Auto-pilot

You must have heard this term Autopilot in relation to air travel. Now what does it have to do with our lives as an average person?

Well if you want to stay average then don't bother, but if you want to raise above, it will make a lot of sense. Let's think about it-

What is an Autopilot?

It is an automatic system designed to follow a predetermined set of parameters.

At first when this invention was made auto pilot was consisted of a mechanical arrangement with a gyroscope as a sensor which kept an aircraft in a level flight. Slowly as technology evolved other functions were also added, like automatic engagement or disengagement of autopilot.

Then came the fly by wire system and the electronics (fly by wire system is where the different controls only generate control signals, these signals are then processed by a processing unit and then actuating inputs are provided to the control surfaces. This technology is now coming to cars and bikes too, rather the luxury car makers are already using it.) This system made the programming of the system possible. Therefore now the autopilot of the todays aeroplanes are so advanced that once the flight plan is uploaded in the system very less work remains to be done by the human pilot. The autopilot can even take off or land a plane or even avoid collisions. But human pilots need to be there to deal with any surprises, as human lives are at stake.

So how can we lift our living above average with the knowledge of autopilot?

(Always remember that samanyabuddhi.blogspot.com is made to stimulate your mind to think, to use your common sense (common sense is the literal meaning of Samanya Buddhi) for the betterment of you Health, Wealth and Happiness.)

Or why I am telling you about autopilot in the first place? What is the relation of this autopilot and our life?

The working of the autopilot is similar to some extent to the working of our brain.

Our brain had two levels of thinking, conscious thinking & subconscious thinking. The autopilot works in the subconscious thinking. For example, when we are learning to ride a bicycle, it's our conscious mind at work. Our conscious mind is gathering the data when we are trying to ride a bike. It is recording everything, it literally gathers terabytes of data from every motor organ & every sensor our body has. (motor organs are our muscles, sensors include eyes, ears, skin, pressure sensing neurons in our muscles, the neurons which are sensing the movement of the liquid in the sacs behind our ears which is responsible for balancing(like an accelerometer).) Then our conscious mind works on finding out the correlation in different data parameters for example, when we press right paddle down with x amount of pressure, what happens to our balance, how much do we move forward or if we move at all. Similarly if turn the handle while moving forward what happens to our direction and balance etc. When this process of correlating is complete, our learning is complete.

(This process of correlating takes time and involves our subconscious mind, the process is fast when we are asleep, therefore whenever learning something new, take it easy, make sure you sleep in between your learning sessions, this way you will learn faster and easily, with less effort.)

Whenever learning something new, we make the effort with the conscious mind. We make the conscious effort to try (data gathering), then subconscious mind processes the data, and this is how we learn. Once the processing of data is complete it becomes autopilot. We can now do the thing without any conscious intervention. We can now think about something else while riding a bicycle.

But the problem with this autopilot is, it is very hard to switch it off completely if the need arises.

It is very hard to 'UNLEARN'.

Some creative guys made an experiment regarding this process of learning and unlearning. They built a reverse bicycle. The reverse bicycle has everything same as the normal bicycle except it has a special arrangement with the handle, so that when you turn the handle right, the front wheel turns left and vice versa.

To know what happens when a normal person who have already learned to ride a bicycle tries to ride the reverse bicycle see the video below-


https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MFzDaBzBlL0

You can see it is very hard for him to ride this bicycle, because he is constantly fighting with the autopilot which is there in his subconscious. He has to 'UNLEARN' what he have already learnt about riding a bicycle. And then after few months of acquiring the new skill of riding a reverse bicycle it is again hard for him to ride the normal bicycle, but he is able to engage that old autopilot for riding normal bicycle again. Now there is another autopilot in his brain to recognise which bicycle he is riding and engage the required autopilot. Complex, isn't it?

If you doubt the video and want to try it yourself then you don't need to go finding the reverse bicycle. There are other options, like I have tried riding old Royal Enfield motorcycle. Unlike latest motorcycles the old models of Royal Enfield used to have the break at the left foot and gear shifter at the right foot. So if you are used to riding latest our modern motorcycles then you will find it hard and dangerous riding the old Royal Enfield motor bikes. You can find other vintage motorcycle models if you don't find a Royal Enfield with opposite controls.

So, what does it have to do with betterment of our life? Or our goal of improving health, wealth and happiness?

There are many things like bicycle riding, car driving etc. that we learn and then start doing it on autopilot mode. But things keep on changing, as you can see the old models of motorcycles had reverse controls. So we have to adapt to the changes and here the problem starts arising.

But if there are problems with the autopilot then why we had an autopilot in the first place?

We have developed this mechanism of autopilot over thousands of years of evolution. This autopilot mechanism are also found in insects. It is such a basic thing of life. It actually makes our life easy. It frees up our brains processing capacity for more important things. Like learning new things or decision making or thinking. Otherwise we won't be able to think anything while driving a car.

So again coming to the betterment of our life-

There are few drawbacks of this autopilot system-

A) Because of mental inertia or laziness our brain tries to stick to the previously learnt autopilot. For example the person possessing the old model of Royal Enfield would like to stick to the old model only because though the new model of Royal Enfield motorcycle is better in all respects he can't use the old autopilot, he had to construct a new one to ride the latest models. The person may rationalise his decision to stick to the old model by inventing some other reasons. But all others except him knows that he is at loss.

B) Because of the autopilot we are unable to notice new developments. For example if we are used to take a particular rout for commuting to our workplace, we have a tendency to never change it because that rout is fixed in the autopilot. The autopilot knows when to slow down, when to speed up, the timing of traffic signals, probable obstacles coming in the rout etc. So in short it's easy for the autopilot to follow the same rout. But what if there is something useful happening on some other rout or if the other rout is time saving or fuel saving?
You would never know until to try it consciously.

C) The most important drawback of this autopilot, or rather we can day a DEADLY FLAW of this autopilot system is that-
If we don't think about the dangers or if we don't experience dangers during the learning phase of the autopilot, then the autopilot simply doesn't have any data to counter these dangers. And this flawed autopilot keeps on working until accident happened or the odds manifest themselves.

For example, if you have learnt to carry your cellphone always in ON condition without thinking about possible dangers, then without your recognising it you will enter a gas station (petrol pump) with the cellphone on, or even attend or make calls while at the gas station, without realizing it, how much you have put yourself and others in danger.(the radio emission from cellphone can cause build up of static electricity up to such an extent so as to cause minute sparking which is enough to ignite air fuel mixture readily available at gas station).

Similarly if you have learnt driving a car without wearing a seatbelt then you will be fine until you have an accident. Also if you are not aware of the hazards of sleep deprivation and driving a car then there are very high chances of accident.

Your autopilot simply does not have data about such rarely happening bad incidences because they happen very rarely, but the most important thing is they do happen and your autopilot does not know the same.

So how to overcome these problems?

First to eliminate the problems we have to detect the presence of an autopilot, because we are so used to the autopilot that we seldom recognise that we are on autopilot mode.

How to recognise the autopilot?

It is easy, our brain is not made to be a multitasking machine, therefore our brain resorts to this autopilot mechanism to do one or more things automatically (subconsciously) and then concentrate on doing or thinking something new. So whenever you find yourself doing one thing and thinking something else you can be sure that you are on autopilot.

Now as we have learnt to recognise this autopilot inside us it is time to eliminate it's drawbacks-

It is again easy to eliminate the drawbacks-
You have to visit each autopilot and study it if it is missing something, are there any dangers? If there is any change in the operating environment like development of new technology or any changes in the surroundings, if there are any better alternatives etc. and do the changes necessary, try to learn new things. In this way you also work up your brain muscle.

