"...let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food..."
COOK YOUR OWN FOOD
Food and rest are just as important as the training. It is pointless to train well without having balanced food habits and without getting a good rest. The body will eventually burn out and your mood may not be the best. Good food heals your body and puts you in a great mood.
The first step to a healthy diet is to COOK your own food. It is actually very easy. This way you see exactly what you are eating and how much. You get to know more about the nutritional value of the food you eat and you get to become a better cook also. That will not only benefit you, but all of your friends and loved ones.
Start with simple recipes and build up from there. Don't try to follow ready made recipes. Do not be a follower. Be a creator. Be an artist. Be yourself. Cook your own food in your own style. Just buy the ingredients and go full crazy. Use your imagination. Do some research and see what kind of foods are recommended for your body type and health condition. Do not always fry your food, and try to avoid deep fried foods. Best is to boil or steam your food. That way you preserve more of the qualities of your food and you make it easy for your liver. Fried foods can be damaging for your liver if consumed regularly.
Try to start small. First cook one meal a day. And slowly you can get to cooking in one day for two or three days. So that you don't have to spend half an hour every day cooking. But try to see it as something nice and healthy, as a form of therapy. And not as a burden. Cooking is nice! Enjoy it!
AVOID CRAP & BAD HABITS
Buy fresh whole food, preferably local. Avoid canned foods if possible, even if they are cheaper. You might have to pay back more on medicines. In general, avoid junk, avoid crap. Don't smoke - it makes you slower, lazy, sluggish, you get tired faster and you age faster. Avoid alcohol, especially strong liquors such as vodka, whisky, rum, etc. Alcohol destroys your brain and your blood vessels. Red wine can actually be healthy if consumed in small dozes with good meals. Avoid beer. Avoid fuzzy drinks and sugary sodas. Avoid white sugar in general. Avoid white bread. Avoid cold foods - they will slow down your digestion process and promote inflammation and bloating in your stomach and intestines. Avoid dairy - it irritates your stomach and your skin. Replace cow milk with coconut milk, almond milk, rice milk or oat milk. Soy milk is not good. It's cheap, but it's not good. Especially not good for men. If you find it difficult to survive without cheese - try to replace cow cheese with goat cheese. Goat cheese is more expensive, but it is healthier. Being more expensive is not necessarily bad. You don't need to eat that much of it. Chocolate is ok in certain amounts - try chocolate without milk and with not so much sugar in it.
Food and rest are just as important as the training. It is pointless to train well without having balanced food habits and without getting a good rest. The body will eventually burn out and your mood may not be the best. Good food heals your body and puts you in a great mood.
The first step to a healthy diet is to COOK your own food. It is actually very easy. This way you see exactly what you are eating and how much. You get to know more about the nutritional value of the food you eat and you get to become a better cook also. That will not only benefit you, but all of your friends and loved ones.
Start with simple recipes and build up from there. Don't try to follow ready made recipes. Do not be a follower. Be a creator. Be an artist. Be yourself. Cook your own food in your own style. Just buy the ingredients and go full crazy. Use your imagination. Do some research and see what kind of foods are recommended for your body type and health condition. Do not always fry your food, and try to avoid deep fried foods. Best is to boil or steam your food. That way you preserve more of the qualities of your food and you make it easy for your liver. Fried foods can be damaging for your liver if consumed regularly.
Try to start small. First cook one meal a day. And slowly you can get to cooking in one day for two or three days. So that you don't have to spend half an hour every day cooking. But try to see it as something nice and healthy, as a form of therapy. And not as a burden. Cooking is nice! Enjoy it!
