Really, why is it?
If you're anything like me you've probably seen numerous blogs and tons of articles on the subject of realising, finding, discovering, or even re-discovering your passion. Everyone is looking for happiness in their life; doing what they love surrounded by the people who's company you enjoy. And in order to achieve this goal you've at least to know what it is that you love to do, right? No wonder that so many people have written (and are still writing, like me) about this subject; Everyone is trying to figure this out, making your audience huge!
How come then, that with so many people writing about the subject most of us are still looking for it? There are tons of great tips out there, but somehow we're still looking for our passion. Every once in a while I tell myself: "It can't possibly be this hard!?! I know what I like to do right? I should know what I enjoy doing or what energizes me?!" It turns out that, for me, it doesn't seem to be that simple after all. Great, right? pff..

Mental meltdown

Back when I was a fulltime student I wasn't paying too much attention to this whole "passion-thing". I just had some classes to attend, some assignments to hand in and some house-work to manage but apart from that I was completely free to do what I wanted. Whenever I felt like going and have a beer with mates downtown, I would. When I felt like swimming, renting a canoe, go running, play world of warcraft (yes, I confess ) I would.
But now that university life is over and you have a "career" to consider, it suddenly seems to be a lot more complicated. The time of "just doing it" seems to be over and every decision tends to move towards internal conflict; "I should do it because..", "No, wait! What if this happens?", "How will that effect the future?", "Does it pay enough", "Am I not sacrificing too much?" – .... Mental meltdown….
Suddenly everything is supposed to be an exact science with fixed variables like payout, growth potential, distance from home, working hours and joy doing it.

Variable?

Did you see it happen? Joy is now nothing more then a variable in the equation of picking a carreer. A variable means exactly that, it's variable; you are allowing it to vary in relation to the other factors involved. Why on earth is joy suddenly a variable instead of a constant? Could it be that people are often dissatisfied with their work (and possibly life in general) because they let joy become a variable instead of a constant factor in their life? I think that may very well be the case!
In fact, isn't that what doing something that you're passionate about feels like? When you are working on your passion, joy is a constant not a variable. Pursuing your passion results in constant joy, con-stant.

Then what it is?

So is swimming my passion? No, I just enjoy it once in a while. Was world of warcraft my passion (I don't play anymore), no it wasn't because I didn't constant joy from it. Sometimes it even drained me and caused frustration; definitely not a passion. I should really ask myself what it is I never get bored with, what has kept me fascinated for years without boring me. Not just something I like occasionally, but something I love constantly.
My search continues,… but now with better defined terms.

I'll keep posting on the progress in this area. But I'd also like to know what's your passion, how you realised it what it was and if you have any tips for others. Please leave a comment and help others out by sharing your experiences!

Until next time, keep moving forward!

Somewhere between breakfast and lunch there is a point where you may start to feel drowsy. Especially if you're a modest break-fast eater like me, you might be bothered by a productivity dip around 11AM. Personally, I hate 'm because they're interfering with my plans for the day.

When you run out of fuel and get stranded on the side of the road, you call triple-A. Instead, a lot of people (especially office workers) call upon Triple-C: Coffee, more coffee and yes… even more coffee. Probably not the best thing you can do for yourself, even though it might get you through another 30 minutes or so. To stay with the car-metaphor, don't put stuff in your tank you know is going to ruin your engine. You know well enough what your human-engine runs best on.

So if you're a modest breakfast-eater like me, be sure to bring some decent fuel with you to your workplace. I'm not saying you should whip out a banana while you're giving a business presentation, but having some fruit instead of coffee will keep your mind just as sharp.

Now get back to work

The ups:
It’s been a while since I’ve written about the progress of my 30-day fruit&nut challenge.
Originally, I thought Christmas would be the worst time in the challenge period due to all the food going around. And even though I had been occupied with the preparations for the Christmas dinner at my girlfriend’s parents I actually made it through perfectly!