This autopilot system also works in money matters for example some people are just used to take loans for buying things, some just like to save, some just like to make fixed deposits, some just like to buy a particular stocks etc. The bottom line is, learn new things, know where the dangers lie.

Hope I have contributed something to your knowledge about yourself.

See you soon.

Have a nice day...

Sumit
The POWER is when,
You use ODDS,
To get EVEN.

Ability to suffer

Few days back I was reading a blog-  fundooprofessor.com

That is when I came across the concept of "ABILITY TO SUFFER".

This was the missing link in my thinking framework. Rather I had a framework for thinking about businesses but the exact thing to call it was missing. Well, the framework for thinking is another topic of discussion. For now let's concentrate on Ability to Suffer.

You must be thinking that what does the Ability to Suffer has to do on the blog related to Health, Wealth and Happiness? Aren't we looking to avoid suffering?

Well, if you ask me, my answer to the first question would be, A Lot.

The basic or the foundation of enduring health, wealth and happiness lies in your Ability to Suffer.

Let's think about the relation of Ability to Suffer with all the pillars of life-

1) Health:-

If you have read my posts on-
Ageing and Anti-Ageing - 2 of the most popular words in cosmetics advertising.

The Language of Exercise - Our way towards being Healthy

3 most important aspects of living

No. 1 Misconception about great health

You must have understood that, to get good health you must inflict a little catabolism on your body. Our body is a Complex Adaptive System so it reacts to this catabolism by unleashing it's anabolic response. This anabolic response makes our body stronger. Therefore, the next time when you will be trying to inflict catabolism on your body through exercises, you have to take more efforts because your body is now stronger than before.

In short, you make your body strong by making it suffer. And why do you need a strong body? To make it able to withstand any microbial attacks or any rigorous work. In short you make your body resistant to suffering. In other words with exercise and diet, you increase your body's ability to suffer.

2) Wealth:-

Wealth can be grown only in businesses or investments. But both these ways are not easy. The world's greatest investor who is now second richest man in earth on Forbs list, a billionaire- Mr. Warren Buffett says, "Investing is not supposed to be easy, whoever things it is easy is a fool." The way to wealth contains a lots of traps, mistakes, losses, various risks, the process of decision making etc.

Now the process of building wealth is different for every person. Just like every person on earth is different in some way, each person who have accumulated wealth have accumulated it in a different way. The corollary to this thought is if you are trying to copy someone else's way to wealth, it is the recipe for disaster. Because you don't know actually what was the real thought process behind the accumulation of wealth with that particular person. It may be the case that, he may just have got lucky.😉 (but we can't just depend on luck to accumulate wealth. If you are relying on luck then stop reading samanyabuddhi.blogspot.com , this blog is not for you.)

Therefore to make your own way to wealth you have to try different things and spot those which works for you and then stick to them. But until you find the way that works for you, you are going to suffer losses. You may minimise the losses (and you should minimise your losses) by making the experiments on very small scale. But it is just a plane hard fact that, there are more chances that you are going to suffer losses to you find the best way to make wealth.

There is another fact to keep in mind that,

WE LIVE IN A CONSTANTLY CHANGING ENVIRONMENT.

Therefore once you find a way to make money, it is not going to work infinitely.

"Everything that begins have an end."

So after sometime the profits you were earning from your way week start diminishing our you may get in to losses. At such times, you must be having enough diversification to protect you from total bankruptcy. Even if you suffer losses you must be having enough strength left to be there to play the game the next day. And trust me this can happen for days in a row. I hope you got the point.

3) Happiness:-

Now you must be thinking what does suffering has to do with happiness? I used to think lack of suffering must be the state of happiness.

But just think about it, what are the common sources of unhappiness for the rich and the poor??

Poor relations in family members, lack of understanding, lack of mental peace, lack of love, lack of trust, unachieved dreams, failed partnerships, failed investments etc. Poor health is also a source of unhappiness but we just covered it above.

How these sources of unhappiness can be minimized? I am saying minimised because some amount of unhappiness is necessary to drive is forward. (NEED IS THE SOURCE OF INVENTION)

Lack of love and trust can be cured by being trustful and loving in nature, but in both the cases it is not necessary that if you trust or love someone then he or she should also do the same. Many times the trust is broken, love is not returned or sometimes some people also take disadvantage of love.

There are two ways you can find love and trust in your life-
⬜ wait for it to find you (passive way)
⬜ you start searching (active way)

Both ways work. You can wait for a person to come to you and love you, trust you, or you can go out, love, trust and see who returns the same to you. If you go out and search for it then your odds of finding love and trust multiplies. In this active process you will suffer a lot of heartbreaks, you will come across people who will not return love or trust, or some may even misuse your nature. This way of finding love and trust is full of suffering, but the prize is worth much more.

Failed investments, failed partnerships are also the same. Unless you do it, you won't find good partnerships or investments. You learn your lessons from your suffering. The more your ability to suffer, the more are your chances of finding more good investments and good partnerships.

Unachieved dreams can be achieved by trying incessantly and learning from failure.

If you are ready to suffer and learn from it then anything is achievable to you.

My take is the "lean technique" -

Perform small experiments, or better learn from others failure, get the data, refine your strategy, charge ahead.

See you soon and have a nice day.

Sumit
The POWER is when,
You use ODDS,
To get EVEN.

I am addicted to internet, what should I do?

Yesterday when I was browsing on quora.com , I came across a question asked by someone, "I am addicted to internet, what should I do?"

I was in a hurry at that time so didn't respond to him. But as usual my thought process got something to chew. 😊

My response to such a question is, "WOW!!"

First of all, What is addiction?

'Addiction is a state characterised by compulsive engagement in rewarding stimuli, despite adverse consequences.'

- Wikipedia

Rewarding stimuli means the stimuli which is the brain interpret as intrinsically positive or as something to be approached.

- Wikipedia

We have already discussed about addiction in the post titled- Addiction - The story of Narendra.

So let's get to back to the question-

He said he is addicted to internet, what should he do?

So I assume that he want to break the addiction. But his question also implies he at least have a smartphone or a computer and an internet connection. There are millions of human beings out there in the world who do not have access to these necessities of life. So this guy is a lucky one.

The compulsive part of his problem is not a problem if he can take care of the negative effects. I think it is very easy to deal with negative effects. If he keeps the compulsive part intact then there will be an explosion of positive outcomes.

The negative effects can be physical, eye stress, pain in the fingers and wrist, back pain etc. These can easily be prevented if he get's up occasionally and do some stretching exercises and take a small walk.

Then there is a greater problem of waste of time. I loved this part of the problem. Really, this is how I got started using internet. At first I was wasting a lot of time. Then came the moment of realisation. But then it was all easy to convert this wasted time in to the most precious time you have ever spent. And then keep adding such precious time. 😉

The simple trick to convert this waste to precious is just change the things you browse a little bit. And our guy has already started it by visiting quora.com and posting his question. Which means he is already on his way to this change.

So, how to do it?

I thought you will never ask..😉

This is very easy. You can start bringing this change right now. Just search something of your interest. Read information about it. You may find answers to your questions on the internet, just check out the reliability of the knowledge. Do it at least once a day. Automatically if you get answer to one question then second question related to new knowledge will arise. Or the answer to first question will lead to next question. At this point just go on finding answers, it's a never ending but very enjoyable, profitable, respectable way of life.

I will tell you how-

Suppose I have a question, how can an aeroplane fly?
So to answer this question I started searching about aeroplanes, landed on the Wikipedia page about aeroplanes, got to know about how the plane flies and the different parts of the plane which help in to flying. While doing it I got fascinated with the picture of a afterburning jet engine with a glowing exhaust stream with shock diamonds in it.