AVOID CRAP & BAD HABITS
Buy fresh whole food, preferably local. Avoid canned foods if possible, even if they are cheaper. You might have to pay back more on medicines. In general, avoid junk, avoid crap. Don't smoke - it makes you slower, lazy, sluggish, you get tired faster and you age faster. Avoid alcohol, especially strong liquors such as vodka, whisky, rum, etc. Alcohol destroys your brain and your blood vessels. Red wine can actually be healthy if consumed in small dozes with good meals. Avoid beer. Avoid fuzzy drinks and sugary sodas. Avoid white sugar in general. Avoid white bread. Avoid cold foods - they will slow down your digestion process and promote inflammation and bloating in your stomach and intestines. Avoid dairy - it irritates your stomach and your skin. Replace cow milk with coconut milk, almond milk, rice milk or oat milk. Soy milk is not good. It's cheap, but it's not good. Especially not good for men. If you find it difficult to survive without cheese - try to replace cow cheese with goat cheese. Goat cheese is more expensive, but it is healthier. Being more expensive is not necessarily bad. You don't need to eat that much of it. Chocolate is ok in certain amounts - try chocolate without milk and with not so much sugar in it.
Avoid processed foods. Avoid "meat replacements". If you don't eat meat - don't eat meat. It's ok. You can survive without it. If you eat meat - eat meat. It's ok. Your body might need it. Just don't eat it everyday at every meal, please! Keep it low, up to max. 10% of your diet!! It's more than enough. But, you either eat meat, or you don't. Artificial meat contains all the crap in the world in it. It just does not make sense. It is truly unnecessary.
Now, being too strict about your diet is never going to help you get very far. Unless you have a certain health condition that requires an extreme diet. Otherwise, keep it simple, keep it cool. This is why I recommend to AVOID certain products, and not to force yourself to not consume this or that. If you crave for something, try to listen to that craving! Whatever it is that you crave for - your body really needs it! It may not needed it as often as you take it, or in the quantities that you take it. But cravings are there for a reason. Try to be nice to yourself and have a balanced diet and, every now and then, allow yourself to have a "cheat day" in which you can spoil yourself with anything you want. If you eat one bad meal once it is not going to kill you. Just like, if you eat one good meal once it is not going to heal you. You need consistency. Don't punish yourself and also don't be lazy or stubborn. Over time, food can kill you or it can heal you. It's up to you how you use it. It is exactly the same with Kung Fu - it can kill or it can heal. It is up to you.
Try to regulate your food intake and try to create good habits. Be happy about your food. We live in an age where we have easy access to all the foods we want and yet we waste so much of it and we consume such poor quality food, even when we are rich. Eating should be a celebration and a form of medication. Be grateful for it and try to see where that food comes from. How and what made it possible for that food to get on your table... Because there is still hunger in the world and this is not acceptable for the 21st century.
I personally grew up having a very poor nutrition and many of my colleagues did the same. It took me a long time to get to a healthy weight. Some kids grow up obese and are upset because of that and also get bullied for that. Some kids, like me, grew up weak and skinny and have to deal with the exact same emotional and social issues that obese people deal with.
So, try to find ways through which you can contribute to the production of healthy foods and to a fair distribution of food in the world.
Good food habits will help you avoid excess food intake and waste. Never eat until you are full. Eat when you are hungry. Don't stay hungry. Drink as much water as possible. Try to eat small portions more often, rather than large portions less often. Chew your food very very well. It helps immensely with your digestion and absorption process!
Eat a good breakfast! Eat most of your food in the first part of the day. That will give you energy for the day and your body will have time to digest all the food. Do not eat large dinners and try to never eat right before going to sleep at night. During night sleep, the body is still at work and it cleanses itself. At night, the liver is at work and its job is to clean the blood, process protein and eliminate toxins. If you give your body a large meal at night - you will make a very hard life for your liver. Also it will affect the quality of your sleep and you may even experience nightmares or wake up tired. Eat during day. Try to have some fresh fruit/root juices one in a while. And try to drink tea.
Make it a habit out of drinking tea. Coffee is fine also - of course not too much and not in the evening and without too much sugar in it, and preferably not the instant one. Tea is great for digestion, for cleaning your urinary tract and for your nervous system. It will keep you calm and it will change your body. Especially, mint tea. Herbal tea, please! Dry or fresh, doesn't matter but please don't drink instant tea all the time or all these flavored teas out there that contain all the ingredients in the world and are only designed for taste. Keep it simple.
