’t know to get it. Lost? Ask someone for directions. Deciding on a place to eat? Stop someone on the street and ask. Going to pick someone up? You make have to get out of the car and actually get them.
#4 – Makes You A Better Navigator – The main reason I got a smart phone was originally to use as a GPS device. I never had to think about where I was going. Just put the directions in my phone and go. Now I have to actually pay attention to where I am. What a concept! When you don’t have the crutch of on-demand directions, driving becomes a lot more interesting. Sometimes it’s fun to get lost and if you don’t know where you’re going, you can always ask someone. Plus, I find myself not trying to look at my phone when I’m driving.
#5 – Makes You Plan More – If you can instantly text or call someone to go somewhere or meet-up then you have to think about what you’re doing. There used to be a time when people would make plans and meet-up at agree upon location. Cell phones have made do things without thinking about them. What’s the point of making plans or getting driving directions when you have a device that does it all for you. What if that device breaks? Can you do stuff on your own?
#6 – Increases Your Health – There’s been a bunch of studies out there linking cell phone use with brain tumors and low sperm count. Whether or not you think those studies are really something to be concerned about, it’ nice to know that you might be lessening your exposure to at least some radiation by not carry a cellphone on you 24/7.
Conclusion
I’ll have to see how this no phone thing works out over the next year. I might add a prepaid phone in the future to get calls when I’m out on the weekends. I’ve heard of people putting GoPhone sim cards into iPhones and using them. This might be best solution, because I really don’t want to carry around two phone. For now, it’s nice not to be a slave to my cell phone. You ever thought about giving up your phone?
Just finished my 30 days of veganism over the holidays and definitely learned a lot from the trial. I didn’t become a vegan entirely, but I did develop some habits that anyone, including those who eat meat, can incorporate into their diet.
How To Be Almost Vegan
#1 - Avoid Cheese - After some testing and observation with eating dairy after this experiment I noticed mild reactions with almost most types of dairy with the expectation of high amounts of cheese. Foods with high concentrations of cheeses such cheese pizza, cheese sauce or cheese cake caused a lot of discomfort and gas after avoiding dairy some time. I’ve never had a problem digesting dairy before, but a month without it made me realize what an adverse effect it had on me. May people who are lactose in tolerant just don’t eat dairy often enough to be able to digest it properly.
Try ordering dishes without cheese or sauces (most are usually made with milk). Nachos are one of my favorite foods and I found out that order chips and guacamole with a big pile of beans and salsa and amazing. Other alternatives including trying cheeses made out of soy or rice,
#2 – Limit Baked Goods and Candy – Watch out for pastries, cookies and candy. All of these have at least some degree of butter or gelatin (mashed up skin, cartilage and bone). We could all use a little less refined sugar in our lives, but maybe the thought of eating curded milk and cow skin is enough to make you think twice about putting that chocolate bar in your mouth. I can’t eat sweets anymore without second guessing myself about what goes into making them.
#3 – Use Italian Or Vinaigrette Dressing – When asked what you want on your salad, go for oil-based salad dressing. They not only taste decilious, but have significantly less fat and no cholesterol compared to cream-based dressings like ranch and 1,000 island.
#4 – Limit Meat – Limit how much meat you eat. Try a Pescetarian diet. This is what I’ve been doing for the last seven years. Maybe once or twice a month I’ll eat fish, but avoid all other meats. Try to making dishes that down entail meat as the main dish. My favorites are bean burritos, nachos with guacamole and salsa, veggie chili, most soups or veggie burgers. Almost any dish has a vegetarian substitute. Eating a plant-based diet doesn’t mean just eating salads all the time.
An Alternative To Veganism: Sustainable Ranching
Studying veganism made me more aware of where our food comes from. Most of us don’t think twice about how food ends up on our table. That’s not necessarily our fault. We live in a time when no one really has to grow their own food or sluaghter their own dinner. But I believe that if most people had to kill their own food, then we might have a better system for food production.
Think of a scenario where we all lived in urban farms and could only eat the food we produced. Most people would grow just enough fruits and vegetables for their families to eat. Those people who wanted meat would probably raise chickens, fish and rabbits. They’d realize that beef and pork are too labor and resource intensive to produce.
People who wanted to eat dairy could make their own. But I think most of us soon realize that raising and milking a dairy cow then churning the butter or curding the cheese is simply not as fun or rewarding as picking a fresh orange off a tree. The tree does all the work and with little effort we reap the rewards.