SR-71 Blackbird in flight with J58 engine on full afterburner, with numerous shock diamonds visible in the exhaust

So a new question came up. What is a jet engine, how does it works? So again landed on a Wikipedia page about jet engines, got to know about jet engines, afterburner or reheat cycle, jet engine is actually a form of gas turbine engine, where are these gas turbine engines used.. Then again while reading the applications of had turbine engine I came across aeroplanes, helicopters, power stations, American main battle tank Abrams M1A1 &M1A2, MTT Turbine superbike (Y2K)...

And then I was like wait a minute, how can a jet engine powers a tank? Or a street superbike? So this goes on and on and suddenly life becomes a very interesting thing to know about.

This is a just an example, but a real one. You can go your way and enjoy the life.

The rest of the people who don't use internet for their benefit can start using it this way. You will find your knowledge compound, you are learning which is making you wiser.

Have a nice day...


Sumit
The POWER is when,
You use ODDS,
To get EVEN.

Expert Career Guidance

Yesterday, I was just browsing free online classifieds website- quickr.com

I found an interesting section - CAREER GUIDANCE.

I kept on browsing and to my amazement I found too many personal advertisements, all looking for expert career guidance advice. My thought process got stimulated as, why so much of these people feel that they need career guidance? I never felt like I need career guidance. It means there is something I must find out. Whether I am missing something or these guys needing expert career guidance are missing something?

So I just started mailing to their email address to know more about what they are looking for?

Though there was difference between their educational qualification, there was strikingly high level of similarity with most of the emails. So most of the time our email correspondence went like as follows-

Hi Vijay,

I saw your advertisement on quickr.com
which said that you need expert career guidance.

To be frank I am not a professional career counsellor. But I am interested to know what are you stumbled at? What is your qualification or present situation?

I write a blog- samanyabuddhi.blogspot.com

Your story can be a good material for a new blog post. Also it will be helpful for my blog readers. Don't worry, your privacy will not be compromised.

If you don't feel like replying, it's perfectly fine. I won't bother you again.

Thanks in advance,

Sumit
The POWER is when,
You use ODDS,
To get EVEN.

(Note:- The name Vijay is imaginary, just to give you an idea.)

To this email, most of the time the reply was,

Hi Sumit,

Actually I am just graduated (or graduating or  doing a job at ....... as .......... but I am not satisfied with the current job etc.). I need career guidance.

Vijay

Up on doing some conversation with them, the common pattern was-

1) I tried to know about their education in detail, their background, their likings etc.

2) Asking them what job would he or she like to do. On which the usual answer was, I don't know, that is why I need expert career guidance.

3) Then I tried to ask their goals in life, like where he or she wanted to be day 10, 20, 30 years from now.

4) The common reply was, nicely settled with a decent job with a good monthly pay cheque, a nice home to live in, a happy family, and the common sentence,"Just like everyone else wants.." 😄

I was really amazed with this strikingly common pattern of thoughts.

Anyone can observe-
1) None have given a thought to where they wanted to be in the future.

2) None have even thought about what kind of job they would be happy to do or what kind of job they can do which is of any help to the possible employer.

3) Those who are presently doing a job does not know exactly why they want to change the job or career.

Without the above three points asking for a career guidance is just like asking a ticket to a railway booking counter or getting in to a cab and telling the driver to drive. The ticket booking clerk can't book a ticket for you unless you tell him the destination. Same is the case with cab driver, he won't drive unless you give him the destination.

This condition means only two possibilities, either people don't know how to plan for a career, or they are plain lazy.

This blog (samanyabuddhi.blogspot.com) can't do anything about lazy people, rather lazy people will never read this blog. So we will get to "how can people plan their career?"

There are thousands of career options out there so people get confused. But, truly speaking, it is easy to plan a career. There are just three steps to plan a career-

1) Imagine where you wanted to be 10, 20, 30 years from now.

It is much easy that people think it is. Just imagine doing what you love to do (what you love to do must be of any use for at least a little part of the population or it can be able to earn you money). Doing it as a respected person. With enough time for yourself and for your family.

For example I like investing in companies,I like reading, learning etc. 10 years from now I see myself retired from job. Awaking in the morning when my I feel like it, preparing for yoga, eating the breakfast of my choice, while having breakfast taking a look at any developments in my investments, then planning how to spend the day with full freedom to do anything. After finishing breakfast, going for bath and then for the plan I just decided. I may spend my whole day reading or watching movies or may be at some tourist destination, or may be taking classes on how to retire early or about worldly wisdom, spending time with family, working out at evening, again spending time with family, watching television then sleep.

Your goal can be different from mine. You may want to be a world famous painter 10 years down the line. Or you may want to travel the world. Or you may want to start a NGO. You may want to help the needy. You may want to develop a vaccine against HIV thereby preventing AIDS. May be you have a product idea and aspiring to be an entrepreneur. Your goal can be anything. Just take your time to visualise it in detail. Otherwise you won't be able to go ahead, or choose a path.

In the book "The Psychocybernetics" by "Maxwell Maltz". The writer says that, human mind works like a goal striving mechanism. If you feed your subconscious mind with detailed goal, it will start working to achieve it. Your subconscious mind will automatically prompt you the way towards goal. You must listen to your subconscious mind and start moving. Our subconscious mind has a feedback mechanism which constantly tries to keep us on the route to our goal. But if you are not moving at all then this mechanism can't work. If a person do not feed his subconscious mind with a goal and keep it idle then his whole mind and body will start turning into a useless, lifeless, unhappy condition. So you must feed it one or more goals. It will start working automatically. You just need to listen to the solutions provided by your subconscious mind and act on them.
Well, enough for now about our subconscious mind. We will talk about it in detail later.

2) Start your journey-

Take the first step towards your goal. I am not telling you to take a leap, just a small step. Because leaping involves risk of falling and suffering heavy damage to your ability to take next step. We are not afraid of failure here, just cautious enough to minimise it. If you don't move, your subconscious guidance system doesn't work. So moving ahead is very important. Even if a few steps go in wrong direction, eventually you will learn to correct your direction.

For example, if you want to be an owner of a resort and you don't have any money to set up one, or don't even know what is needed, how to handle everything. The first thing you have to do is get a job in a resort, at any level possible. Slowly keep an open mind. Keep learning how the resort works, how the supplies comes, how it was constructed, how the land was procured, how the capital was raised, how the recruitment was done etc. Even if you don't know what to learn and what questions should you ask yourself, you will come to know when you get in. Excel in what you do and start climbing the career ladder. You will slowly amass money as well as experience. You will understand the business model. And then you can set up your own. This process is not as easy as it sounds here, it requires a lot of patience, determination, integrity,

but the most important thing is,

"IT CAN BE DONE".

3) Keep on improving-

It's not all done once you achieve your goal. There is intense competition out there so you need to keep on improving to stay in the game. Follow a lean and agile system so that you can change as per changing environment, may it be business, social or nature etc.

Set new goals and repeat. 😉

Real life story-

A childhood friend of mine Atul was from a very poor financial background. His family used to live in one room. His family was always struggling in the financial front due to poor income and lack of education.

As Atul grew, he constructed a goal for himself, to live in a decent owned flat. For this goal to materialise, he needed money, which was a lot for his background. So he thought on it searched for ways of getting cheap but niche education, the field doesn't matters for him. Atul was only focused on his goal, a decent flat with 100% equity. So he chose to to get a diploma in surface coating technology. The course was available at very meagre fees, it was a niche field, so there was job surety and a good career prospect. He got support from his family, completed the course and landed in to a job. It was in a low paying company. As the payment was low, there was high attrition rate. But he persisted, he never lost sight of his goal. The job was very tough. Job involved solving customer complaints, which was never ending. You solve one complaint and the other arises before the first is solved. But he persisted. Atul's motto was just somehow tackle today. Do what you can to solve the customer complaints and pass the day. As days were passing, his corpus was building. As there many recruits came and left he became the most experienced employee, claiming pay raise and promotions.

