Technical Artist

Thanks for being patient. I know it has been awhile, and now, what you’ve all been waiting for!

Continuing from Part 2, the final part of the Happiness and Health series!

Increasing my conscious awareness (and education) about nutrition, healthy eating, and how our food is processed became a powerful tool to activate the tremendous subliminal power of my unconsciousness. Giant corporations are well aware of that power, that’s why they spend hundreds of billions of dollars every year in marketing and advertising to get you to eat, and eat more (obesity epidemic anyone?).

Why not utilize that power for my own well being? Being aware, and well informed can really help in the development and health of my own awareness in defense of the marketing propaganda out there.

You can apply the same methodology to body mass awareness, by constantly weighing myself everyday after a shower, I become much more consciously, and more specifically, unconsciously aware of my body mass. I leverage the power of subliminal mind control on myself to make quicker, and better decisions when deciding to eat something that might affect my body mass.

Can you believe that eating pork for breakfast was only introduced during this past century? Similarly with diamond engagement rings, it is only recently in the past century that we’ve adopted these supposed “life long” traditions (those guys did an excellent job by the way).

I commit myself to health research, and condition my body to recognize and remember the health issues that are a concern for my body, and it eventually becomes second nature, not to mention a whole lot easier, to refuse, and accept certain types of food products. Keeping myself in top mental and health condition is a benefit all in its’ own.

Remember, don’t go off jumping bridges because I say so, I think it is important to eat foods that you love; for instance, I love meat (chicken, pork, beef, seafood = yummy), and a fast food burger tastes as good as it always has, I’m just not a fan of the aftereffects, or the level of processing that’s involved (watch the Food Inc. documentary).

Throughout your life, you will have conditioned your body to love, and hate certain foods, your body will react positively, or negatively, based on those emotions and thoughts. If you force yourself to eat spinach, you are basically sending signals to your body to reject it. Stay fulfilled, eat stuff you love. Of course, I hope you don’t expect that a diet of fast-food burgers, milkshakes, or deep-fried onion rings are going to give you a cover model body.

We can condition ourselves to increase our food palette, we can choose to love, or hate. It is a choice, our choice. I mean, we humans have been eating for thousands of years, and mostly vegetables too, so I’m sure there are at least several recipes out there than can interest even the most stubborn “meat-tarian”. I for one have taken a liking to learning new vegetarian recipes, with the increase in plant sterol count and nutrition, health benefits are pretty much a given.

Sleep, we spend a third of our lives doing it (supposedly)… it must be pretty important. I did my best to grab 8-10 hours of sleep a night minimum.

Alright, so let’s say we will live until the age of 75, that’s 25 years we are recommended to spend sleeping. If eating is how we grow, and training is what we grow, then sleeping is when we grow. The same thing can be said about any positive change we want our body to go through. Taking a 20-30+ minute nap during the day is great for relieving drowsiness and back pain, increasing alertness, energy, and heightening awareness and intelligence.

Investing in a good night’s rest might be in our better interest, because doing your fitness work, and health research can only get you so far. Sometimes, it’s worth it to take a rest.

If I find myself digging a hole, the first step I take to getting out is to stop digging!

Yes, it takes some level of discipline, and yes, it can be difficult at times, if it was easy, would we really be able to appreciate it? Would we be able to truly value it? I know I am very happy with my results.

So there you have it. My experience, my results, my rant. How accurate is my information? Like I said before, that responsibility is yours, and yours alone. Now go get educated, become aware, lose some fat, get some abs, eat some good food, and go be happy and healthy while you’re at it. Evaluate yourself regularly, and then in a few months, really take a good look at yourself (just be cautious of the possibility of increase in excess skin/stretch marks due to the sudden loss of weight).

Click here to view a very interesting, and powerful movie trailer for one of the best filmed documentaries today on our current situation on the food industry (American, but it affects Canadians too).

As for me, it’s time to hit the gym. I’m gonna try and make up some of that mass back… in muscle!
(maybe I should write another article series on that… hmmm)

~
Scott

Happiness and Health – My Secret to Losing Fat, Getting Abs, Eating Great, and Having More Strength and Energy Part 1, Part 2

Scott Xiong here, and continuing from Part 1 of the series, Happiness and Health Part 2!

How and why did I come up with the lifestyle plan that I created for myself? Read on (I don’t believe in so-called diets, to me, the word diet is just a term meaning eating habits).

Everything begins with a little health research, not all vegetables are picked ripe, especially if they are imported, they would normally rot or become seriously bruised during transport before they reached the store. Therefore, the majority of fruits and vegetables have to be picked ‘unripened’ so they are firmer, making them easier to transport, and ripen along the way or upon reaching their final destination – therefore not providing their maximum nutritional value. Flash frozen vegetables are easier kept, and are more likely to be picked fresh and ripe before they are frozen. I decided to eat fruits on their own, not combining them with proteins or carbohydrates, and as a light snack. As for Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) fruits and vegetables… well, the name itself pretty much explains it. Would you eat vegetables if they were spliced with spider DNA so that insects would stay away from it? Here’s an interesting lesson I learned from a good friend of mine, “If insects won’t eat it, neither should you“.

