Abundance at the Individual Level
The idea of my fast is to trim down the fat. Not just around my body, but in the brain as well.
I tie it back to the idea that throughout history, people often had such little money and such little work opportunities that everything they bought was a scarce commodity for them. Today, we take the things we buy for granted. We buy junk food out of impulse, not hunger or desire, but just because we think “this 10 euro isn’t worth much to me, and this burger will make me feel good”, but once the burger is down in the stomach, you don’t feel good anyway, it was just the itch of impulsive behavior. Same goes for people driving over the speed limit. I get it, I resent the laws just as much as the next guy, this invisible institution telling me that if I drive 10km/h faster than the speed limit I need to pay 60 euro? It’s ridiculous. But I cannot be bothered wasting such an amount of money just for the sake of feeling good in the moment.
Yet people take things for granted. And I have the tendency to do the same thing. When I go grocery shopping, I tend to just look for what looks nice and qualitative. This is the right attitude I think, for there really isn’t a reason to buy nasty tasting stuff just because it’s half the price. Nevertheless, when you reflect a little, and you look at your receipts, it’s quite ridiculous to think you spent 7 euro on 2.5kg of potatoes, 4 euro for 12 small tomatoes, or 3.5 euro for 12 charcuterie slices of chicken. And these are not even premium brands.
Sure you can say this is just inflation, and as you grow older it’s natural to see rising prices for pretty basic food stuff. That is true, but then again the past couple of months I did a student job as a bookkeeper at a local Delhaize, and only earned 12,79 euro an hour. The work was as mundane as the remuneration warranted, but to think that I was working some 7-8 hours each day, and a mere cinema ticket cost more than an hour of work? Parking in the city center costs just as much an hour as what I would earn, or even a stupid Dorito bag of chips costs 20 minutes of my time? That’s something to think about and reflect on.
There really is a tendency to go about money like it’s nothing, especially when it’s small amounts, and I’m not even part of the credit culture the US bathes in. As we grow more educated and see the increasing monthly salary deposited in our bank account, there comes a time when the amount far exceeds the costs we have on a monthly basis. Once this is the status quo, there’s no need to really look at prices, or worry too much about the 2 euro extra paid for needless things. Personally I think it’s due to the prolonged period of being relatively well of as a society. My generation, and those before me, have never known war, food scarcity or even any major crises (don’t really count Covid as such). I was 8 when the financial crisis in 2008/9 took place, and honestly don’t even remember it.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve studied economics, I know consumerism is good for welfare and one of the most dangerous things a society can face is a declining spending culture. If everyone would start cutting majorly in their spending, there’d just be less money changing hands, and this trickles down to business, taxes being paid and in general the net creation (added value) of the society. On a personal note, however, going with the general population in carelessly spending and having a blasé attitude around money, leaves you bare to the sways in economic and market developments.
Haircutting
An effort I made some 6 years ago now was to start cutting my own hair. During the pandemic this had become a necessity as barbers were just closed, but once they reopened again, I could see the price hikes pretty much every time I went. Before the pandemic it cost me 20 euro for a haircut, which I’d get every 5-6 weeks or so. After Covid, it was up to 25 euro, two hair cutting periods later it was 27 euro, and some time later it got up to 29. Currently, if I remember my dad’s words correctly, he pays 30 euro every time, which includes the client voucher he has. This isn’t a fancy barber, it’s a small chain scattered around the city of Leuven.
Say I’d go for a haircut 9-10 times a year, that would be 270-300 euro, every year, for 1.5cm off the top and giving me a fade on the sides. Assuming I live until 75, and prices grow with inflation, we could actually estimate the net present value (total cost corrected for the time value of money) of the cost of my hair. Let’s be conservative and say I’d go for a haircut 9 times a year, and between my current age and age 75 are 50 years. Over my lifetime, that’s 50*270 euro, so 13.500 euro. To view the current value of that where we correct for the time value of money, we look at the NPV. NPV is then ∑ of t = 1 to t =50 of 270/ (1+r)^t where r is the opportunity cost of that money. Let’s be extra conservative and say the opportunity cost of my money is just the return of a state bond, 2-3%. Then the NPV of my haircuts is 6.947 euro. That’s the price of a small car. All the costs I have now is a Wahl trimmer of 100 euro (cheaper exist but I’m fond of buy it for life type tools) and a scissor of 20 euro from Amazon.