FOOD & TRAINING
You have to find out, on your own, which foods work best for you. Do not follow crazy diets. There is no one diet that can fit everybody. There just isn't. Just like in any other aspect, when it comes to food, there is no absolute truth. See how your body reacts to the foods you eat and learn. Trial and error will get you to know yourself.
Please, try to avoid supplements and pills! Eat food. Get everything you need from real food. It is possible and it is easy. Whey powders and such are not a great idea at all. Protein bars and such are also not a great idea. There is protein in almost every food you eat. The problem in the West is not that we have too little protein, is that we have too much of it. Don't worry about protein too much. Your body is not just muscle. You also need healthy fats (avocado, wallnut, coconut), you also need carbs (bananas, rice, potatoes), you also need healthy salt, nuts, seeds and fruits, beans, grains, roots and a lot of greens. Most of your food should be of plant origin if you want to be healthy for a long time.
I have experienced with foods a lot, and I have been vegetarian and vegan for many years before and I did my own research. I did not eat meat for 9 years, but lately I started adding fish (mainly salmon) and egg to my diet, to give me the minerals and the protein that I need for my body, since I got to a point where I felt weak and I was craving for fish and egg. I still don't consume dairy very often, except for goat cheese once in a while. And, if you buy me a pizza I will still take the one with mozzarella.
If you add some animal products once in a while it should be ok. It is difficult to get all the nutrients you need from plants alone while training very hard. You would have to consume large quantities of food and that will keep your belly full most of the time and will complicate your life. Beans, lentils, chickpea, quinoa, mushrooms are all great foods and I love each one of them and they have very good quality protein and even complete amino acids that will help your body to use the protein intake (quinoa, in this case - same as eggs do). But you have to eat a bit of everything in small portions. Too much beans at one meal will make you bloated and will give you gases. You won't look very slim, nor feel very great.
Another good thing to keep in mind if you want to train and change your body - do not eat before training. Eat two hours before a workout. If you train at 19:00, you must eat at 17:00 the latest. If you train from 19:00 to 21:00 - eat a strong breakfast that day. Have a good lunch around 16:00 or 17:00. And after training, after 21:00, have a shower, drink a lot of water, drink a tea or a fresh root/fruit juice and you may have a salad, or some fruits, or a sandwich, some simple snack to not let your body feel hungry over night. But no big meal.
If you train in the morning - see how you feel. If you feel really weak, eat. If not, it is better to train on an empty stomach in the morning and eat afterwards, than to train with a full belly.
In the morning, you can wake up, shower, drink water with lemon and basilicum or mint in it, eat a banana, drink a tea and then you can do your QiGong and some Squats & Push Ups (15 minutes!) and then you can have a good breakfast.
Finding a good way to eat and a good way to train will give us the tools for successful self medication and self coaching. So that we will pay less visits to doctors and therapists. We may still need their help once in a while, but taking care of these two aspects will also ease their job. And will empower you. Will give you confidence. Now, you are in charge of how you feel, how you move, how you look, how you live your life and you have the tools to help you deal with whatever comes at you.
If you add some animal products once in a while it should be ok. It is difficult to get all the nutrients you need from plants alone while training very hard. You would have to consume large quantities of food and that will keep your belly full most of the time and will complicate your life. Beans, lentils, chickpea, quinoa, mushrooms are all great foods and I love each one of them and they have very good quality protein and even complete amino acids that will help your body to use the protein intake (quinoa, in this case - same as eggs do). But you have to eat a bit of everything in small portions. Too much beans at one meal will make you bloated and will give you gases. You won't look very slim, nor feel very great.
