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Micro wisdom delivered to your ears every morning in voice notes ranging from 3 to 15 minutes long. Wisdom on how to live a healthier and more fulfilling life. Every podcast will ground you in the present moment to ensure you know what's important, the here and now.
Hello hello good morning. It's week five of the Christmas challenge and for people not listening you're still going to be able to follow along so don't worry. But week five's theme is cooking, meal prepping, meal planning, basically preparation is the theme of the week and how different your life can be or how different your week can be if you spend a few hours planning and actually executing on the plan. Not just to do list and not doing it but actually doing something versus kind of going along with it day by day. So a lot of you will prefer this method of preparation, meal prepping two or three days in advance cooking, you kind of automatically are in this field and some people do not prefer this way and don't really like meal prep and stuff, but I want you to test it out this week.
Speaker 1:Right? And a few quotes. One quote, I can't remember who said it, but it's like, if you give me eight hours to cut down a tree, I'll spend seven hours sharpening my axe. And that's a key part here, like you know you can go at something very quickly with a blunt instrument and it can take far longer or you can sharpen the tool and the execution is far easier and swifter. And this is a big thing for nutrition right, so with nutrition if you actually meal prep which is you're actually doing okay I'm going to prep my lunches for the next three days, I'm going to prep my breakfast so I know what I'm going to have for the next three days and I'm to prep my dinners or at least my post dinner snacks for the next three days, It takes away the effort at the time.
Speaker 1:It becomes a smoother process. The execution at the time is then just to eat the thing that's prepared. As opposed to potentially going into a chaotic whirlwind battle at the time where you don't know what you're having, you don't have anything prepared, you are going to be likely more emotional towards the end of the day, your cognitive load is heavier, so you've got less rational decision making power. And then of course you're going to turn to stuff that you know is going to deliver pleasure, is the high fat, high sugar, high salt foods or the comfort foods we have, right? So we want pleasure when we're bored.
Speaker 1:We want to escape the boredom. We want to escape the uncomfortable emotions. We want to escape those things through food, which leads us to the pleasure of eating food. It's not necessarily the food we love, it's the pleasure we derive from the food and the taste. It's so pleasurable and we know it's very easy, we know there's many different varieties of foods that live very different, slightly different ways of pleasure.
Speaker 1:It's So an easy escape to that, right? And this is what's gonna help. So what if you know what you got to eat, it takes that away. And you say, okay, I plan to eat this. And then you focus on, self control or at least some form of, being determined about your goals.
Speaker 1:Because then your decision is, right, I've actually prepared the meal. I've actually planned this into my macros or my calories and protein, whatever. I've planned this all in, and now I'm staring face to face with the meal I've got prepped in the fridge and actually wanting to not eat that and eat something else instead because it's nicer, right? And then you think to yourself, right, what do those two paths show me? If you take the path of not eating the meal you've prepared, one, you're wasting money because you might not eat it again tomorrow and it's Two, you're really making things hard for yourself because you're saying to yourself, even if I prepare the axe, even if I prepare everything perfectly, I'm still gonna go away in a different path because it's more pleasurable.
Speaker 1:And you gotta ask yourself, are we designed? Are we are we living for simply pleasure? Is that what we wanna do? Do you just wanna live for pleasure? Do you think you get happiness just from smashing your face with pleasure all day?
Speaker 1:The the the answer is no. Donald Robson mentions this. People often often, he's a leading psychotherapist by the way, confuse happiness with pleasure. So you think to yourself, am I gonna get happier? Am I gonna get closer to my goals?
Speaker 1:Am I am I being the person I wanna be by going and buying something or going to a shop or going to the other cupboard to eat something I didn't plan to eat when the thing I actually plan to eat and I've done the hard work is sitting in front of me? So these are the things to try this week. It says get get prepared, and once it's prepared, all you gotta do then is the action there, and it's a it's a matter of the two paths. The choice of Hercules is very, very simple. The choice of Hercules is this, and I've mentioned it many times before on this podcast, but it's a very, very good reminder.
Speaker 1:The ancient Greek world absolutely loved the choice of Hercules. Hercules was their hero. Hercules was the person they looked up to. What a guy. What a way to live.
Speaker 1:What a character. Because famously he was given two paths. One path of you know essentially gorgeous girls, easy life, pleasure, all the food, all the drinks in the world and then the other path was this other kind of angelic looking woman but she was more dark and she's like listen that's not all it's cracked up to be over there. It looks amazing, trust me, it looks amazing, look, oh my god, all those colors, oh my god, all those girls' Hercules, oh my god, they all want you, look, oh my god, look at all that food for you, look at that cake there, oh shit, didn't I look at that, oh, your favorite TV shows there all day, oh my god, wow. You don't even have to do anything, look they're washing you up over there, they're cleaning you up, everything.