Most vegans are opposed consuming animals or buying animal products because of the way our current system treats them. But what if you controlled the system? What would happen if you were doing the killing? Wouldn’t it be more humane. As the consumer of your own animal I’m sure you’d be more compassionate about killing your animals about than a rancher in some other part of the world who kills 1,000 of animals a day.
Conclusion
I’m not a 100% vegan for now. I still eat the occasional cookie and cheese-flavored chips here and there. I think if you choose to eat meat, you should at least do the killing yourself. Like seafood? Make it a rule to only eat seafood when you catch it yourself. Like to hunt? Make the only red meat in your diet the animals you shoot yourself. We’d all probably eat a lot less meat if we had to go out and kill it ourselves.
Ultimately, I think going completely vegan is the best long term health strategy for anyone looking to live well over 100 and in good health. If you choose to eat meat, consider only buying free-range, organic meat. Organic meat is free of many of the harmful chemicals and antiboditics found in most meat.
I’ve officially ended my one month of no breakfast and have discovered that meal frequency reduction is probably the quickest and easiest way to lose weight. It all started when I tried intermittent fasting a couple of weeks ago.
That fasting combined with eliminating my morning breakfast brought my weight down 10 lbs in under a month. At first I was hungry in the mornings. It took a couple weeks for me to get used to my new eating schedule, but after a while I wasn’t hungry in the morning. And I eat about the same meal sizes when I was eating three meals a day cutting my total calories down by 30% each day.
The Key To Weight Loss Is Insulin Release
What most people may not realize is every time you eat something your body releases a little hormone called insulin. Insulin stops the use of fat as an energy source and switches to using glucose from the food you eat.
This is why fasting helps you lose weight. When food or any type of sugars enters your body, the stops burning fat. So the best way to lost weight is to stop eating and drinking as frequently.
The Easiest Way To Lose Weight Is Reduce Meals
Forget everything you ever heard about weight loss. I know it can be confusing and that’s exactly how the weight loss industry likes it. If everyone started losing weight then companies that depend on people to buy weight loss products would be out of business in no time.
The secret to losing weight is eating less. Less food, less often. Do you really think that your body is going to continue burning fat for hours on end, if you’re eating six meals a day? Reducing the amount of meals you eat a day is one of the key factors to dropping those pounds.
The moment I went from eating 3 meals a day to 2 meals a day, my weight dropped off dramatically. But you can’t snack in between meals. One of the reasons that most people who skip breakfast don’t necessarily loss weight is the fact that they’re snacking all throughout the morning. Or drinking calorie filled drinks like sodas, coffees with cream & sugar or juice drinks.
How To Lose Weight By Eating Less Often
Eat 2 Meals A Day – Skip breakfast and eat lunch and dinner or Breakfast and Lunch. Whatever’s convenient for you. I like skipping breakfast because it gives me more time in the morning and I’m usually not even hungry in the morning.
Only Drink Water Or Black Coffee Between Meals – Avoid calorie-filled drinks like juices or sodas. Black coffee is fine in the morning, but don’t put cream or sugar in it. By ingesting sugar in the morning, you release insulin and it defeats the whole purpose of not eating in the first place. Also, avoid those late afternoon soda or energy drinks.
Eat Normal-Sized Meals – If you’re skipping meals at first you may feel the need to binge after not eating for 18 hours. Focus on eating what you would normally eat with your regular eating schedule. After a while you won’t feel as hunger anymore.
Conclusions:
One observation I did note is how good foods tastes when you eat less often. I’m not Intermittent Fasting as much as I did last month, because I’m at a comfortable weight. But when I did, I noticed that the single meal I did have that day was amazing.
I’m considering a trial in the next couple of months of one meal a day. I’m thinking of eating only dinner at the end of the day. This will further decrease my calorie intake without having to think about what I’m eating.
Feet are such as an interesting and well designed machine. Five toes, a heal and arch all designed to do one thing, move our bodies to where we need to go. But if these limbs are so great, then why do we wear shoes in the first place? I have to wear these big 9-in combat boots with an inch sole work everyday. As a result, my toes are becoming smashed together and my archers are flatter.