Except for fish, I drastically cut beef, pork, other red meats, and chicken from my diet, only eating them when I rarely ate out for a social gathering. Don’t get me wrong, I love~ meat, steaks, sausage, ham, chicken wings, chicken breasts, lamb chops, pork chops, meatballs, burritos, hot dogs, burgers, meat pies, and deep fried… the list goes on, however, I’ve come to an understanding about how it can affect my body. My theory is that fish break down much easier in the body than regular meats, most likely because fish are water based animals, and they do not become toxic during digestion like that of red meats, or land animals. I mean, our body has to break things down in order to absorb them, so the easier it is, the better right? Also, fish are full of Omega 3 essential fatty acids, great stuff for a lot of mental and health issues, look it up. Thankfully, I can cook decently well, just a little olive oil, some fresh ground black pepper, sea salt, and a little lemon juice can go a long way.

Also, I did my best not to mix carbohydrates with proteins in my meals. Considering that the body produces different enzymes to break down carbs, protein, and fat, I wanted to be as efficient as possible, and be able to assimilate as much as possible, with minimum waste.

Water is extremely important, I cannot begin to press just how important being well hydrated is. Eating water rich foods like vegetables helps in their digestion, without having to directly drink any. I do my best to avoid drinking water directly during meals, instead, having a glass 30 min before or after a meal so as not to interfere with the breakdown of carbs/proteins. Work and health, one with the other.

Vitamin and mineral supplements, you may have heard a wide range of criticisms about them. Do they even work? Well, let’s put it this way, if a giant, for profit, pharmaceutical corporation creates a report on vitamin supplements, claiming harmful effects from their use, and is instead recommending I buy their patented, overly expensive, chemical infested drugs… I’d take my chances with the cheaper, generic supplements. Maybe you haven’t heard, but medicine is big business, there’s bound to be bias from certain areas of the spectrum. Now, there are vitamin lobbyists out there too, just like there are for pharmaceuticals, and big food companies, however, I try to take things with a grain of salt, and I recommend this to you, the reader as well. You gotta do what’s best for your own development and health.

Also, it seems strange that there happens to be a lot big pharmaceutical backed research claiming adverse side effects of vitamin use (and minimal amounts from their own medications of course), and it may be important to note that there are people who are lobbying for and against the sale of generic vitamins, minerals and supplements of the like. Some claiming that they should be regulated, or are produced by only ‘licensed’ manufacturers. Now what does that mean? Well, in my eyes, if pharmaceutical companies are the only ones legally allowed to produce supplements, then they can put whatever price tag they want on it, and you can expect it to be a big one. I don’t think their research will say anything bad about vitamins when that happens, do you? What is the price of our happiness? I’m sure there are some very interested parties willing to find out.

Am I vouching for vitamins? I fully believe that if you can get the appropriate vitamins and minerals from natural sources, go for it. Be aware though, that we live in an era where the general quality of the soil, and especially the fruits and vegetables that grow in them, are drastically lower in nutrients than they were 60, 40, even 20 years ago. Not to mention we live lives where we may not be able to have the time or luxury of getting the right nutrients daily from the foods we eat (even in this great age of convenience where machines do a lot of our work). Supplementation can be a good alternative. Personally, I take a plant sterol (phytosterol) supplement, Omega 3 rich fish oil supplement, multivitamin, and vitamin C supplement daily.

Fat-free and sugar-free foods, are they the answer to our obesity epidemic? Personally, I stay away from the majority of products claiming to be low fat, or low in sugar, and I’m especially cautious of fat-free or sugar-free products. It’s more of a marketing ploy than anything else. People like to eat food that taste good, and we know that fat and sweet taste good. Take the time to read the ingredients of these products (assuming the manufacturer is being truthful), generally companies will compensate either by filling them with low-calorie sweeteners, which are basically artificially engineered chemicals. In nutrition health terms, that just cannot be good.

Aspartame, acesulfame potassium, sucralose, High Fructose Corn Syrup, and/or others are all cheap, artificial/refined, and highly used low-calorie, or extremely sweet, sweeteners used to replace regular sweeteners such as dextrose, sucrose, and glucose-fructose. These, are to be taken with extreme caution. I don’t necessarily think regular refined sweeteners like the ones mentioned are healthy, however, I’ll take them over those artificial low-calorie sweeteners any day. My preferred choice though, all natural, sweet honey, Canadian maple syrup, and cane sugar baby.

