Sweet Quarantine - China Lockdown Diaries - Day 13

Tomorrow was my last day in lockdown. Got a rapid test swab (throat only, fortunately) and I'm cleared for takeoff on the morrow where I'll fly to Beijing to reunite with my sons which I'm really excited for.

It's been an eye-opening experience being inside the same 4 walls for two solid weeks and not one that I can recall ever having done before (even when I broke my leg and was hospital-bound in the early 90's in the Swiss Alps, I was encouraged to get up and move around the entire floor to minimize muscle atrophy).

I've used this time to write every day for the past 13 days and it's been a solid exercise and I will continue to flex the writing muscle. I love trying to eliminate bad habits and incorporate new, positive habits. One of my all-time fave quotes:

"Watch your thoughts; they become words.

Watch your words; they become actions.

Watch your actions; they become habits.

Watch your habits; they become character.

Watch your character; it becomes your destiny."

-Donald J. Trump

Actually it was Lao Tzu who said that (as far as you know) but I just wanted to make sure that you were paying attention.

One of the keys to habit building is having the proper environment. Apparently a ton of soldiers in Vietnam got addicted to heroin since it was so widely and cheaply available and they were in a hellish environment, but the vast majority of them shook their addiction when they returned home and switched their environments according the James Clear the author of Atomic Habits which I highly recommend.

My environment inside this room allowed me to start and continue this writing habit, focus deeply on reading (I got through 6+ books in the last two weeks) and also alter my diet (which I often do but this was much easier since I didn't have a fridge and just dialed way back on all snacking and any unhealthy foods).

I'm a big fan of Dr. Peter Attia and his approach and attitude to eating. He lays out his nutritional framework here.

Dr. Attia walks the walk, runs the run, eats the eat, etc. Like Tim Ferriss, which is where I got to know him, he is a human guinea pig who follows his own deeply expert and technical advice. The core tenet of his nutritional framework above is that he is always pulling 1 or 2 and up to 3 'levers' at any given time: What he eats, when he eats and how much he eats.

Which I've been doing by only eating in a time-restricted 18/6 window where I eat at noon and finish eating by 6pm (protein shake at 3pm right after workout) therefore staying in a fasted state 18 hours of the day. I also reduced my caloric intake to about 75% of normal in order to change my body composition to a more lean state. Lastly I eliminated 99% of sugars and simple carbs and focused heavily on protein and veggies. And I did a 72 hour water-only fast right in the middle.

A lot of that will be blasted out of the water as I indulge in some Beijing favorite restaurants, but it's a good reminder of how much environment can dictate our habits and something I'm going to more explicitly focus on moving forward to ensure that my environment is optimized for the habits I'm looking to instill and continue.

Lockdown Love and Good Vibes to You and Yours,

Rich