Fighting Off Allergies by Eating Less Soy. An Experiment.

I don't know if soy is the cause of my allergies, I have noticed many other people having allergies this year.  However I believe soy could be the cause of my allergies.  Over the past week or so I have been eating more protein bars than usual.  Many protein bars contain soy.

Last night, not thinking that soy could contribute to allergies, I decided to look up foods that cause allergies.  The obvious ones came up, peanuts, eggs, and other nuts.  However I noticed that soy was in there.  Then it hit me, I noticed right away I was probably eating way more soy than I should have from these protein bars.

Cutting out the soy should be an easy task for me, even though I love the protein bars I believe cutting them out of my diet for the next week is for the better.  They have way too many ingredient and are a processed food.  I will also be saving money since they can be expensive to buy.

I have never had allergies before, or if I did it was only a couple days throughout the year.  I even noticed this year many people I know having allergies even if they don't eat soy.  So I can't blame soy for my allergies unless by the end of the week my allergies go away or almost go away.

What will I be eating over the next week?  This is a good question and a question you should ask yourself if you are going to cut something that isn't serving you from your diet.  Myself I will for sure be eating chicken, organic black and pinto beans, some salad, maybe some salmon, and brown rice.  The chicken will pretty much be my staple food as it usually is, but I also have been craving salmon, so why not have salmon?  I may even get some other kinds of fish or meat as long as it doesn't have soy in it.

There is only one day I will be eating junk food this week as usual and that is fathers day which is going to be my cheat day.  Speaking of cheat day, on Saturday I ate a shit ton of junk food as it was my cheat day, but all day my allergies got worse and since then have stayed worse than they already were.  Inside my mouth at the roof of my mouth it is itching, my nose and mostly my right eye is itchy and my nose will run and my eyes will water.  Pretty normal for allergies but I really noticed after that cheat day how my body reacted.

Closing thoughts.

Over the next week we will see how not eating soy will affect my allergies and how I am feeling.  If it doesn't affect a single thing I will be honest about it with you guys, but I am going to make an assumption and say it will at least help a little bit with getting rid of my allergies.  Only time will tell and I hope you guys follow along with me over the next week.  Anyways guys, I will see you in a week with my update, as always have a wonderful day and strive for the healthiest life possible!

-Brian

5 Unusual Ways You Didn't Know How to Lose Weight.

Drink water

Drinking water may sound too simple or too boring.  When I was younger all I would drink is Coke or Mountain Dew.  This not only resulted in cavities, but also in wight gain.  The amount of processed sugars in pop is insane (Coke having 65 grams in only 20 ounces, Mountain Dew having 77 grams in 20 ounces) and everyday I would drink wayyyyyyy more than 20 ounces.  If  I could take back all the pop I drank when I was younger I would, it wasn't worth it one bit.
I know switching to water can be hard.  I hated water and it seemed impossible to start drinking it but I was able to do it slowly and in turn made it a habit to drink water instead of pop.  If I can do it so can you!  All the processed sugar is not only going to make you overweight, but will also hurt other parts of your body as I mentioned before, teeth.  I mentioned this first because it is the biggest way to lose weight and anyone can do it.

You dont have to eat healthy (as long as you are in a calorie deficit)

Although I recommend you eat healthy to lose weight you don't have to.  I have had times where I was eating healthy but was gaining weight because I was binge eating all day pretty much.
A professor by the name of Mark Haub ate the "Twinkie Diet" where all he ate was junk food such as, sugary cereals, Twinkies and other desserts like Twinkies, and Doritos.  Mark was able to lose 27 pounds in 10 weeks.
Like I said earlier I don't recommend eating only junk food but it can work as long as you consume less calories than you burn on a daily basis.

Cheat days

Cheat days may sound like they wouldn't work.  And this is understandable.  How in the world would eating a lot of junk food for one day help you lose weight?

For me and many others cheat days keep you sane while dieting or eating healthy all week.  That one day you can have junk food always feels so good (until you eat too much).  For me cheat days might be different than other peoples cheat days.  I like to kind of go all out because I go all out all week on eating healthy I think its fair to go all out and eat junk one day a week.
Dieting can be hard a cheat day is a easy way to make losing weight fun and enjoyable.

Walking instead of running for cardio

I love to go for walks a few times a week.  Sometimes I will take walks inside, sometimes outside depending on the day.  It doesn't really matter where you take the walk but
as long as you are walking for at least 30 minutes.  Myself I hate running and jogging, it is a good skill to have but I despise it for a couple reasons.  First  I get tired way too fast (this is my fault) second I feel hungry and like I could eat anything.
This is why I like to walk better.  I can buy calories and get some fresh air by walking around a few times a week instead of running out of energy or getting hungry.  You will still feel pretty full from what you ate earlier (if you already ate that day) and be able to have energy to relax and walk around for a while.

