Health Archives

The Guts of Steel (or not)

The heroics and sobering of a man who overestimates his ability with his health.

Hola!

So, growing up in Delhi and binging onto street food and eating all sorts of things made me believe that I have guts of steel. I could eat anything, made with any kind of oil, laced with sweaty palms and the dust and grime and all that that is all around us. And yet continue functioning like I am Rajnikant or Flash or any of those superheroes that are quick on their feet and all that. After all, that is what I am, at least in my head.

I would flaunt these heroics and guts and often participate in competitions around eating gol gappas, vada pao, pao bhaji and dunno what all. In fact, even alcohol. No, I don’t drink per se but on the VERY rare occasions I drink, I can outdrink any fish in the sea and yet walk in a straight line. Really. Try me sometime. Or not.

But, you know life has a way of humbling you and showing that you are an insignificant speck on a pale blue dot and you are meaningless in large cosmic things.

That happened.

Read on…

So, like most large forest fires that start with a tiny spark that often would die without disturbing anything of importance. But once in a while, these sparks help raging fires that engulf civilizations!

In my case, it started as dizziness. I thought my eyesight was finally giving in. Then I got the first burp. I could sense bile building up in my food pipe. And I knew I was going to puke. I know my body like that. Oh, I was on a call with some new colleagues while that was happening. Funnily one of the people on that call was a doctor and we were working on a pharma client.

Anyway coming back. I was on a call. And I knew I was gonna puke. And since this was a new team, I had to maintain my reputation as a sakht man. But then life had the better of me. And I had to puke. So I excused myself. Ran to the loo and spilled some. I thought it was gonna be ok after that. I came back, and finished the call.

And as soon as I hung up, I had to run to the loo cos there was more. And this time, I realised how much my stomach could hold. It all came out. And then for the next 2 hours, I puked and pooped.

Each trip to the loo became tougher. To the point that I could no longer walk the 2 feet distance from my bed to the loo. I walked with some support. I leaned on the doors. I got onto all fours. And then I crawled.

One time I couldn’t even build the courage to crawl and reach in time. Finally, I decided to lie down on the floor of the bathroom itself. I will let you fill in the other details. You do not want to know. I will make detailed notes in my Roam lest I forget.

I am grateful that no one saw me like that. As someone who’s kept his spine straight through thick and thin, this would have been the lowest point of my life. I remember the look on the faces of my parents when I got my nasal polyp operated on. I remember how C4E Junta looked at me when I broke my tooth at a picnic. I had decided that I would never let anyone ever see me in pain. I’ll walk in the rain if I have to cry. I found out that I may not command rain at a whim but I can sit under a shower for sure. Thank God for that shower!

So while I was dying (no the thought did not cross my mind – I knew this was a temporary thing and I will be ok; unrelated, there was a time when I was in Bangalore and I thought I would die. I called Poo and told her to take care of my people once am gone), I had the presence to tell people that they shouldn’t wait on me. I texted a couple of colleagues that I had to work with.

I then switched off my phone.
And slept.
At least tried to.

The bed was way too comfortable, the floor too cold. I couldn’t find a way to rest my head – neither on the pillow nor on the towel that I had rolled up. There were way too many mosquitos. Somehow I drifted to sleep. I remember waking up once to go puke again. And then finally finding it comforting to sleep on the mattress.

All this while, I did not think of work at all. In fact, the work be damned. I have some really fabulous people to work with and they managed everything. Phew.

I woke up late, I dont recall the time. I read online what to eat. Ordered a Gatorade, and some electrolytes. Called for boiled rice and toast. Ate the soggiest toast ever and yet it was yummy. Ate the blandest rice and each grain was full of taste. Slept again. Tried to. Was tough. But I slept.

I woke up the next morning (Saturday), showered, had idli and more toast. The idli was how and what you expect an idli to be. The toast was ok. Went to Starbucks, had half a green tea, some yoghurt (which was really bad tbh; Starbucks need to up their game), some bananas (read about BRAT diet) and then off to the airport. I had curd rice, hummus, pasta and a Diet Coke at the lounge. There, I spotted Subhash Ghai – each time I see a star from the yesteryears, I feel sad about what age does to them. Ghai had to be chaperoned by some flunky who was more keen on filing his plate with pasta. And I will ensure that I dont have a flunky for clutches when my time comes.