I had brought a bag of nuts and some banana’s from home and I knew that there was always some other fruits lying around in the house I was going to. And indeed, I was fine; I drank fruit-smoothies and ate fruit for breakfast, followed by fruits & nuts (that I brought) for lunch. Not a single problem except for the fact I had to explain my “curious new habit” to the family and friends that were gathered that. But they took it okay and we’re pretty supportive on top of that.

The mids:
So the worst part was behind me, or so I thought. But then it turned out that we had tons of stuff to prepare for my girlfriend’s move to Brussels on December 31^st. And instead of what I had planned, she preferred to stay longer at her parents’ house to pack and sort everything out.
I didn’t prepare for more days, so I actually didn’t bring enough nuts to eat the next day. Luckily there was enough fruit in the house, so I took that instead to try and stick to the “diet” as much as I could. It’s safe to say it went pretty much downhill from here.
We were running from one place to another to arrange things, not taking the time to shop decently. So we just ate either what we still had left in the house (which was bread & fruit-juice for breakfast), or whatever her parents had when we were there. December 31^st was the day of the move as well as new-years’ eve! And again from early morning we were on the move. I did manage to get some bananas and mandarins for the road, but that was pretty much it. And at the end of the day we came back to her parents again to celebrate the new year with them…. Exhausted..

The downs:
And boy was I exhausted. I guess I really pushed myself to hard the days before. Three nights of really poor sleep due to the cold, working hard during the day and dealing with the obvious “stress” of my girl moving to a “strange” city abroad. Either way, after the move was completed and we had entered the new year all this kind of “fell off my shoulders” so to speak. I didn’t have to carry it anymore, I didn’t have to keep pushing myself because the “mission” was accomplished.
Off course there were the usual family affairs like visiting grandmothers and my uncle who’s birthday is on January 1^st (which is actually our annual family-new year’s-celebration).

The waaaay downs:
And yes, I guess I did push myself too far. I was already blowing my nose a lot and feeling extremely tired while visiting family. But the next day I really fell ill while I was escorting my girlfriend home to Brussels. I wanted to stay with her the first night in her new home in the new city so she’d feel comfortable before starting work the next week. It turned out I had to spend some more nights there then expected
And when I finally got home I spent 3 days inside, mostly tied to my bed. Resting, sneezing and resting some more. And indeed, there wasn’t a lot of eating involved during those days. So I guess those were indeed the “waaaay downs” of this process. I was without fruits or nuts and was too ill to go out and get some more. One could say it wasn’t the best start of the new year….

The getting-back-up-there’s:
Now don’t think I’m going to sign off with a negative note, haha!
No you guys, I’m pretty much back to health and actually even more committed to eating healthy. Even though I haven’t been able to get a hold of nuts and fruits at the times I set myself as goals I did notice something else in my behavior. Over the past two weeks my relationship with fruits changed quite a bit from something you eat as a supplement to your normal food and/or snacks to food itself. Whenever I’m hungry and I walk into a store or a small kiosk I find myself looking at fruits instead of heading directly for the chocolate- or greasy stuff section.
As I have described in earlier articles I have really noticed the positive effect of eating fruits (in the morning) on my energy levels, and I liked it. As such, I’m feeling I’m really making a change in habits by reaching for healthy “alternatives” without consciously having to make myself do it. I’m doing it by default which I think is great!

As I’m writing this I’m riding the train on my way back from Belgium where I had a great meeting with Daan Buckinx. We spent a great afternoon together discussing so much different things and probably tons more for next times! I’m going drop by the store on my way home and stock up again so I can pick up where I left off.

Until next post… Enjoy life, and share that joy with others!

Related posts:
[Day 3]: "No, you can't have that"
[Day 2]: Saying no to habits and temptations
[Day 1] Kicking off the challenge
New 30 day challenge coming up

Notes up front:

(1) Thanks to Daan & Jan for the suggestions for additions to the selection of nuts / fruits. I bought the sugar-coated peanuts right away to satisfy the occasional sweet-tooth without resorting to chocolate or anything similar.
(2) I haven’t received confirmation from my acupuncturist about concerning the analysis of my the tongue-pictures I take daily. I’ll contact her again today and hope we can work out cooperation.

