Dedication, Discipline, and Drive - The Lazy Man's Guide to a Better Mind & Body

What's good everyone!

The above title, 'Dedication, Discipline and Drive' is from a Conscious Reggae song, entitled 'Champion' by Keznamdi which I'll link below. It stuck on me one day while I was listening to music doing a run on the treadmill in the gym. This topic sounds a little mundane and over done, I know. But I am not one of those gym nuts who hulk out and preach to everyone about having "Big pecs, braaahhh!" No, I'm just an average adult in his thirties who likes to smoke some doobies and have an occasional beer when the time is right.

'Champion (Reggaesta Remix)' by Keznamdi

---

Let's take it back to about the year 2001. I was skinny. Too skinny. When I used to sit on the passenger seat in my sister's car in California, the airbag light wouldn't even turn on because I weighed under 100 pounds. I would eventually join the United States Air Force for lack of anything interesting to do with my life. This was before I picked up DJing or knew anything about the entertainment industry. Too early in the social media days for social media to have any effect on marketing. Anyways, I joined the USAF, and my recruiter had to lie on the paper to say I was heavier than I really was. Sounds like the plot for the first Captain America movie.

Skinny, underweight, long-haired Ryan prior to joining the USAF.

During the six week of Basic Military Training (BMT), they gave us a strict diet: no sugar, and no caffeine. Oh, and we also had like one minute to chomp down on our food before the Training Instructors started yelling at us and chasing out of the commissary. With a lot of exercise and our busy daily routines, I started to realize that what I was eating wasn't enough to give me enough energy or to feel full throughout the day, so I started to fill myself with more rice, bread, or potatoes rather than meats or vegetables. That, on top of our daily exercise and runs made me put on weight. I went on vacation during my time off and paid a visit to my sister. The airbag light in her car turned on! However, she wasn't too happy about how fast I was eating my food. Took me about a month to learn how to eat slowly again.

After graduating from technical training. Trainer said don't smile or we have to do push ups!

After BMT, I went on to do my regular job in the USAF in Nebraska. New place, new faces. I'm kind of used to people coming and going by this time (and now as well). I tried my best to stay in shape for the quarterly fitness tests, but my good friends that lived in the same dormitory as me liked to bang on my bedroom door to wake me up and shove a bottle of creatine in my face to get me motivated to follow them to the gym. It worked, however, I understand that creatine is just water in the muscles, and once you stop drinking it, your muscles go back down. Am I correct to say this?

Anyways, eventually I would leave the USAF and discover the world of the entertainment industry in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, my hometown. Whilst doing random jobs in Malaysia and Singapore such as learning to be a qualified barista, other F&B positions, event management, graffiti art, all of these would keep me more than active (and exhausted).

Shortly after leaving the military, around 2009 in Singapore.

Until about five years ago, while I was working in Singapore and living with my aunt, I decided that after so many years out of the military, and was losing my muscle mass, I decided to run and use the many outdoor facilities they have in Singapore to do some workouts (chin-ups, push-ups, squats, leg lifts, etc). And that just became a fad for a month, then BOOM! At twenty-eight years old my metabolism slowed down. I started to show signs of a belly, it was getting harder and harder to go up stairs, and I was getting really lazy. Especially in periods where I didn't have a job or much money, I'd stay home sleep, eat, watch shit on youtube, putting on more weight and feeling more depressed.

Fast forward another two years, and I end up in Thailand, doing more random F&B/barista jobs but making peanuts for money. Eventually in 2016 I decided, fuck it, I'm going to be a teacher. I was finally somewhat financially stable! The down-side to that was that I was living in small towns, small communities and not many people or places to visit. Most of my time was spent crashing in bed from exhaustion of waking up too early in the morning and teaching naughty kids. Don't get me wrong, kids brought joy to my life, they treat you like a rock star! But by the time I get home, my internal battery is dead. This became a routine for the following year and a half pretty much: work, eat, sleep, wake up, eat, sleep. I eventually put on too much weight. Not too much, but it was definitely having an affect on my laziness and mental well being. I would not be writing this right now, being 12:30 at night and a school day tomorrow if this was me three months ago.

March 2018. Pot bellied and double chinned.