So, here I am, now, on 8D, typing things away. Feeling ok. I am grateful that I dont fall too sick for too long. I dunno why – my lifestyle is not the best. Irrespective. I am committed to doing better. I want to rebuild my gut. I want to gnaw at Steel and laugh while I do that. I want to bombard the gut flora and fauna with all sorts of food and fluids and everything in between. Maybe yoga would help. Maybe it won’t. Let’s see.

I am on the road for the next few days. Once am back in Bom on Thursday, I promise will not set a foot out till the Dubai trip (mid of March). I will have about 20 days that I will strictly do Keto! No cheats. No tiny carbs. I will find a way to resist temptation. I will also do yoga. As we speak, a yoga mat has been ordered.

In fact, I’ve been thinking about health for a long long time. If the incident of Friday is not a wake-up call, nothing would be. And this came in quick succession of my uncle’s passing. Since Friday (and the episode), I have only eaten kachra and I vow to never eat shit again. The body is the damn temple bro. I dont sit in a place that is not nice. I returned the in-flight meal cos the air hostess did not serve it with politeness. If I can skip a meal cos it hurts my ego, can I choose what I eat for my health?

So that.

Anyhow. My throat is still sore 48 hours after the incident. The only good part was that I finally weighed less than 91 KGs after I had emptied my gut into a gutter. I just hope it’s not something large. Like I said in the beginning, I want my heroics to never end and continue to operate like a superhero! More on these later. For the time being, over and out!

The Health Hack

A short-post on something that I’ve on my mind (and not too keen on talking to anyone else about).

At am in a good place in life. Things are moving for me and I want to do more. I am surrounded by people I love and people that love me. We are doing ok work and we are respected by the ones around us. A lot of our experiments seem to be paying off. A lot of the ones that we are not hopeful about, I have decided I would shut those.

The point is, I am at a very interesting juncture in life – things look bright and cheery and nice from here on. I need all it takes to be able to do more. And anything that stops me from doing more, I want to stop doing those. Anything that enables me to do more, I want to do more of those.

Among the things that enable me (and / or stop me) is health. And I am fucking up on it. I am eating carbs, snacks, and whatnot. I am not working out and I can feel random pain in my chest, in my knees, my back (that reminds me, I need to go to a spine specialist) and a lot of other places. And no, none of these are battle injuries. These are merely lifestyle ones.

Oh, I’ve been unwell the last 2 days. And I am missing important deadlines – for clients (both old and new). And more importantly, I missed two things – P’s birthday party and M’s “farewell”. I also have a potential team member from C4E in Bom (from Delhi) and I wanted to spend time with her. But clearly am not being able to do that. So that.

Someone said, that maybe its 70+ hours that I talked about in this post that’s catching up on me. May be. But here’s the thing. I am not scared about missing work. I am merely cataloguing it here, acknowledging it and deciding that I would do better. And that, ladies and gents is the short post for the day.

Here’s hoping that I am better from here on 🙂

PS: Whoever is reading this, when am unwell, I don’t want to be talked to about it. I can order my soups, I can order my meds, I can find a doc if I have to. I do NOT ever want anyone to talk to me as if I where dying. In fact, I know that when I die, I don’t want to be around the ones I love. More on this later. Time to go make some mindmaps!

PPS: Oh the irony, as I write this, there’s Outlive on my desk staring at me!

080921 – Morning Pages

A short note on mortality and how I would want to leave this world. When I do.

9:38. Home. The only home I’ve ever known. Except in the embrace of the ones I that I’ve loved. And the ones that have loved me. So this home, the one I have grown in, am here after a while. Almost a year! The last time I came here, it was Diwali of 2020 and then I went to Goa. And then I was in Mumbai and then the pandemic hit us again and all that. So that.

