You are currently browsing the monthly archive for January 2008.
Who am I kidding…..I am snowballing back to the old life. I have started to stay up late again, so thats another goal breached. Luckily, I have some good changes persisting in my life, so not all is lost. Perhaps this would be a gr8 idea. Overload myself with more than I can handle, and in the end, hopefully I will be better off than I was initially, even if I renegade on other goals. This of course, is not to be done now,the hour calls for some drastic measure, the last lap sprint to the finish.
After putting in decent amount of regular time in gym, I can see the results, which are slow in coming. My weight has stabilized at a massive 70 kgs finally. The thing is that I gained weight from 65 till 72 with alarming rapidity, and it still is sticking around my desired body shape. Whatever the changes inside, are yet to show up visibly. I am not setting any weight targets though. I believe that by living a proper lifestyle, and working out regularly, my body will be able to assume whatever shape that is optimum for me. Of course, I will keep pushing the boundaries at every chance, and thats given for me.
This pushing boundaries need not only apply to the physical though. There are many such frontiers beaconing to me. I work by the philosophy of baby step. Slow, steady, focussed. I also overload myself, as I have the habit of sliding back.
Now, I think, is the time to break the plateau I am at. I will be done with the lectures within a week, and exam after that. I will finally get some time for myself. Thats when I will work out what I want to do, how I want to reach what I want, how I will be, and many such fundamental things.
That’s how I am feeling these days. Make no mistake, I am still very much observing those goals I set initially. The problem is, I am also wasting the crutial time that I am left with here @ MDI. So also, I am drifting back to those energyless stupors of old, which set me back on quite a many occasions.
There are really simpler solutions for this. The behaviour is the result of lack of clear goals, wrong they may turn out later. The old habits die hard they say, procrastination is the worst foe I still fight with. I have, as I well confess here, all the tools and many more at my mental disposal. Using them, however, is a different ball game for me these days. How I crave for some privacy where I can think properly for a length of time. Another is the fear of the unknown,which has been inherited by me from my father. That abstains me from creating the future that I have potential to fulfill. This keeps me well within the boundaries, and lets my talents and skills, and imagination atrophy.
Changes must be made, and none of them temporary. I am already enjoying the slight clearaty that I have got, I need to build on it. So its back to the drawingboard, to paint the next level of goals, to create a platform on which I can erect a proud monument for my achievements,and my brave failures.
246
A lazy day was today. Nothing constructive done except I went for workout in the evening. Had light lunch and slightly heavy dinner. I am feeling so tired because of staying awake last night. I will sleep a bit early, at around 10:15 PM. Nothing much of importance to mention today. Did not plan or do anything though. Just wellagiri around for the whole day.
Today I woke up at a comfortable 9.30 . the whole day was wasted in watching the match. In the afternoon I saw a movie and went on the ground to watch the cricket match between Juniors and alumni. A lot of time wasting during the whole time, and I ended up in a dinner party with only junk food. After stuffing myself, I came back to the room and stayed up till 3-4 for no reason, watching a couple more movies in process.
Is there a pattern I am detecting here?? I have done similar things in the past. I did change my lifestyle a few times, got new habits, got rid of old ones. The consistent result was I drifted back to the old habits after sometime. The drift was so slow that I didn’t even feel I am sliding back. This time, because I am chronicling the progress, I am atleast noticing that drift. This is an improvement over last attempts, but not much of encouraging one. I mean, something has to be done right?
I woke up late, at around 9.30AM, and wasted the whole day. I also had paneer and other junk food by truckloads. I can feel the aftereffects even days after I do this. the drowsiness keeps me aware of what I am eating. I am also curious about why I chose to sleep late. Maybe it was a trade off between craving for the party, and the need to abstain from more temptations. Whatever maybe the reason, the compromise still set me back by a long way. Sleeping late for one night means, the disruption of the schedule for the next few days. Irregular sleep timings and skipping on exercising and so on. Even I start craving fatty, oily foods after I get a sleep deficit to carry around.
I am planning to think about this today evening, and come up with solutions for many problems i have noted down in previous posts also. I am sure I have all the tools I need with me, it’s just the application of concious thought to the problem is what is needed. In fact, I have this nagging suspision that I am abstaining from thinking much about the change because of some unconcious reason. That also must be brought to the light.
Overall, a bad day, in terms of goal implementation. It will have to be analyzed and learnt from. Improvement is the only way forward.
413
Today, and this must be sounding repetitive already, I woke up at 6, switched off the alarm, called and woke up my gf and slept again. Woke at 7.30AM and actually went to gym for a not too intense workout. Had a smallish breakfast and went for the lecture of SAJV. Enjoyed the antics under the name of presentation from Abhinav, Adit and crew. Had Negotiation submission today. So, hurriedly modified the reflection paper written by a friend and submitted it. Watched two movies back to back. And now its time to sleep.
