Balance in life. Part 2

This one is not for everyone.

If you are comfortable with being exhausted towards the end of each day and really love throwing your legs on the couch in front of TV (or throwing them on the table in front of the couch while watching TV…) please stop reading right now. It’s not for you!

This one goes to everyone who’s wants to regain balance in their life and discover new energy resources that are, as a matter of fact, available to all of us.

I’m fed up with bullshit. Who told us that whatever we find on the shelf in supermarket is food??

The definition of food is “any nutritious substance that people or animal eat or drink or that plants absorb in order to maintain life and growth”.

What nutrients maintaining life and growth can be packed into a can of energy drink or a lovely perfect looking sausage packed with sugar, artificial thickeners and modified wheat? Do you really think that this very can of sugar (or worse, can of artificial sweetener) is really going to increase your overall performance during the day? How about the long run?!

Let’s take a closer look at your favourite BBQ sauce. Here goes the long list of ingredients:

  • Tomatoes from paste
  • Sugar
  • Corn flour from wheat
  • Acetic & citric acid
  • Corn syrup solids
  • Caramel 150c
  • Pectin
  • Spices
  • Tamarind extract
  • Yeast, salt, water

Not even going into details do you still think it is good for your kids to eat that bomb?

What about famous “low fat” products?

Have you ever wondered what process has your favourite yoghurt gone through to be labelled LOW FAT? If you haven’t thought about that yet the time is now. It surely has something replaced with highly processed, chemically-derived thickeners and most likely loads of sugar or artificial sweetener.

Never occurred to your taste buds that they are being deceived or to your gut to rebel against that poison?
I’m pretty sure there is no joy from drinking low fat milk so why do you do this to yourself?

Or worse- why do you give it to your own child?!

Why do you think you are exhausted half way through the day and feel like doing nothing by the end of it? You turn your TV on just to see movie or a TV show with a smart product placement cut by an army of brilliant advertisements convincing you to buy things you don’t really need. You should know by now that it will take you to the shops the very next day and you will buy another nutrient-deficient something that was described to you as food (or even better – excellent source of …) on the TV last night.

Am I wrong or did I miss something? True! I missed the fact that TV brainwash makes most of us want to be as “pretty” or “handsome” as those famous ones.

As a consequence you go and buy that wonderful “fat and gluten free” chicken breast, “low-carb – high-protein” bar, miraculous “anti-cellulite” cream and many other rubbish hoping for the result to come. It does come but not exactly as they advertised…

And you are feeling pretty depressed or just frustrated – you’ve tried so hard and nothing! You just missed the fact that it’s not your fault. But you may also be missing the truth that this is you and you only who can stop yourself from spinning in that crazy circle!

You can be happy, feel better and that little bit of the initial effort you need to put in will pay off. You will see.

I do believe that

food and certain way of exercising are crucial ingredients to support you on the way to betterment of yourself and those around you.

I don’t aspire to be your guide if you don’t want that. But I do know what worked for me and for some of my family and friends who were brave enough to abandon unhealthy habits, unhealthy foods, unhealthy thinking and grow stronger and happier than ever before.

I eat only certain foods and I exercise on regular basis according to training plan I prescribe to myself, I go to bed as early as possible and I’m up early.
Every day is a busy day for me but I don’t collapse by the end of it and even if I start to feel tired still feel really good.

I had to change quite a few things in my life to feel so balanced, strong and have that energy every day. Some of those changes seemed to be quite big sacrifices to me at the very beginning of that journey but by all means I would do it again.

I want to share with you my experiences and it’s entirely your choice what you make out of that for yourself and how you use it. I just hope I can help somehow.

Basic principles that will assist you to regain balance in life and maintain your body and mind stronger and in a good health:

  • Exercise –spend some energy to create momentum and lift your energy levels. Anything you enjoy works – e.g., walk, swim, jog, tennis, bike ride to start with.
    Engaging into well designed strength and conditioning training will give you additional benefits (I will talk about that in more detail in another post).
  • Eat FOOD instead of processed, dead imitations of it (I will talk about that in more detail in another post). Get fresh produce from local markets. Organic is the name of the game. Remember – source of food matters.
  • Create a regular sleep routine – human body can’t recover and function well if it gets regularly deprived of a good sleep. It leads to a general fatigue, both physical and mental and results in poor overall performance, which in severe cases is described by some people as a depression…
  • It is crucial for the process of growing stronger to break through our thinking patterns. In order to do that we need to slow down or even stop for a moment.
  • By all means find time for yourself at least once a day – anything you can use to unplug yourself from “matrix” works; even if it’s only 5 minutes a day of performing deep breathing and not thinking.

Go for a walk and try focus on the nature around you or/and on your breathing- funny how easily we forget that we do breathe regularly.

If you don’t have time to go for a walk, stand on your balcony/patio or even in your room with window open and swing your arms around, move your head around and breathe- take a breath in and breathe out. Do it slowly and mindfully. Think of what you are grateful for today. It may not be easy at the beginning but it pays off to continue.

  • Smile to yourself and others as much as you can and create positive vibrations around yourself – I’m talking about genuine smile that is expressed in your eyes not that fake smile number 3.
    SMILE! It works and feels good!

smile and be happy

Congratulations to you!

