I Ignored My Physical Health And My Mental Health Suffered; How To Improve

The subject line is true. Undeniably, avoiding exercise and proper diet leads to a fragile mental state, primed to fall into some form of depression.

I’m doing better now and want to talk it through because others may be going through the same thing.

Sleep

Waking up is the second most difficult part of my day. I love to hit snooze and fall back asleep.

It feels good to sleep in while I’m still in bed. Once I get out, I’m immediately pissed at myself. That’s not the best mental state to start the day with lol.

Thinking back to when I felt my best, I was waking up around 5:50 am, going to the gym at 6 am, eating a proper breakfast, then heading to work. It felt like I already won the day, and everything I did after was icing on the cake.

The most difficult part of my day is going to bed by 10 pm so I can get enough sleep and still wake up early for the gym.

Creating this routine is simple but not easy.

Just decide to wake up at 5:50 am with 5-ish hours of sleep, then go to the gym. Eat breakfast with proper nutrients, then have a regular day. By 10 pm, you’ll be so tired you’ll have no choice but to fall asleep early, jump-starting the routine.

Nutrition

I don’t even wanna talk about this because it’s been pretty bad recently. In an effort to save money, I basically didn’t eat breakfast or dinner, outside of some cereal that the office has.

For me, compromising on proper meals hasn’t been a high return on investment.

As of today, I bought a few things that will lead to an easy breakfast, lunch & dinner.

Breakfast: Overnight Oats + Protein shake

Lunch & Dinner: Breaded chicken cutlets + chicken fried rice

I’m fortunate that I can eat the same thing over and over as long as it tastes decent.

ChatGPT Can Give Nutrition Advice

One of the great first use cases I saw with chatGPT was coming up with a meal plan for users. The superpower of chatGPT is giving it context about you that Google doesn’t have.

Use the following prompt to unlock a great meal plan. For best results in any chatGPT use case, use this level of specificity in your prompts as well.

Prompt: “You are a nutrition expert and I’m your client. I aim to meal prep once a week for both lunch and dinner. Cooking time should be less than two hours and fit a budget of $100 per week. I'm looking for a variety of meals that taste good. I should be able to cook and store each meal in less than two hours without them spoiling over the week. Give me ingredients & instructions to prepare the meals, then follow up with three questions to get a deeper understanding of my health goals, and readjust the plan based on the answers if needed”

Copy & paste that into chatGPT, answer the three questions in depth, and you have a meal plan for the week! Don’t be afraid to alter the prompt to give it more context about your goals or dietary restrictions.

Fitness

A few years ago, I realized that physical health is more than just trying to look good. Your time spent overcoming physically difficult tasks and how positively you think about yourself are unequivocally linked.

Getting a good workout in just makes you feel good. Work out consistently, and you start to believe in yourself more because you didn’t give up on a thing that takes months & years to see physical results.

But if you give up on it one day, you start to subconsciously agree that you are someone who doesn’t push through adversity. Your mental state and confidence in yourself start to drop as you assume the identity of someone who doesn’t push themselves anymore.

Everyone reading this newsletter has aspirations to be a better version of themselves.

I noticed that even doing 100 pushups a day leads to a better day. It takes ten minutes to do. One of the most valuable things we have in life is our mental state. It trickles into every minute of our day. That ten minutes is a great investment of time.

Vaping

Oh man, I love hitting a vape.

I’ve been vaping on and off for six years.

The worst part is knowing you told yourself, friends, and family that you were no longer buying vapes, then going back on that promise because you folded on the urge to inhale some nicotine juice.

Vapes have such a stronghold on society, especially the younger generation. Ask anyone who vapes if they’re proud of it. Of course not. Everyone knows it’s not great for you, yet we compromise our own health and longevity for a little headrush.

The worst part is I’d only get a good buzz off the first four hits on a brand-new vape. After that, there were no physical effects other than a nicotine-flavored nasal drip in the back of my throat. What the hell are we doing?!

I’m a few days with no vape, and the only side effect is the flavored nasal drip that reminds me I’ve been hooked. The positive side is that the drip goes away after day three. From there, it’s relatively easy to stay strong and simply not buy a new vape.

I’m still not above feigning off a friend’s vape at a party. It’s tough.

Journaling

Writing this newsletter makes me realize it’s pretty easy for an avalanche of good habits to fall once you drop one or two.

In early April, I used to journal every day, and it was a great benefit. I love going back to the journal entries and seeing what was on my mind that day. Some days that felt so significant at the moment turned out to be relatively inconsequential. But in the moment it feels like the entire world revolves around that one thing.

I also love writing my thoughts because it feels like I’m bottling up who I was at that moment for anyone to stumble on in the future. Humans have the desire to be remembered in history, and writing my thoughts down fills me up spiritually as I write down pieces of my legacy. My grandkids can read this 50 years from now and realize I went through the same shit they did when I was their age.

Today’s newsletter serves as a journal entry of sorts, although I’ll rekindle time spent with a physical journal. I’ve been using this journal by James Clear, author of Atomic Habits. I highly recommend it. The journal even showed up in a recent VeeFriends Instagram post with my handwriting lol.

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DON’T GIVE UP is a great place to leave off.

Let this be a sign to prioritize your mental health.

The reality we perceive is filtered through how we see the world. If your mental health struggles, the filter gets clogged up, and you don’t see the light in every situation.