Consume fat (nuts, and fish)

We live in a world where people are still scared to eat fat because people believe it will make them fat.  This does sound like it would be true, however some fats are better than others.  In this section we are not talking about greasy fats that can leave the body harmed over time.  Here we are talking about fats such as fats from nuts, fish, and oils.
As I am counting my calories some fats can have lots of calories, so I will start with one of the best sources of fats but also protein, salmon.  They are filled with Omega-3 fatty acids which, to name just a few benefits, help with preventing the risk of heart disease, can improve sleep, and can help improve mental disorders.  But since you came here about wight loss, salmon is a fish that will make you full fast and keep you full for a long time, you will get a good amount of protein per calorie ratio which will make counting calories easier and you will fail less on your diet!
Next we will talk about nuts. Man do I love nuts! (no homo).  Here I am going to tell you my experience and the effect nuts have had on me.  I eat mostly 3 types of nuts, peanuts, almonds, and macadamia nuts.  There are other nuts I like to eat but I rarely eat them such as cashews, brazil nuts, walnuts, and pecans.  However when I do eat nuts I find myself feeling a boost in my mood.  There is one nut that I have trouble not putting down, and that is the macadamia nut, I could literally eat a whole can of them if I wanted to in one sitting.  Macadamia nuts are one of the best nuts if you learn to have self control with them, as they can boost metabolism, but don't eat too many if you are counting calories, the calories can add up extremely fast.
I find that eating nuts in a salad with some type of protein to be helpful to stay full longer and push off cravings without consuming over 600 calories for one meal.
There are many other healthy fats that I did not go into here such as avocado, coconut oil, and olive oil.  I also love to eat these foods but am not aware of all the benefits and I only want to give you guys advice to the benefits I know for these foods.

Closing thoughts.

I hope this was helpful to you for your weight loss journey and also gave you a couple fun ways to lose weight by implementing cheat days into your week, once a week so you don't get burnt out while trying to lose weight by following some boring diet.

How Can a Service Mindset Change Your Life And The Lives Of Those Around You?

Don't mistake serving for being a slave to someone.
Service is one of the biggest parts of our lives.  Yet we often over look it and never think of how we can serve but rather how we can take.  When I talk about serving others I don't mean to serve them and do whatever they say and be on their leash.
We all have a gift to give to the world and this gift is our service, without it we will try to take, and take, and take, but in turn get little to nothing in return.  However when we serve others and the universe with our passion we will see our lives start to change.

How it affects those around you and the people you reach/touch.

Service helps everyone that you are trying to help and even those around you.  By serving others you will notice the positive affect it has on others.  The people you are giving to are going to be happy, but not only that the people around you will feel a sense of happiness and wanting to give as well.  Everyone wants to do something good for someone else, and that something good can take someones day, even a stranger day from horrible to the best day ever.
We don't know what others are going through and usually we don't care, we are in a rush to get groceries or get lunch or dinner that we don't even acknowledge the other people around us.  But what happens if you try to give them a dollar or pay for their dinner?  See we often overlook this and never would think to do that.  But from my experience it makes the other person beyond happy. (Giving obviously isn't limited to just giving money, however I used money as an example because it  is the easiest way to give and almost anyone has a the power to do it!)

You will feel happier.
Upon starting my journey I have found the more  I share from a mindset to serve and help others, those are often my most useful and best, videos and blog posts.  However many time I am stuck in my head and have a video that could help people but I am only thinking of how I sound on camera instead of how I can share the best information with you.  Maybe you have noticed a difference in that type of video or blog post, maybe you haven't.
The point here being, when I make a video out of pure care for others and not how "stupid my hair is" or whatever I notice feedback from viewers that say many positive things about it.  Conversely if I make a video where I am stuck in my head instead of focussing on giving, that same video could get no comments or feedback.
Happiness here comes from me being able to share and help others improve.  See I can have all the happiness of losing fat or gaining muscle myself, but if I keep what I used to lose weight or gain muscle to myself and don't help others with the same techniques that happiness won't last.  However if I see that something I did helped even one person improve their life I am happy forever because that person is doing great things in their life.
Why does it work like this?  Well one thing I would say is that when I am able to focus on putting pure positivity or pure help into someones life without expecting anything in return that alone will make me happy.  Seeing someone smile or be proud of themselves for action is more to smile about than anything money can buy!

