5 benefits of healthy living

It is strange that people have to be convinced about the benefits of healthy living. I think there’s confusion about health and happiness. Someone told me once that he’d rather be unhealthy and happy, than healthy and miserable. 

Can you see the problem here?

How exactly are you going to be happy if you are sick? Maybe some people are so out of whack with their bodies and emotions that they don’t know the color of their own misery. 
'Am I thirsty or am I sad?'
'Am I upset, or is it just a little hot inside here?'

Good luck to that friend of mine anyway. I wish him the best (he's going to need it).

Here’s  five benefits of being healthy.

1. You will live longer. If you love life and look forward to new experiences, this one is a must. Living longer seems cool to me.

2. You will look better. The alcoholic and meths addict look isn’t appealing to me. Neither is the red face look of high blood pressure. Acid sounds cool to some people, but only if its on a little stamp. If the pH of your diet is too acid, you will look older than you really are (or feel).

3. You will feel better. Have you ever been on a date…with indigestion? Oh, and there was a girl somewhere too. It’s just that my attention was so divided, I didn’t really notice the chick. Feeling horrible isn’t cool. I’m also very sure that feeling tired and in pain would be very good for the wrinkled face look. But that is not the look I’m after.

4. You will have a better sex life. I don’t know, this is a no brainer – that is unless you don’t like doing it. That may sound funny but some people, if given the choice between smoking and a healthy sex life, would choose the little cancer stick. 

5. Did I mention that you will look and feel better? Is it safe to say that being over weight is unhealthy in itself? Ok, with that settled I want to stress that many people look older than they are simply because they are way under or over weight.

Are you sick out of choice? I mean, are you carying around the discomfort of being unhealthy because of the choices you make every day? What are you waiting for? 

Eat right, exercise regularly and experience good emotions. You will be a healthier, happier person.

The problem with South Africa

It’s been almost  seven years since I left my country – South Africa.

I returned there two years ago, to visit my parents and family. What I found was a lot of development. The food prices went up...people seemed a little fatter in the streets than the time I left. But all in all, things seemed ok…apart from two racial incidents. 

For the uninformed (which is 99% of the world), South Africa is a country in the South of Africa. Yes, a stupid name to give to a country - South Africa (I know). How many people have asked me the question, ‘Which country in SOUTH AFRICA?’...

LSBH!!! (Loud Scream and Banging my Head)

But you know what? There’s a reason for this ignorance, and that is what this article is going to be about. I’m not going to talk about the violence and AIDS in my country. That’s another issue. It’s a big issue, and one that should be written about more often, but that’s not what I’m going to put under your nose today.

Often when I tell people that I’m from South Africa, they don’t believe me. They think I’m joking. Once they realize that I’m telling the truth, they assume that I must have been raised by black parents, or that my parents lived in SA for a little while. 

‘No, my parents were born in South Africa, and so were their parents, and their parents and so on and so on..’

‘But I would think everyone in South Africa are little black men’.

That is a common response.

So, coming from the rainbow nation, I know what an absurd image that is to have of my country of birth. Why would people have such an image? South Africa is an amazing country. It’s a very developed country - and it is multi-racial.

Well, there’s a reason for it. It is politics – or a kind of politics. Since 1994, when the ANC took over the country they have been employing a strategy of accumulating pity from the outside world.  This wasn’t the image of the country before 1994. Rarely would you find an image of a white person when South Africa is being promoted in the world today. Even inside the country. 

Just google the word, ‘South Africa’, and go to images. It is animals and black dance groups. dressed in scantly loin cloths. That’s it. The same goes for when the world cup was hosted in 2010. It’s all animals and black dance acts. So, naturally, people think South Africa is like this. We are all little black men, living amoung the animals - dancing in the jungle

Why try to make the world think you are poor, and suffering? The answer is easy. Just look at any beggar in the street – look at his facial expression. Yes, its pity and poverty…it’s a begger’s mindset. Its the South African government's idea of pity politics.

‘I don’t want to work sir, please give me some money or food’

So, that’s the problem with South Africa’s image in the world.

 Just tell someone, ‘ Italy’. What image comes to mind? 

