Four years ago I lost 16 Kg.

I was overweight (92) but I was not aware of that.

After a break up I had lots of time, energy and emotions to throw away, so I excercised a lot and followed a dietist. I got in a couple months into a stable 76 kg.

Recently 3 thoughts made the right connection in my mind and put me 4-5 kg down that just by following new eating habits.

1. If you want to be tougher, be tougher

I heard that sentence from Tim Ferris from an interview to Jocko Willink.

It is as clear as that.

You don´t have to meditate on it.

If you want to be tougher, be tougher.

Feel it in you stomach, in your abs, in your guts.

• If you want to lose weight, get it done.
• If you want a better body, work on it.
• If you want to achieve any goal, set it and get it done.

Set your mind.

Do it immediately, you don´t need time or days.

You can do it now.

Be tougher.

2. Eat half

I learned this from my wife.

As she would say: «Stand up from the table knowing that you could start eating again the same amount.»

Instead of eating your normal portion, serve yourself half.

Come on!

You are at home, or maximum 10 minutes away from the closest shop.

You are not gonna die of hunger.

If 2 hours later you are hungry, then you eat something extra, but again, just half. You know that you will be able to get food almost immediately if you need it.

This sets a mindset of hunger.

Feeling hungry is good.

It means your body is burning calories and you will be eating because you need it, not because of habit.

Plus you will enjoy more your food.

When you feel hungry and you feel that your mind is weak, get back to the 1st thought: if you wanna be tougher, be tougher.

If you are hungry, just be tough.

Stay there.

Enjoy it.

And get distracted doing other interesting things in life.

This estate of being hungry has lead me to stop eating uncontrollable amounts of chocolate and candys at night. Not only evening but in the middle of the night. Now I enjoy having long hours of fasting, as long as possible. If I can stay for 8-10-12-14 hours without eating, I know it is good for my body.

Stay focused, stay tough.

3. The best fat-burner is caloric deficit

I saw this as an Instagram post from Marcos Vazquez, from Fitness Revolucionario.

Sure there are different ways of losing weight. He mentions three: caloric deficit, enough proteins and training of strenght.

But the main one is caloric deficit.

That is the essential one.

Without it, you will get nowhere.

Think of it: Sometimes you train hard in order to burn calories.

What if instead of burning calories, you just don´t have them in the first place?

I never counted calories, I have just some basic notions, but what if instead of eating 2.000 Kcal a day, you eat 1.600?

It sets the condition for your body to be really burning fat, without effort on your side. You only have to skip some food, not even all the food.

It´s just eating less and you will forget about having to lose weight because it will happen on its owin.

Weeks ago my bank charged 30 Euro in comissions.

I was fed up most of the day, being aware that I was mad because of the bank stealing from me.

On the same day I was announced a meeting of the owners of the building where I own a flat. They said it was an important meeting. Hours later a neighbour contacted me saying he had to explain to me what was going on in the building. Obviously I realized that he wanted to take me to his side, because I had never spoken to this person before.

I thought for myself: «Leave me alone». And I was worried for most part of the day and coming days.

It´s then when I realized that that means being an adult.

An adult has responsabilities.

Things can go wrong any moment.

You might have any issue with the bank, with neighbours, with health, with your job. Or your family might have it.

I started to think that the right attitude is the one you used to have when you were 20 to 25, when even though you didn´t have money, you didn´t have a job, you didn´t own anything… In spite of all that, you decided to enjoy life, to travel around, to play loud music and dance anywhere, to do silly crazy things.

When you were 25, you cared, it´s not that you didn´t care.

But you didn´t worry as much.

Today I got the confirmation.

I received an email from my broker in the US, saying that due to the crisis between Russia and Ukraine, my access to the account might be blocked, that I might not be able to trade or that any other unexpected thing could happen, because this is an unprecedented event and nobody knows.

30% of my investments are in that account.

85% of my savings are invested, not in the bank.

That means quite a bite in my savings if I cannot access it anymore.

I spent several minutes worrying, trying to find solutions, while I was cooking with my 2 months-old daughter sitting next to me. A big chunck of my savings, which cost me lots of time and effort to make and save was being taken away unexpectedly and from one day to another.

That is shitty.

Still, after an hour or I started thinking that I could find a new job.

Or still work on the current one and start again to save and invest, which would go probably faster this time thanks to the knowledge I have.

Thanks to the crisis in Ukraine I realized that the future is not promised.

That what you have now might disappear in a matter of days or minutes.

In that sense I started thinking that we could travel the whole family, to south east Asia, where tropical beaches, good weather and low prices make life lighter. Or that we could finally go to Egipt or Italy, to enjoy different food, different cultures, different activities.

Basically, I started thinking like the 27 years old Pablo, who had little money and big dreams.

I started to realize that losing the savings was somehow liberating.

When you own a lot, you are exposed to lose a lot.

When you don´t have anything, there is nothing to lose.

And that is liberating.

You relax and focus on now, not there.

Happiness is not there.

Happiness is not coming next week, next month or next year.

Happiness is also not coming after any or all those things that you want to accomplish.

You are not going to be happy because you did the laundry, you finished work for today, you went to yoga or you took the nap.

Happiness is not in front of you.

So don´t run behind it.

Often I find myself running behind happiness, as if I will catch it, just like the donkey runs to grab the carrot that is hanging from a stick in front of it (image).

It´s never going to happen, because happiness is not in the future.

Happiness is inside you, right now.

Not when you have more money, not when you have your dream job, not when you have kids, not when your kids grow old.

Happiness is here, inside you.

Stop and here it.

Remember: it´s not in the next minutes, because after that you will think that it will be in some hours, some days or some years. And time passes by, but happiness is not there. It´s here.