On one fine day, he had sufficient corpus at his hand, he bought a decent flat with some help of mortgage funding. His goal was achieved. Later on he decided a new goal of clearing the mortgage loan. So then he changed the job with a better paying one, the work at job is now eased. And he is close to clear the mortgage or may have cleared it as I haven't had a word with Atul for long.

May be he is after a new goal.

I hope you got the idea, how easy it is to plan a career. Also how personal it is to plan a career? Can you imagine any career counsellor doing it better than you? Can she get your perspective, your wishes, your wants? It is so personal that none except you can do it.

So, what are you waiting for? Your mommy is not gonna help you here, start working on it.

Have a nice day.

Sumit
The POWER is when,
You use ODDS,
To get EVEN.

Creative destruction

I got attracted to the idea of creative destruction because both the words appear opposite in meaning yet they match perfectly to describe a wonderful phenomenon.

The definition of creative destruction is written on quora.com which is widely endorsed, is as follows-

Definition
'Creative Destruction' is a
paradoxical term introduced to
economic theory in 1942 by the
Austrian economist Joseph
Schumpeter (1883–1950). He used
the term to describe the special
form of economic growth that
entrepreneurs particularly bring to
the capitalist system. Schumpeter
argued that it was the
entrepreneur's introduction of
radical innovation into the capitalist
system that was the real force that
sustained long-term economic
growth, even as it destroyed the
economic value of established
enterprises who may have
previously enjoyed a degree of
monopolistic power. (1)

Creative destruction is seen everywhere, from nature to man made things. Creative distruction is actually a very similar to the process of evolution, or it is the same as the "survival of the fittest".

We are going to discuss about creative distruction with respect to capitalism.

Creative distruction is seen in the capitalist system as innovative ventures making some other ventures obsolete, so that stealing the profit from them and forcing them to shut down. For example audio tapes closed down the gramophone industry, cds closed down audio tape industry, iPod closed down CD player industry. The usefulness to the customer went on increasing. In the age of gramophones, the gramophone was a stationary and bulky thing. Then came audio tapes which was smaller than gramophone but still bulky. Then came Sony Walkman. It was handy, one can carry it anywhere but still needed to carry those tapes and batteries as the batteries couldn't last long enough. Then came CDs, but again the cd players were bulky, then again Sony came to rescue by launching Sony Discman. But again one needed to carry those CDs and batteries. And then finally Apple launched iPod which gave us capacity to carry hundreds of songs with us in a tiny device and battery lasting more than a day on a single charge. It was a major breakthrough. During this evolution many gramophone factories went in to losses, then many audio tape industries, then cd industries are now finding it difficult to survive. Such obsolete industries can't survive for a long time.

Though these companies are shutting down, the new ones are flourishing, they are giving more value to the society than the obsolete one's. So the total value of the society is increasing though some industries are dyeing. The new ones are better ones, economic ones. We can see the process in action as Mr. Eion Musk is building the Gigafactory to bring down the lithium ion battery cost lower. This on turn will bring down the cost of the electric cars produced by Tesla motors. This in turn reducing the carbon emissions from gasoline or diesel powered cars and trucks. Tesla motors is also building a network of solar cell powered free charging points for it's customers all across the America.

Well, This blog is for practical things only, which are beneficial to everyone, and that too from the moment the person understands the point, so how this creative distruction is related to us or beneficial to us?

I am discussing this topic because I see people all around the world opposing this process of creative distruction. People resisting the closure of obsolete companies or the companies with faulty manufacturing processes or faulty or less useful products. Many financial institutions are also using bad processes because of which they are facing problems. People are getting emotional regarding the companies at the verge of closure. Governments all around the world are also sensing the public opinions and supporting the distressed companies for the sake of votes.

In my own country too government is providing monetary help to farmers. I am of the opinion that if government wish to do anything for the farmers, it should educate them. Because most of the Indian farmers are poor and illiterate. On the other hand I have seen educated farmers progressing a lot. They are accumulating wealth whereas the illiterate ones are opting for suicide.

Well let's come back to our topic- how we can use this creative distruction in our favour?

So we have seen that people generally get emotional and resist the process of creative distruction. Much amount of valuable resources like money, time, intelligence is wasted on resisting this process. We can benefit by not participating in the resistance, rather we should be on the side of creative distruction. Because creative distruction is the way of nature. Creative distruction is the way in which capitalist system evolves.

Try to bring about creative distruction by thinking about ways of doing things. Like replacing your shoes with lace with without lace so as saving your time. Now you may say how much difference would it make if you save one minute per day? But think again, one minute per day translates to 365 minutes per year, that is 6 hours per year. If suppose wear shoes for approximately 50 years of our life then the time spent in tying shoe lace is 300 hours, or 12.5 days. So one can easily save 12.5 days of his life just by changing the shoes.

There are many such ways. Use your brain to get your own ways formulated perfectly for you.

CONCLUSION-

How can we use creative destruction in our investments?

I hope you have understood how the creative distruction works in a capitalism. Innovative companies go ahead, while others are left behind. Innovative companies enjoy growing market share, growing efficiencies, growing customer base, high capacity utilisation, high return on capital etc. The non-innovative companies just fall behind with losing market share, declining profit, reducing efficiencies, low return on capital employed, less capacity utilisation etc.

So it is common sense to guess that the future belongs to the innovative companies. Conversely one can say that non innovative companies have no future. Up on using our common sense further we can say that in investing, the investor investing in the innovative companies will get benefited. While the investor investing in the non innovative companies will lose his money.

But there is a catch- any company can turn in to innovative company or it can even buy inventions if the management wishes so. Again, conversely any innovative company can turn in to non innovative or a dud.

So it is up to the investor to see if he is holding innovative or agile companies? Are his holding companies can adapt to the changing business scenario? Or changing markets? Or changing customer taste's? Or are they improving? Are they learning from their mistakes?

If the answer to any of this question is NO then it is a bad sign. There are more chances that the company will go in to losses and the investor will lose money.

Then what to do?

The answer is simple, instead of holding such dud companies, simply sell them even if at loss, recover the remaining capital and find good innovative companies which can grow your capital for extended time period.

There are many such companies out there, listed on stock exchanges. One just need to be curious enough to find them, buy them at reasonable price and hold them until they are innovative and agile. Just relax and let your compounding machines compound your wealth.

This is the practical use of creative destruction. There are many more you can think of, just share them in comments section.

Hope, I have contributed something through this post to your understanding and wisdom. A step towards our goal of health, wealth and happiness.

Thanks for reading..

Have a nice day..


Sumit
The POWER is when,
You use ODDS,
To get EVEN.

Sources-
(1) https://www.quora.com/What-is-creative-destruction

7 ways of saving money

Today's thought on saving money is inspired by those people around me who says and believes, it is difficult to save money, the expenses are increasing, prices are skyrocketing. But, these statements are only one part of the story.

The other part is, people are also getting pay hikes. Everyone is searching for how to get a pay hike???

Though people are saying saving money is becoming more and more difficult, I see this condition as blessing in disguise. You must be asking how? Well read on..

Rising prices and rising expenses means rise in total money at stake. Which means you can get more money saving in little efforts. Just like in one case a small turn of a steering wheel can change the direction of a 1 ton car but in other case changes the direction of a giant 100,000 ton container ship. The effort is the same in both the cases but the difference in the outcomes is dramatically different.

So lets dwell over usual household expenses and saving money ideas or or in other words money saving tips for dummies- 😊

1) Save money on gas-
Most of the people reading this blog are using gasoline powered vehicles for transportation purpose. And it is a big consumer of money. On an average more than 10% of monthly spending's of a middle class family are consumed by traveling expenses. Therefore saving on these spendings can have a big impact on the total money saved.