Another good thing to keep in mind if you want to train and change your body - do not eat before training. Eat two hours before a workout. If you train at 19:00, you must eat at 17:00 the latest. If you train from 19:00 to 21:00 - eat a strong breakfast that day. Have a good lunch around 16:00 or 17:00. And after training, after 21:00, have a shower, drink a lot of water, drink a tea or a fresh root/fruit juice and you may have a salad, or some fruits, or a sandwich, some simple snack to not let your body feel hungry over night. But no big meal.
If you train in the morning - see how you feel. If you feel really weak, eat. If not, it is better to train on an empty stomach in the morning and eat afterwards, than to train with a full belly.
In the morning, you can wake up, shower, drink water with lemon and basilicum or mint in it, eat a banana, drink a tea and then you can do your QiGong and some Squats & Push Ups (15 minutes!) and then you can have a good breakfast.
Finding a good way to eat and a good way to train will give us the tools for successful self medication and self coaching. So that we will pay less visits to doctors and therapists. We may still need their help once in a while, but taking care of these two aspects will also ease their job. And will empower you. Will give you confidence. Now, you are in charge of how you feel, how you move, how you look, how you live your life and you have the tools to help you deal with whatever comes at you.
FOOD & AESTHETICS
To get to a flat belly or to a 6pack, the way you eat is actually more important than the way you train!! If you take care of all the above mentioned and you train smart and hard, you will inevitably get a 6pack.
Some people want to train to look good. There is nothing wrong with wanting to look good. There is nothing wrong about being proud of your body. A problem is when you are either being arrogant about it or when you cannot accept the way your body looks and you are being bullied and socially marginalized because of that. The human body is beautiful and it is a gift that you have received for free. Treasure it! Take care of it, keep it healthy, make it strong, make it beautiful, decorate it! It is your life in there! It is your home. It is where you will spend all of your days. You would like to spend your lifetime in a healthy, functional good looking body. Look at nature! Nature is awesome! Ever seen a not good looking tree?! Did you notice the wild animals!? They are all fit, they are all in shape, they are all beautiful! They rely on their bodies, they can't mess around. Why would we be any different!? Most humans are out of shape...
If looking good is your only training motivation, that may not get you very far. But it can get you started. Motivation changes along the way. We change. It can be part of your motivation and there is no point in hiding it. In time, you may become more concerned about health than about looks. You may become more concerned about peace. And, after all, we all want to look nice, to be dressed nicely, to have nice things and nice homes. Why not!? We don't have to live in poverty and ignore our bodies. Consumerism does not help us, but poverty does not help us either. Just focusing on the body, while ignoring the intellect and the spirit is superficial. But it is just as superficial to take care of the intellect and of the spirit, while ignoring the body. We have to find a balance and we will see, eventually, that all these are connected. That physical training can also help us intellectually and spiritually. Just like intellectual and spiritual practices can help our physique. Be honest with yourself. Know what you want. And go for it. You cannot go wrong when you go for what truly makes you feel happy and at peace and for what makes your life worth living.
And don't forget to REST! Sleep before midnight if you can and wake up early. 7-8 hours of sleep should do. Don't stay awake for too late at night... it will burn out your nervous system and you will wake up tired even after 10 hours of sleep.
Active rest is better than passive rest. What is active rest!? It's Meditation, Gentle Stretching, QiGong, Walking Outdoors, maybe even go for a Light Swim... Don't just crash. Rest! If you train hard on a Saturday and on Sunday you crash - on Monday you will feel more tired than on Sunday morning. Because when we crash, the body shrinks and gets stiff and everything inside slows down and gets stuck. Your mood the next day will also be off. You may wake up tired and irritable. You have to wake up smiling, fresh and in a great mood for the new day in front of you. You have a new life now. You can't afford to have a bad start too many days in a row. It will also affect the people around you.
Of course, the same concept of having a "cheat day" applies for the case of rest as well. Once in a while, do crash. Get wasted if that makes you feel good. Don't be a robotic person. Life loves diversity. Routine will keep you on track. But you have to break out once in a while. You need to relax and you have to let things flow and not try to have everything under control. Control is stress. Go with the flow.