If you are worried, if you are thinking about happiness, if you are not sure if you have the perfect life…

That probably means that:

1. You are healthy
2. You have some food to eat everyday
3. You have a place to sleep and get protected from cold, heat or rain
4. There is people around you that love you

So, even if you want to keep worrying, be thankful for all you have.

What are you waiting for? Do you think someone is going to come and help you?

This is one of the thoughts that Bikram shares in one of his recorded classes of yoga and it hits me strongly every time I listen to it. Probably because of the estate of openness that I am in during the class.

This brings the idea that you are not a victim.

Or that being a victim doesn´t help.

Nobody is going to come and help you.

You are on your own in this world. Do whatever is needed to enjoy your stay here.

You are responsible for your life.

Yo cannot control everything.

There are things that are out of your control. Accept it.

• Changes in life.
• Deaths.
• People around you getting sick.
• Changes of plans.
• People changing what they think about you.
• You changing what you think about others.

These things will affect you, and there is nothing that you can do to avoid them happening or to avoid that they affect your life.

It´s impossible to control everything.

Actually, there is very little that you can control.

• ¿Can you control other people´s reactions?
• ¿Can you control other people´s thoughts?
• ¿Can you control your emotions?
• ¿Can you even control your own thoughts?

There is almost nothing that you can control.

So, stop trying to stay where you are.

Things change.

It´s life.

Life changes constantly.

Accept it.

Enjoy changes.

Let that ambition of controlling go away and be flexible with yourself and with life.

What does rigidity bring to you?

Be flexible and let yourself go.

It´s not she, who will make you happy.

It´s not she, who has to make you happy.

It´s you, who has to stay happy.

In fact,

It´s you, who has to make her happy.

So be responsible.

And be the giver.

All this idea of engaging into a mortgage makes me feel like we will be running against the clock…

For 30 years!

Working every morning at our hostel, then at our own remote businesses and then running to enjoy some free time for yoga or sauna.

All of that in order to pay the bills at the end of the month and be able to spend some time together in the evening, when we are already exhausted.

As far as I have researched, the general overview of this lifestyle and mortgage means paying now around 30.000 to 40.000 Euro, keeping still some savings and have to pay every single month around 1.500 Euro plus food, leisure and trips back to our country.

Apart from that burden we would be tied to a place for the next 30 years, or at least 3 to 4 years until we could outsorce it or make it work without us.

I´ve been working for the last 5 years into building a business that runs on its own.

I´ve been building up my freedom.

I like my freedom.

I like being wherever I want, whenever I want.

And I like having enough money to enjoy life, just with normal basic things like eating or seeing a sunset.

I have the feeling that staying in Sevilla the way I had planned would mean losing all this freedom and making us slaves of our lifestyle.

I believe there are alternatives.

I believe you don´t have to spend all your savings and enslave yourself for the next 30 years in a project where you have to rush to make ends match.

I have the feeling that when I find a girlfriend and want spend my life with her, I just take too seriously the role of a good father and husband.

I become serious, more straight and I forget about fun and crazy plans.

It is as if I forget my all-life dreams in order to adopt my parents´ lifestyle (as if that was the right one).

With an income of 1.000 Euro/month you are rich in 80% of the world and just a survivor in the other 20%.

You can live with half of that money in the countryside or in many countries. And it´s not that difficult to make that amount of money online with half-time work, like online classes.

Then you have the other half of the week to surf, yoga, walk around, see sunsets, meet people and spend time with them.

We don´t have to give up a beautiful present for a beautiful promised future.

We can enjoy now.

We have to enjoy now.

There are also places and projects like this one in France or this other one in Georgia where, with as few as 300 Euro/month, you can live, eat, engage in a beautiful project, have great experiences and get to know people from all around the world.

Is that crazy?

Crazy is rushing everyday to pay the bills, for the next 30 years.

After such an experience, you will have learnt about construction, permaculture, growing your own food, investments, planning, apart from having enjoyed an outdoor lifestyle and got to know crazy people from everywhere.

I am seeing it.

Maybe it is too hippie for me. Or maybe not.

Maybe it is only for 1 year. Or maybe not.

But I feel we can give it a try before making such a big decision which will compromise our current and future freedom.

Even if it is only for the sake of learning how to live by your own means in the countryside, connected to nature and to ourselves.

We can live life as an enjoyable adventure, not as a race to pay the bills.

I keep seeing the same pattern once and again:

The masculine energy pulls strongly, while the feminin energy tries to hold it back.

And it happens especially in healthy couples, those that are happy.

The man starts to think that they need a new house because the current one is not big enough, not sunny enough or not warm enough. Or maybe he thinks that they need a new car. Or that they need to do a big trip. Whatever!

The woman tries to hold him quiet. She wants to keep her stability. She feels that she and her kids are safe the way they are now. So she tries to take those ideas away from her husband´s head.

But the man keeps dreaming.

He sees that nicer future, more beautiful, exciting and confortable for his family.

And he goes through.

Even against his wife´s desires (although he also knows that her desires are the same as his).

So he makes it happen. It´s his nature.

And she surrenders. It´s her nature.

Imagine living with 20 other people.

20 creative people.

20 proactive people

20 people that enjoy travelling, learning languages and sharing knowledge and experiences.

Imagine that you have your own private space, big enough to feel at home.

Imagine that you may as well use all those big common areas, those nicely decorated spaces, where you can sit and read, work, sunbathe or share your attractive ideas and concerns in your daily life.

Imagine sharing a special breakfast and dinner, all together, once a week, where you can deepen yourself into interesting conversations.

Simply at home.

Simply with your house-mates.

Simply any random day.

How inspiring could that be!