Edmond Chan

chanman

Vegan experiment – where can I get my protein from?

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I’ve always thought that the best place to get protein from is meat: steak, lamb, chicken, eggs, fish. And I’ve always wondered where vegans get their protein from and especially vegan athletes.

I found this article on the net which shows how much protein there is per 100g of food stuffs. Here’s a screenshot from the article:

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Credit for screenshots: 

It’s very clear from the above that plant protein as a category has a lot less protein per 100g than meat and dairy does as a category. 

How much protein does a person need? From articles I found, a sedentary man needs around 54g per day and a runner might need around 75g. A weights guy might need 120g a day. From the table above, you might get all you need to get for running from 200g of steak (smaller than a normal steak of around 285g).

To compare that with protein from plant sources, you would need to eat around 800g of chickpeas or a kilo of tofu to come somewhere close. That’s a lot of beans and tofu.

But maybe it isn’t that hard to do on a vegan diet. A normal can of baked beans is 415g in total and half a can (one portion) has around 10g of protein in it. A carton of 300g of tofu (one portion) has nearly 20g in it. 100g of hummus from chickpeas would be close to 20g as well. So it’s definitely possible to get protein from plant-based sources. Phew!

I took cold showers for 7 days. Here’s what I found

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I’ve heard about a lot of benefits to taking regular cold showers and ice bath therapy. Sportspeople swear by ice baths to speed up recovery after intense workouts. Wim Hof has popularised cold therapy with incredible feats of swimming in ice and climbing mountains like Kilimanjaro without a top on.

Purported benefits of cold showers include:

  • Improved discipline and mental toughness
  • Boost to immune system
  • Boost to mental state and positivity
  • Invigorating wakeup and start to the day

It’s amazing that something so simple has the power to give immense benefits like these. So let’s give it a go!

Day 1

I always take a shower first thing and this morning, I hopped in and had a nice hot shower. It wasn’t until about a minute in that I realised that I was supposed to start the cold showers today! Doh. So I decided to do what programmes recommend which is to make the last 30 seconds a cold shower.

I turned the temperature down as far as it would go and stepped under it. Boy was it cold. It was fine on my head but as the cold water hit my chest, it made breathing in and out difficult, almost as though my chest was constricted. I stepped away from the jet and just put my head under the water. Cheating a bit I know. So I had to have another cold shower that day.

After my morning run (which was a 10k, the longest I’ve done in years), I went in for a full cold shower, from start to finish. It was still hard to stay completely under it, full-body, but I managed to wash and rinse under the shower. How did I feel afterwards? Pretty invigorated! Angelique had put Eye of the Tiger on the speaker and I was flexing and grunting in front of the mirror! Grunting?! I can see why this is recommended for those with anxiety and depression. It definitely picks you up and you do smile/beam for no reason at all.

Day 2

Straight into a cold shower today. I turned the temperature down as far as it would go from the start and went under face first, with my body slightly behind and just outside the water flow. What a wuss! Realising how wussy that was, I went fully under and sudsed up. I found that I could control my breathing from getting too tight and constricted by taking deep and slow breaths. It felt good again today, and I can already feel that the water doesn’t feel as cold as yesterday.

Day 3

It felt easier today. I just turned the dial to the coldest and turned the water on. I stepped forward into the jet and it was easy to do. Turning around so that the water hit the back of my head and my back was harder though. I felt that familiar constriction in my chest and I had to remember my breathing. Time to go longer tomorrow!

Day 4

I didn’t hesitate today and I actually thought that the water could be colder than it was, even though the dial was pushed all the way to the coldest it could go. I still felt invigorated after and super alert afterwards. At the end of the shower, I turned the temperature back to its normal setting (for Angelique, much like putting the seat down :)), and I felt a bit of hot water, and it felt nice but also like cheating so I dashed out!

Day 5

I almost looked forward to getting into the cold shower this morning. It really does wake you up! I’d had a couple of beers the night before and whilst I wasn’t hungover, I could feel that I wasn’t my sharpest. That all changes once you stand and shiver under the cold water.

Day 6

There was a glimmer of hesitation just before I turned the shower cold and then jumped in. I still get the feeling of invigoration.

Day 7

Straight into the cold shower today and again, it was super-invigorating. Any fogginess from the beers the day before evaporated. Even though it day 7, it won’t be my last cold shower. I love them and I love the effects!

What did I get from this experience?

  • It’s not easy to articulate it but a feeling of capability – a sense that you can attack the day. I remember a few times say I was running, and I’d think about whether to run further and I thought to myself “Why the hell not?! Do it!”
  • An invigorating energy shot every morning. I’ve read that some people report not needing any caffeine after a cold shower. It’s a definite jolt out of your pre-shower physical and mental state.

So how can you start your cold showers regime?

Just start! Commit to a week today and make sure you don’t quit early. It’s just 7 days. You’ll feel cold at first for sure. You’ll shiver and want to end it early. But the feeling after that first cold shower with have you beaming from ear-to-ear and you’ll feel ridiculously energised and positive.

Let me know in the comments below how it went!