My haircuts aren’t perfect, but I’ve never had any remarks from anyone. I do them in a divide and conquer strategy, and most of the time they go very well. I know what looks good on me, and in theory I can buy a car with the money I don’t have to spend on haircuts. For me this works out. Now I understand the barber is kind of like an institution, like the local café in the village, so knocking that down and stripping it for parts isn’t particularly cool. If I’d find a barber like the ones you see in the movies that talks old stories and life advice, it’d be worth it. But I’ve never encountered that personally. For me this works, and it makes me feel like I actually have some control over the costs of my life.
Moreover, it’s a skill you learn as you go. The first time it’s not perfect, but after 6 years now, I could confidently say I can give myself a fade with my eyes closed, and it’d look as good as the one I’d get at the local barbershop. I don’t go as short as they do, but it’s clean and professional looking. Just like a clean shave with soap, brush and everything that comes with that, giving myself a haircut has a meditative effect.
Eating habits
The haircut wasn’t really the focal topic of this blog though. I talked earlier about consumerism and getting some perspective about how hard earned money flows to things we don’t actually care about. Taking some steps to counter this and getting some control over our personal spending is about trimming the fat from our brain. It’s about shocking ourselves out of complacency. Waking up from the pre-programmed, matrix-like, auto pilot dream we’re living. Or at least I sometimes feel I’m living. It makes me uneasy.
A major part of trimming the fat from our brain is about starting to filter what it is we allow to enter our brains. Social media, YouTube, movies, series, music, all that input and most of the time we’re not even consciously choosing what it is we allow ourselves to be exposed to. The things we spend most of our time listening to and engaging with is directly reflected in how we relate and behave. But that’s a hurdle I’ve already conquered quite a bit, so no need to go into that.
This same idea can be applied to our eating habits, though. Last year I realized I had gained quite a bit of weight and looking back on pictures from a vacation the summer before I really got disgusted, I was full blown skinny fat. It wasn’t really about the looks or the weight, but a realization of a slowly increasing trend in my behavior. I would eat more than I needed in order to get and maintain a comfort feeling. When I was a little down, I’d eat. When I worked long hours, I’d eat. I was also working in audit as my first job, and for the first time in my life got to know the effects of 9 hours of sitting non stop on the way my metabolism worked. In essence, it stopped working. So last year, when I went to the US for a month to visit my brother, I got a little anxious about how Americans load their food with calories and sugar, and the effect this would have on an already inflated me (mentally and physically). So I decided I wouldn’t eat lunch or snacks for a whole month, and I did. I lost 10kg in 5 weeks.
It probably wasn’t the healthiest thing to do, but I felt a lot better because of it. In the beginning I would feel foggy and fall asleep often in the afternoon. Especially after leg days. But I naturally started watching calories and protein, carbs and fat intake. My breakfasts started consisting of oats, eggs, avocado and the like, and my dinners of properly cooked meals. I stopped eating trash for breakfast and swapped it out with proper nutrition. After a couple of weeks I genuinely noticed a difference on all fronts, and I’d see veins and muscle I hadn’t seen since I was 16. During this period I also stopped drinking coffee, and noticed my after lunch dips completely disappeared. I have really fond memories of my time doing this.
I couldn’t maintain it though, because I didn’t figure out a way to stop the weight losing. When I got back to Belgium I started eating lunch again, but a week later I lost another 2kg. I came from 92, and was now at 79 (at 195cm). So I got a little concerned with the inability to stop losing weight. I looked and felt good, but I also lost a lot of muscle.
That brings us to now, almost one year later. I’m up to 86 again, and though I wouldn’t say I look bad, I definitely notice the trend coming back. My plan is to spend the coming month in a similar experiment of cutting my meals to two a day. I just have to up the calories a little so I’m not in too big a deficit. This time I’m also going to supplement a bit more, and allow myself to eat 1 piece of fruit during the day as well as a protein shake. It adds 300 calories I think, which is good enough also balancing energy levels. During that month last year, especially in the beginning, I would genuinely fall asleep in the afternoon when I’d do leg days. So days of leg training are also taken into account to ensure my brain cells don’t melt.