Then I read the book, Born to Run. The author, Christopher McDougall, visits a Tarahumara tribe in Mexico’s Copper Canyon. The tribe is known to be some of the best long distance runners in the world. Running ultra marathons of 50 or more miles in a single day. And they do it all with sandals made of a thin rubber strip held on to the foot by a string.
It made me think about how our own society views running. We come to rely on these high-tech, super insulated running shoes. The shoes are designed to limit almost any kind of movement in the foot. Maybe we got it all wrong. Maybe we weren’t meant to wear shoes. Animals don’t wear shoes. Little kids and babies are shoeless most of the time. What if we abounded the notion that we need special shoes to run long distances and decided to use the bare minimum of protection. Would are feet get stronger or would we experience running injuries? I’m about to find out as I take on 30-days of barefoot running.
Hypothesis: I believe that running without traditional running shoes, whether it’s minimalist barefoot shoes, sandals or plain old barefoot will make my feet stronger. Like many of our other tools in society, shoes were originally designed to protect us. But they’re become so evolved that they now do more harm than good. It’d be like wearing gloves that didn’t let your fingers move all the time. Sure your hands would be protected from injury where ever you went, but eventually your hands would become weaker whenever you took them out.
Same thing with corrective lenses. Glasses and contacts were designed to help us see better, but the more we use them, the weaker our eyes get. Our bodies can do amazing things and it’s this overuse of these modern tools that weakens them.
The Flat Foot Theory
We all been told that people with foot problems such as flat feet need to buy special insoles to support the arches in our feet and take prescription pain medicine. But there have been numerous studies that indicate that going barefoot is one of the best ways to strengthen the arches. One study in Indian looked at children who had grown up wearing shoes and others going barefoot, found that the arches of the barefooters were generally strongest and highest as a group. Modern medicine tends to look at treating the symptoms (flat arches) and not the causes (wearing shoes) of most of our problems. Maybe we should take a different approach and focus on why are feet hurt in the first place.
Water Socks As Bare feet Running Shoes
Ever since I first heard about the Vibram Five Finger Shoes, I wanted to try out barefoot running. If you haven’t heard about these shoes, they’re designed to act as a glove around your feet giving the closest feeling to actually being barefoot without actually being barefoot. Other popular barefoot shoes include the Nike Free and Newton Barefoot. The only problem with these shoes is they’re pretty expensive, about $90 a pop. They also really hard to find. I found the next best thing…water socks.
After reading a post on instructables about how you can use water socks as an alternative to the more expensive barefoot running shoes out there, I decided to give it a try. What’s great about water socks is they’re everywhere and they’re super cheap. I found a pair at a local beach shop for $10. It’s a nice way to try out barefoot running without the big investment in expensive shoes. And who knows, maybe I’ll end up not wearing shoes at all.
My First Barefoot Running Experience
Last week was my first time trying these bad boys out. I slipped on my fancy water socks and stepped outside for a run. What’s funny is that open toes shoes and just wearing socks is prohibited on Navy ships. But here I am walking around the ship with nothing, but a thin piece of nylon covering my foot and it’s OK. I think everyone assumes I’m wearing some sort of high tech running shoes. I think there’s some sort of social sigma against people who walk around barefoot. Those damn hippies.
So I set off for my run. The initial feeling of running with water socks is pretty liberating. I start to feel muscles I never knew I had. I feel like I getting away with something I shouldn’t be doing. We’re told all our lives that you need special shoes to make you run correctly. In fact, one the very first things I did at boot camp was step on a machine that measured my arches and then I was issued a set of “Motion Control” New Balances. Motion control? Do I really need special shoes to support my running? I guess it’s from wearing shoes all my life.
I ran and I ran all the way Coronado Beach and the park where I took off my socks and tried actual barefoot running. I did sprints up and down on the grass at the park. It was amazing. I always assumed that you needed shoes to run at fast speeds, but I was able to sprint pretty fast with nothing but my feet.
How Your Run Changes Without Shoes
One of the first things I noticed about running without shoes is how your running stance changes. With shoes, I was running with my heel impacting the ground followed by my arch. With barefoot running, the front of the foot is the first thing to hit. It’s comparable to running on your tippy toes. You’re more likely to pick your feet up if you don’t have all that padding to protect your heels.
As a result, my calves got a really good workout from the run. A word of caution. Don’t run barefoot for more than 5-10 minutes at first. After my first 40 minute run, my legs were pretty sore for several days afterwards.
