What happens when you fall off the rails

My wife was making fun of me ever since I started introducing little changes into my daily routine.

Which changes am I talking about? Well, now that I think about it, it’s quite a few actually. If you are really curious, feel free to read my full story.

In today’s post, I’d like to mention only two crucial things that literally changed my life – morning routine and diet.

I started waking up at 5.30-6am instead of my usual 8.30-9am. On top of that I bought a Chi Machine and added couple brain (mindset related) and physical exercises.

All in all my morning routine takes about an hour. By the end of it, I feel full of energy and ready to start tackling any challenges.

One of the major benefits of waking up early is that I finally got some time to think, plan my day and write some thoughts. No distractions for a few hours as the whole world, including my family, is still sleeping while I’m up and running!

Now let’s talk about the diet.

See, I had a lot of problems with my stomach and energy levels in the past few years. I would wake up exhausted, quite often with a headache, even though I had the “recommended” 8 hours of sleep! I got used to this crappy condition so much that I even concluded for myself that it was just the natural part of getting older…

Stationary comfortable job in front of the computer, lack of the physical activity, free lunches, donuts, endless amounts of pizza on the rainy days… I’m sure a lot of engineers can relate.

All of those things contributed to my poor overall condition and I felt like it was totally normal.

Here is the strange part – we study a lot of smart things in schools and colleges, send spaceships to the moon and yet we have almost zero knowledge about food and nutrition, most critical components of our daily lives.

It’s just sad 🙁 But there is hope!

After attending Tonny Robbins event and learning a lot of cutting edge info about nutrition, toxins and environment in general, I stopped eating wheat, potatoes, tomatoes and a bunch of other stuff. I also added a few supplements to restore the balance in my gut.

Basically, I started paying very close attention to what I put in my mind and my body. Not going to lie, it was a bit tricky in the beginning, reading labels and understanding different ingredients, but over time you just get used to that.

It’s not like I started feeling changes immediately. For me, the whole process was very subtle and gradual. At times I even questioned myself wondering if I really felt any different.

Here is the interesting part though.

About two weeks ago I started coughing. Other than that I was pretty normal, no flue or other sickness symptoms. Then around lunchtime on Monday last week, I started feeling worse and worse. On the train home, I was literally lying on my sit as I felt so tired and exhausted. By the time I reached my bed, I was burning and sweating.

The whole ordeal lasted about 3 hours and then the fever magically subsided and I was sort of ok again… Weird stuff.

The next day I went to the doctor and took the x-ray of my lungs which uncovered a small area of pneumonia. Not surprisingly my cough lasted for so long. Even though I didn’t want to take antibiotics, I had to do it to kill the infection as quickly as possible.

Once I started taking amoxicillin that my doctor prescribed I immediately felt changes in my stomach. On top of that, I started skipping my early wakeups and cold showers as I wanted to give my body a chance to rest and recover.

I still remember the feeling I got two days ago when I woke up in the morning around 7.30am. It felt like I traveled a year back in the time machine. I saw my old self again… I felt exhausted, my stomach was upset, it was either too hot or too cold under the blanket and on top of that, there was a very subtle but perfectly noticeable headache in my temples.

My mood took a big hit as well. I became very sad and grumpy and started spiraling down and questioning everything I was doing or planning to do… Honestly, I just felt like crap and I didn’t like a minute of that.

Guess what, last night I set my alarm clock to 5.45am which marked the process of getting back to life again. Yeah, not going to lie, it sucks to be sick, but it happens. Nothing you can do about that. Even Wim Hof gets sick sometimes.

The only thing that we actually CAN do is to change the perspective and the attitude. As weird as it sounds, I’m grateful for this moment of sickness as it reminded me my old self. That exhausted grumpy pathetic guy I used to be.

It gave me the reassurance that all of the changes I introduced into my life wasn’t worthless after all!

One more thing before I check out – it’s ok to fall off the tracks sometimes. Don’t beat yourself up if you do. It doesn’t mean you failed the whole mission if one day you didn’t wake up at 5.30am like you wanted or ate a piece of cheesecake at the birthday party.

It’s very important to pick yourself up and keep going. There is always tomorrow. Clean slate every day.

I talk to so many people who stop their progress after little setbacks like that. I know, we all want to be perfect and follow through with our plans and resolutions.

There is no success without failure. It gives you perspective and learning experience. Embrace it and have the courage to start over again. Life is not a sprint, but a marathon.

I give you permission to fail today, but only if you promise to pick yourself up and keep going.

Always focus on the bright side.

p.s. Just had a huge piece of some VERY not healthy cake by the way, and guess what – I feel good about myself and you should too!

Peace!