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Achieving Ultimate Health

I’ve read about 5 or 6 books on nutrition and health within the past 3 months. I’ve changed my diet a lot. I discovered that I am slightly lactose intolerant, so I rarely drink milk. Regular milk’s fat is highly processed and broken down to where the fats are unstable and unhealthy anyways.

I also completely cut out gluten for 3 weeks, then ate a big meal with pasta, and felt the difference. I’m slightly glucose intolerant also. I can eat a cracker here and there, but I stay away from it. Even if I wasn’t allergic, what is going to give you more nutrition, a bowl of pasta or squash? Bread or broccoli and carrots?

I started taking random amino acids for my depression. I took 5-HTP (I recently discovered that Tryptophan is actually a better choice) and DLPA. After a while, the DLPA made me a little “speedy.” Sometimes I felt a little high and other times I got a little angry. So I stopped taking it.

Best part about using amino acids? No withdrawals.

After reading a couple more books, however, I decided to step it up a notch.

In Depression Free Naturally.. Joan Larson has a table that she uses to get people’s emotions running right.

So being the obsessive person that I am I decided to do it.

First Couple Weeks

The first few weeks I felt amazing. Started to have so much energy that I joined a Muay Thai gym while still lifting weights. I was sleeping deeply (I used to be a hardcore insomniac) about every night. I still don’t sleep perfectly, but I can always at least fall asleep. I used to have nights where I wouldn’t sleep at all.

A couple of the supplements would give my stomach a few problems, and I think I have narrowed it down to Betaine HCL.

Down the Road

This morning I woke up, took some Tryptophan with an apple and niacin. Carbohydrates help Tryptophan cross the blood-brain barrier. The body converts Tryptophan into niacin if you don’t have enough, so taking the niacin ensures that the Tryptophan will be converted into serotonin.

I sit down and do my morning meditation to give my body some time to produce the serotonin.

I walk upstairs, eat my meal, and take my supplements. Fish oil, multivitamin, B Vitamins, extra Vitamin C (everyone is sick), amino acids, and antioxidant complex.

Go throughout the day nice and relaxed 🙂

Afterthoughts

I don’t plan on taking every single one of those supplements for the rest of my life. The point was to bombard my body with the vitamins and amino acids it probably has been deficient in for a long while.

I’d rather go all out and test out everything and be able to figure out exactly what I need and how it actually worked rather than speculating and researching without ever doing anything. I’ve gained a lot of wisdom on how my body reacts to various supplements through this experiment regardless of whether people made fun of me for taking pills like an old geezer.

Once this stack is gone, I plan on continuing with a high quality multivitamin, fish oil, B Vitamins, Vitamin C, and the antioxidant complex.

This also goes with saying that I hope that by that time, my diet will be under my control.

Supplements are supposed to supplement your diet. Therefore your diet is the most important aspect of health. Once I can begin to cherish the joy of eating grass fed beef, healthily raised chickens, and genetically pure broccoli, I will be able to see how my body reacts to healthy food.

Why TJ, Why?

Are you on your way to achieving ultimate health? If not, why?

The most common excuse I hear is, “Yeah, but that costs money.”

What about your gym membership? Does that cost money? What if I told you that you’d be better off eating right instead of working out and then stuffing yourself with a Big Mac?

That is the equivalent of someone picking out a car with a friend where the friend says, “This car is reliable, requires very few maintenance checkups, gets great gas mileage, and looks great.” Only to hear the reply, “Yeah but that costs more.”

Achieving better health is one of the greatest investments you could ever make. Think you’d make more money at your job or business if you had more energy?

What about all the money you’d save by not having to see the doctor or fight off cancer?

I’m interested to hear your responses. Why aren’t you investing in your health? Is money really a factor, or just an excuse to put off feeling your best? We spend money on TV’s so that we can relax and feel good. Let me tell you, eating right and becoming healthy feels far better than any gadget can make you feel, and with your energy you’ll probably get promoted anyway and can buy that plasma TV with your bonus.

Update: June 2012

I wrote this post last fall. Many things have changed.

For one, I don’t have to take any 5-HTP or Tryptophan. I only take vitamins. I eat the healthily raised beef. 😉

However, my cabinet still looks like this:

It’s all about experimentation. Figure out what your body needs. Try it out. See what happens, then adjust. Every body is different. If yours is telling you something is wrong with signs such as depression, get on the road to discovering what you need!

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How To Feel Compassion For All Things

As I show my Pearl Export, with Evans C2 Heads, PDP double bass, Zildjian cymbols, sexy Gibralter, Floating tom, Sabian B8 Ride, to a man who wants to buy, I suddenly remember just how much, I loved that guy.

The Wine Red color seeps deep into my memory. I remember playing shows, hearing my bass drum miked up so when I flicked my ankle my ribcage shook. Where every sound made would surely be known.

The feeling of being in a band, being yelled at, having the lead guitarist sweating in my basement claiming he didn’t go out of time, but then smiling and laughing about it after playing in front of a crazy crowd. Those experiences are hard to find.

Remembering the band practice right before a show, where I chose to make up a “semi-song” for “just in case they ask for an encore.” And they did. And we lied and said we didn’t have a song, but could improvise. And played the song we made up till they didn’t want it anymore.