In my case I used to spend more than 30% of my monthly spendings on commuting. Also used to spend 3 hours a day in commuting. Then I shifted to a location close to my office and now I spend only about 5% of my monthly spendings on gasoline. Most of which is because of leisure travelling.

Using a bicycle or bike is also another way of saving money both on gasoline and medical bills too.

Even if you must need to use gasoline or diesel powered vehicle then you can save on fuel costs by properly maintaining the vehicle and using proper driving techniques.

You can read about it HERE - The power of compounding- 10 ways to improve your bikes mileage

2) Disease prevention money saved-
Diseases are like ghosts which catch us in wrong timings and drain much of our hard earned money. Disease prevention is a very easy think than what it sounds. You just need to understand your body and make it strong. Even if you catch any infection, you can help your immune system fight that infection, in the process also making it stronger. Disease causes loss of time, loss of earning, loss of money, loss of mental peace and suffering.

It can be easily prevented or cured. Just read the posts
A) Ageing and Anti-Ageing - 2 of the most popular words in cosmetics advertising.

B) 3 most important aspects of living

C) The Language of Exercise - Our way towards being Healthy

D) 3 Important Aspects of Living - DIET

E) What do I do when I get ill??

F) No. 1 Misconception about great health

3) Save money life insurance policy-
You must be thinking this heading is weird but, Save money on life insurance policy is for those people who are obsessed with life insurance policies or who are victims of life insurance policy mis-selling or those who are financially illiterate. Most of the people opting for the life insurance policy see it as an investment option.

The purpose of life insurance policy is to support your dependents after accidental death or disablement of insured person. Generally these insurance policies invest the policy money in some fixed return money market instruments. These instruments give low rate of return, then again there are administrative expenses and marketing expenses, the commission of the insurance advisor etc. After subtracting all these expenses, the policy holder gets very meagre returns which are not even up to the inflation rate, do if you are seeing it as an investment instrument then you are probably wrong.

This money could have been invested somewhere else where returns are high, and you could have earned a lot more than in life insurance policy. That means you lost the opportunity to earn more returns, which can be treated as expenses. That is why inclusion of this heading in this post.

This loss of money or purchase of a life insurance policy can be avoided by investing the money in higher return options like investing in share market or if you don't have ability to search for good companies at good price then you can simply follow a systematic investment plan developed by you, investing in to index funds. (invest more when market is down and invest less when market is making highs) You will definitely build a great amount of wealth in this way. And just teach this way to your dependents so that they don't need to take any outside help when any unfortunate event happens. You will save much more money this way, rather you will build wealth and be a great example for your dependents and friends.

But sometimes it is absolutely necessary to purchase a life insurance policy like when you take a big loan from bank or financial institutions. They make it compulsory to keep an insurance policy as a collateral. At such times opt for pure insurance and not the insurance come investment product.


Do remember one thing- insurance and investments are totally different things, do not mix them together.

4) Saving money at grocery store-
A big and necessary part of our spending goes in the grocery shopping. Therefore saving money at grocery store is a very effective thing if you want to save a lot of money.

Saving money at grocery store is actually very easy. Jus some little tweaks and you will save a lot of money.

You need to understand the sources that cause you to lose money and steer clear of them.

Two of the biggest sources of losing money or wasting money while grocery shopping are, falling victim to different marketing techniques and falling victim to our own psychological biases while shopping.

A very effective technique to avoid the marketing techniques and our own psychological biases is to pre-plan our trip to the grocery store in the following steps-

➡ Just plan the trip to the grocery store at the comfort of your home. When you are at your home, you are free from any marketing tactics or even your own psychological biases.

➡ Plan your trip at the time when there is little rush at the grocery store, so that you will have less effect of many biases caused by being in a herd.

➡ Make a list of items you want to purchase. Write it down in your smart phone or on a piece of paper like old fashioned way. Include all items in a sufficient quantity so that you won't have to go for grocery shopping for at least a month again. Wholesale purchases will also save you money.

➡ Go to the grocery store at the planned time, collect the items in your list as early as possible. (do it fast so that you will be exposed for the marketing tactics and your own psychological biases for a little amount of time)

➡ Avoid impulse buying. Don't buy the things other than your list, this is not the last time you are going for grocery shopping. So you can add the thing you thought about purchasing the next time(if you think it is needed even after days of your visit to grocery store).

➡ Ask for a discount or go to wholesale grocery stores in your are.

Falling victim to marketing tactics or your own psychological biases can cost you up to 30% of your grocery spendings at the grocery shop itself, and then there are side effects like your home will be crowded with useless fancy items and a small bank balance.

So if you follow the above steps carefully, you will save up to 30% of your grocery bills.

5) Save money online-
Online stores have the advantage of less fixed costs, less cost of real estate, ease of purchase. Therefore they can operate on low margins and high volumes, can serve a large geographical area. That is why there are more chances of you finding a great deal online, at the comfort of your home itself.

But there is a catch, don't just browse etailers if you don't need to buy anything, because again there marketing tactics will creat needs in your mind for the things they sell.

So if you need to buy something, for example a cellphone, then decide what are your needs first then, visit different sites, check the specs and prices, decide which models are fulfilling your needs in your budget and then search for the least price for that model. This is the way to shop online to get most value out of your hard earned money.

6) Money saving vouchers -
You will get money saving vouchers in emails, sms, news paper, fliers etc. These vouchers are designed to creat need for the product in your mind plus striking deficiency bias (limited period offer, or offer till the stock lasts etc) increasing the perceived value of the product much higher.

So my take is just don't pay attention to these vouchers. Mostly these vouchers are for products which cannot be sold normally because the product is not that useful or it is very costly.

Sometimes you may get a bargain deal but for that you must maintain a cool head and can be able to filter out useless vouchers without affecting your thinking.

7) Save money on weddings or other social functions -
It may sound weird but I have seen many people or generations of many families just accumulating the money for weddings of their children or other family functions.

They want it to make it grand. They think it is a once in a lifetime event so it must be celebrated in a grandest possible way. It is a show off kind of mentality. People boast about the money figure they have spent on their kids birthday or wedding etc. Their is a race to spend more and more money on such functions. They intend to show their higher status by spending money on such functions.

I do agree that they are once in a lifetime functions but then there are many such once in a lifetime functions. People should see it as a form of get together only and not the media to show their status. Status can be seen in day to day life itself, there is no need to show it off. And the most important thing is the inner satisfaction. If you are able to show off higher status but lack mutual understanding in the family, or there is a lack of family values then what is the use of the status then?

If people are only going to the high status people for the money then it is a sign that such people are not useful in the time of need. Such people can't be trusted. And trust me if you just skip such people and go ahead then you will find good people, though they are just handful, they will always be there for you.

I suggest to spend only a minimum amount of money on such functions depending on your financial condition.

Don't ever spend all your savings on it. Get the financial freedom before getting in to such expenses.

That's it for now.

Please share your views in the comments section.

See you soon.

Till then have a nice day..

Sumit
The POWER is when,
You use ODDS,
To get EVEN.

One Idiot

You must have thought, the name of the post is weird. Or may have thought about the bollywood movie "3 idiots" starring Amir khan, R Madhavan, Sharman Joshi, Kareena Kapoor, Boman Irani etc. But hold on..

It is said that,

A Picture can tell a Thousand words.

Now if a picture can tell a thousand words then imagine how much a video can tell??

Following is the link to the YouTube video, named "One Idiot" made by IDFC Foundation. The video is so much entertaining and educating that I couldn't resist sharing it to you guys.