‘Ahhh…Rome..Venice..romance!’

America…Hollywood, greatest country in the world!

South Africa…poverty, black people dancing, animals

It’s a pity. I love my country, and all the people inside of it. All the smiley faces of such a friendly country with its vast opportunities. In the end, people will never know about this.

All they will remember is ‘li- li- li- li- li- li- li!’

Some tips for Vegans

 Since turning to a vegan diet I have realized some things which could convert to valuable advice for people thinking about following a plant based diet. The subject of veganism is a very interesting one to me, because there are so many reasons people become vegans. 

First of all there are the ethical reasons.  Some people become vegan simply for this reason. Something about the meat industry shocked them suddenly, and they turned vegan over night. Maybe they saw a video about the mistreatment of cattle in a slaughterhouse, or maybe they saw their uncle killing a rabbit for a cazuela when they were a child. They were impressed by the cruelty, and decided then and there to never eat meat again.

There are people who are vegetarian for religious reasons. Particularly the religions from India – the hindu related philosophies. For them, eating meat means that you are taking on the karma of the dead animal. Many of them feel that it’s not possible to progress on any kind of spiritual path if you are eating meat.

The environment is another reason to see veganism as a practical way to help ‘save the planet’. Animal agriculture is responsible for a significant increase in global warming. 

Meat eating has been linked to many diseases such as cancer and diabetes. Many people eat plant based in an attempt to recuperate their health, or to be healthy.

All of these are good reasons. Each one has its merit, but I didn’t turn vegan for any of these. Lets take a closer look at these issues. 

Let’s take the animal cruelty issue for instance. People don’t kill animals because they hate them. People eat animals for protein. That is a very good reason, and I will explain why that is. Getting sufficient protein on a vegan diet can be very problematic. 

Nevertheless, what I say is that if you can get good protein from a vegetable diet, then you don’t need to eat animals. It is quite simple. I would like to help people understand how to do this.

Health is a very good reason too, but unfortunately the vegan diet does lack important nutrients, just as a high meat diet is toxic to your body no matter how pure and grass fed your meat is. There are pros and cons to eating meat. It seems logic that meat should be part of a balanced diet, but once again, if you can get the same quality protein from a plant based diet, then what is the reason for eating meat, especially if you can take B12 injections etc.

So, as a vegan, I will give some good advice to you vegans out there. I’m talking to those of you who don’t want to be a walking gas station, or turn into a skinny concentration camp victim. Here’s some good advice if you are concerned about your protein and nutrient intake:

1. Get a good calorie and macro nutrient calculator, and put your diet through the fire. Make sure you get enough calories and protein. If you are having cravings for burgers and bacon, you are not eating enough period.

2. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Vegan food is beautiful. You are the fortunate one to be living on such an aesthetic regime.

3. Get a good B12 supplement. 

4. Eat leafy greens and berries every day. That is spinach, kale etc.

5. Soak your beans in water and apple cider vinegar for 8 to 24 hours before cooking them. One or two tablespoons per cup of beans, tvp or legumes would be ok. The acidic medium will help to release the enzymes that cause wind, indigestion. This is very important, because you can get your protein on paper, but if you don’t digest it well, it doesn’t count.

So, here you have my tips. Other advice I would give you is not to listen to any fanatical vegans, particularly the ‘raw’ variety, who tell you things like ‘everything contains protein’ and ‘it’s impossible to get a protein deficiency’.  If you want to weigh 38kg, keep following their lunatic advice.

Do you have any questions? This is a blog, so leave your comments below.

The Health benefits of stress

How many times do you hear ‘experts’ blame any random health problem on stress?

You have a skin rash? It’s because of stress! How about your aunt’s depression? That is because of stress too! 

Really?

So, how exactly is the skin rash caused by stress?

‘Well, stress is constricting the circulation and…bla bla bla..’

Stress is like the word Energy. Let me stress that point. Stress is a neutral word. Regarding activity or experience in life, stress is neutral. It is all relative.

Even if your favorite doctor told you that Negative Stress is the cause of the skin rash, that would still be meaningless. Is there any activity in life that somebody somewhere doesn’t find stressful?

