Tuesday, June 13, 2017

Transition Tuesday: Changes to Make After Spending Life Overseas

Life's a beach...at least it should be. 

When you have a lot of time on your hands it's easy to make lists. This one is for improvement. I want to improve the way I live my life, and this is how I will do that.

  • Read more books. There's plenty of information, perspectives, insights, and opinions out there to learn from. And books are the platform. Despite the movement to e-readers and text available online, I still prefer the hardcover/paperback versions of books.
  • Maintain weight. You've read this from me before. But this time it's different. At 291lbs before we left, I struggled. My goal is to weigh-in at under 250lbs going forward. My best was 109kg (238lbs) while we were in South Africa. But I don't know how feasible that is to maintain. But I am pretty sure I can swing under 250lbs from now on. How will I do that?
    • Coffee - I started to drink coffee because it will boost my metabolism and help me move my bowels better. 
    • Drink plenty of water. While we were abroad, I drank something like 3-4 liters of water per day. We were doing a lot of walking and sweating in the heat so I needed it. 
    • Eat fruits and anything with natural sugars in the mornings to give them a full day to digest, break down, and burn off. 
    • Keep the carbs low unless I know I will need the energy for an intense workout or other strenuous exercise (hiking, rowing, climbing, etc.). Also, eating them for lunch will give them some time to digest. 
    • Increase my protein intake. This should include more fish, poultry, and lean meats. Finding and consuming alternative protein sources (like soy, nuts, yogurt and other dairy, etc.) is key to keeping my diet interesting and varied. 
    • Eat more vegetables. I was not a fan so much of eating veggies. I mean, I would do it but not often. Our time abroad has given me such a better appreciation for clean, organic, vegetables. In so many places around the world vegetables are the main dish. Meats and other foods are a treat.
      • We recently started our own little organic herb garden. We will have a variety of mints, parsley, and cilantro/coriander. Will keep you posted on how our garden grows. 
    • Try to eat more organic, non-processed food. It's hard. And it's expensive. But to the extent possible, we will make it happen. 
    • Add chili peppers to my food to make it spicy! This will keep my food interesting and may also help with metabolism and limiting the amount of intake.
    • Workout at the gym 3-4 times per week, even if it means going to work late or leaving work early. Because at the very heart of it all, I always blamed the lack of time to go to the gym on my work schedule. But like my boss has always said, it's not worth dying for. So I'm going to the gym, so I won't die at work.
  • Reduce daily stress. My former manager always told me that we have to live one day at a time, not to let the challenges of work or life make you crazy. I always listened to him and tried to not let things bother me, but it took this trip to really change my mind. One day at a time, one thing at a time.
  • Invest. Time, money, effort. We did a lot of thinking, and our conclusion was that we need to establish ways to make our own lives better and build a foundation for our future child(ren). So we're going to invest in property. A timeline was made and the hope is to stick to it as closely as possible to maximize the future benefit. We contemplated if it should be foreign property or domestic, and we narrowed it down to select cities. Now it's just a matter of executing.
  • Clean up. There are plenty of items, tasks, and thoughts that are unnecessary in our lives. The goal is to trim off what we don't need. If it occupies space and is never used, discard it. If the to-do can be lived without, then forego it. If the idea or thought causes stress, then try to turn it into a positive and learn from it. There are other mountains to climb and conquer. The goal is to see the top and look down on what has been accomplished, and how can that be fun if you're bogged down with the useless? 


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