I haven’t been able to play the drums in over 2 years, due to neighbors in apartment complexes having functioning ears. I never really thought about what it would be like to play again, until it came time to sell this thing that had suddenly become a friend.

I feel an urge to hold on, but quickly remind myself there is no point in that endeavor. They won’t be played by me for a long while or so, they might as well live on with another drummer. One must always go with the flow, even if that results in a temporary bummer.

So why do I feel, such compassion for this drum set? This group of connected objects, that provided me with more memories than I thought I was going to get? Could I go on, without it? Or is it necessary to hold on? Neither is exactly true, but to keep the memories and sell it without a further due.

How to have compassion for any and all things, is to realize that they are temporary.

It isn’t until our grandma is turning 85 that we start to realize we should have spent more time with her. It isn’t until we are halfway through college that we suddenly realize we didn’t go to enough parties and our time spent there was a blur.

It isn’t until we brake our arm that we find out its utility. It isn’t until we have been beat at our own game that we gain some humility.

How would life be different, if we truly reminded ourselves the true nature of every one thing. That to live is to eventually die and there is no point in trying to cling.

To treat our parents, as if they too, were starting to develop a relationship with the Grim Reaper. To treat our first year in school or on the job, as if it was our last and enjoy it deeper.

Life is a gift, one that can be taken away. And that goes for every item, breathing or not, that we see each and every day.

Remember the good, and that this will one minute all be a dream.
And the next time the Starbucks cashier messes up your latte, you’ll think twice about being mean.

How to have compassion for any and all things, is to realize that they are temporary.

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Social Experiment – Being 100% YOU

I’m going to be honest here. I’ve studied some pickup before. And it kind of made me a weird ass.

I was just lonely and tired of being lonely so I was trying all sorts of weird things to connect with people.

This post is from a long time ago and I have since moved on from trying to randomly date as many people as possible, but it still was important for me at the time.

I think I had more anxiety towards women after studying how to approach women.

Yes, I got some results.

But something just was not right. It was as if I was portraying something else. It was actually protecting myself from really getting rejected, and from really creating a connection with other people.

I was objectifying the whole process.

So I said screw it, I’m going to go out and try being brutally me right in girls’ faces.

Being Brutally Honest with Women at the Mall

The first girl I approached straight on, looked her right in the eyes and said, “Hey. I’m TJ. I had depression and cured it naturally.”

She loved it. She responded, “Really? That’s cool! I’m from Israel. I used to eat really healthy.”

What? Why would someone be attracted to you if you had a history of depression?!

We created a real connection. I wasn’t lying at all. I wasn’t being some weird alternate form to try and get her to approve of me. It was real. I later complimented her, because I wanted to. Not to try and “increase her attraction.”

Update: Even though our conversation was short, I later saw her at the mall. She waved at me with the biggest smile I’d seen all week. I honestly felt like I knew her as a long lost friend from talking with her for 5 minutes honestly then what would have happened over a year of bullshit.

Younger Brother Steps it Up

I was with my younger brother at the time and he wanted to test it out as well. So we decided that he should go up to a girl and straight up tell her what he’s been doing lately. He walks up like a pimp that he is and says, “Hey I’m Brady. I’ve been playing way too much Madden NFL 2010 lately.”

Normally you would think that playing a video game for large amounts of time would be unattractive, but later on in the conversation this girl started hitting on him. She started to hint at him saying things such as, “You know, I’ve played Call of Duty before…”

Party

 

My friend somehow got a hook up to a really awesome party just because my friend is, well, awesome. I decided to be straight up and honest again since it was such a relief to just let go and be me.

I acted almost irreverent. I was 110% TJ baby. I did not care whether or not she liked it, I talked openly about everything.

We later sat down next to some other people and instead of trying to pull some weird pick up techniques we were just us, there, having a good time and looking to get to know them.

Why This Works

Have you ever known a girl that would cling to you? Maybe it was fun at first, but after a while it felt like you were her only source of happiness?

That you could do whatever you want, take advantage of her, and she wouldn’t care?

Did you ever feel like you really knew this person? Did you trust them? When you asked them questions, could you tell they manipulated their answer to sound more pleasing to you?

How do you think girls (or if you are a girl, guys, but it’s easier for me this way dammit) feel when they know everything you are doing is to get them to approve of you? That you don’t have any value of your own to offer but only want them to validate you so you feel worthy?

The paradox of all this is that again, you shouldn’t “be yourself” because its “going to get me lotz of gurlz!” You should be yourself because you owe it to yourself.

You owe it to yourself to be with people that love and appreciate who you are. You owe it to yourself to be with people that you (not your friends or family) think are awesome.

Maybe your friends think Susie is a total babe and Sarah is just alright. However, you feel awesome with Sarah and Susie is kind of a bitch. Who should you hang out with?

I always respect the person that is honest with others and lives their own life. When people see you confidently being you just because you are damn good at being you, they are going to realize they can be themselves as well. They are going to see that you are real and it will be like a breath of fresh air to have a real conversation with a real person. Even if they don’t like you, they are probably secretly envious of you. It doesn’t matter what you have. It just matters that you are you and do what you fucking love.

That is just a random girl that my friend Juan talked to. To be honest I took this picture just to look cool and get your approval.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No need to impress anyone. Just do you.