How about eating cake? Is that stressful to you? No? Well how about someone who is trying to gain weight? If you need to get in 6000 calories per day, and you start eating cake and ice cream to reach your caloric needs, believe me, even the thought of eating ice cream could stress you out!

You don’t believe me? Go and speak to any professional bodybuilder who has tried to add 20 pounds of muscle.

How about walking? Is that a stressful activity? I love taking a walk in the woods with my dog, where the river is flowing and the sun is going down. Nevertheless, where I live, I have had to walk every day for 20 minutes to catch public transport to work. Now that is stressful when you’re late in the morning! And that isn’t because of the pace. There are people who take up fast walking as an exercise, in order to get fit.

So, that is enough about stress as any cause of illness. If any activity is causing you to experience the so called stress that the doctors are talking about, here’s the fact. It is all psychological. The mental stress is created in your mind. You are telling yourself, ‘This is not supposed to be happening to me’. 

Now, I am going to tell you of the positive side of stress, and how stress can make you younger.

First of all, when you go jogging, or bike riding every day, you become fit, and when you are fit, your level of handling physical stress increases. Your energy level goes up. This is common knowledge (Unless you go climb Mount Everest every day… this case you are overdoing it a little). 

Second, and now we come to the main point of this article. 

High intensity weight training 

Regular high intensity weight training causes your body to release growth hormone naturally. Growth hormone is released when you sleep, and through another few activities such as fasting etc.

Have you heard about the concept of the beauty sleep? You take a small nap every afternoon. This nap raises your growth hormone level. So both activities have a similar effect.

Growth hormone declines as we get older, but through activities like regular high intensity training, you can slow down the aging process significantly. 

For the last 20 years I have been striving to add more muscle in the gym. I always trained with high intensity. Now, I am 43 years old, and people around me started noticing something. Maybe I didn’t reach my goal in muscularity, but I look very young for my age. People never believe me when I tell them my age. Maybe its time for me to move to another town..the people are becoming suspicious!

Here are some tips I can give you from my own experience, as someone who has trained with weights for more than 20 years.

• Make sure you eat enough protein every day. I recommend plant protein now, since I have turned to a plant based diet some time ago.
• Consistency. You can’t train with high intensity every day of the week, but whatever you do, if it’s 3 times per week, every muscle group twice per week – keep at it.
• Keep workout sessions 30 minutes or less.
• Training at home is the best. The gym contains a lot of distractions. With all that
  
  people and equipment, people get tempted to stay in the gym for hours on end. When you train at home, you can be to-the-point. For years I was doing high intensity calisthenics, pushups between chairs, dips, pull-ups etc. Gradually build up your collection of free weights at home. Soon you will love the serenity of training on your own.

Growth hormone isn’t the only gift high intensity weight training will give you. If you are enjoying your exercise sessions, it means you are releasing some other hormones such as endorphins and dopamine which make you feel exhilarated and happy, and keep you young too.

So, the next time someone asks me why I look so young, I will respond:

It’s all the stress!

How to find a good beauty salon

To tell the truth, my memories of bad haircuts – leading up to bad hair weeks are more prominently implanted in my memory than the good ones. 

There are beauty salons' that specialize in making you feel beautiful when you exit, only to realize the next morning that the exclusive products they have been using did the trick – you know the expensive goods that funny guy was aggressively trying to upsell to you throughout your brief stay.

If you live in a big city like Los Angeles or London you could be one of the many people like me who are severely perplexed at the thought of finding a place to have a decent haircut or pedicure. You aren’t looking for the most expensive beauty treatment there is in your city. You’re not planning on going on a thousand dollar shopping spree! You only want something decent done, and if you get it, you will return.

So, it makes sense for the beauty salon to give you good treatment at reasonable cost. I’m not talking of a $1 haircut is Soweto, neither a $200 treatment in Hollywood. So, how do you find a good friend, a reliable friend in the beauty industry, close to home?