SHOWER is also very important. Showering after a workout is common sense, I hope. Now, try to use hot & cold showers. Each time when you finish your shower turn the water as hot as you can take it for 30 seconds or so. Then, right after that, you finish your shower by turning the water ice cold for at least 30 seconds or more. And then you get out fresh. Hot water is swelling your blood vessels and it opens your skin. That is good for cleansing and for blood flow but it should not remain like that. Cold water will bring back your blood vessels to a more decent size and will close your skin. This will also give an immense boost to your Immune System and will make you feel revitalized.
FOOD & ETHICS
Do you see this picture!? There is nothing natural about it. There is nothing ok about it. You may consume animal products if you need it, but the way we get these products today is just totally wrong. These animals should be free. Not kept in cages. First of all, the quality of your food will be awful if you eat cheese or flesh from a cow that has been standing 90% of her life in one spot, indoors, in a prison like environment while also being artificially inseminated and treated with all sorts of growth hormones and antibiotics.
Animals are just like us. They also have a mind, a body and a spirit. We are animals. The difference between us and them is in the shape, social conduct and language. We are different forms of life. They may be inferior in certain aspects, but superior in others. We are just different. There is no hierarchy and even if there would be a question of hierarchy - just what gives the moral right to the one who is superior to do whatever they please with the one who is inferior!? Let's say cows are inferior to humans. Does the way we treat them point out that we are the superior ones!?
Cows have horns. Beautiful horns. They don't have horns here anymore. Cows and pigs are very intelligent and very friendly animals. They can be just like pets, like cats and dogs. I grew up at the countryside and cows had names and most of the time they were not chained. We only chained them at night so they don't get stolen or so they don't get scared by some snake and run away in the forests. They were free and they took care of themselves. We only brought water for them and some food over the night and during winter.
I don't know what is the best and the most practical way, according to our population nowadays, to deal with the animals we use for food and for clothing... It is a big problem. But we should strive to respect them and to find ways to produce the minimum amount of violence in order to get the products we need. The animal industry is the most polluting industry on our planet. And when you think of the fact that a big, significant part of the food we produce is simply thrown away - that makes all this story even more violent and miserable.
Try to get your food from sources that don't exploit animals to the max.
Now, I do eat fish and egg. I do have leather shoes. I do have winter clothes for which animals have been killed. Am I being a hypocrite for stating all the above!? Not at all. I don't indulge in animal foods and I don't buy leather shoes and winter jackets every month. Actually, I only bought one winter jacket in the past 7 years. I may not buy another one in another 7 years. And I mainly use textile Kung Fu shoes, especially in the summer, because they are light, comfortable and I practice Kung Fu. You can eat meat or whatever animal products your body is craving for - just don't do it daily. These kinds of products are not the base of our food. They may be important for your body at certain times, but they should not be the most of your food. First of all, it's not healthy for you.
Think of where your food comes from and if you do eat animal products... show some respect for the animal world once in a while. Do something nice to the environment in return. Try to minimize your animal food intake and try to find sources that treat the animals with respect and allows them to enjoy the life they have in freedom. Killing an animal for food is still killing, in the end. No animal will willingly want to die to become your lunch... So, what are you going to do with that food!? What for will you use the energy that you get from that food!? Make sure you spend that energy wisely and kindly... Don't just think animals are here to feed us. Animals are here for them, not for us.
We still have to pay attention to plant products as well. Some come from very far away and may be cheaper than the local fruits... Ridiculous. Coconuts cheaper than walnuts in Europe. Ridiculous. Apples more expensive than bananas. Again, ridiculous. What covers the transportation costs of these products!? Who produces them?! How much do they actually cost to be produced? Is anyone getting payed to produce them!?
Pay as much attention as possible to all the details of the food you put in your body, please! Try to eat local and seasonal. Be nice to your food and be nice to yourself! Respect your food and respect yourself!