It's a 33 minute video, very straight forward, educating on the subject of wealth, half the dialogues in Hindi and half in English.

Here is the link-

https://youtube.com/watch?v=vU1l1TB7GzI



Warning - this video may change your life.. 😉

Watch it and enjoy.

Sumit
The POWER is when,
You use ODDS
To get EVEN.

 

3 Important Aspects of living - DIET

This post is in continuation with
1) 3 most important aspects of living
2) No. 1 Misconception about great health

So till now, we have learnt about ageing, anti ageing, the language of exercise, misconceptions about exercises etc.

Out of the 3 pillars of our life, the #1 pillar, that is health is divided in to 2 parts-

Exercise and diet, until now we have learned basic things about the exercises, also you must have read what do I do when I fall ill?, if not then do read.

So now comes the diet part. We will definitely learn more about exercises, but exercises and diet go hand in hand so let's learn some basic things about the diet.

One of the advantage of learning about the diet is to become free from the misconceptions about the diet, like many people or organisations make big claims about their crash diet course, follow our diet plan and lose this much pounds or lose inches etc. Many times there person following these crash diets do achieve the targeted weight loss or weight gain or inch loss or fat reduction, whatever.. But his or her body sustains to much fatigue and many times fall ill and in the process of recovery from the illness returns to the point where he or she started and realises the waste of money, time, mental piece etc. Or even if he or she doesn't fall ill, sooner or later reverts to the original condition, wiping out any achievements in weight loss or gain or inch reduction etc.

If you really want to achieve the good physique then you must understand how your body works, how to feed it, how to keep it healthy. You yourself should care about your body, if you don't care about your body then how can anyone else care? How can you hand over your body to someone else just like that?

The hard fact is the people running the slimming centres are not doing it for charity. They are doing it for money, the slimming centre is their business. They are doing it because people think they need it and hence approach them. Slimming centre people themselves must be aware of the fact that they are not actually helping people becoming healthy but its a tough world out there, if they don't show results quickly, their customers will go to the next slimming centre which gives quick results in whatever way possible. And there will always be a next slimming centre, if not there now then sooner or later it will be there.

People generally go after INSTANT GRATIFICATION, that is we want instant reward for our actions, if there is no instant reward then we get discouraged and start finding other instantly rewarding options. But we must remember what investment legend Warren Buffett said-

You can not get a baby in one month by making nine women pregnant.. Some things just takes time...

You must be thinking why I am quoting investment legend in the post about diet? This is because there are some basic rules or we can say models which are common to all fields. And delayed gratification is one of them. We will talk about these models also known as mental models in future posts for sure.

So back to the topic, as the second world war was ending researchers at the University of Minnesota began a legendary experiment on psychology and physiology of human starvation. The subjects were 36 people with different body types. They were semi starved, given a diet of 1600 calories per day of typical European diet consisting of whole-wheat bread, potatoes, cereals and considerable amounts of turnips and cabbage and a little amounts of meat and dairy for 24 weeks. Only 17% calories coming from fats, what todays nutritionists will consider low calorie and very low fat diet.

What happened to these people is very interesting, it is also a lesson for is to understand the working of our body. It will crack the assumption of the proponents of crash diets to lose weight, or the weight loss advice which simply neglects the presence of hunger.

As per the study-

The men lost an average of a pound of body fat a week over the first 12 weeks, but averaged only a quarter-pound per week over the next 12, despite the continued deprivation. And this was not their only physiological reaction. Their extremities swelled; their hair fell out; wounds healed slowly. They felt continually cold; their metabolism slowed.

More troubling were the psychological effects. The men became depressed, lethargic and irritable. They threw tantrums. They lost their libido. They thought obsessively about food, day and night. The Minnesota researchers called this "semi-starvation neurosis." Four developed "character neurosis." Two had breakdowns, one with "weeping, talk of suicide and threats of violence." He was committed to the psychiatric ward. The "personality deterioration" of the other "culminated in two attempts at self-mutilation." He nearly detached the tip of one finger and later chopped off three with an ax.

After the period of starvation ended, they were allowed to eat more, but then again in controlled manner, groups were formed to assess the effect of increased calories intake, one group was allowed to eat as much as they want, the people of this group ate huge amounts of food, they consumed up to 10,000 calories per day. They recovered their weight and fats very rapidly. And after 20 weeks they amassed 50% more body fats than what they had at the beginning. Researchers call it 'Post Starvation Obesity'.

Ok, so the simple thing is that it is often harmful to go for instant results. It is not good to neglect our hunger, if we starve ourselves then our bodies physiological response will be the stronger, unsurmountable feeling of hunger. That is why I always say, our body is a Complex Adaptive System, our body wants to survive and reproduce, and it prompts us to do whatever is necessary. So we must first ensure and fulfil what it wants and provide it in suitable ways.

As you must have understood from the University of Minnesota experiment, weight reduction or inch reduction is not a one time job. Whoever followed crash diets, his or her body thinks there is deficiency of food in its environment, so the bodies response to this situation is a strong feeling of hunger, day and night, so that the person can eat as much as possible. Along with this our body also reduces our metabolism rate, that is the rate of chemical reactions happening in the body which are responsible for repair, growth, heat generation etc. Our body starts saving more and more calories we consumer and amassing it as fats under the skin and around vital organs(which is dangerous). This response remains for extended periods of time after the crash diet or the starvation has ended.

So how to do it then? You must be asking.😉

As I have just said, it can be done by understanding our body, it's needs and fulfilling those needs in a proper way. Maintaining a healthy body is not just a one time job, it is a way of living life, exercise and diet are part of a healthy lifestyle, so the earlier you incorporate them in your life the better. Further just incorporating exercise and diet is not enough, you must know why and how they work otherwise you may damage your own body.

You must have heard many times in the ancient scriptures about the rules of life, the basic rule is-

Know thyself...

Or Atm-Gyaan...

This rule is there in almost every holy scriptures all around the world.

So you must understand how your body works, what it needs, and you must supply what your body needs. This is the basis of the right diet.

What nutrients our body need?

The nutrients we need can be classified as follows- (as you are reading this blog,I assume that you are not illiterate, you must have gone through school, where you must have learned the basic nutrients our body needs, so this is just the revision.)

1) Carbohydrates- (Also known as Carbs)
These are the polymeric form of sugars (the sugar we use for sweetening the food is chemically known as sucrose), when sugars gets attached to each others forming a chain, it is called polymer. The sucrose is a dimer, that is made up of 2 sugar molecules.

The biggest source of carbohydrates is the grains, tubers etc. As you just read, carbohydrates are the polymeric form of sugars. They must be broken down in to individual units before they can be used by various cells of our body or even the absorption by our digestive system is only done when they are broken down in to individual units. Depending on the complexity of their molecule, they take different amount of time to get broken in to individual units of sugars by the action of digestive juices. As they get broken down, they get absorbed by the digestive system. Depending on the time they take for digestion, carbohydrates are classified as Fast carbs or Slow carbs. Fast carbs generally have individual units of sugars present in them, for example fruits have individual units of sugars present in to them, so they get absorbed in to our blood readily and can be used directly as an energy source directly, without the need of any chemical processing. While slow carbs are digested slowly, therefore they provide a sustained stream of carbohydrates to the blood for hours after consumption. Wheat provides slow carbs while rice is a source of fast carbs. Some instant energy drinks contains fast carbs, they readily get absorbed by the digestive system and provide instant energy. But my thinking is that, use of such instant energy drinks should be avoided because they mask the real problem, that is fatigue, why we had fatigue and felt the need to consume instant energy drink? Further they also reduce the bodies own stamina to avoid fatigue.

Anyways, The excess carbs are converted in to a polymeric form known as glycogen by the liver and are stored by the liver, these reserves are used whenever required. The famous hormone Insulin governs this process and keeps the required level of sugars in our blood stream.

