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Books on Health & Fitness?!

24 November, 2017 ~ poorbjorn

Heeey! I need to step up my game in the health and nutrition department. I’ve neglected this genre somewhat this year. I need some book recommendations! Anything fitness, lifting, food, nutrition, lifestyle related..anything really…. shoot!

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(It’s broccoli in my mouth…looked like a good idea on paper. Now I’m not so sure… 🥦 )

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Posted in Blog posts book reviewer broccoli eating healthy as fuck health and fitness books recommendations health book recommendations how to live a longer life?lose weight and gain muscle personal development reading

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Reading List 2018
Reading List 2017
Reading List 2016
Favorite Books of 2017
Favorite Books 2016
Blog posts

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Now it’s time to level things up a bit. Here are my stoic challenges for the coming weeks: —— ❗️Not drink anything for a day. —— ❗️Do public speaking. —— ❗️ Sleep without a pillow for a week. ——- At least for me all these appear worse to me than only drinking water for and sleeping on the floor (with pillow 😀) for a week. (Actually, I still only drink water it kinda stuck with me.) —— One of these new challenges have a slightly different feel to it; to do public speaking. —— Voluntary discomfort is not only about gaining appreciation for things you have and preparation for aversion: it’s also about eradicating irrational fears. —— One of the most common irrational fear is the fear of public speaking. This is one of my irrational fears. So this month I’m going to put myself in uncomfortable situations where I need to talk in front of large groups of people. Wish me luck! —— Follow my progress in my stories! —— In what ways are you torturing yourself these days? 😆🤔

—- 📝 Experiments: “It fun! Once you embrace the world of experimentation the world becomes a sandbox in which to try new ideas, ask new questions and to challenge the current orthodoxies.” 👌🏻 —- 📝 “Don’t listen to what people say, watch what they do.” There is a gap between the incentives people say they care about, and those that ACTUALLY changes their behavior. (Money and being like everyone else are powerful incentives, but we don’t like to admit it). —- ⚖️ VERDICT: The book is filled with entertaining examples of how one can benefit from thinking unconventionality and out of the box, but as a whole it’s very shallow. If you want to improve your ‘ruling faculty’ you should read these instead: —- 🔥‘Influence’ by Cialdini —- 🔥 ‘Thinking Fast and Slow’ by D. Kahneman —- ⭐️ TAKEAWAY & 💭 THOUGHTS: The book talks about knowing when to quit something and when to stick with it. Due to the #SunkCostFallacy we are prone to continue to spend money and time on endeavors we are already heavily invested in. Consider the the opportunity cost (what you have to give up in order to choose something else.) of what you do every now and then! —- A while ago I quit studying Chinese. I was very serious about it and I spent some good money on teachers, books and language apps. But the biggest investment was in time. It was really hard to quit after hundreds of hours of practicing Hanzi characters and tunes (Chinese is not only hard to write, its impossible to pronounce too 😈). The sunk cost fallacy was strong. But it would be insane to continue, since I would probably have to study for the rest of my life to reach the level of a Chinese 5-year-old, and by that time everyone will probably have a #Babelfish in their ears translating in real-time anyway. —- So I quit! The opportunity cost was too high. I had too many other interest to pursue. I don’t regret it one bit! —- What are you happy you quit? 🤔 Let’s make quitting sexy again! 😉 —— Photo credit: @ha77on —— 2/5

It’s has been great to revisit the old Stoics. So inspiring in fact that I’ve been experimenting with doing stoic exercises in voluntary discomfort to get rid of irrational fears and desires. (More updates on the next phase of that experiment is coming soon! 😉) —— I’m finishing this book, Stoicism and the Art of Happiness, tonight and the review will be up shortly! ——- A big theme in Stoic philosophy is to recognize what is in your direct control and what’s not and act accordingly. ——- ’Don’t seek for event to happen as you wish but rather wish for events to happen as they do and your life will go smoothly” - Epictetus, ‘Enchiridion’ —— Now I’m looking for something new! Can you recommend me a ‘one of a kind’ or surprisingly good nonfiction book? A book that was surprisingly good? 🤔

I’m back into stoicism again after rereading Seneca and after picking up the so far excellent book, ‘Stoicism and the Art of Happiness’. But this time around I’m not settling with only theory. I want to try some actual Stoic exercises, or more precisely; Voluntary Discomfort. —— Why would the Stoics voluntarily put themselves in uncomfortable situations? Well, to develop appreciation and gratitude for what I already have and prepare for future adversity. —— What are some things a stoic practitioner would do: —— ❗️Underdress for cold weather. — ❗️Forgo pleasures such a passing of a glass of wine of watching you favorite show. —- ❗️Sleep on the floor instead of the bed. —- ❗️Eat only plain foods and drink only water for a week. —- ❗️Emulate poverty by dressing in shabby clothes and sleep under a bridge. —- ❗️Not drink anything for a day. —- ❗️reading the comments on articles and videos on the internet to elicit anger and practice equanimity (found this in on Reddit 👍🏻) —- ❗️ Sleep without a pillow. —- You get the idea: Get yourself more uncomfortable than you’d usually be. It’ll make you stronger. You’ll appreciate what you have and eliminate irrational fears. —— Or at least that’s the theory. Now I’m going to try it myself for a month or so. See my stories for daily updates! Or wait for my Lab Report . 😀🔬 —- What experiments are you conducting in your life? 🤔