There are legitimate, natural, low calorie sweeteners out there, such as the widely used in Europe (especially Finland) xylitol (sugar alcohols derived from the fibres of vegetables and fruits, like birch trees), or stevia (sweet leaf) from South America. However, due to a lot of controversy, export/import laws, and high tariffs/declarations on foreign sugars and sweeteners, it is currently illegal to use ‘stevia’ as a sweetener in the United States, and can only be sold as a dietary supplement in Canada. It leaves me to wonder why an artificially developed by-product like aspartame would be given the green light so easily for consumer use, yet something natural like plant leaves are banned. Hey now, wouldn’t that be an interesting topic to do some more research on? 🙂

That’s it for Part 2! More extra useful information to come in Part 3! So stay tuned!

Happiness and Health – My Secret to Losing Fat, Getting Abs, Eating Great, and Having More Strength and Energy Part 1, Part 3

This will be a three part article about my experience on achieving health and happiness, losing fat, getting abs, and having more strength and energy.

You might hear people say things like, “I have health issues, I can’t lose weight, I am not happy with who I am, what I do, where I live, I have no energy...” and the like. Now, not to shortchange anybody or doubt them, I just think that life is what you make of it. When playing poker, you don’t get to decide the cards you are dealt. Why not try to enjoy yourself? It’s your choice if you want to put money down, you are accountable for that choice, and that’s it.

We can all use some help every once in a while, timely information, and maybe a little health research about nutrition health can be priceless.

Long story short, I managed to cut 15 lbs in about 2 months, this was back in May/June. I then lost an additional 5 lbs over the next month, and now through August, I have maintained that loss. It may seem like a little, or a lot, it depends on your perspective. Being 170cm in height, or 5’7″, I have a slim, muscular, and well defined build. I feel great, and full of energy; the physical, mental and health aspects are fantastic. I did not even go to the gym once (which really frustrated a lot of my peers).

My secret? Sex, eating well, and a lot of sleep. Sex covers the majority of the happiness part of it, and it burns a lot of calories. An absolutely excellent form of physical exercise (that’s probably why I didn’t need to go to the gym). Health-wise, allow me to define the latter of those requirements in greater detail, you might even be able to gain something from my experience. I don’t claim to be a health professional, nutritionist, or even a health guru. I am just a guy, who is taking responsibility for his health, and sharing my experience, findings, and maybe rant for a bit.

The health of our body is our responsibility, regardless of what physical ailments, or advantages we have. It is imperative that we educate ourselves on a matter of things for better health, and most importantly, a better life.

How? My Plan: Generally, eat a lot of nutrient-rich vegetables and fruits, preferably local, especially organic, non Genetically Modified Organism (GMO), consuming a decent amount of whole grains, cut out meat products except for fish, eliminate refined sugars/sweeteners, eat small meals several times a day, take some dietary supplements, drink plenty of water, and get lots of sleep. Also, I wanted to avoid mixing carbohydrates and proteins in the same meal, eat vegetables with every meal, and only eat fruit on its own, as a like snack. As for fat, I just made sure to eat the least amount of saturated, and specifically high in trans-fat foods as possible. In terms of gym exercise or weight training, I had to cease it in order to not skew the results.

What Actually Happened: I was surprised to find a mix of achievements and failures of staying consistently disciplined on the plan. I did not eat nearly as much vegetables that I wanted, kinda sad actually… and when I did get the chance, they were mostly flash frozen vegetables (most likely imported/GMO too). It was more difficult than I thought to consistently incorporate fresh, locally produced vegetables into my diet. I was fairly consistent with my bowl of rolled oats every morning for breakfast, and eating small meals several times daily. Eating mainly fish was not a problem for me, I did however, a few meals every week, eat foods containing beef, chicken, or pork (no complaints). I did an excellent job of avoiding refined sugars and low calorie sweeteners. No glucose fructose, no High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS), no Sucralose, and definitely no Aspartame (I like my soda pop, but I kept that to a minimum, like once a week, and only natural cane sugar soda). I did manage to stay well hydrated with lots of filtered tap water, and got lots of sleep too. The plan ended up doing pretty well for my development and health.

What does this mean? My conclusion came not by eating great exactly (as you can see), but rather by not eating poorly. Since I did not eat a lot of vegetables, I can’t say I owe it to the veggies. Basically, not eating as much meats, avoiding the refined sugars, staying well hydrated, and getting lots of sleep were the key factors for my results. Did the supplements help? I can’t say for certain, I would like to think so. I definitely wasn’t getting the right amount of vitamins and minerals from what I was eating on my own, so I imagine that the social and health aspects of it were worth it.

For work and health! No risk, no reward! (Sorta)

As to how I came to this plan and why I made the choices that I did, that will be in Part Two. See you soon!

Happiness and Health – My Secret to Losing Fat, Getting Abs, Eating Great, and Having More Strength and Energy Part 2, Part 3