My Thoughts on Looking Down On Others. (Should You Be Super Judgmental of Those Around You).

My experience with looking down on others.
As you may or may not know depending if it is your first time reading one of my blogs, I am a pretty healthy eater.  This being said I stay away from most processed foods, and processed sugars, and wheat and white bread etc.  Many times I would find myself looking down on someone if they are eating these foods.  I have been controlling it more lately.  The reason is, is that it doesn't help the other person or me and isn't nice to do in general.
I have learned that others have their own way of dieting and if it works for them that is ok.  Also everyone will start when they are ready and if I try to "force" them to eat something they don't want to, it will backfire.  If I am judgmental I will also only see the things that I don't like about someone instead of the strengths that the other person does have.

There are also times where I would judge someone just based off of other things like how they look or what they wear, this was more of how I was when I was younger and not really now.  The most recent was how I would judge what someone eats.  That is why I used it as an example. But maybe you are struggling as well and need to stop judging others or judge people less. What has helped me change how I am judging someone is to recognize what ways I do this and when I do it and make a habit to uplift people in a positive way instead of "shaming" or judging.


What you are saying about someone else you are really saying about you.
If you are judging someone else it is saying more about your insecurities than their "problems".  Why is this?  Well in life everyone has something they are insecure over and most of us will hate on people if they are successful, just for that reason alone, because they are successful.  This shows a huge lack of loving yourself or being jealous over someone else.  If you hate or judge someone for having money lets say, it is most likely because you don't have money.  This can be fueled from jealousy and this is something that we need to stop doing in our lives.
It is hard to do and I don't think its possible to fully stop judging things or people negatively because we all have our own opinion of thing or person and that is okay.  However what we need to stop doing is being so judgmental.
Maybe it can even be you are looking down on people who are broke or poor.  This can be even easier to do than being a hater of someone who has money and you feel envy.  Many of us me included at times have looked at a homeless person and looked down on him.  Most likely we all have done this at least once, but instead we can feel sympathy, and not a kind of sympathy that pats the person on the back and tells them they will be ok, but a kind of sympathy of real help.  See because if I judge someone for being homeless that will be an insecurity of mine for maybe noticing some trait in my own life that I share with a homeless person.  But instead of patting them on the back or being insecure and looking down on them, which says more about us than them, we can offer help as in buying them food or maybe giving them advice on coming up because anything could help.  I talk about an abundance mindset a lot and for not judging or looking down on people, abundance is one of the keys to breaking out of the habit.  Once we realize how abundant we are in this life we will be less judgmental and more open to share with anyone and bring people up instead of put people down, even if one person makes $1 and the other makes $1,000,000 a day there is no room for bringing either person down.

Why I Take Cheat Days. And Why It's Important To Take Cheat Days On A Diet To Lose Weight

Balance

Balance needs to be in every area of life, you cannot be all good 

or all bad.  For health I am using balance as a reminder that 

"yes I am allowed to eat junk food every once and a

 while" and using this as a reminder helps me realize 

why I don't eat junk food or have a cheat day every single day.

  See eating healthy is tasty, fun, and improves the body and mind, 

but sometimes usually once a week I like to let go and eat 

whatever I want to.  Usually after I do have dry mouth 

and feel groggy, but the food did taste good.  

Luckily for the next 6-7 days all I want to eat is healthy food, however after 

the 6th or 7th day I start to crave the junk food again for 

some reason even though I know the consequences.

When I eat healthy I go hard, same with when I eat junk food 

on my cheat days.  I like to focus on one or the other and the balance keeps me sane.

If I ate all junk I would turn into that food.  If I ate all healthy 

every single day I would go crazy because my mind will 

still be craving the junk food and if I tell myself I can't 

have it ever my mind doesn't like that because thats all it will 

think about until I get it.  How is your balance of healthy 

and junk food?  What could you improve, or are you 

being too strict on yourself to the point where you are 

suffering because you just want junk food?

You won't fail on your diet and it makes it easier to diet.

Have you ever been on a diet for a week, a month, or a year 

but suddenly grown tired of it and lost willpower?  

If you are like everyone else on the planet the answer is yes.  

We al have limited willpower.  

Learning how to over come low willpower is very useful.

If you are on a diet and they tell you to never eat junk food 

this can sound good at first, because yes junk food is bad 

for you and doesn't help your body or mind.  In reality however 

we all have limited willpower and we sometimes need 

to eat junk food in order to stay on the diet we are on.  

If we force ourselves to eat all healthy we will burn ourselves 

out and end up giving up and going back to our old ways.  

