Being Aware of Self Improvements

When I was reading book this afternoon, not directly related to the its content but somehow it inspired me to realize some of self improvements I’ve accomplished through past couple of months or the past year. Most of them were changed subconsciously, like a good “by-product” thing.

Improvements

• Taking stairs(mentioned before)
• No more junk food, do more cooking
• Sleep earlier, resist to temptation
• Reading more often(thanks to Kindle Paperwhite)
• No games at all(I’d like to have some)

No More Junk Food

I can’t remember the last time I grabbed a burger at McDonalds. Maybe for you it doesn’t sound like a big deal, but for me it’s totally a different story.

When I was still a poor student in China, having a McDonalds burger is like a “highs in the month” event. It was quite expensive compared to the salary, or the pin money I could get from my dad. Plus it was, and still is so so delicious, way better than Japan. So at that time, my image of an ideal life was I can at least afford to have McDonalds every day.

Then after graduated from university, I came to Japan to work as a full-time software engineer. My salary was good enough to have as many burgers as I want. Even though I knew people call it junk food, but for me it was not. I could eat McDonalds for one week straight.

I enjoyed it, I was happy. It seemed like that this was one thing impossible to change, not to mention I was not willing to change at all.

But what really changed me was after I joined cookpad, my current company. The company’s goal is to make cooking more fun, make people healthier. So more or less I got the point of why processed food is bad, then one day my boss sent me a link to Jamie Oliver’s talk in TED. That 20 minutes talk was amazing. Then I searched him in Youtube about his “Food Revolution”, and I watched all of them. That thing really changed my mind.

So from that moment, I started to review my pst, I found myself willing to change the habit of eating junk food.

Do More Cooking

But change is never easy. Even though I wanted to do more cooking, work fatigue, working overtime and a failed relationship made me feel extremely drained, exhausted and frustrated. Every time I got home I felt so powerless that I’d rather just skip the dinner. Shopping ingredients, looking for a simple enough newbie friendly recipe and cook it felt so unreal.

But thanks to some good books I’ve read, I adjusted my attitudes toward work and relationships, I managed to keep myself stay positive and made some changes in working environment. Now I go home earlier than before, rarely any overtime, I’m still a little tired after I open the door but I get the energy to go shopping and cook. Even though my cooking skill is not good, I can only cook several recipes and sometimes the taste is awful, I enjoyed it, I’m happy to serve myself, understand more about foods, balance diet nutritions from various ingredients, try out some new recipes in the weekend, etc. I feel content.

And what amazed me is that this change was much easier than I expected, especially judging from my past diet habit and “dreams”. I didn’t track my activities and mark them on a calendar. More like happened subconsciously, so, congret to myself! (But I’m still uncomfortable to cook with someones else cuz I’m clumsy and slow in the kitchen >_<)

A Must Watch Video

OK I’ll stop here today but I want to share a very touching video with you. I’m 100% sure it’s worth watching so don’t miss it! You won’t regret! No spoiler here~