It was a news article about the brain that finally convinced Manuel to lose weight. He probably should have made a change when he started to have to wear extra-large clothes, but losing weight hadn’t been on his priority list in over a decade.
Manuel was a man of reason, and he had good reasons for not prioritizing his weight. For one, when he’d been very into lifting weights in college at the University of Panama, he’d noticed women were never that impressed by his bigger muscles, at least not nearly as impressed as they were by his charisma, intelligence, his ability to speak English, and his career in computer programming.
Even when he stopped working out and began gaining weight, he never noticed a drastic drop-off in the attention he received from women. For another reason, he’d never been one to care much about what strangers thought about him. He’d never thought such notions were much of an evolutionary advantage, especially in a world of eight billion people.
So it was that he was on vacation at Panama City Beach, content to leave his shirt on while he was sunbathing by the pool, that he glanced at the news headline on his phone that changed his life. The headline in NBC News read, ‘Obesity can cause changes in the brain similar to Alzheimer’s.’ Manuel immediately put down his piña colada. The article said that researchers had discovered brain shrinkage in obese people that were similar to Alzheimer’s.
They’d found brain shrinkage in regions involved in learning, memory, and judgment. The last ten years rolled through Manuel’s mind, astonished that during all that time the food he ate could have affected his judgment. Manuel was hooked; he couldn’t stop reading about the connection between diet and your brain’s performance. He began reading all about the microbiome, the trillions of bacteria and microorganisms that live in your digestive tract and make your hormones, and neurotransmitters, and are involved in most biological processes of your body.
| Interpretation intermission: Pillar seven of the flourishing entrepreneurial diet is healthy lifestyle habits. Diet can boost mental clarity and performance. For an entrepreneur, weight management is beneficial, of course, but you should maintain a lifestyle that promotes mental acuteness above all. Despite all his research, the first diet Manuel tried didn’t work for him. It was a fad calorie restriction diet that wasn’t sustainable; he always felt hungry or lethargic. Eventually, he discovered the Bulletproof diet by Dave Asprey. It’s designed for boosting maximum mental performance with possible weight loss and body definition as extra effects. The Bulletproof diet aims to maximize healthy fats and reduce inflammatory carbs in some ways similar to the popular keto diet, with an additional focus on eliminating toxins. |
The key to healthy lifestyle changes is to make marginal changes that cumulatively have a significant impact on your well-being. The best changes are simple improvements that you will be able to do consistently because it is a consistent effort that matters.
Once Manuel optimized his diet, he was blown away by the benefits. He noticed he was much less anxious, more focused, less irritable, and less lethargic during the day. Even his skin started to look much better, and he had much fewer issues with dermatitis he’d always had problems with.
He began to drop waist sizes, but that was truly only his third favourite benefit of his new diet. He began exercising as well, which boosted his mental acuity even more; exercise generates brand-new brain cells in the brain.
After seeing the remarkable changes in himself, Manuel became an advocate for healthy living and began helping others make similar lifestyle changes, spreading awareness of diet and exercise’s effect on the brain. He was grateful for the news article that changed his life, and he hoped that by sharing his story, he could inspire others to prioritize their health and well-being.
By: Thomas Nevin
COO – Joe’s Writers’ Club Inc.