You are still reading this post which means you want to change and are searching for help. That’s a great start! Make one step at the time, get excited about it and get excited about your next move. Be kind to yourself, remember – failure doesn’t exist! Just make sure that once you started the process of change in your life you stick with it.

Enjoy your journey!

Ania

Balance in life – a little bit of my story. Part I

Everyone seems to talk about balance these days.

Balanced diet/nutrition, balanced lifestyle, balanced exercise program, balance between HDL and LDL (balance between “good” and “bad” cholesterol),
work-life balance,
emotional balance to name a few ideas in this department.
It all may be actually quite important to a human being, I figured.

What is your idea about balance in life?
What do you think may be out of balance in your life?

Obviously I’m not in the capacity to answer these questions for you but can tell you my own experience and I hope this helps a bit.

It all started with a judo throw.
Ouchi gari?
I can no longer remember what throw that was but it accidentally brought balance into my life…
Along with couple of other factors made that throw made me change my old ways that were not serving me anymore.

The same judo throw, that put me down on the dojo mats with a pain so great that literally took my breath away for a moment, actually turned out to be “a blessing in disguise” after all.

The very first step on the path to betterment of myself through torn cruciate ligament and lateral meniscus in my knee.

At that time I trained pretty hard (as I usually do anyway). I spent most of my days at the dojo training all the martial arts available and most importantly Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ).
I had fallen in love with this martial art and soon made myself break my own weaknesses and barriers and –
3 months from starting to train BJJ I was already competing in Pan Pacific Championships.

Brazilian Jiu Jitsu

Training, teaching, competing, working in several jobs, always in a rush- no time to eat, not much time to sleep, not much money to eat quality food. Fresh products count: close to zero.
I lived on supermarket home brand pasta, sweet chilli sauce, cheap eggs and bread- gluten in its purest wheat nature.

How far can your body go this way?

Not far at all…

So here I am, desperate to continue training and compete in the next Oceania BJJ comp with my knee giving me hell lot of a pain and restricting movement.
Screw this.
I’m winning silver in my weight category with my leg in a big brace made of a strapping tape.
A month later I can barely walk.
Surprise (!!).

So I’m desperate again.
I want to avoid a “death sentence” – that’s what I thought about the knee surgery and being away from trainings for months of rehab.

I start looking for alternative ideas and anyone who can make my knee working well again without surgery.
My coach introduces me to a CHEK practitioner who turns my whole world I used to know upside down.

He tells  me about diet, gives some hair-raising information about organic foods, dairy, gluten, processed foods, coffee, sugar, alcohol, relationships etc. …

He gets me to do all the impossible and absolutely bizarre exercises (well, at least they seemed to be back then…).
I do it all.
I try hard although still can’t believe or understand some of the things he tries to teach me.
I still do them.

I go organic, I change my eating habits, I change my sleeping patterns…
I change…

I start  to cook and forget about the coffee.
Coffee was a tough one- I can still hear myself arguing:

“What do you mean stop drinking coffee???
Ok, so now you’re saying I can actually have ONE a day if I really can’t go without.  (I sigh…what a relief…)
Whaaaat??
Before 9am only and with no milk?!
Really??
Whaaaat??
Artificial sweetener is a killer??”

So silly I was back then…

I try HARD to be in bed before 10am and do deep breathing beforehand
And I stretch. Oh my goodness gracious me!!

I DO STRETCH!!!

This awful and disregarded activity that I just couldn’t stand for years becomes a vital part of my life.

I chew my food thoroughly,
I concentrate on eating – no more movies, books, newspapers etc. just me, food and the process of eating.

I cook bone broth; the whole house stinks like a cowshed or worse…

I eat grass fed cows’ liver, forget about my beloved bread and most of the fruit.
I soak and dehydrate nuts before eating.
activated nutsLuckily I had already abandoned soft drinks (I call them “shitty drinks” and dare to say, as a former heavy user of the shitty drinks, I have the full right to call them this way)
and given up any idea about “low fat food”.

This all is super strange to me, quite difficult or even horrible!
But I don’t want my knee to get cut open and I want to train so much.
I need to heal and get stronger.
So I do it all.

Well, completely torn ligament does not grow back together just like that and I finally decide to have it surgically fixed.

I’m in the hospital, pale and about to faint before even seeing the anaesthetist, thirsty as hell (mandatory fasting before the procedure ain’t fun) but it should be good.

All those changes had already started bringing balance back to my life and my body grew stronger.

I should recover in no time.

I’m pretty much naked, wearing only that funny sort of a gown they give you at the hospital and trying to joke about it with my mum.

I’m really scared.
Now it’s just me and the anaesthetist.
He gives me some stuff, disappears and comes back with more.
Now I’m truly horrified.
Next thing I see myself on a bed in a big room, half conscious.
I can’t remember the pain then.
I was still drugged, with morphine and other stuff in my blood and I just wanted to sleep.

Then all the rest happens…

Morphine is gone and here I am with my aching leg and the whole new story in front of us.

New life is about to begin.

please bring me my bone broth