Monthly Life Report – May 2023

Health Report

🏋️‍♂️ Exercise

I did well for the past month. Went to the Gym or did some exercise for 24 days. That figure is the highest in the past many months. After quitting alcohol, I have been able to sleep better each day. This meant a morning routine of waking up early and having more energy to work out.

I did the longest run time of my life. I have played games all day, but never ran at a stretch for more than an Hour. Last Sunday I did a 70 min. run at Sanjay Van, New Delhi. I also inflamed my Knee in the process.

🧎Rehab

Regarding the Injury in the back, I have recovered well in the past month. I am mostly pain-free on normal days. However, the pinching pain in the groin area is not going. It is now 6 months since I have noticed this pain. The pain basically comes while internally rotating my hip joint. This is an annoying feeling that seems to be restricting my mobility and ruining my form at squats and deadlifts. I am doing rehab for the same with a new Physio. Hope it gets better soon as I think it is impeding my progress at the Gym and causing the abhorrent love handles.

🥦Diet

I have been eating clean and avoiding sugar wherever possible. I take Tea and coffee without sugar. That cuts the most common way of consuming sugar that we fail to notice. I am now in a state of mind due to practice over the years to say ‘No’ to any drink laced with sugar. Of lately I have replaced regular cold drinks with Zero calorie Coke.

However, I am still eating meals from outside whenever I get a chance. I am not in the strict diet mode of eating minimum carbs and maximizing protein intake. My diet is balanced as I have a healthy breakfast and typical Indian lunch. Dinners are again Dal and eggs with Roti.

🪚Fat Loss

What I have noticed is that I am not as efficient as before at losing fat. Earlier I used to cut few calories for 2 weeks and I was lean. This is not working now. I have little love handles that laugh at me whenever I spot them. I need to more serious of diet this month.

Clean Report

Happy that I removed a vice from my life that was pulling me back. Liquor is cool, for the people that can manage it, great. I could not juggle my health, hobbies, growth, and relationships with liquor. My regulator of drinking malfunctioned every time I thought I would be in control. So, every second time I drank, I ended up drinking heavily, spoiling the next day with lethargy and missing the much-needed workouts and rest on the weekends. Basically, weekends became energy suckers. Also, I ended up eating huge quantities of food and eating at odd hours when I was supposed to be sleeping tight.

This new habit of staying sober may lose some friends for me. But I am Ok with the idea as far as I understand that it is causing me good rather than harm.

Food for the Mind

✍🏽Blogging/Writing

I am happy that I am in a position in life that I always dreamed I would be. Never have I been so regular at writing in my life. In fact, I had grown skeptical of my intentions to be ever a writer. But the past 2 months will always be special months of my life. I have completed a 47 days streak today at writing. In fact, I have posted a blog every day for the past 45 days. This was the break that I always wanted. My blogs have gone nowhere, but my confidence in writing has skyrocketed.

I wish I carry this momentum forward to a meaningful place. I have to have this personal repository as a reminder of how I lived my life. I should not be bitten by the snake of hindsight which makes you feel miserable about your past decision. The poison of guilt often forgets the circumstances under which the life decisions were made. So, with this cache of memory, I can at least assess my frame of mind in the future which makes me take decisions now.

📖Reading

I have read a few books in the past 30 days. Rather, I have been reading a few books that I have been unable to complete. The book that has most impacted me is ‘Influence’ by Robert Cialdini. I have not found more knowledge packed in a single book than this one. I think everyone should read this who wants to understand how we get influenced by the psychological tricks that people deploy on us for their own benefit.

I have completed the book ‘Courage to be Disliked’. It was a good book but not really my type. The book is a narration of wisdom between 2 people one of them being a philosopher and the other a student. The idea seemed a little boring to me even though the content was good in places.

The other book that I am reading is ‘Storyworthy’. It is a must-read if you wish to tell better stories in life. Believe me, this book can change how you narrate anecdotes and personal stories forever.

Anything that I like to share

The idea of this blog post is an amalgamation of my own ideas and the blog post of Ali Abdaal. I have done daily Journal blog posts during the initial days of blogging. Slowly, I moved away from it and went for writing blogs on researched topics or the concepts that I had learned earlier in the day. Today I saw Ali Abdaal’s blog and saw a similar post named ‘My Goal Report for- April 2021’. I realized I can do it too as I had already done it in the past. This is the stuff that helped me write my initial blogs. Why not do it again in a better way? Check out my earlier blogs where I blogged about my day.

For the next month

I hope to carry this momentum forward and make progress with respect to my website. I want to add some affiliate links and see how things look. Also, I want to develop my website better so as to make it look more professional. I need to work on getting this blog out in public through Social Media. I would have to break my resolve of staying away from social media sites. I can do it for my love of writing.

I will focus on health this month and try recomposing my body metrics.

I would also try to incorporate a mini-weekly report if it works.

Thanks for reading! See you in the next post.