This has happened to countless people.  

I don't want you to be one of those people because 

I know you have the potential to achieve your dream body.

Over the last month or so I did my 30 day cutting challenge.  

Yes I took 5 cheat days where I ate whatever I wanted 

to and however much I wanted to eat.  I did over eat 

some days but guess what?  I still lost fat and gained 

strength because most days I was eating what I was supposed to.  

What kept me on track and helped me to not give up, 

however was the 5 days of cheating on my diet.  

If I didn't take those days there is no way 

I would've been able to eat as low calories as I did.

People to learn from.

If you are going to study from people who achieved great 

in life I suggest you look into Tim Ferriss and 

Kinobody because both of them have strategies anyone 

can follow, whether you are experienced in 

diet and fitness or brand new to the game!

Lets talk about Tim first.  He has a book I highly recommend 

which I will link in this blog post if you wish to buy it, 

the book is called The 4 Hour Body, or you can check 

out his content on Youtube about his strategy for cheat days.

As for Kinobody, he has a bunch of videos on 

intermittent fasting and ways to make your diet 10 

times easier by using intermittent fasting.

If you guys follow my content I know you will love 

both of theirs, and without their knowledge and content 

I wouldn't be able to write this blog post and have 

the wisdom and experience I do right now!

If you would like to become part of the Ganifit newsletter, 

where I not only share with you brand new posts/videos 

when the come out, but also more premium content 

that will not be shared here.  Also upon signing up you 

will get my top 3 ways to drop fat along with my 

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My Results on the 30 Day Cutting Challenge.

If you don't already know I took a 30 day cutting challenge. I will link that right here so you can go check it out.  The challenge was hard to achieve but I would like to share the last 30 days with you.

I decided to start this challenge on March 28, 2017.  I started it because I noticed I was gaining fat, not because I was eating junk food, but rather the opposite.  I was eating food I considered healthy, that are proven to be good for you.  The only thing was I was eating soooooo many calories, probably over 3000 a day.  I was doing this because I thought I would be able to gain muscle and maintain low body fat.  This ended up not being true, I did gain muscle but also fat, at this point I decided I needed to change how much I was eating.

Over the last 30 days I would say the first week was the hardest.  I was and still kind of am not used to eating 1200 calories on non workout days and 1800 calories on workout days.  However now that I have been on my 30 day cutting challenge the 1800 calorie workout days feel like heaven and are actually easy and makes it feel like I am having a lot more food than I actually am.

Let's talk about the process of these last 30 days.  As I am writing this it is April 28, 2017 which is my birthday.  Today I am going to have a cheat day most likely.  Speaking of cheat days, I have taken 4 cheat days and even 2 of those were HUGE cheat days.  But with following my 30 day cutting challenge I have lost fat.  While doing my cha
llenge I have been also following the workout plan from Kinobody's Greek God Program, so I dropped fat and have been making strength improvements on all my workouts, even though my calories were so low.  I am saying this  to impress upon you that you can drop fat, and gain muscle, while having some cheat days which makes the process more enjoyable.  Look at the transformation from these 2 photos below!

I may not look that much more skinny but I really notice the fat I dropped.  However, I do still have a while to go till I am shredded and really toned, so I do plan on continuing the 30 Day Cutting Challenge and making it a lifestyle.  I am going to move up my calories an extra 200-300 a day.  I do find that my muscles grow faster while I eat more calories.

If I end up gaining fat while doing 1400-1500 calories on rest days and 2000-2100 calories on workout days, I will go back to what I did over the last month.

Closing thoughts.
I hope this small transformation over the past month has inspired upon you to start a challenge of your own if you haven't followed along with me already.  If you have been following along share your results I would love to hear them!  If you have just started, share what your challenge is over the next 30 days.

My Personality Test The Logician (INTP-A) (16 Personalities)

What is your personality?

Before you read this section go ahead right now and take the test if you haven't already (it's free and only takes about 12 minutes).  What is your personality?  Chances are it described you perfectly which may be kind of creepy.  If it didn't describe you I recommend taking it again just to be sure you answered the questions to the best of your ability and to be as precise as possible until it does describe you and how you think.

If I were you I would take this test not to live by it and follow everything because we all have our own uniqueness.  But instead take the ideas from it and form yourself in the best way possible.  Use your strengths as fuel and look at your weaknesses.  You may have never noticed these before, but just recognizing them can give you better insight on taking your life to the next level.

It is important to know your personality type because it will giv
e you a better understanding of who you are that you may have never seen before.  Maybe there is a career path, social circle, or other area of life you should be looking for that you haven't noticed and this will give you insight on it.