Sooner or later this was bound to happen right? The moment where you end up in a situation where someone offers you something to eat and you have to tell them “no thanks” even though you actually would like to have it. Well, it happened to me this morning.

Sleep:
9 hours of solid sleep. Nine hours?! I was amazed when I looked at my alarm clock! Without waking up once during the night I “managed” to sleep for nine hours straight. I immediately realized that I must have been really exhausted from the fuss the night before. Nonetheless it was great quality sleep, and that can really do wonders for you.

To be honest, I was quite disappointed that I slept so long because I was expecting to have more energy with this change in diet and thus needing less sleep. But I guess that I should include external factors as well. Also this long night of sleep doesn’t necessarily mean that there’s a pattern and that my expectations towards needing less sleep were wrong.

Breakfast:
I’m actually happy to tell you that today I finally got to “drink” my breakfast I had jumped out of bed and pulled various fruits and vegetables out of the refrigerator and fired up the juicer! I actually didn’t have a great idea of what flavors would work well together so like a true man (;)) I just went by color. 3 Carrots, 1 tomato and 2 Mandarins turned into one (250ml) glass of orange’ish juice. As for the taste; not great. (lol) Somehow the tomato didn’t really fit in there but the taste was more unfamiliar then it was bad.
I figured it’d be most efficient to just create a few bottles more of juice for the days to come. Altogether I squeezed the following through my juice-machine.
- 14 Mandarins
- 16 (large) Carrots
- 7 Apples
- 6 Pears
- 1 (large) mango
This resulted in:
- One liter of Apple-pear juice, tasting really nice and sweet.
- One liter of Carrot-Mandarin-Mango juice. (Really pretty orange color)
- A bit of leftover juice of both, which I drank right away

While I was busy juicing my girlfriend wanted to be sweet and was boiling me a nice egg for breakfast. I didn’t really notice so I was pleasantly surprised when she presented it to me. I was on the point of removing the egg-shell when I realized that this wasn’t part of the plan. (D’oh!!)
Even though she meant very well, and just forgot that I “couldn’t” eat it, I still felt like a bit of an ass for shooting her down. I guess it won’t be the last time something like this will happen these 30 days.

Lunch:
I was feeling really pleased with myself that I had done all this juicing and finally “stuck to” my initial plan for this challenge. I had about two- to three hands of my mixed nuts (Walnuts, Pecan nuts, hazelnuts, madacamia nuts, almonds and cashews) together with two cups of green tea.
And as I’m getting used to now, I have more than enough energy to get me through the afternoon, which is really great .

Dinner-time:
We still had to buy & arrange some things for the Christmas dinner in a few days so my girlfriend and I went into the city to take care of that. And while we were actually planning to cook some Chinese nasi with grilled chicken, we ended up eating out in a great Indian restaurant. (saves me the dishwashing ) So instead I had a Chicken Tikka Masala with some steamed vegetables, rice and naan bread. Owh, and some rice-pudding for desert, which was very nicely done for such a simple desert.

The only thing I had the rest of the night were three (yes, 3) cheese curls and a large cup of tea before going to bed.
Altogether I felt this was a pretty good day in the challenge. I stuck to my “diet” during the morning and lunch while staying open for any opportunities that would present themselves for dinner. Especially during the holidays it wouldn’t be fair to myself to deny dinner invitations or cheat myself out of a great Christmas dinner.

Related posts:
[Day 2]: Saying no to habits and temptations
[Day 1] Kicking off the challenge
New 30 day challenge coming up

After day the first day it wasn’t too hard to continue with the challenge, since I felt my energy was high. I wasn’t sure I was structurally gaining anything but at least it sure didn’t feel like I was losing anything. But as it turns out, there were a few “surprises” I would be confronted with today.