The going raw thing is growing inside me, held back only by the equal amount of junk food I am suddenly craving for and eating. Maybe I am paying a bit too much attention to the fact that I am eating more raw, and hence the mind is craving for oil and junk. I am still not feeling totally alert and I need to enter into a deeper sleep to achieve that.
Today, I acted on the advice given to me by my negotiation professor. The long story is as follows: He used to teach me organizational design subject in the first year. I loved the elective and I think he did notice me. Although my attitude of staying away from teachers apart from the interaction is lecture did not allow me to bond with him as much as I would have liked to build. Now, during the last lecture, he was talking about power and politics and he mentioned that “some people might have got less marks than they would have because they never interacted or showed extra interest”. I figured it was directed towards me because of his hints during the discussion. Today, immediately after the lecture, I went to him to discuss what was explained in the class, and I must say I detected a faint flicker in his eyes. I must have got the hint he gave me. So now I will build on that, and I need to do so too, because I want to learn so much from him. The fact that he is the coordinator of placement cell in the college does help a bit too 
Today I went to gym and as I had mentioned in previous posts, felt the glucose level dropping while exercising. So I stopped it immediately, and came back to the room to have a banana or two. Next time onwards, I will have glucose before I go to the gym. Atleast todays physical mastery was on target.
Mental mastery was on target too, I did understand a bit about how one should approach a placement process. That was very illuminating for me. But it was not a very strenuous day as far as this part is concerned. Nor was I totally awake in a way. There is always this drowsiness overshadowing everything I do.
Emotionally also I was very stable and positive almost the whole day. So that is good enough. I need to create finer points of evaluation so I can grow in this area too.
Spiritual growth is happening since I became conscious of the fact that my spiritual focus is getting lost in the day to day muddle of living my life and doing what matters to me mostly in short term. This lope sided living must be balanced and I think I am off to a good solid start here.
Well, tomorrow alumni meet is happening with cricket match scheduled between my team and alumni team. This should be interesting. I am really looking forward to playing in that match with my newly found muscles and stamina. Hope I will last long enough on the crease to showcase it to the audience.
Talking of cricket, I had really stopped watching the game for years. Sachin was in a bad patch and somehow I was bored of the game. That interest is back now, and is eating into my schedule, replacing other things. I am watching the test match almost the whole time and I think I should must curtail the thing.Bad things can happe, including wastage of time. not that I am a highly effective person anyways, somehow I cant find the energy to do all those things I have always wanted to do. I think the time is ripe to address such major issues plaguing my life.
I am ready to take on myself.
737
Today was, like yesterday, marked with mental fogginess. I need to rethink the lifestyle, because something is either going wrong, or this is mini detox I am experiencing. I will let these things continue till weekend, and will review the situation then.
In the morning, I woke up at 6AM, just as I had planned. Went to brush the teeth et al. Trouble hit me then and there, somehow I felt so drowsy and tired and just drained of energy; that I immediately hit the pillow and tried to wake myself up twice more unsuccessfully. No avail. Finally I dragged myself to the bathroom at 8AM. Went to see the cricket match happening between India and Australia at WACA. Had a largish breakfast and went for the lecture.
Today also, I was not completely alert in the lecture, and fatigue was overriding me throughout. The topic of todays lecture was the international monetary systems, and since I am quite interested in understanding how the whole system works, I could keep myself from sleeping. It was back to the match, which I saw till the day end at around 3.
I had a theater class at 4PM where I had to deliver a monologue. I had no clue what that it, and so I almost gave that class a slip. The lucky part is that I just went there to check how many people are attending the class, and I realized that almost all are planning to attend. This can of course be attributed to the veiled threats of flunking given by the professor in the last lecture.
So, the stage was set, and I was trapped inside with no idea of what I was going to say in front of those savage batch mates who can kill someone real fast and smoothly. Then I saw the video camera right in the middle of the central isle of the classroom, its yellow sodium light mocking me in unflickering gaze. I was on the verge of running away then and there, but then I realised now that I am almost becoming MBA, I should be able to bluff my way out of this one also.
The presentations (monologues ) started and I was getting happy after many of my batch mates faltered while delivering the lines they had tried to by heart within a short time. That, IMHO, is a stupidest and sureshot way to screw yourself in front of audience. Why someone has to by heart those words when you have many of your own, is really beyond me. So, I recalled one of the short stories written by myself, and cooly converted it into a first person, instead of the actual third.
