#33 Looking After The Number One Asset In Your Start-Up - You

Photo by Brooke Lark on Unsplash

Team, Team & Team are the 3 most important characteristics for an early-stage start-up right? Then why isn’t there more practical advice out there to help look after you valuable entrepreneurs? I’m not talking of course about finances but rather the things that may properly cripple your ability to execute on your business plan: mental and physical health. There is loads to discuss with mental health but let’s start off with some basics about physical health, specifically food.  Whether you’re an entrepreneur, corporate lawyer or gardener, if you want to perform at your peak, you need to look and feel your best. Getting the right nutrition is key.

---

In 2017, I was searching for some answers so one day at work, I smashed out the entire 4-Hour Body book by Tim Ferriss on Audible. It only took 3 intermittent hours at 2.0x speed while doing some mindless Excel. Like most books, however, much of it can be summarised in minutes so below I took the liberty of saving you 3-6 hours. Either way, Tim did what I think is a fantastic job of distilling the 20% of things that make 80% of the difference to your waistline. Thanks for sharing, Tim.

Now, there is heaps of ‘advice’ out there relating to 'diet' so I don’t want to potentially add to the confusion that I myself often suffer from. What I’m striving to do is distil one simple list of easy things to follow so that we can all spend less time thinking about it.

Here's my diet takeaways from Tim:

1. Do not eat white carbs – They turn to sugars almost immediately and don't make you full for long.
2. Eat the same types of meals – It helps avoid confusion. KISS principle!
3. Don't drink calories – yes, I’m referring to alcohol. It literally stops your body breaking down fat too.
4. Do not eat fruit for 6/7 days – Berries are the only exception.
5. Allow one day to binge – It keeps you sane and stops your metabolism becoming lazy. I’d rather say cheat meal instead of cheat day, some people can do a colossal amount of damage in a day. Also, try do some legs training beforehand so that the carbs get used up instead of being stored in fat.
6. Avoid red meat – there are lower calorie ways of getting protein.
7. Eat healthy fats – Avocado, chia seeds and raw cocoa. The theory being if your body gets fats regularly, it doesn’t need to make its own…
8. Fast for a full day every now and again – It boosts growth hormone which helps you lose weight.
9. Do not eat protein for a full day – Let your body recover from constantly processing protein.
10. Be careful snacking on healthy foods like almonds – It's easy to justify eating a whole bag despite them being highly calorific. Only eat 5-10 a day.

Here’s a bunch more healthy eating tips I’ve curated over the years from other books, personal trainers, friends who look good, movies and of course my own personal experience.

---

In no particular order:

1. Stop eating dairy – There is just nothing good about it. It’s addictive, doesn’t have fibre and is highly calorific. You’ll thank me once you’re able to eat until you’re full and still keep the pounds off. I actually received quite a bit of flak about this point in a prior blog post so did some digging. So, to give you an idea about how much you’ve been brainwashed about dairy, look at the above video clip from 1997 when Steve Jobs spoke about the PR campaign that made people think milk was good for you.
2. If you’re going to eat meat, only eat high-quality – Most of the recent vegan propaganda documentaries use examples of battery-farmed, hormone- and disease-ridden animals that are subject to inhumane conditions. I wouldn’t eat it either.
3. Kill big sugar – Refined sugar is pure poison. It is highly addictive and has systematically been laced into our food to make us eat more and become addicts. When will it finally be condemned like big tobacco?
4. Drink lots of water – It helps make you feel full and your whole body runs on the stuff. In the morning, 250ml really stimulates your metabolism. P.S. cold water burns energy because your body needs to heat it up!
5. Looking good is 90% about what you eat and only 10% exercise – ‘Abs are made in the kitchen, not in the gym.’
6. Eat smaller portions – Try simple things like using a smaller plate or eating with chopsticks so it happens organically.
7. Do intermittent fasting twice a week – That is eat for 8 hours and don’t eat for the other 16. Your growth hormone goes through the roof (weight-loss agent), adrenaline shoots up (you can train harder) and you have loads of energy.
8. Eat loads of veggies – Whether you’re a flexitarian, vegan, vegetarian, pescatarian, or ketotarian, vegetables are the only common ingredient. There must be a reason why!
9. Now is the best time to start – Tomorrow never comes.
10. Avoid fried foods – If cars can run on used oil, it’s probably not that good for you. Not to mention the calorie overload.
11. Sleep like your life depends on it – Because it does. Without sleep, you will die. Sleep also helps with muscle recovery and weight loss. Additionally, a lack of sleep causes insatiable food cravings too. At this point, relying on self-discipline is a fool’s game and you will likely fall off the proverbial wagon. So, if you want to keep those pounds off, you now have permission to hit that snooze button, guilt free.
12. If you don’t buy it, you can’t eat it – Put in place natural barriers that remove temptation.
13. If you love chocolate, then eat it – This has to be fun and sustainable after all... (See, this post isn't just pure evil!) Just realise that you’re going to have to hit the gym even harder to make up for it.