Ok. Time to get into some somber mood. This is probably one of the most important posts I’d ever write. I hope words can do justice.

So yesterday, I went to a hospital to meet a relative who’s just had heart surgery.

Lemme give some context. I’ve known him since I was a child and I have spent enough and more time in his backyard. Even in his lap. And he’s given me no less love than he would give to his children. And in life, he’s been a pillar to the entire family. And beyond. He has been an icon of righteousness, selfless service, and everything that you want in a man. No, he’s not really one of those people who’d inspire you with his tales of courage or exploits in business. He is as simple as they come and yet as special as they could be.

Yesterday, he was bedridden. Which is ok. I have seen him when he’s asleep.

But then he had a million wires and hoses and pipes running through his body to the machines that sort of keep the vital functions alive. He looked frail. Fragile. He still had his confidence and his neck held high, the one that I remember him for. But he was clearly putting in a lot of effort to do that. And oh man, did he put the effort!

Of course, he would recover and would be back to action before we know it. Of course, this is part and parcel of life. Of course, I need to be strong and get used to seeing my loved ones in that state – after all, age is catching up.

But that’s not what this post is about. It is about how I do NOT want to be like that. Articulation happened when I was talking to Krishna yesterday. So, the thing is, most people that know me, know me as someone hyper. Someone that can’t sit idle for a minute. Someone that is so fidgety that he’s moving all the time. Someone so full of energy that it’s literally impossible to control. Or contain. Someone who’s so infectious, so disturbing, so all over the place that you can’t ignore him. I dont know if this is good or bad. But this is how I am. If you have any other impressions of me, please do let me know.

So, if I were to fall sick and I am forced onto a bed, bondage-d by pipes and cables and all that, I do NOT want anyone I know to see me decapitated like that. Before any of those people that I love (there are just a handful of those) were to see me like that, I would want the plug to be pulled. Really. I have thought hard about this. For all the zest I have for life, for all the things I want to do with our limited time here, if I am ever in a position like that, I really want my dreams, my hopes, my existence to be wiped out. I am ok to go without saying my goodbyes. The good part is that hardly anyone cares for me outside my parents and probably my sis. So there is no question of giving closure to people. They would find it. Time anyway heals.

Coming back. So, I dont want the ones I love to have the last memory of me to not be of a person that couldn’t sit still and not have child-like enthusiasm or energy. Come what may.

So yeah. That.

Over and out.

And here’s streaks.

OMAD – 0
#book2 – 0
#noCoke – 181
#noCoffee – 25
#aPicADay – 0
Money spent – 3109
Killer Boogie – 0
10K steps a day – 0
Surya Namaskar – 0
10 mins of meditation – 0
Minimaslism Counter – -2 +1 (ease of shifting)
Morning Pages / Meditations – 271
NOFAP – 7

[RANT] 020821 – Morning Pages

A ranty post on the first-world problems that I am afflicted with.

5:20. Woke up a few minutes ago. Yesterday I slept at some 8:30 or something. I wasn’t feeling too well. I was on a podcast and then on a call and I could barely keep my eyes open. People on the other side could see that I was unwell. Through a Zoom window. Sigh. I think I was probably gassed, bloated, sleep-deprived, and tired.

So, what happened was this – a friend and I decided that we would go for a long walk on Sunday. For that, I had to be out of my house at 6. And that meant I had to wake up at 5. And that meant I had to sleep by 10. But I slept at 1 or something. I had some work to be done. So I was sleep-deprived. Plus right after the not-so-strenuous walk, I ate from Pancham Puri (the best damn place to eat kachra that gives pleasure to your senses). The very mention of it is making me salivate! The food we ate was so well “oiled” that I could see a thick layer of oil floating over the gravy. And then I ate some more crap from random places. And as a result, I was full. And despite that, I kept loading myself with chocolates and water and I dont know what all. And thus I was pukish. And it showed. Not just to me. But to others.