Daniel, linguist and Christian missionary, spent decades in the amazon jungle trying to learn the curious language oh the Piranhã in order to do a Bible translation. —- He was not the first person to try to convert these Amazonians. For 200 years people have traveled there to spread the good news’, but not a single Pitahã has ever taken the bait. They are just not in the marked for being saved! —- It is a lovely account of immersing fully into a foreign culture, and the discoveries Daniel made had linguists pull their hair, since it crushed old assumptions about foundation of human language. —- 📝 Immediacy of Experience Principle: if you haven’t experienced something first hand your stories about it are irrelevant. The is the case for Pirahã. —- 📝 The Pirahã consumes everything they hunt and gather instantly. The don’t salt or smoke their food like other Amazonian tribes. —- 📝 Among the piraha the youth gets no sense of teenage angst, depression or insecurity. —- 📝 Piraha have no creation myth or oral history. (❗️) —- 📝 Left and right = “up“ and “down” river. They oriented themselves by external means, not relative to their own bodies. —- 📝 “Theories effect our perceptions; they are part of the cultural information that constrains the way we see the world around us.” —- In the end it was Daniel that became the convert and started to doubt his own beliefs. He was turned from believing the bible was the exact word of God to go as far as challenging the value for myth in its entirety. —- ⭐️ TAKEAWAY: Perception is learned. We experience the world according to our experience and expectations, “not always, perhaps never to how the world really is.” —— Learning about the Pirahã culture is fantastic but the linguistic details can be quite exhausting at times. —— 3/5

I just re-read On The Shortness of Life and wanted to share some reflections and takeaways. The first one being time-economics. —— 📝 “No one set value on time. All use it lavishly as if it cost nothing. But see how these same people clasp to the knees of physicians when they fall ill and the danger of death draws nearer.” —— 📝 “Check off, I say, and review the days of your life.” How many has been left for you? —— These quotes really got me thinking. Demand on my time has increased over the last 2 years since I first read this book and it might be time take some inventory of when I’m too generous or wasteful with my time. 🕰 ——- I’m sure I’ve missed the mark in several areas of my life. Whether it’s saying yes too many activities, tasks and people, working too much or spending to much time on mindless entertainment. I’m sure I’m guilty of a lot of “tossing about” as Seneca would say. 😉 ——- In what areas of life do you think you maybe spend your time too lavishly (or without clear conscious intent)? 🤔

Re- read this gem for a book club I’m attending. Read it for the first time 2 years ago and was blown away! —- 2016 REVIEW —- A brief essay on the the duration of life. And about why most people think it's too short, when it's actually long enough to if the time is used properly. —— Seneca is a stoic philosopher (4. BC - 65 AD. I won't go into into much detail about what a stoicism is, since there will be a lot other opportunities to dwell into that in upcoming post (judging from what I'm reading right now). With a risk of oversimplifying, I like how Nassim Taleb put it: "A stoic is a Buddhist with attitude, one that says "fuck you" to fate". ——- "It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste much of it. Life is long enough, and it has been given in sufficient measure to allow us to achieve the greatest things, if the whole of it is well invested..." "...we are not given a short life but we make it short, and we are not ill-supplied but wasteful of it… Life is long if you know how to use it." ——- So, how do people waste their life? By gossiping, overindulgence in food and sex, living life for others (work a job you hate), complaining, etc. ——- Also worrying about the future or letting the past disturb ones tranquility. Then, when we find out that these things are unimportant, we only have a few years left to live and wonder where all the time has gone. ——- "He who has grey hair has not lived for long, he has existed for long." —— Being written 2000 years ago, it's amazing how almost all these thoughts are applicable to contemporary society. —— My takeaway from this book is to be more protective of my time and be wise in how I spend it. A sad thing would be to spend your life doing things you dislike with a promise of leisure and freedom in the future. Wasting each day as it comes for a future that one are is certain to live to see. —— 5/5

Wow, this sucks! The book is just a long commercial for the authors other services and the concepts covered could have been a 15-page pamphlet. —— Wow, this is brilliant! It’s to the point, clear and actionable. ——- Both these assessment are correct, depending how you look at it. But my intention when picking up this book was to learn something practical. And I did. ——- You brands message should be simple, clear and, most importantly, packaged as a story where the customer is the hero. —— Many brands and marketers get some fundamental stuff wrong and puts the brand as the hero in their marketing instead of the customer. ——- 📝 Story in a nutshell: “A CHARACTER (customer) who wants something encounters a PROBLEM before the can get it. At the peak of their despair, a GUIDE (you) steps into their lives, gives the a PLAN (your product), and CALLS THEM TO ACTION. That action help them avoid FAILURE and ends in a SUCCESS.” —— 📝 WRONG: An example of doing it wrong was Tidal, Jay-z music service. The marketing made whining artists the heroes of the story instead of focusing on the customers needs. ——- 📝 RIGHT: And example of doing it right is Apple with the Mac. The customer is the hero facing a problem; Complicated computers that stands in the way of the customers creative expression! Apple has a plan for our hero, the Macintosh computer. ——- 📝 Story is the greatest weapon we have to combat noise, because it organizes information in such a way that people are compelled to listen. ——- When you finish this book, given you’ve done the exercises, you will have a new brand script for your services or products that capitalize on the strength of storytelling (or on human weakness to stories, hehe!😈). The book left me inspired and equipped for taking stuff to the next level! —— ⭐️ TAKEAWAY: Since I don’t really have a product to sell I’m going to use the story brand method to improve my website (hehe, will be quite easy judging from the state it is in). I will do this next week. Another takeaway is how uncomfortable selling things makes me feel. I have a really hard time with it. —— 4/5

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Practicing Stoicism: Voluntary Discomfort. 16 November, 2018
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Thoughts On: ‘On the Shortness of life’ by Seneca 28 October, 2018
Thoughts on: “Building a Story Brand” by Donald Miller 12 October, 2018
Thoughts on: “The Little Prince” by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 5 October, 2018

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