Sleep:7 hours of solid sleep, from 0:30 till 7:30. But somehow I didn’t get out of bed right away, possibly because a 9:00 AM appointment I had was canceled because of the weather conditions. (It’s been snowing like crazy for our standards, and transportation is hard since the country isn’t really prepared for it.) Either way, 7 hours of sleep turned into 8.
A for my energy level at wake-up, I actually felt quite energetic after 7 hours, but I guess lying in bed with my girlfriend was more tempting then jumping out. Obviously, after another hour of sleep I was still feeling ready to kick off the day, and actually a bit jumpy. Kinda like I was bored with lying still and wanted to do stuff.

Breakfast:
Well, once again, because of the weather conditions the last days it hadn’t been a top-priority to go to the store and buy a lot of food / drinks. So I was still stuck with the same fruits I had on day 1. So no smoothy for me today, instead I had:
- 1 Banana
- 2 Mandarins - 1 Apple - About 500ml of tea
Luckily, I had a trip planned to a giant store with my mother, brother and girlfriend to shop for our two Christmas dinners. So I figured I could get all the things I wanted/needed while I was there. Although it wasn’t drinkable, I really enjoyed the mixed flavors of the fruits for breakfast, as well as the different textures you experience in your mouth.

Lunch-time: Nothing fancy either, as I had prepared a large bowl of mixed nuts the day before I just ate from that. Today however, I decided to stick a bit more to a “schedule” of eating, instead of eating small portions throughout the day. I guess that would make for a better comparison to a “normal” lunch. I did not weigh the amount of nuts I ate but it was about two hands-full. I drank some more tea with this, but I realized that I actually wanted something else. (But had nothing in the house at the time, lol;))
The thing that stayed consistent was that I did not really feel hungry between meals; No stomach rumbling or yawning because my body was crying for more food.

Shopping-temptations:
It really surprised me how this affected me, but let me first paint the picture for you. The store I went to wasn’t a typical one; It’s one of those giant industrial-like supermarkets for entrepreneurs. Everything comes in large quantities, is pretty cheap and very good quality of fresh food. They don’t sell 4 brands of .. euhm… let’s say potato chips, but 24. I usually really enjoy going there because I can buy things there that are not available in my local retail store. But today I noticed that I was almost drooling over all that “other” food. But seriously, I really felt myself being pulled from one corridor to the other thinking “Oeh! That looks good!”… “Oeh,. Check that out!” Vegetarians might not appreciate what I’m going to tell you now, but it got the worst when I entered their giant fridge. It literally had over 10 meters of steaks; all sorts, shapes and sizes. And in my mind I could see, hear and smell them sizzling on my barbeque.

I really felt like a bit of a caveman so I got the heck out of there and went shopping for greens. Pfew,..

Dinner:
My roommate had been bugging me all day about wanting to finishing his eggs before they expired. So he made a giant omelet with cheese and ham and I had a piece of it on two slices of white bread. (Thought it’d be easy on digestion) In return I gave the guy half of the ham&mushroom pizza I bought that afternoon. As for drinks, I just had two glasses of water with it.

End of the day:
Throughout the day I had felt really fit and didn’t drink a single cup of coffee. However, after dinner I got into a bit of a discussion / fight / makeup / cry / cuddle scenario with my girlfriend. And this just totally drained me. I’m quite a sensitive person and if you’re like me, you know that extreme emotions can really suck you dry quickly. Off course I was happy that the things that we fought over were spoken out instead of letting them fester inside. So looking back it doesn’t feel like a waste of energy at all, but it does take its toll

Related posts:
- New 30-day challenge coming up
- [Day 1] Kicking off the challenge

Well, this is it. I've started my 30 day challenge yesterday as described earlier. (http://www.pgsnacks.com/2009/12/new-30-day-challenge-coming-up/)
I left most of the things I as described them, but practice turns out to be slightly different then you make it up in your head. I guess it did remind me that this isn't called a challenge for nothing :p

Let me just start off by saying that it wasn't any typical weekend to start with. As a surprise my girlfriend brought home two dogs (one being a 15 week old puppy) to take care of for a night & a day. The ones of you that have experiences raising a puppy knows that these need to go out and pee about every 4-to-5 hours. So all in all, I didn't start this challenge particularly rested.  Having said this I can share with you my first day!