What is my personality? 

I am The Logician, which is INTP-A.  This means my traits are Introverted, Intuitive, Thinking, Prospecting, and Assertive.

From the first sentence about Logicians I can relate 100%.  "The Logician personality type is fairly rare, making up only three percent of the population, which is definitely a good thing for them, as there’s nothing they’d be more unhappy about than being “common”."   Like I said earlier you should easily relate to what the text is saying about your personality.

Other logicians include, Bill Gates, Albert Einstein, Rene Descartes, Issac Newton, Neo from the Matrix, and Abed from the TV show Community.

Strengths

To sum it up I have a few strengths that I really connect with that it states on the 16 Personalities website.  My first is Imaginative,  I can find myself with many ideas that may seem out there to a lot of people and even me at times, but some of these ideas make for the best blog posts and videos.

The next is enthusiastic.  Believe it or not I can be very excited even if on my videos I seem mono-tone.  If you get me talking about cars or working out or something I really enjoy I will be able to talk forever on these subjects, but I am less talkative for small talk or things I don't find interesting.

These are only a couple strengths and the ones that I find I identify the most with off of the strengths it listed.

Weaknesses

For my weakness I will also share the ones I relate to the most and leave out the others.  Another things is its completely useless if I just read over my weaknesses and write them down here without doing things to improve on them.

Insensitivity is a huge weakness for me, I will often not even notice if I say something that is considered wrong for the situation at hand.  I believe this is because I am not the most social person so it is easy for me to use logic to offer advice, instead of emotional support and often times the advice can come across as rude to others.

Absent minded when my mind is captured by something interesting.  This can also link to one of my traits, being enthusiastic.  If I am doing something that I love where time is flying by I can
be so immersed in it that I forget to drink water or lose sleep over it because I don't even want to sleep if I am doing something I love doing.

This weakness has an upside for work ethic at times, but most times sleep is more important to recharge and recover.  I have many days where I will be about to go to bed but I am watching something on youtube.  Not cat videos and stuff like that but people who are actually teaching me something.  Whether if its for my healthy, money, or well being I will often be so drawn into it or want to learn more that I won't sleep for another hour or 2 after I wanted to because I wanted to learn more.  I also do this with other things such as reading, making a good video at night if I don't make one during the day, and sometimes even writing a whole blog post because an idea pops in my head and I feel I could write forever.

As a logician I can be very condescending.  I was laughing while reading what is says about me here because it perfectly describes many situations for me, and they do a better job of describing it than I can, so I will copy and paste it for your to read here.

"Attempts at connecting with others are often worse than Logicians’ withdrawal. People with the Logician personality type take pride in their knowledge and rationale, and enjoy sharing their ideas, but in trying to explain how they got from A to B to Z, they can get frustrated, sometimes simplifying things to the point of insult as they struggle to gauge their conversation partners’ perspective. The ultimate insult comes as Logicians give up with a dismissive “never mind”."

This paragraph is a perfect description of how I often am.  I don't do this to insult anyone, I do it because often times no matter how much I describe something sometimes people just don't understand and I get aggravated.  To better help people understand me I need to be a better storyteller.

What is the weakness you need to work on the most?

Career path's

The next section I want to talk about is career path's.  This is probably the biggest contributor to finding yourself and living a happier life, and this one I need lots of work on.  I, like most people go to a job I hate at the moment.  I never really took the time to read through and take action on moving toward one of these careers it suggests, at least job wise.  I do take time everyday however to get out of the job I am currently in, but never really think to look at these career paths, and I guess maybe I should!

We all don't want to live a life we hate so looking at the career path's for your personality type will be a huge step if you decide to look it over and take some action.  As a logician for example, it says that we should work in places that are more tuned to a small or technical workplace, or be entrepreneurial (which I am and always like to work on things that I had the idea for, and time will always fly by if I do work I like, even if at the moment it doesn't make money I know it will if I keep working at it.  And it doesn't even feel like work most of the time.  I love being here everyday and love to show up everyday, my job however, not so much.)

What are good career paths for your personality?  I would love to hear and would love for you to get a better understanding as well so you can take the steps to get out of a job you hate and into a path of mastering your career and loving everyday because the work you do is fun and has a huge impact in your life!

Closing thoughts

I hope you did take the test!  If you didn't already go ahead and take it now by clicking the link. Click here to find out your personality! You will notice I left out a few sections of the conclusion of my personality, this is because I don't have a lot to say on those at the moment in my life.

I would love to hear what you learned and if taking the personality test helped you in some way to improve yourself.

Cheers, Brian.