Getting a Covid-19 antibody test

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Even though I was pretty sure that I had coronavirus back in March, I still wanted confirmation of that by test. Up until now, the tests for antibodies have had some bad press for not being too accurate, but there is a test centre in Hammersmith which uses South Korean tests which have high specificity and high sensitivity, as opposed to tests that have high specificity but low sensitivity. Here’s a screenshot of the test compared to other tests (taken from the Corona Test Centre’s website): 

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The antibodies they are looking out for are IgM and IgG. IgM are produced around the time of the infection and during recovery, but tail off some time after the event. IgG are also produced around the time of infection and they stay around quite a lot longer than IgM after the event. Here’s a screenshot from the Corona Test Centre website of the relative levels of IgM and IgG:

The test would show positive or negative figures for IgM or IgG. A positive figure for either would indicate presence of antibodies for Covid-19.

I cycled over to the Test Centre, which was in a small side street and in an old hall. They gave me a forehead temperature check, checked my details and then took me through to a refashion old hall to see the nurse. There wasn’t anyone else having a test there that I could see. The nurse was really friendly and put me at ease. She administered a pinprick to my finger and drew some blood into a pipette. She then sealed in a bag and that was it. Simple.

8 hours later, I got my results emailed to me. I had positive results for both IgM and IgG antibodies which they said indicates that I still recovering from a bout of Covid-19 but had a level of immunity.

They are careful to point out that this doesn’t mean that I couldn’t catch it again, so my behaviours shouldn’t change based on these results.

Do I think it was worth the cost? (The tests are offered at £175) Yes, I think it’s just about worth the price. It’s good knowing that I should have a good level of immunity going forward, at least for the medium term.

How did the David Swenson allocation do during the Covid-19 market tumult?

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Now I know that it’s not over yet and there’s big questions over the shape of the recovery post-Corona, but it’s worth a look at how the David Swenson allocation that I use performed during this crisis. 

There were some huge moves across almost all asset classes. At one point, the UK 100 index was down around 30% from its highs in Jan 2020. The idea behind diversified asset allocations such as Swenson’s is that you should be protected from the big moves like this. If you were 100% invested in equities, then you would track the 30% fall yourself. If you had a proportion of your portfolio in bonds, then in theory, you should see some insulation from this this 30% move because bonds are supposed to move roughly in the opposite direction. 

My asset allocation definitely didn’t see complete insulation. At the lowest point, my portfolio was down about 16%, with all of the bond assets in overall positive territory. So the diversification definitely protected me from the full impact of the drop in equities. 

As at 5th June 2020, my portfolio is around flat since inception around 2 years ago. (That might sound pretty naff but that does include regular monthly investment into a previously rising market, which would dampen overall returns) But to be flat and in slightly positive territory after such a crazy downward move in equities feels pretty good and gives me confidence in the Swenson allocation that it can weather seismic events.

Key learnings from Google Digital Garage’s free course: Fundamentals of Digital Marketing

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It’s a good time to be skilling up and there are loads of great courses out there online and many of them are free, and the ones that are paid aren’t that expensive (around £30 say – check out Udemy, Coursera etc).

Google Digital Garage has lots of free courses and the one that caught my eye was the only one that came with a certificate. Of course, that made it more attractive. That course was Fundamentals of Digital Marketing.

Review of Google Digital Garage's free course: Fundamentals of Digital Marketing

It’s listed at taking around 40 hours to complete and it has 26 modules. These encompass Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Social Media, Local Advertising, Display Ads, Retargeting and Email Marketing. To get a certificate, you had to pass an exam at the end with 80% or more.

What did I like about the course?

It’s very well organised in terms of curriculum, and the videos were informative and clearly presented. Each module took around 40mins to finish and it was fun to get the dopamine hit when completing each one. It kept me coming back.

Mostly, I like the fact that I feel like I learned something!

Here’s an example of the video lessons:

Key learnings

It’s aimed at small business owners eg. hairdressers, bakeries, craft beer shops etc.

  • Have a clear Goal for your online marketing efforts
  • Have a mission statement and know your USP with crystal clear clarity
  • Start small and iteratively – you don’t need to spend lots on a digital marketing agency
  • Start with the basics – eg get listed locally
  • SEO – learn what gets you higher rankings in search engine results
  • SEM – learn how to pick longer-tail, less competitive keywords to target, and focus on the bid amount as well as the relevance of your ad to your business
  • Content marketing – focus on answering the questions that your customer really wants answered
  • Social media – focus on engaging with your customers to let them know more about your business and how you could improve your product or service
  • Use analytics to assess, test, and then improve your online marketing efforts. Get familiar with Google Analytics

What would I improve about the course?

I’d probably make it slightly harder to pass each module’s quiz, with more questions, tougher questions and reduced ability to go back immediately and change your answers until you got the right one.

Would I recommend it?

Yes definitely especially if you have no grounding in the topic, or it’s not part of your day job. It’s always good to add strings to your bow and this gives you a solid overview of the subject as well as giving you a certificate at the end.

I’d also recommend this course if you’re a small business owner. There’s lots of content in the course which shows how small business owners such as online cake makers use digital marketing to grow their businesses.

Check out Google Digital Garage here.