In fact, this seems to be a trend. Since I started walking. Once I am done with my walks, I sort of eat far more than what I am supposed to. And as a result, these walks are probably doing more harm than good. So, need to control these. And fix things. From today on, come hell or high water, if I can’t eat food made at a home, I will not eat. Enough of ordering from out.

I also need to stop ignoring that all this walking around is probably taking its toll on me. You know, it’s making me tired and sore (without any massage or stretching) and I need to let the body recover. Starting with sleep. Need to stop compromising on it.

So that.

In other news, the joy from life seems to have disappeared. You know, there’s not Joie de Vivre! I am not even playing chess, the thing that I had found comfort in after I realized I am friendless and loveless. In fact, I was talking to AnPa on Saturday and I realized that life seems to be going ok but there aren’t any large exciting things happening that I could live on top of. You know, there’s no dopamine hit. There’s no hedonistic treadmill that am riding on. I mean there’s nothing wrong with life per se. There’s some money coming on. Most things I work on are what I like. Side projects are going well. The friends and family column needs a little nudge but that’s ok. Or maybe that’s what I need to work on? Let’s see.

Moving on.

There’s less than 45 days to go for EBC. I am still not working out. Neither am I getting any breathing exercises done. Must start with Surya Namaskar and Push-Ups. Thing is, I am most productive in the morning, and if feel as if I have wasted my time and all that. I dont know the fix for this 🙁

Ok. Enough of rants. Lemme talk of other things that are, well, not rants.

Over the weekend, while I couldn’t do a lot of work, I did record a couple of podcasts. Each of those taught me so much and allowed me to learn so much. I am wondering why I dont do more of these. Probably the laziness? I am not sure. Must fix this!

Then, I talked to someone who’s living the life I want to live. You know, works at the intersection of writing, strategy, teaching, travel, and more. He is doing exactly what I want to do with my life. Makes money. Hold intellectually stimulating conversations. Knows people at “higher” places. He even told me about a VERY VERY famous writer on his writing style. He said the writer would spend a year or two researching his next book. And then check into a hotel for a month and crank out the manuscript of 100,000 words. I think that’s fabulous. I must do the same. Take a month out each year and take a break for a month. And come out with a book. The other lesson I took (and got reinforced) from this chat was that the world celebrates success like nothing else. Need to get there.

Then, I gave gyaan to another aspiring entrepreneur about writing and books and all that.

Ok. Enough. It’s 6:29. More than an hour since I started writing. Need to get on with the day. Here’s streaks.

OMAD – 0
#book2 – 0
#noCoke – 144
#noCoffee – 0
#aPicADay – 0
Killer Boogie – 0
10K steps a day – 1
Surya Namaskar – 0
10 mins of meditation – 0
Minimaslism Counter – -2
Morning Pages / Meditations – 234

PS: Starting today, I will mark all ranty posts as [RANT]. I want to see how much I crib and rant and cry.

180721 – Morning Pages

A braindump of a thousand things that’ve been on the top of my head. Little ranty. Read with caution.

8:15. Woke up a few minutes ago. Have a lot on the top of my head. Let’s see how much of that gets translated onto the post. I am speculating that this would have 1200 odd words. Let’s see how many words I need to dump things here. Since most things are unrelated, I will use sections.

A. Health
If you know me, you will know that I’ve always kept my health the last in the list of priorities. To date, the order of priority has been work > family (including SG2, M, Team SG) > money > friends > writing > hedonism. And then if I was left with time, I’d think about health.

Starting tomorrow, I will change this. I will put health even above work. This means that I will not start my day till I have done some sort of workout – walk, run, yoga, push-ups, etc. I know it’s important for me to start the day early. At a Starbucks. With this brain dump. My best ideas come to me early in the morning. But I will let go of those for the next 2 months. I think I can survive that.

I will also have to sleep well. So that means, no late nights. Nothing after 9:30. Again, thoda tough. But let’s see how it goes.

Oh, related.
I’ve been noticing that the last few days the right eye is losing its sight. When I close my left eye, the right one is unable to focus on things in front of me. Plus I need to squint my eyes to look at things. Especially on the phone.

