I woke up the other morning and I felt knackered. I just wanted to stay in bed. I didn’t know why I felt like this as in the previous few weeks, I’d had quite a lot of energy. Enough to do a half-marathon. Was it something to do with veganism. I checked Rich Roll’s book and yes he does mention that vegans can be iron deficient and vitamin B12 deficient if not monitored. Doh! I quickly did some more research: Iron deficiency From this article by the Mayo Clinic: Initially, iron deficiency anemia can be so mild that it goes unnoticed. But as the body becomes more deficient in iron and anemia worsens, the signs and symptoms intensify. Iron deficiency anemia signs and symptoms may include: Extreme fatigue Weakness Pale skin Chest pain, fast heartbeat or shortness of breath Headache, dizziness or lightheadedness Cold hands and feet Inflammation or soreness …[Read More]
James Altucher’s Ideas Machine for 7 days. Here’s 55 ideas!
In his book Choose Yourself, James Altucher suggests that you become an Ideas Machine. Here’s an article by Inc magazine that outlines the process: How to Become an Idea Machine. It’s supposed to be 10 ideas a day but this is hard! Over 7 days, I should have generated 70 ideas but here’s 55 ideas: Monday Pret needs to update itself to stay on top in 5 years time. It could easily go the way of Costa and Cafe Nero’s. I think it needs to freshen up its visual brand assets, and increase the range of vegan food offerings. Its coffee also needs to improve. There’s so many artisanal coffee shops out there now serving up delicious next-level single origin-based coffee. Veganism is a fast-growing trend. Start a local vegan cafe serving only vegan coffees and food. Can we live on a much-reduced food budget? eg £50 a week. Look …[Read More]
How to go from couch potato to half-marathon in 52 days
Between Zach being born at the end of December 2019 and the end of April 2020, I did zero cardio. I went to the gym once or twice before lockdown but that was just to do some weights. I caught Covid in March, and, throughout April, I did zero exercise. Come the 1st of May, I decided to get running again. Little runs, regularly, with a few longer runs rolled in. 52 days later, I did a half-marathon (13.1 miles), admittedly not very quickly at all (2hrs 26min) but still a half-mara. If you haven’t run in ages, here’s how you can do the same. You can do it! Get the Strava app Strava is free with a paid-for premium option. The free option is good enough for most people and you simply use it to track your runs. Lace up, hit record on the app, and get moving. Don’t …[Read More]
7 days of meditation. Here’s what I found
My next 7 day lifestyle experiment was to give 7 days of meditation a go. I’ve always found meditation hard. My mind wanders so much and it was a real effort to try and quiet my mind. But I want some of its purported benefits such as improved concentration and focus, increased creativity, and overall mental happiness. I got a week-long free trial to use Calm Premium, a meditation app and found a 30 day course called How To Meditate by Jeff Warren. Day 1 The course is guided and narrated by Jeff. I sat in a chair and relaxed my face and different parts of my body with each exhale and tried to view my thoughts as things that just happened and not to get frustrated when they came and when I got distracted by them. By distracted, I mean that I got carried away by them. If I …[Read More]
Rich Roll’s book Finding Ultra: Rejecting Middle Age, Becoming One of the World’s Fittest Men, and Discovering Myself
Rich Roll is an ultra endurance athlete who also has a very popular podcast. He’s an advocate of a vegan, plant-based diet and healthy living and known as one of the fittest men on the planet, with a host of endurance accomplishments. It wasn’t always this way. In Finding Ultra, Roll is searingly honest and tells us his life story from shy high school swim star to being a swim star at Stanford. At Stanford, he discovered alcohol and how it could help him with his shyness, and from there it was a steady decline into addiction. He tells of one of his lowest points, where he was drunk during his graduation from law school and in his drunken haze, he decided to collect his degree on stage in bare feet, much to his parents’ horror. With the help of AA and rehab, Roll gets sober but is eating horrendous …[Read More]