The professor asked the author of the fiction and I panicked again. I had no choice but, so I started to create emotions I would be inserting in the scene. The words were not important because its my strength that I can improvise and speak really well impromptu. So, basically I chose to introduce those emotions and created confidence in myself, while others were stuttering. Suddenly the scene reveresed right in front of my eyes. Some of the people who had prepared and also taken part in plays during school years started to perform really well. I was afraid to perform just after them because generally the recency effect can take your case. Funnily enough the chit with my name on it, was not picked almost till the end, there by increasing the overall adrenalin in the system.
When my turn finally came, surprisingly I didn’t even have butterflies in the stomach, which is customary for me. I went there and delivered a much better performance by even my standard, although I curtailed it much more than planned previously. I managed a laudable “A” in this performance. The performance is there on the recording forever now, and I must make it a point to take it and remember how I tackled the situation.
I did not go to gym and that is because I was feeling tired throughout morning. I think by tomorrow I should be all right and should go to gym for the customary workout, though not so much intense.
One more thing worth mentioning is that I had a “RAW lunch” today. It consisted of fruits ( papaya) and onions, cucumber, radish and tomato. This was a good step because the alternative was “Chana masala” which is bad for my system. The unwanted side effect was that I felt craving to have fried food and ate junk food by tons. The figuring out to implement system is critical.
773
A mixed bag of a day today for me. It started pretty well with I waking up at the preplanned time of 6 AM and working on the live project I have taken. After some time, I went to gym and worked out happily for an hr or so. The only bad thing about it is I get tired in the end, otherwise I would love to do that much more than current level. Then things went slowly from bad to worse.
I had four lectures in toto, which went horribly sloooow because I was feeling sleepy all the time. Add the fact that I felt like hogging greasy, junk food in heaps ( and *shivering while writing* I actually had junk food ), and the day which promised to be perfect for me got tainted by that sin.
In fact, I had a couple of oranges just after I came back from bath, and I started hogging right from breakfast. too much of food, and that included French toast pair and an omelette. And to think that I am abstaining from eggs!!
The time for lunch came while I was recovering from a riveting cricket match, and there again I ate way too much. Then again in the late evening I had a couple of samosas and the stupidity was complete.
I feel maybe because I was sleepy and tired overall, I must have lost control over myself,and drifted to comfort foods junk foods instead of the designated diet.
One good thing for last couple of meals is that I am having more portions of raw cucumber,tomato,raddish and onion slices along with the normal course. Now, the next challenge is to tweak the eating habit so as to eat that raw thing first before having anything else. That way I will eat more things raw. But before all that, the first habit I must develop is to eat only when I am hungry. Also, I need to think about the stuff I have got from home, and I somehow have emotional relationship with it. Well, I will figure out something soon.
Physically, today was a mixed bag. In the morning, I was feeling very enthusiastic about exercising. So much so that I went back from the door, and ran for another 10 minutes on the treadmill. Rest of the day was tiring. Maybe because I skipped on working out during last full week, I was kind of down physically during the same period and sudden spurt in the exercise could do such a thing. Atleast I am so away from coffee! I need to abstain from tea also me thinks….
Mentally, I was tired during first lecture of IB during the morning. I was alert more in INS lecture where Subir Sir was talking about power and politics. The last lecture with Tarun Chaturvedi Sir was treat as usual. He talked about taxation in shares, in which he told us about many things. Things like pre and post pregnancy food habits of Indian women, VDIS during 1997 and its effects. Nizam of Hyderabad and his treasure and so on! What a wonderful person he is.. truly a maverick!
Well, I am back to college at last. On a sour note, or sour throat actually. Caught cold in mumbai, and it seems to me that some kind of epidemic is spreading through the city during these days. I really did not exercise, and food was random too. Had a pizza and huge mounds of sizzlers back to back while I was busy being ill. None of that, now that I am back in the college. I woke up at 7.15ish and went to gym for half hr. Nothing too hectic as I need to retune to the lifestyle again. I am in no hurry to get better it seems. As it is said, too much of a good idea is a bad idea, or anything in excess is poison. I mean, surely it cant be normal distribution 
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The placements are knocking at the door now, and the mood is pretty tense, even though people here are enjoying the remaining days here to the fullest. The sense of finality is settling around me. A few days left here, and those are so pregnant with the glowing possibilities. How many lives will be made here, in these coming days??
The day was completed with a mental background of grogginess. The change in the sleeping schedule is telling on me. Now that I have realized that I have actually completed one month since I took up original goals to be implemented, I did follow them for the most part, if not the whole. The going home thing almost ruined me goals wise. Although the food is improved at home with large emphasis on fruits, the sleep and exercise pattern was interrupted, and the cold screwed up everything. I tried giving reiki to the affected sinus and it stopped irritating me. The side effect of this poorly thought work was I stayed up the whole night for two nights in a row. That had me blinking for sleep during the day. Another thing was going to pune to meet gf. Had just food and rest the whole time, eating pizza @ smokin’ Joe’s and a tonne of sizzlers@ kobe. My system was bound to rebel after all this sudden abuse.