Procedures
I’ll be running for 20-30 minutes in water socks for the next month. I did enjoy just barefoot running, but too many places, including the ship I’m on, prohibit bare feet or open-toed shoes. I think I’ll eventually test out just barefoot running, but water socks will make a good alternative for now.
Everything I hear someone talk about sustainability I always think, “Yeah, that’s great, we should all use less, but is that really going to get people to take action”. Environmental causes are like dieting. We all know that we should eat better, but where’s the motivation to get up in do something about it. I try to do my part. I eat a 90-100% vegan diet. I use an organic soap for a lot of my personal hygiene.
But those habits are all self serving. I do them because I can spend less money and time and get the same results. I can live healthier life without the need for expensive medicines and treatment. My motivations, like a lot of people out there, are mostly based on saving money and self-preservation. I always asking myself how I can work less, save more money and live longer.
I think I found the answer…self-sufficiency.
The Resource-Based Economy
The idea to become more self-sufficient came to me after watching the Zeitgeist Movement Orientation. The Zeitgeist Movement is the activist arm of the Venus Project. The Venus Project is organization that promotes architect Jacque Fresco’s vision of the future of the planet as a Resource-Based rather than Monetary-Based economy. Fresco contends that most problems in our society such as crime and poverty can be solved if people didn’t have to work for money and most work should be done by automated machines.
At first his ideas seem a little crazy. Automated robots doing everything for us? And no has to work? Sounds like the Dooms Day scenarios predicted in the Terminator movies and The Matrix mixed with a hint of communism. But then it got me thinking. Why do we work?
We work because our time is traded for money. We then use that money to purchase resources such as food, water, power and shelter. But almost all of these resources are renewable. And all of them can be produced by a single household.
Living “Off The Grid”
You’ve probably heard about these people. You know the ones. The conspiracy theorists and religious fanatics who are bunkering down for the end of the world and the collapse of society as we know it. While I don’t think Armageddon is around the corner and I’m pretty sure that public utilities are going to be around for a while, I do think “off the grid” living has value.
Think about it. You work to pay your power bill, to shop at the grocery store and to put gas in your car. But what if you didn’t have to? What if you could generate everything you needed at your house. Our ancestors did it. Colonial Americans didn’t have any other choice. They couldn’t run down to the local Wal-Mart and pick-up everything they needed. They had produce almost everything themselves. But they didn’t have what we have today….Technology. Solar panels, rain water collection systems and hydroponics make being self-sufficient easy, cheap and most importantly practical.
The Urban Homesteader
There’s people out there today who have taken upon themselves to become almost completely self-sufficient. And they not living on 100 acre farms in the middle of no where. They live neighborhoods like yours.
Enter the Dervaes family. This family of 4 lives a modern-day homestead in Pasadena, CA. They produce all of their own food, water and energy and make an income of about $30,000 selling their excess food to local restaurants who in turn donate vegetable oil to them for their bio-diesel delivery truck. And they do it all in their average size backyard in the suburbs. 1/10 of an acre.
How To Consume Less And Produce More
While all of us may not throw in the towel tomorrow and quit our day jobs , maybe we should consider some ideas to limit what we spend so we don’t have to work the rest of our lives. Here a few ideas for consuming less and producing more.
Grow Your Own Food – Consider growing some of your own food. If you have a backyard great. But even apartment dwellers can set-up a simple hydroponics system. Trade any excess produce to neighbors for products and services you may need. Try living on your food for a while. You might realize that a vegan diet is not only healthier, but more economical to maintain.
Produce Your Own Power – If you’re not moving anytime soon, consider adding a solar, wind or geothermal system to your house. Then try living completely off your system for a while. Saving electricity become much more relevant when you produce it yourself.
Collect Rainwater – Install a rainwater collection system. Why let the city have all that water? Next time it rains, keep some for yourself and us it to water your garden or take showers with it.
Generate Power With Exercise – What if the only way you could watch TV was if you had to power it yourself. We’d all be in a lot better shape and probably watch a lot less TV. Consider building a pedal-powered generator that you can use for both exercise and energy production.
Get Rid Of Your Car – This one may be a little harder for most people. Americans love their cars. But consider all the money you spend on car payments, insurance, gas, maintenance and parking. For most people, a car is their second biggest expense right under a house. Try walking, riding a bike or occasionally taking public transportation. Maybe consider moving closer to where you work to avoid commuting.