Carbohydrates are used as a primary source of energy by our body. Carbon dioxide, water and energy are the aerobic oxidation products of carbohydrates. (Aerobic means- with oxygen) When anaerobic oxygen happens, then lactic acid as an added product is formed, which is mainly responsible for muscle fatigue.

Our brain can only use sugars as an energy source. Almost all other cells can use fats as an alternative source of energy.

Almost all the food items we eat contains carbohydrates, so there are generally very rare chances of lies consumption. Rather patients having high blood sugar needs to control the intake of carbohydrates.

My purpose of writing here is to tell you the normal working of our body, if your body is not working normally because of some reasons, then you have to find those reasons and bring it to the normal. Many times we ourselves knowingly or unknowingly interfere in the working of our body thereby resulting in to a disease.

As Warren Buffett says-

Whenever you find yourself fallen in to a pit, the first thing you should do is, stop digging..

Again I am quoting this greatest capital allocator on earth because many psychological rules are applicable in any field of our life.

2) Minerals-
Our body needs different kind of minerals like calcium, zinc, iron etc. for various activities in the body. For example calcium is needed in the construction of bones and cartilages in the body, then iron is needed in carrying and storage of oxygen, other minerals are part of different hormones which govern different chemical reactions in the body or they even participate in certain chemical reactions occurring in our body.

As you go towards artificial ways of living like eating food grown on chemical fertilisers, grown from hybrid or genetically modified seeds, drinking RO purified water etc. makes our diet deficient in minerals. (when you start increasing the yield of crops by forcing them to yield more by some ways like hybridizing or genetically modifying or application of enzymes etc one must ensure the supply of all nutrients in right proportion which is seldom done, usually what farmers does is, they supply only the yield increasing nutrients through chemical fertilisers, and not the other nutrients which have less effect on the yield of crop, this scenario makes the yield more in quantity but less in quality, that is less in nutrient content.)(RO filters filters out all the dissolved minerals in the water, making it pure but simultaneously reducing the mineral content.) Drinking water is the biggest source of calcium apart from dairy and meat products. (RO also filters out all the pathogens from drinking water, thereby reducing the ingestion of pathogens, resulting in to less infections, resulting in to less action for immune system, resulting in to weak immune system, such people quickly catch infection when they consume normal water.)

The more you are closer to the nature the less are the chances of mineral deficiency and catching of infections.

3) Fats-
Fats or vegetable oils or various kinds of animal oils are fats. They have very high calorific value, almost double the calories than carbohydrates. They are used as an energy source and a kind of protective covering to insulate our body from atmospheric temperatures and physical shocks. Some Viral organs like kidneys, liver etc. also have a covering of fatty tissue (adipose tissue) to protect it from mechanical shocks.

Fats cannot be used by brain cells (neurons). Mainly fats are burnt by our skeletal muscles for their energy needs. The muscle repair and growth mechanism mainly used fats as a source of energy, this is a very long lasting process and consumes large amount of fats.

Muscles performing aerobic activity also starts burning the fats when supply of carbohydrates starts diminishing. (aerobic activity means, repeated movements, like cycling, walking, jogging, aerobic exercises etc.)

Now a days we eat to much of fast food or snacks, which are very rich sources of fats. There is a good news for the readers of this blog- You have very less chances of fats deficiency ever happening in your life...😊

This is because educated people are generally ingesting much more amount of fats than they can metabolize. Therefore fats starts accumulating over the vital organs(which is very dangerous), below the skin, in the blood, the cholesterol level increases which is a kind of low density fat, ask this resulting in to various diseases like- obesity, fatty liver, heart disease, heart attacks, choked blood vessels, joint pain(as they are unable to bear increased body weight, psychological stress because of their looks, you can imagine others..

So as far as carbohydrates and fats are concerned we educated people don't have to worry about their deficiency. Rather we need to keep check on their intake or make sure, they get metabolised in our body as soon as possible.

Fats play a major psychological role in our diet. Fats give us the satisfaction or the feeling of full stomach. That is why we feel full very quickly while eating deep fried food items.

4) Vitamins-
Vitamins are vital amines, amines means proteins, vital means very necessary. Three are special kind of proteins which are necessary for normal functioning of our body. They act as special molecules necessary to bring about certain biological reactions in our body. They act as catalyst for different biological reactions, our they are part of different hormones our enzymes. There are different sources for different vitamins.

There are two classes of vitamins- water soluble and water insoluble. As the name suggests, the water soluble vitamins are soluble in the water while water insoluble are not soluble in the water. Just remember that there are two classes of compounds, polar and nonpolar, polar have positive charge at one part of the molecule and negative on the other part of the molecule. While nonpolar do not have any charge on any part of their molecule, that is they are neutral. Polar compounds can dissolve in polar compounds only, for example water is polar and sugar is polar therefore sugar dissolves in water, similarly salt is pillar so it dissolved in water, but oil or fats are nonpolar so they don't dissolve in water or water don't dissolve in oil or fats, but different fats or oils may dissolve in each other.

Similarly, water soluble vitamins are double in water while water insoluble vitamins are soluble in fats or oils. We can ingest vitamins in dissolved form only, so the simple logic is we get water insoluble vitamins through oil or fat containing food and water soluble vitamins through water containing food. Simple isn't it?

These water soluble vitamins can't be stored in our body. The excess quantity is continually lost through urine. Therefore we need to ingest these vitamins every day.

Whereas fat soluble vitamins are stored in the fat tissue to some extent. And they are supplied to the place where needed in dissolved state in the fats.

Water soluble vitamins are B group of vitamins and vitamins C. Vitamins C is present in mainly citrus fruits, like lemon, orange etc. While B group is present in most of the raw fruits and vegetables. I said raw because this B group of vitamins degrade quickly at moderately high temperature. Therefore no B vitamin is present in the cooked food.

There is one another source of vitamin B- there are millions of bacteria living in our intestines, these are friendly bacteria, they digest some amount of food which we can't digest, and convert it into useful and absorbable products. One of such product they make is vitamin B. These useful bacteria gets killed when we consume antibiotics. At such times we quickly develop vitamin B deficiency. We must need to take vitamins B complex pills or eat more raw fruits till those useful bacteria are grown again.

5) PROTEINS-
Protein is the most important nutrient, proteins are the building blocks of our body. If we consider the total amount present in the body then protein comes just after the water. Proteins are there in every cell of our body, DNAs and RNAs of cells which contains all the hereditary information are made up of proteins, the antibodies that our immune system makes are special kind of proteins, all hormones are also made of proteins, all receptors (sensors of our body) are made up of protein molecules. Proteins are everywhere in our body. Our muscle fibres because of which we can do various movements are made up of proteins. Our heart muscles are also made up of proteins. We burn the fats in the structure made up of proteins. Proteins can also be used as a source of energy.

So as we are now aware of the importance of proteins, let's get to the sources of proteins-

We hear a lot about the protein content of different ingredients of food or the protein content of the different food items itself. But there is one more parameter related to the nutritional value of this protein content. Even if a particular food item we eat have protein content then it is not possible to our digestive system to digest all the protein content in the food we ingest. Further there are different kinds of proteins our body needs, apart from these proteins, there are other proteins present in the food, some of which we can convert in to usable proteins, others we can do nothing about. There are also some proteins which are readily absorbed in our body and used directly without any processing.

Amino acids are the basic units of proteins. Proteins are made up of combination of different amino acids. We need the amino acids in a particular ratio. So the food items can be ranked our evaluated with this amino acid composition and digestibility.