Sleep:
I went to bed at around 1:30AM because we went to see the movie Avater downtown. Also, after a dog-filled day, I actually slept like a rock. It must have been 7 hours before I woke up for the first time. And yes, it being sunday I rolled over and slept for another hour. So all in all, a very quality night's rest.

Food:

• Breakfast: This actually didn't start off as good as I hoped. This was because  I actually did't make s smoothy, but started the day eating just fruits. I had a banana, two mandarins and green tea for breakfast. Content-wise it didn't really feel wrong because wether I had blended it or just ate it, the nutritional value would be about the same I guess. But still, it felt like slacking off on the first day. Not a great start, but a good one nontheless.
  So for the record, I started the day off with a banana, two mandarins and an apple (Fuji-apples are really nice and sweet, with enough bite:)).
• Lunch: As I didn't wake up very early, breakfast and lunch started blending together somewhat. What I did notice is that I liked eating the various nuts at that time of the day. I got myself non-salted ones which turns out have been a very good choice. (I can always add salt when I feel like it anway, right!?)
  For now I have a mix of Macadamia's, Cashews, Walnuts, Almonds (with skin), Pecan-nuts and hazelnuts. I didn't include the easy-to-get peanut because I'm not too fond of those.I really enjoy the variety of tastes these individual nuts have, and each mix of 'm is a different sensation in your mouth. So I'm really glad this isn't a let-down.
  What I've also noticed is that, because the nuts & fruits are always "there", needing no preparation, I tend to eat 'm in smaller portions throughout the day. Not so much one bulk-lunch but a few now and some more in an hour or so. To be honest, I really like this I have something to "snack" whenever I want, and it's actually great nutricional value as well.
• Dinner-time: Although it is free for me to choose what I eat for dinner, I feel it's very important to include because I think it might have a significant impact on my energy levels in the morning. I decided to have some very light mais-based pasta with tomato-sauce, low-fat ham and a bit of cheese, started off by some focaccia-bread with serano-ham. All quite light on the digestive system I think, since non of it was very greasy. One thing I did notice is that I didn't eat a lot, just because I wasn't that hungry. I was actually more enjoying the food for its taste then for the sensation of feeling "full". And actually, while writing this I feel really good about that.

I talked about leaving myself open to snacks whenever I wanted to have them, but today I actually prefered eating some of the nuts instead of grabbing a cookie or piece of chocolate. We'll just see how long that keeps up when I might get fed up with the taste of the nuts, but that's something that'll have to remain to be seen.

Energy levels:
As for my energy through out the day, after those 8 hours I did feel a bit slow to get out of bed. It might have been because I tried to catch another hour of shut-eye, who knows.. :s
But after breakfast things got moving quite easily. Eating only fruit really got my energy levels up in a short time. Besides being very light food containing quick sugars I also feel that the sweets and sours also sparked my awareness and got me "moving" so to speak.
As for the course of the day, I actually didn't feel tired even once. Normally I get a bit of a dip-feeling around 4:00PM. (Sometimes refered to as the cup-a-soup-moment ) Also, since it's the weekend I wasn't at the office writing my thesis. The thing is, when I'm there I tend to drink more coffee then I do at home. (Normal for me is just one or two cups throughout the entire day) But as for a lot of people, I tend to pick up a cup of coffee when I feel like I'm getting drowsy and need a pick-me-up. I'll just have to find out how this actually works out when I'm in the office environment again, but so far I have had no need for a pick-me-up, since my energy-level and awareness were pretty much up where I would like 'm

I guess I'll leave it at this for today. Also, I feel like I want to appologize for the writing I've done since I feel it's still quite messy. The thing is, I haven't quite figured out the best way to journal about this challenge. I'll have to experiment with some different structures or styles to share my experiences as best possible.
For now I'll continue to stick to the fruits and nuts, making sure I actually drink my breakfast-fruits as a smoothy instead of just eating them.