Brings to another related thing…

B. Social Media.
I am torn between growing my audience and reach on various SM platforms (you know, Twitter, Linkedin, Instagram, blog, etc.) and spending limited time with these distracting things.

Building a following, credibility, and reach takes a lot of effort, energy, thought, and time. Especially if you are like me. You know, with limited talent and a very limited understanding of human nature.

As I try hard to find things that I am interested in and are things that people may resonate with, I end up ~~investing~~ wasting a lot of time on these apps. Like any other sucker for a dopamine hit, I keep scrolling the infinite feed. And before I know it, I have wasted some 2 hours on these apps.

So I don’t know what to do about that.

In the long run, SM is important. Very important to build a personal brand and attract opportunities. Especially for people like me. But then I don’t know how to use it in moderation. On a whim, a couple of days back, I uninstalled Instagram. But then installed it back last night. And I just deleted it again. As I write this.

Lol, hate this love-hate relationship.

Ok. I have an idea. What if I install all these distracting apps on a different phone and use those once in a while?

Wait.

I am trying to reduce things that I have. This will add one more phone and one more charger.

Hmmm.

No, I don’t want to. I will keep things on the primary phone. I will test my self-control and see how long do I take before I install Instagram again and waste time on it. I plan to not use it till October. Let’s see.

Next.

C. Coffee.
I had coffee yesterday. After 17 days. No, I was not craving it. No, I was not sleepy. No, I was not bored. I just had it on a whim. You know, for no reason.

May I liked the aroma of coffee and Hazelnut flavor that Pooja had when I met her.

And no, after I had it, I did not feel any great or moved or energized. Even the tinge of Hazelnut on Americano wasn’t as tasty as I thought it would be!

D. Starbucks
The aforementioned coffee? I had it at a Starbucks. That was open on a Saturday. And will be open on a Sunday as well. Yay! In case you are curious, it’s the one at the arrival area at T2. It’s open from 7 AM till about 10 PM. And they have a private loo. So, for the weekends, I am sorted. Just that there’s no internet. So in case you choose to work from there, please ensure that you carry a charger and have a mobile connection that works. And they only have 2-3 charging points, so you need to go there early enough.

So, life is sort. Weekends are made. I plan to go there again today in a while. In case you want to meet me, you’re welcome 🙂

The best part? It’s at the airport. While I am not transiting anywhere but the feel of an airport is what I crave for!

E. The iPhone troubles
The iPhone charging cable went kaput. And that means I will have to buy another one. I think I would have spent more money on iPhone cables and changing screens than I would’ve spent on the damn phones.

F. The Bombay Bhai
This is what I was waiting to write. Last night, on my way back from the airport, I stopped at a chemist to buy snacks and all. And while I was in there, a gentleman, not more than 30 walked in. Following him was a secretary kind of person. And a beefy bodyguard. The dude was dressed in white and gold. You know, gold bracelets, rings, chains, earrings, etc. Even the chappal he wore had golden straps. The secretary carried two phones. The bodyguard has a gun holstered. Really. No masks though.

And I regret to say this, I was intimidated. The guy was drunk and was making misogynist jokes. To give him credit, he was joking around within the group and not disturbing anyone else. But he was very loud. And very drunk. And very scary. No, I don’t get scared easily. But yesterday was something else.

After I bought my things, as I stepped out, I saw a Mercedes parked in a way that had blocked half the road. Clearly, the guy was used to such pitstops at night. I’d pit him as the son of a local politician. Or a builder. Or he could be a self-made man as well. You know, he could have had a startup that he sold to investors for billions? Or got IPOd?

Anyhow. So I was intimidated at that time. But as I write this, I think I was more jealous than afraid. I mean the guy had everything that I want in life. Money. People that he trusted. A good life. I on the other hand have just this blog and rants. The worse part is that I don’t even know if I ever will make it to be able to afford a good life. I mean I am almost 40. I am way past an age where you are useful. I don’t even have a thing that could potentially become big tomorrow. By the time you are 40, you’ve either made it. Or accepted that you will never make it. I am neither. I am a mere dreamer that can only rant.