Here are 5 tips to know you have a friend in need. Your beauty salon should comply to these factors. So here we go:

1. Do they have a web site or a Facebook page?This is important, because if they represent themselves on the internet, it means that they are willing to take responsibility – publically that is. You can also see the experiences of other clients, such as in a Facebook page. It also means that they are serious about their image. If someone is complaining about a particular painful waxing, that should be a red light. If you see lots of compliments on their Facebook page, you would feel more confident to go there. 
2. Does this salon offer their regular customers things like a manicure as a ‘thank you gift’?If they offer gifts to regular clients it shows that they value people, and they value their services.
3. The proof is in the pudding. Even if they have good representation online, you will still have to test them out in person. Go for something small, such as a trimming, or a shampoo to observe the energy in the place. Do the stylists look tired and unenthusiastic, or do they give you a good energy? 
4. Do they handle their clients in a haphazard way? This is very important. Does it seem asif they just want to finish the job? Of course, you are not the Queen of England, but you are another person in the world, just like anyone else, and you deserve respect and consideration. 
5. Does the cook put love into his/her food? Meaning – do they enjoy their job i.e. making you look and feel beautiful? 

And finally, if aunt Mary told you about this fantastic beauty salon around the corner, but the windows are dirty, and there’s a fowl little smell inside – just trust your instincts…and walk on.

It’s the smell!

People do like dogs and we identify with them. To most it seems pretty obvious that dogs experience the same emotions we do.  Dogs get sad, and they cry. They get happy and they wag their tails. You understand what they want, even just from the way they look at you. A dog will show you when he/she is in pain. 

I have met people before, particularly some religious people who believe that animals don’t feel pain, and they don’t have a soul.  Any animal lover would have to question their level of emotional intelligence. I can just imagine the same kind of rationalization applied in other circumstances like war, where it’s convenient to believe that the enemy doesn’t feel, and is not a real human being.

Nevertheless, what I’m trying to establish is the connection between people and dogs, and that’s not very difficult since there seems to be evidence that dogs and humans have co-existed for at least 32,000 years!

We carry some of the same diseases and habits. People are like dogs.  Yet dogs seem to have some peculiar habits that just don’t have its equivalent in human behavior. Or do they?

I’m talking about one habit in particular. That is dogs sniffing each other’s behinds.

Actually, many of the habits that dogs have, are just dogs version of an equivalent human habit, like public butt sniffing. Dogs compulsively sniff each other’s behinds in public.

So what is the human equivalent of butt sniffing?

First of all, what does the butt represent? It represents your dirty and dark little secrets - and don’t people just love sniffing out other people’s dirty and dark little secrets! Particularly famous people.

Isn’t it just fantastic when another famous person’s sex tape is discovered? This is in fact the very same thing that brought Kim Kardashian to fame – and we have been sniffing her big butt ever since. A woman like that just has to be full of all kinds of scandals! Isn’t it such a nice stinky surprise?

How about Bill Clinton’s affairs? Mmmm.. I can still smell that!

People, just like dogs derive morbid fascination out of other people’s predicaments. It makes us feel better about our own lives. (And I thought I was the only one with a stinky little secret!)

The stinkiest secret human beings carry around isn’t that far from the butt. Sex is the suppressed and hidden secret, according to Freud. 
He said ‘Sexuality is the lyricism of the masses’ – meaning the hidden reason for philosophy and art or something... in fact I’m not exactly sure what Freud meant with that, but I know what he believed about sex. He believed that it was at the core of our nature. We have this idea that we humans have become civilized and rational over the last few centuries. 

Apparently, that’s just apparently. It is mostly a façade. Hidden underneath our veneer of rationality is a dirty little secret – a stinky one if you may. We are not what we think. Come along, let’s have a little sniff. It’s a dark little place, and once you go tumbling down the rabbit hole, you may never come back.

So, better than smelling your own asshola, rather check out another’s. If a rich and famous person could have a stinky secret, then I must be OK, right?

Relax! Just keep on smelling the news, the scandals and the stinky secrets revealed. We are just human after all. I’m sure we have been smelling each other’s traseros for thousands of years.  At least we could have some sympathy for the little doggies. They are not that absurd after all. Closer to home, they are our kindred little Freudian scapegoats of human nature – and they are so cute after all!