Protein Digestibility Corrected Amino Acid Score (PDCAAS) is a method of evaluating the protein quality based on both the amino acid requirements of humans and their ability to digest it. The PDCAAS rating was adopted by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations/World Health Organization (FAO/WHO) in 1993 as "the preferred 'best'" method to determine protein quality.

Now I think we have learnt which are the nutrients needed by our body and what function di they perform.

Now let's discuss about how to get them -

How to formulate the best diet for yourself?

You have to formulate your own diet for yourself because you yourself have to eat it, taste it, bear with it, enjoy the nutrition it provides our not provides, and stick with it. You can also change it as per your requirements our taste. The 'taste' and 'satisfaction' are a very important parts of the diet as we have learnt about what happened to the subjects of University of Minnesota. So it is vicarious learning for us.(learning from others experience). We must not do the mistakes done by others.

Now you must have understood that proteins are the most important nutrient our body needs. This is the clue to formulate the best diet you can. We have to formulate our diet around the protein, because the food items containing proteins generally have vitamins(because vitamins are a special types of proteins), fats, minerals, carbohydrates etc. Therefore we don't need to worry about the other nutrients. (in case you are an athlete and taking sports supplements, like whey protein isolate, then you must take other ingredients in your diet) But for a normal person who is doing exercises for maintaining good health sticking with the protein is a good idea.

The easiest way to formulate your diet is search the internet for protein content of your favourite items, which are readily available. And make a list starting from the food item with highest proteins(also consider protein digestibility, because some items like pulses have low digestibility, like pulses generally have around 50% digestibility, that is only 50% of the protein available in some pulses gets digested, while raw egg have 93% protein digestibility.)

My take is I prefer eggs and meat, their digestibility scores are around 70% to 90%. But the other days I like eating peanuts, or dishes made with peanut, cheese, other dairy products etc.

For a normal human protein requirement per day is around 50gm, but for persons doing workout our for athletes the protein requirement can be 1.4 to 1.6 gm per kg of body mass. But with such people, some protein is also used as a source of energy, therefore the total protein requirement can go as high as 2.2 gm per kg of body mass.

Our bodies adaptive response-
There is one interesting thing about the food we like- Our brain have a mechanism which decides our liking for food items. Our brain accesses our need of nutrients, it also assesses the nutrient content of various food items. Whenever there is deficiency of certain nutrients in our body, our brain automatically develops liking towards the food items which have those nutrients. It prompts us to consume those items and rewards is with the feeling of pleasure and happiness when we consume those food items.

Because of this process even if we don't like certain food items because of their taste, once we consume them in sufficient quantity so that our brain registered their nutrient content, we start liking it whenever we need those nutrients. Generally we need proteins in large quantity so we like those food items which have more protein content.

So even if you don't like certain protein rich food items, just east them for a while and you will start liking them. To give my own example,I never liked egg in my childhood but when I started exercising and studying I understood that chicken eggs are the most complete source of all the nutrients, if eaten in raw form then we get all the above nutrients and they are readily absorbed in our digestive system and then in blood and then used where needed without any chemical processing by gastric juices or liver.

Order of eating-
Other important thing is whenever we feel hungry, it is the sign that our gastric juices are ready. Our stomach secrets acid which is necessary in the breakdown of proteins in to the amino acids which are then absorbed in the intestine. The supply of this acid is the most when we are hungry and gets consumed as did is digested. Therefore if we eat protein rich food items of our diet in the beginning then, they get digested easily and with more efficiency, and the items we eat in the later part of the lunch gets competitively less quantity of acid for digestion. Therefore you should arrange the eating order of food items accordingly.

Water-

Water is the most essential ingredient our body needs. It imparts flexibility to our body cells, it performs the function of carrier of nutrients, it is the medium of digestion, it is the medium for almost all chemical reactions happening in our body, it performs the role of temperature regulation, it performs the role of medium for excretion (urea and other waste compounds formed in the body are excreted via urine in the form of aqueous solution.) Without water we can't live for long, in the deserts we can't even live for one day without water.

Water management system of our body-

Our body is expert in the water management. It had sensors sensing the water content of the body, prompting us to drink water through the feeling of thirst.

There is a hormone called Vasopressin, which regulated the water reabsorption in the kidneys.(our blood is first ultra filtrated, the resulting aqueous solution contains too much quantity of water and some other nutrients which have small molecule size, like salts, some proteins, glucose, vitamins B other than urea and creatin, out of these compounds the useful one's are reabsorbed when the solution goes through a long capillaries along with water.) The quantity of water to be reabsorbed is decided by the concentration of vasopressin in the blood. More the vasopressin, more the reabsorption of water and concentrated will be the urine. That is why we see dark coloured urine when do not drink enough water or conversely we excrete water white urine when we drink excess water.

How much water you should drink and when?

It is a debatable topic of how much you should drink water in a day. Some prescribe drinking large quantities of water, even prescribing large quantities of water while having lunch.

But I am of the opinion that by drinking large quantities of water, you are overloading the reabsorption mechanism of kidneys which reabsorbs the nutrients from the ultrafiltrate. Secondly you are not using the mechanism of water retention, that is the secretion of vasopressin hormone. As you must have understood that our body is an adaptive system. So it responds to the situation of abundant water by getting rid of it as soon as possible. Therefore the person who has habit of drinking more water will be in trouble if he don't get water for some time, because his body will quickly excrete the water because of the habit. You can experience this condition easily, just drink a lot of water about one and half day and then stop drinking it. You will urinate a lot even after you have stopped drinking water and will soon start feeling sleepy or energyless in just one to two hours. You can quickly recover from this condition on drinking water and again feel normal.

So I am of the opinion that drink as much as water as you feel like drinking and when you feel thirsty. Because our body knows what it needs and when it needs. Just listen to your body.

How much water should we drink while having a meal?

A simple point is, water reduces the concentration of food along with gastric juices. Chemical reactions usually have higher speeds at higher concentrations, some reactions can only take place above certain reactant concentrations only. Therefore it is necessary to keep the concentration of reactants high so that the chemical reaction can take place easily. And digestion of food involves various chemical reactions. So think about it yourself.

Another point is, water reduces the concentration of any water soluble compounds, reduced concentration means less osmotic pressure(osmotic pressure is the tendency of dissolved compounds to move from higher concentration towards lower concentration.)

Further water occupies space in the digestive system until it gets absorbed. So this place is unavailable for the food which results in less consumption of food itself.

That is why I am of the opinion of ' Do not drink water from half an hour before having the meal to an hour after having the meal(may be one or two gulps after the meal to clean the throat and food tube.)'

How many times in a day should one eat?

Some people say you should eat something every two hours.

I think it is better to eat two to three times a day. Some special operations commandos only eat once in a day. Trust me I have tried it without any bad effects, for first few days you feel hungry but then your body adjusted with it. But it looks odd and everyone notices it. So I eat three times a day.

You may say that gym trainers, fitness trainers told us that you need high amount of nutrition so you must eat after every two hours. But it doesn't really matter how many times you eat, what you eat and how much you eat, how much you digest, that really matter. Our body adjusted with house many times we are eating. If we are eating after every two hours then if we skip one meal then we start feeling weak and hungry, but if you are eating only once or twice per day and still following your workout then you won't notice any change in your energy level even if you are 2 to 3 hours late in having your meal or even skip a meal.

Your body develops endurance, which is very important to good health.

I have seen many gym goers drinking energy drinks and protein drinks, eating energy bars while doing their workout, our even drinking a lot of water. I don't understand what is the use? On one hand you are doing exercises to increase your strength, toughness, stamina, endurance, and then on the other hand you are trying to help the supporting systems. If the supporting systems are not strengthened along with your muscles then how can your muscle perform when the need arises?

Think about it..

See you later..

Till then have a great day, also have a great diet...😊

Sumit
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