Four months ago, I was on my vacation in Kuala Lumpur. While visiting friends and family, I was always getting the same comment, "You put on so much weight!" They were absolutely right, though. I wasn't incredibly overweight or obese or anything, but I definitely started feeling out of breath at times, was waking myself up when I was about to sleep by the sound of my own snore, and when I was having trouble tying my shoe laces or clipping my toe nails, I finally decided that this shit has to stop! So this is what I did.

--==Diet==--
A friend of mine, some of you may know, Glenson had lost a lot of weight without exercise, so I decided I would try the same thing. The first two weeks were so hard! I started to buy vegetables from the nearby supermarket and made my own salads. I was feeling hungry all the time and therefore lacking the energy I needed to teach. I also started running, but I'll explain more on that later. I consulted Glenson about this and he said maybe I'm doing it wrong. I should be eating more fatty meats. Okay, but my plan was to start exercising as well, which he didn't do on his diet plan. I bought whole chicken from the supermarket and added that to my salad and that helped a little.

Taking a break from eating chicken salad every day, I went to a Japanese restaurant to eat some udon and sashimi.

By then, my stomach was getting used to eating in small amounts of food to sustain myself. A revelation came when I was on a boat party I was DJing for and a fellow DJ/friend I was chatting with about my diet looked down at the bottle I was holding and said, "All carbs except beer, right?" So I decided, instead of going all out no-carb diet, I would just cut down my carbs as much as possible (except when I get cravings and want a pizza or hamburger). I started to eat noodle soup or a half plate of rice from the school canteen and a salad at night. Then came another obstacle. I can't sleep at night if my stomach feels too empty, so I bought a toaster, which I told myself I would do for two years, and started to make sandwiches at night before bed, but I noticed that for the two weeks that I did that, I wasn't losing much weight, and looked at how many calories a piece of toast contained. So I substituted toast for bananas as 'filler food'. I also stopped putting chicken in my salad. This is about where I am in my diet as of now.

--==Exercise==--
As I previously mentioned, I started running about two weeks into my diet. Running in Thailand is no easy task. There aren't any proper sidewalks near my apartment. If there are, the curbs are too high between sidewalks, or they are filled with puddles. So I settled on walking ten minutes to the nearest highway which is on the way to my school. Full of pollution, puddles, holes, and snails by the stream, fun! About two weeks into it, I felt my knees really started to hurt a lot. I had trouble going down the stairs at my school. It was apparent that the uneven pavement were fucking up my knees, so after a month of recovery, I joined the gym above the supermarket so I could run easily on the treadmill. I use an app my sister recommended called 'Run C25K' which slowly build your endurance until you can run a full 5 kilometers. I'm about halfway on the app now. I also started lifting some small weights, doing incline sit ups, using the pectoral machine-thingy and standing leg lifts. Trying to focus my exercise after my run on my abs, while doing arm and pectoral muscle exercises to give my abs time to rest in between exercises. It's been two months now at the gym and I'm about halfway there, feeling great!

--==Mind==--
Most important thing about having a balanced diet and exercise is definitely disciple, and secondly a need to do attitude. There are a few days (or a week at most) where I'd pig out a little or if a friend is in town, I won't go to the gym as often, but I always come back to the diet and go to the gym as often as I can. Every day, if possible. I feel now that this can be applied to every day life, whether it's feeling energized in the morning for your day job, or getting off your ass to write an article on Steemit, practicing scratching on my vinyls, or making music instead of watching Netflix all night until you sleep. Set a routine, have a schedule, follow it as much as you can, and don't stop. "Samurai mentality," as my friend @djlethalskillz likes to say.

Visiting my friend at the temple last Sunday, a fellow Reggae DJ and producer as he's become a monk for a few months.

--==Result==--
I'm feeling great! I still have a belly, but I'm feeling improvement every day. At least I can tie my own shoes without much effort now! But mentally, I'm not so depressed or lonely all the time now that I have something to keep my mind occupied and I have more energy to do other things to help improve my life (after an after school nap). I hope that I can help inspire some of you to do the same, or if you have any further advice for me, please drop a comment! Thanks for reading and supporting possibly my longest write-up yet! One Love!