Now I am back, and catching up on the not-so-old-but-healthy habits. Now is the time for new challenges, to be built on old ones. And the time is to think positive. Now that I am sure I will feeling those mood swings and other stress related problems are bound to crop up some time or letter. I can calibrate the goals to take that into account and I will be ready for the placements in the best health possible, be it mental or physical!
Physical mastery will be continued with the gym routine intensifying gradually. I am not interested in too much of muscular build, as long as I burn calories and get into a decent shape by march, I would consider the goal to be overachieved. Lifestyle and diet is the new mantra for the next target date :15th february.
For mental mastery, I have a lot to do. To relearn what I had done during the MBA, to go through many concepts, to read reports, to create HR answers for typical questions.. A lot to do on that front. And I don’t even need to set any goal here, the very existence of a good job/salary/location depends on how well I perform this part of life. I also need to choose a goal which will enable me to concentrate on one thing for a long period of time. Yoga would be of help here according to my memory.
For emotional mastery, I can work on this very blog, on a regular basis. Identifying emotions I felt during the day and capturing them here should do the trick. Right now I am unable to come up with any specific plan, so I need to refer the Steven covey’s book, the 7 habits.
For spiritual mastery, chanting and reiki is the flavor of the month. And integrating it throughout the daily chores would be the next target. Although it seems simple enough, it is actually the most difficult thing to do under circumstances.
The next few days will be kind of hectic mentally. I need to keep myself calm and distracted! because otherwise the anticipation of the placements can get pretty nerve raking. All theBest to me I say! and start collecting those positive and motivational quotes!! 
Its been too many days since I had blogged on this one. The major reason was the freezing cold which gripped my part of country. It was well neigh impossible for me to get up early and hit the keys running . Hopefully I will be able to do that after i reach the college, since the weather has mellowed some.
Well, talking about changes, I am at home for ten days and I have also surrendered my crowning glory. I have got cold, am sleeping late and waking up just before afternoon. The not so much changed things include, some fruit intake, severely reduced work out and doing nothing .
I need to take up the lifestyle which I am losing fast otherwise it will get more difficult as the days progress. It is worrying how I change back to pre MBA lifestyle the minute I hit home. Perhaps when I will be home for good, I will be able to alter my lifestyle back to what I want it to be, instead of lazing around like I am doing right now. Of course, I always take utmost rest when I catch a cold, and so it is this time also. The days looming ahead of me are full of excitement, expectations, fluctuations, flux and fun. I hope to approach them with full zeal and exuberance gained from fruits, rest, and exercise.
For last few weeks I have been trying to change my way of living into a more humanized manner. So, I now abstain from coffee, milk, and added sugar. I never really consumed non-veg in large quantities, so curtailing that wasn’t such an uphill task. I also dropped eggs from my menu. I shifted my diet to fruits, increased the intake, and still hope to push it much more further. I also have started to work out almost everyday, with cardiovascular exercises and strength training. And more importantly, I have stopped staying awake till 3Am and instead sleep at around 11-12. Basically I am going berserk!
The results are really good for me, although they are not miraculous.Thats because apart from gaining excess weight I didn’t have any major health issues till now.I am an active and sports loving person, and do participate in various outdoor games regularly.
The main difference immediately noticeable was the mental acuity increase that I am seeing now. My thinking is sharper, more in depth and I am able to sustain the thought links for longer period. I am able to relate more diverse concepts with each other and evolve a more “awake” feel.
On the physical level, I am losing that extra fat and gaining muscle instead, so the first effect I noticed is while wearing the clothes. I now have more stamina compared to last month, and it reflects. For example, Although I slept at 5 after the new years party, and that also poorly, I could manage to stay alert during the lectures without even having the coffee. This state I can contrast with last month where I had to have a coffee before every lecture, and still could not concentrate fully through the whole time.
I have just started on this path, so I sincerely hope to see more benefits as I go on further down.
While searching for books on diet, nutritions and exercise,I came across a book called ” The China Study” . The book vindicates at least my personal beliefs and experiences after experimenting with my diet.
The book basically links animal proteins with many diseases prevalent in wealthy nations, such as cancer, heart disease, diabetes, blood pressure related problems and so on. It says that the meat and dairy products contain many chemicals which aid in working of carcinogens and inhibits the anti carcinogen elements in the body.
The view which I identified with the authors is that they treat the food holistically. They don’t apply reductionism, by analyzing effect of each individual chemical present in the food on the body. Instead they conduct well designed experiments and establish statistically significant relationships through vigorous research.
I would recommend this book as a priority read for all.
Some links related to the topic :
The book.
link for PETA.
And a from a blog which I found very interesting: this, this, this, and this.