Speaker 1:You got sauna, sauna, sauna and a sauna, everything. But this path with me, it's not gonna be so easy for you. You're not gonna be able to on demand pleasure, you're not gonna be able to just ask for an easy day. You have to do hard things, you're gonna have to go through very very hard obstacles that might take you to the limit. They're push you so hard, you're gonna think, what am I doing?
Speaker 1:I wish I was on the couch with those girls. But what they will do is they'll make you the person you've always meant to be, and that's why you should choose this path, the tough path. And of course he did choose the tough path and he did the 12 labors, you know, the 12 tough labors. And the reason we know of Hercules today is because he who would Hercules be if he didn't go down that path? Well, wouldn't have been Hercules at all.
Speaker 1:That's the main thing about this. So we we kind of need to remind ourselves, like, the person we've always want to be, the person we aspire to be, our our best selves, and there's an there's a thought experiment that someone does, where they say hell isn't like this fiery pit in the in the ground. Hell is when you've ended your life, your life's come to an end, you know, the words I mean, and you meet and then you get shown what your life could have been if you had taken the tougher paths many many times, If you had gone for your potential. That's what hell is. You could've this is what you could've had.
Speaker 1:If you actually said no to all of the simple players all the time. If you put in the work. If you tried hard. If you said no more. If stopped you being a people pleaser, all these things, this is all you could have been, but you didn't.
Speaker 1:You chose pleasure. You chose simple simple pleasures like a robot, you know. So that's all I want to remind you of today. The task today is to meal prep, meal plan, and actually execute on this. So if you don't meal plan or meal prep, you know, tonight, maybe say, right, tonight I'm gonna prep three lunches for the next three days, or I'm gonna put together five snack boxes for the next five days, I'll have an evening, or I'm gonna make sure I know what my breakfasts are all this week, and I'm gonna stick to it.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna put it in the app ready so it's there. You know? That's what I'm looking at here, and that's kind of what you wanna get from this week. So a few quotes on preparation is and this is by William Osler. The best preparation for tomorrow is to do today's work superbly well.
Speaker 1:You know, you're thinking about, oh, I'm gonna lose weight in four weeks. Well, do it for four weeks. Do your task today. Things will happen. Okay?
Speaker 1:Things will happen. Don't have to be perfect. Don't have to be perfect at all. You gotta show up today. It's the only time you can show up.
Speaker 1:One important key to success is self confidence, and the important key to self confidence is preparation. Arthur Ashe. That's true as well. And of course, the famous stoic Seneca says, luck is a method of preparation meets an opportunity. You know, you're not lucky.
Speaker 1:You know, you're preparing. You put you put your your stacking the cards in your favor. And fortune favors the brave or the bold as well. Remember these these phrases. These are ancient, ancient phrases and advice because they've they work, they've come down through time because they've been good for the people that have taken the advice on.
Speaker 1:So that's all I'm gonna leave you with today. What path are you choosing today? Are you gonna be Hercules or are you not? And if not, please let me know why because all of you got so much potential in you as a human. You know, we also think, oh my god, can't believe people do amazing things.
Speaker 1:It's like these people do amazing things. I just They're just doing the work, you know? They're showing up and doing it. It's all inside all of us to become better people. And you don't always need to become better like vanity wise, but all of you internally know there's something more you can give and there's something more you want to give and the more we can give this world or people and whatever, I think the happier you become as well because you're actually giving your all to this life.
Speaker 1:That's really what it's all about. Mean weight loss isn't about just to look good, Weight loss is about, let's get into a healthier weight so I can live longer, so I can live better years, so I can actually be more who I am, so my confidence radiates through and my confidence radiates through, I decide to take more action and with more action I have more opportunities. With more opportunities I meet more people and do more cool things and I make my mark, and I help my family, help my friends, and I shine this light to others to do the same, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, it's all knock on effect from the starting off with weight loss, but weight loss isn't just about weight loss. Of course not.
Speaker 1:If it was just about weight loss, what a sad existence that is. Let's just lose weight to look good. Come on. You gotta be better than that. So have a good day, guys.
Speaker 1:Enjoy your week. Plan today, and remember what I've said over the choice of Hercules, and I'll speak to you all soon.