Don’t Buy A House On Credit – Back in my grandparents day, people bought their houses with cash. Now a days, the norm is a take out $100,000+, 30-year mortgage. At 30-years, you’re going to be working a long time to pay back that loan. Consider buying land and building a house yourself. A trailer home isn’t the only options for affordable living. There’s all sorts stylish homes you can build on the cheap. Take a look at Tiny Homes. A 1-2 person home can be build for less than $20,000.
Don’t Pay For College – Unless your goal is to become a professional like a doctor or lawyer, then reconsider paying for college. A lot college grads (including myself) come out of school with massive student loan debts. Most skills and occupations you can be learned from reading books and working at various jobs. If you’re interested in becoming more self-sufficient you might want to work for an organic farmer, apprentice with a carpenter or volunteer with Habitat For Humanity or the Peace Corp.
Become Your Own Doctor – Invest some time in learning about what causes disease and how you can become healthier. Living a healthier life not only extends your life expectancy, but reduces your dependence on expensive drugs and surgeries. Besides the accidents and rare diseases, most illnesses (including cancer), are preventable with proper nutrition and exercise.
My American Dream
The point of this whole post is to make you realize that what we think of as the stereotypical “American Dream”….go to college, get a job, retire….can be changed. All we need to survive in life is food, water and a roof over our head. We don’t have to spend the rest of our lives working for money. There is another way.
Call it laziness if you will, but I don’t want to spend the best years of my life working at a job. My dream is live in a world where I can end my dependence on the money and create a simple, sustainable homestead I can live out my years.
Check out Zeitgeist Moving Forward, which is the third installment in the Zeitgeist movie series is set to come on Jan. 15, 2011. The film is said to talk about how we can transition out of our current monetary system and move towards a more resource-based economy.
This trial was a little more challenging than a lot of other stuff I’ve done. I struggled each morning get out of bed and work out. I slacked off on some days and blow off any form of exercise the last couple of weeks. But I realized what where I went wrong and I’m here to share how you can make morning exercise easy and automatic.
Make It Part Of Your Commute – If you drive to work, try biking or running. You need to make this journey anyways, so why not use your body instead of your car. You get to work refreshed and you help the environment. I work at home (if ship is what you call a home) so I walk down to hall to get to work, but I plan on biking to work as soon as I get an apartment.
Create A Morning Obligation – If biking to work is not your thing try this. At night, create some sort of obligation that requires you to wake-up and take care of. Maybe you park your car in a spot that requires you to move it a certain time the morning. Maybe you host a running group, where if you didn’t show up, you’d be really embarrassed. Maybe you get a dog that you have to walk everyday and if you don’t it’ll make a mess in your house. Maybe you sign-up for a morning fitness class that keeps you accountable to be there everyday.
Practice Waking Up Early First – Most of my failure steamed from relearning to wake-up early again. Once I could get out of bed and into my gym clothes, then working out was easy. One trick I tried was setting another alarm for 2 minutes after my initial one went off. Then I placed it inside a locker with a key. This forced me to get out of bed, and turn off the alarm before it went off and woke everyone up. After I got out of bed, I figured that I’m open already, so I might as well go work out.
Start Small – When I first started this trial, I think I was a little over ambitious. I was hell bent on waking up at 4:30AM, doing strength training and running for half an hour when previously I had done very little exercise. I say just do the smallest possible exercise you can think of and gradually grow it. If all you do is park you car down the street and run to go get it, then start from there. For me, the hardest part about doing this was getting started. Once you’re in the moment, momentum will take from there.
Pay Someone If You Don’t Follow Through – Have someone else hold you accountable to exercise. Give them some money and tell them to keep it if you don’t follow through.
Make Fitness A Natural Part Of Your Day – Park further away or get rid of your car completely. Take the stairs instead of the evaluator. Walk to any place that’s less than a mile away. Volunteer your time with a charity that’s in need of manual labor. Play Wii or any of the other motion control games available now. Not only will you get a good work in, but you’ll have a little bit a fun along the way.
The biggest success factor for this habit is really about what you do the day before. You’ve either won or loss this battle depending on what action you’ve taken before you go to sleep. You can try one of these suggestions or all of them, but how much you do is going to determine how successful you are.