In fact, I read this thread last night. I have been thinking about it since. I fucking want to be that elite. Not because I care for signals or trophies. But each duel, each attempt at bettering others can shape me. And allow me to deliver more impact. See this tweet as well. I want to do this at scale!

Ok, deep breath.

Back to the blog. Last thing that I want to write.

G. Rap Music.
I don’t know how but I stumbled onto music from Gully Boy. I heard Ranveer Singh, the actor rap. Is there a thing he can’t do?

I then moved to Divine.
And then to Ikka Singh.
And more.
And I am hooked.

I know these artists may be very commercial and may not be the best or whatever. But I think I am initiated in the rap music scene. I will explore more over the next few days. Let’s see where I end.

Oh, I have to mention that Ikka’s slur around Jamna Paar? It resonated so hard! So so hard! I don’t think it’s as ghettoized as Dharavi is but it was a slur nonetheless and growing up, it did feel strange when people from other parts of Delhi frowned at Jamna Paar.

So that.

Guess this is about it for the day.

Here’s streaks…

OMAD – 0
#book2 – 0
#noCoke – 129
#noCoffee – 0. Had an Americano yesterday
#aPicADay – 0
Killer Boogie – 0
10K steps a day – 0
Surya Namaskar – 0
10 mins of meditation – 0
Minimaslism Counter – -1
Morning Pages / Meditations – 219

Oh, and I had speculated, this would be a 1200 word piece. This is 1460 something. Not bad, Mr. G!

Coming of Age

Back after 2 days. I read somewhere that when you are trying to build a habit, it’s cool to miss things for a day once in a while. The odds of you coming back are about 70%. If you however miss what you are doing two days in a row, the odds of you picking it up again drops down to low double digits. And if you miss three days in a row, the odds are less than 5% that you would pick the habit again. So, here I am. Not missing the third day.

When I say “Coming of Age”, I do not mean Bildungsroman (the German word that doesn’t really have an equivalent in other languages, but is applied to a young adult and means something like growing up). The word merits an entire book to be honest. May be at some other time. Today I want to talk about some other coming of age.

The coming of old age.

A rant about how age is creeping up on me and rendering me useless to function in the society that I need to be young and fast to operate in.

Once upon a time…

I remember there was a time when I could pull all-nighters for like 3 ~~days~~ nights on the trot. Without any fancy coffee, tea. May be I’d have a Red Bull but I don’t think I had the money those days to buy Red Bull. That’s not the point. The point is that I could stay awake for more than 3 days and yet no bat an eyelid. And function at more than my optimal. I was like Popeye with Spinach running through his veins, a car on Nitro boost, Bradley Cooper on NZT-48 in Limitless.

To a point that people would ask me if I was ODing and abusing substances.

However…

With time, I have seen this ability to stay up gradually diminish.

From uncountable streaks of these three-day don’t-sleep and crank-out-things fests to now a time when I cant get by even if I stay up beyond 8 PM. Take yesterday for an example. It sucks that age is creeping up on me like that.

Mind you, this ability did not go poof like that one fine day. It crept away from me. Like you know you have this house (imagine Carl and Ellie’s house in Up) tied to a million Helium air balloons. And as it goes up, the balloons start popping out and the house can no longer continue going up. In fact, the weight in the house starts to drag it back.

That is how I feel!

With each passing day the body seems to be weathering more and more and the ability to recover seems to be reducing more and more.

In the end…

As I write this, it’s 4:06 PM. I have just woken after an afternoon siesta. I did not really want to sleep in the afternoon. I just could not continue to stay up because I had to pull an all-nighter for a project that I was working on.

I need to go stretch my rickety old back and lie down on a hard surface till I feel like a human again.

That’s about it. That’s the post.

Oh, and, FUCK YOU, OLD AGE!

This is part of 30 minutes of writing everyday challenge. Others in the series are at 3010, 3110, 0111, 0211, 0311, 0411, 0511, 0611, 0911, 1011, 1211, 1311, 1411, 1511, 1611, 1711, 1811, 1911, 2011, 2311.