Arvind Ashok: Fitness & Nutrition Simplified

1. Change the oil you cook in. Cook in but­ter, coconut oil, or olive oil. Remem­ber — cook in low flame.
2. Increase the amount of veg­eta­bles you eat.
3. Are you get­ting enough water? Keep a glass next to you at work. Tip from a friend — take a walk every 20 mins — this will either be to the water cooler to refill the glass, or to the restroom. This keeps you from sit­ting too much at your desk job, and gets you enough water for the day.
4. Don’t buy snacks. If you keep it in the house for “friends”, you will eat it. Bet­ter to not have any crap in the house.
5. Energy bars are the same as candy bars. Do not fool your­self. Stop eat­ing them.
6. Replace your sports drink with coconut water. You get more elec­trolytes, more potas­sium and less sugar.
7. An oft-repeated one. Stick to the aisles perime­ter in a gro­cery store.
8. If in doubt, don’t buy it. What­ever it is.
9. Don’t buy processed crap.
10. Read the nutri­tional labels. If the num­ber of ingre­di­ents is more than a hand­ful, it is prob­a­bly unhealthy. For exam­ple, “oats” should be an ingre­di­ent list of one. It nor­mally is not.
11. Do not buy fake meat. This falls under “Do not buy processed crap”.
12. Increase the dif­fer­ent types of veg­eta­bles you eat — add more diver­sity to your diet.
13. “Low fat” means processed. Do not be scared of “full fat”. Eat full fat dairy.
14. Too much of any­thing is bad for you. Run­ning, pro­tein, carbs, Cross­Fit — doesn’t mat­ter. If you do too much of it and not much of other stuff, it is bad for you.
15. Don’t eat only lean meat. Eat fatty cuts of meat. Eat organ meat. Look at a car­ni­vore - the lean meat is what the ani­mal gets to you towards the end.
16. Coconut milk is awesome!
17. Rice » Wheat.
18. If you are not look­ing for­ward to your meals, your diet is flawed. And it will fail.
19. If you are not look­ing for­ward to your work­out, your work­out is flawed. And it will fail.
20. You are prob­a­bly fat. Don’t lie to your­self. Yes, I know — it creeps up on you. Hap­pened to me. And it hap­pens all the time. Don’t lie to your­self. Get off your ass and do something.
21. No — being old does not mean you can get fat, slow, immo­bile. It does not mean “I can­not bend as eas­ily” is allowed. It means you are lazy. You can fix your­self. So, fix yourself.
22. Yoga is a great entry point to mov­ing your butt.
23. You’ve abused your body for the last few years (or decades). You can­not fix it in a few months. So, don’t aban­don your new regime. Stick to it.
24. Play sport. If you don’t play any, pick some­thing up. It doesn’t mat­ter if you suck.
25. Don’t be scared of being uncomfortable.
26. Work­outs I do and work­outs you do need not be dif­fer­ent. It is only a dif­fer­ence in degree, not kind.
27. Set a goal. A mea­sur­able, pro­gres­sive, achiev­able goal. And work towards it.
28. Mea­sure your weight, take pics of your­self — do this at least once a month. And keep a log. This will help you see if what you are doing is hurt­ing or helping.
29. Run­ning shoes are over-rated. So are Vibrams.
30. Exper­i­ment on your­self. Try some­thing out. If you don’t see results after a month, try some­thing else. Do not stop though!
31. Look­ing for a good day to kick-start the process, and change your life. Now’s the time. If you put it off today, you are gonna put it off tomor­row as well.
32. You need to start cook­ing your own food. No way around it. If you are too busy or too lazy to have con­trol over what you are putting into your mouth, you need to get your head examined.
33. If you are unsure about what to do, hire a trainer. Some­one who will under­stand you, and work with you. Or find a friend who is into fit­ness and latch on to him.
34. Do not be intim­i­dated by the jocks at the gym. Do not worry about embar­rass­ing your­self. Be proud of your deci­sion to get fit. Yes — this means YOU!
35. Get­ting fit takes time. And it does not end at a point. It is some­thing you are going to do for the rest of your life.
36. Get your lipids, blood pres­sure and all that good stuff checked peri­od­i­cally. Keep a log. This will help you see if what you are doing is hurt­ing or helping.

Many of these are hacks that I’ve com­piled for myself. For exam­ple, #31 — I used to fin­ish last in my Cross­Fit class for a few months. In fact, my first day, I was spent after my warm-up! But I wouldn’t be here if I let that stop me.

If it helps, print the list and start check­ing stuff off. Some peo­ple are okay chang­ing their life imme­di­ately, some peo­ple need to slowly ramp it up. Fig­ure out what kind you are. You can never be “too healthy”. And remem­ber, what works for me might not work for you. Fig­ure it out. Good luck!