I will keep you updated, so until tomorrow!

Hey everyone,

I'm feeling a bit ashamed that I haven't been able to keep up a steady stream of new content, but a lot's been going on lately. While finishing my thesis I have also been in the middle a job interview and the associated selection process.
Luckily, everything worked out and I got hired. (yeah!) Feels great to get hired on the first try and also feels like a great way to start expressing myself in this new job. It probably doesn't beat being self-employed, but just finishing university I do appreciate the job security. (In case you're curious, I got hired as a junior information consultant for a very large municipality.)

Either way, this was all a bit off topic. Because what I wanted to announce that I'm gonna start posting a new 30-day challenge on the blog. It's gonna be one regarding food & energy levels.
Although it is the holiday season, I wanted to try adjusting my food habits and see how it affects my energy levels throughout the day (and night).

I realized that I have the most control over the first two meals of the day: Breakfast and Lunch. Unlike dinner, where you are usually a bit limited because you're sharing your meal with someone, I can choose what I eat for those first two meals very easily. Partially inspired by Steve Pavlina's 30-day smoothy fest, I decided to create for following plan for myself:

• Breakfast: Smoothies
  I'm not sure how much I'll need to drink to feel "satisfied" but I'll discover that along the way.
• Lunch: Various fruits & Nuts
  I found that I like both these things quite a bit, and there are a ton of fruits&nuts to choose from, all holding important nutriënts. Also, it's very to bring these wherever you go. Fruits are also easy to get at local shops but I can imagine you would like to bring the nuts from home.
• Dinner: Whatever I want, or rather.. what I would normally eat.
  Being realistic, limiting myself to a very strict diët during the holiday is just not gonna happen. There's social events where you don't decide what you get served for dinner. And on top of that, I enjoy good food, so without gorgeing myself I am just gonna take part in the festivities as anyone else would.
• Throughout the day: Whatever I feel like
  This might sound like a trap, but if I get enough nutricional value from my breakfast and lunch I don't see myself running out and go snacking. But, if I happen to feel like having cookies or chocolate, what the heck?! This is supposed to be fun, and not a big strain. Keep it practical and realistic!

I think this is a great challenge because anyone could do it, while staying in the holiday spirit and enjoying all the good times with friends, family and loved ones WHILE still working on a healthier, more energetic feeling throughout the day.
I'm still finalizing the details but as it looks now I'd like to keep track of the following things:

• WHAT I ate during breakfast & lunch exactly
  Specifically: What smoothy I drank, how much and what it contained. Which fruits and nuts  ate for lunch and a rough estimate how much. I'm not gonna weigh it all, this is not a weight-loss challenge after all. It's all about energy!
• Sleep cycles
  The time I go to sleep and wake up. But also the quality of sleep I experienced, since this is hugely important for how rested & energetic you feel.
• Energy levels throughout the day
  I want to record how energetic I feel when I wake up, related to how eager I am to take on the day's challenges.
  During the rest of the day I'll record my energy levels on specific times while noting any sudden changes if they might happen. Naturally I'll keep doing this till I go to bed to get a complete picture.
• I'll be making daily pictures of my tongue in the morning. (yes, this might sound weird but let me explain)
  I've been reading up a lot on chinese medicine lately and one of the greatest tools to get an impression of someones condition is looking at their tongue. I'll take a picture every day when I get out of the shower, before breakfast so my mouth is clean. By doing this I hope to start seeing progression I make visualized.

  I'm trying to make a deal with my acupuncturist at the moment to support me with this. I can email her the pictures and have her make a contribution to the blog post by providing feedback from a professional point of view.

As I stated earlier, I'm working out the final details at the moment and preparing to get all the things I need sorted.
If all goes well, I'll be starting off tomorrow and blogging my progress dialy.
So I hope you keep following me see how I do!

or, better yet.. JOIN ME!!
Share your experiences in the comments below. I'm actually really curious how it'd work out for you.
Or just get in touch with me on twitter: MarkNap or PGSnacks