Photo by Dragos Gontariu on Unsplash

Let’s also look at this from a different angle. In 2019 I attended an innovation course run by Open Genius in Wales, one of my most favourite scale-up businesses. They taught me that when looking for a solution, it’s often a good idea to list what would not work. Even if the ideas sound ridiculous a first, write them down. You’ll be really amazed at what you discover.

So weirdly, the question to ask is what things would we do to make us unhealthy? 

Here's my list of unhealthy habits, behaviours and foods:

• Go shopping on an empty stomach = bad life choices.
• Lead a very stressful existence. Stress increases cortisol which puts on weight. Chill out a bit.
• Wait until you’re super hungry before starting to prepare a dish = bad life choices again.
• Convince yourself that all fats are good for you i.e. cream vs avocado. There’s a big difference.
• Eat very little fibre.
• Drink alcohol frequently and then binge on sugar to make your hangover better.
• Eat just before bed, especially white carbs.
• Say ‘cheese is life’ really often. Perhaps, but it’s no co-incidence that cheese is also really addictive!
• Don’t follow a gym routine.
• Eat things made in a factory. This includes Beyond Meat by the way.
• Keep off the scales until ‘next week.’
• Avoid beach holidays.
• Eat to make other people happy i.e. cake at parties. You know what I’m talking about…
• Create bad habits such as using food as a reward.
• Chew only once or twice.
• Avoid making goals.
• Drink lots of juice.
• Eat lots of honey because it’s not real sugar. Ahem.
• Convince yourself that (insert bad food here) is good for you because you read some propaganda-ridden fake news article on social media that endorsed your unsubstantiated view.
• Make whimsical statements like, “I’m just going to start eating less.” Yeah…. of course you are!

Cool technique hey? I even surprised myself with how effective that reverse innovation tool is. What unhealthy habits come to mind for you? Interestingly only about 7 of the above 19 bullets relate directly to eating per se and the rest are about changing behaviours. Shows you how more than half of the battle is won…

Photo by Ramón Salinero on Unsplash

One thing I haven’t spoken much about is calories in vs calories out. If you eat less calories than you burn, will you lose weight? The 1st law of thermodynamics suggests this might be true: “energy cannot be created or destroyed in an isolated system.” But what about the quality of that energy and rate at which it is available? If you eat the same amount calories of Smarties vs avocado slices, does the glycaemic index of the Smarties dictate that this energy overload means the body will just store it as fat or does it always come back to calories? What about eating the same amount calories in grilled chicken vs avocado? Do two low glycaemic foods have the same effect? I’d really love to know your views because I’m still really not sure. Some people say calories are a over simplification of a very complicated dynamic. Others swear by calorie counting.

If you have answers, some great tips or disagree with any of the above, please let us know in the comments. Based off your feedback, I can update the above so we all have one definitive list to follow.

Until next time, remember to eat your greens,

Alex @ The Tippy Top Blog