Like most people my interests tend to shift over time. I get really interested in something, focus on it 100%, and slowly my interest gets pulled to newer and more exciting things. I think this is a pretty natural part of living. Most of us are trying to find excitement in our lives and learning new things definitely keeps things fresh. Something starts out exciting, we get used to it, and many times end up losing interest all together.

This also happens with skills and knowledge. When you first learn something new it is exciting and you are doing it a lot. This can be something as simple as a certain way you clean or organize or a the way you go about doing you work. It might have been that the skill was something very helpful to you and a large time saver, yet over time you stopped. It may not have been intentional, but at some point that skill/knowledge lost it’s newness or appeal and you stopped doing it. In fact, unless you are reminded what it was, you probably can’t even think of it.

Every once in a while you have to relearn. Or better yet, you have to KEEP learning. However, in order to keep learning, you do need to occasionally review what you already know.

I find that reading is a great way to keep my skills advancing, but there are also additional things you can do to help. Putting things on schedules so you are reminded to keep doing them, writing down the important things you learn and reviewing them later, and of course asking for advice from others. It seems that there is always someone who has tried something I am interested in, and that person’s advice is always so valuable. Even if I don’t use their idea or information directly I can still use it to help create my own ideas.

Recently I decided I wanted to brush up on my Japanese skills. I live in Japan, so speaking isn’t really an issue, but I decided I wanted to start studying again to improve my grammar and vocabulary. As I started considering how I wanted to go about studying and exactly what my goals were, I came across a number of sites and techniques I had basically forgot about.

Now I can take that old knowledge and combine it with anything new I might have learned since then to create an even more efficient and effective study method.

I am also re-reading “The 4 Hour Work Week” to relearn a lot of the tricks and time savers in that book. If nothing else, it is a great book to get motivated.

I did decide however that I wouldn’t continue for the full 7 days. Unfortunately, I just wasn’t getting enough calories to maintain my normal workout. While the juice did make me more active and alert, I couldn’t sustain that energy through a workout.

I won’t be stopping juicing however. Instead, I will be supplementing it with other meals.

For anyone who is interested in doing this to clean out their system or lose some weight, I would say go for it. I really do feel that my body is in better shape after doing so.

You can see my final update video below. For some reason, the video was dropping frames while I was recording which messed up the video a little bit and also distracted me.

Please leave comments or questions.

Day two is turning out to be a little different. The night after the first day I ended up with a very sore throat, a slight temperature, and didn’t get much sleep. I’m not sure the cause, but maybe it was my body’s reaction to the toxins leaving my body? By morning the temperate had gone, but part of the sore throat remained. I also had a bit of a headache. I don’t really get headaches, so I am pretty sure that is from the juicing. As I write this post  at 6pm the headache is mostly gone.

My stomach is also a little unsettled, and I have very little energy today. I can still drink the fruit juices no problem, but the vegetable juices are getting a little harder to get down. On the good side, I have less cravings for unhealthy food.

I think the biggest thing is that I am just getting so few calories and it is a shock to my body.

I’ve heard people say that they have gotten really smelly when they started juicing, but so far I haven’t had much change in body odor. I did notice that the first day my urine had various strong smells, but that seems to have gone away at this point.

I have decided that I will be changing from 7 days to 3 days though. Having so few calories makes it very difficult to keep up with my workout schedule. I am worried that if I move too much I will end up with a major headache.

You can find the review of my first day below:

How do I feel? I’m not quite sure yet. I feel energetic, but I also feel like I don’t have enough energy. That probably has to do with better calories, but far fewer of them. The thing I have noticed the most is that I tend to feel full for a long time after, but I never feel lethargic. It’s only been one day though so I guess I will see how I feel tomorrow.

In the meantime, here are the first two videos I made of the first and second juice. I am speaking in Japanese, but there really isn’t that much talking.

I actually had my first juice last night, but I had also had a lot of other food, so today is really my first day of only juice. For breakfast I had a mostly fruit juice since I wasn’t yet fully awake and thought too many vegetables might be a little hard to take in the morning. It tasted great, and after I did a calorie count I realized that one full glass of fruit juice was only about 150 calories.

If you are wanting to go on a diet, juicing is an amazing way to cut calories. Morning juice was as follows.

• 1/2 white grapefruit
• 1 orange
• 1 large cherry tomato
• 1 carrot
• 1 frozen banana
• 3 leaves of lettuce
• 1/2 lemon

For lunch I went a little more heavy on the greens. Things like cabbage and mushrooms.  I was worried about how strong the taste was going to be, but I went a head with it anyways. To be honest it wasn’t great tasting, but it was still edible. Not something you savor the taste of, but I was able to get it down no problem, and I didn’t feel it was the worst thing I had ever had either. I can definitely do this for 7 days.

Lunch consisted of the following.

• 1 bell pepper
• 2 large cherry tomatos
• 1/5 of a carrot
• 1 shitake mushroom
• 3 leaves of lettuce
• 1 stem of broccoli
• 3 large leaves of cabbage
• 1/2 cucumber
• a handful of blueberries

All together that is about (maybe less than) 300 calories. The same as a breakfast when I am dieting. I am currently loading a video on Youtube and will post it up shortly. As I mentioned earlier I am speaking Japanese, but it’s just juicing so shouldn’t be a big deal.

After lunch juice. This one was really good, but a little citrusy. Adding an apple or some strawberries would have been a good idea.

• 1/2 grape fruit
• 1 orange
• 1 kiwi
• 1 small tomato
• 1 banana
• 1/2 gauva
• handful of blueberries
• 1/2 cucumber
• 1/2 lemon

I will still have one or two more to go for today, and will definitely be way down on calories.

Once again, if you are also a juicer or someone interested, please leave a comment below. I would love to hear about your experiences, and will be glad to answer any questions I can as well.

About two weeks ago I watched a movie called “Fat, Sick, and Almost Dead“. You can find it on Hulu for free. At that time I had just ordered a blender, and figured I would do a 7 days of juicing when it arrived. The blender actually arrived two days ago, but I had a dear friend who was moving away and wasn’t able to spend much time at home. Yesterday, however, I was able to start juicing.

My plan is very simple: eat mostly juice for a total of  seven days (I won’t kill myself if I eat something else, but it does need to be healthy). I dont have any particular plan on what fruits and veggies I will be adding, but I am trying to keep it as local as possible (we have two farmers markets) and keep it varied.

My basic recipe is 1 cup of water and enough fruits and vegetables two make two cups of juice. It actually doesn’t take too much since fruits and vegetables have a lot of water. I am going heavier on the fruits in the morning and heavier on the vegetables later in the day.

I’ll be posting a couple of videos, but I actually made them in Japanese for my friends who are interested here in Japan.

If you are a juicer or have done something similar in the past, leave a comment. I would love to hear your opinions and get any tips.

VPN stands for Virtual Private Network, and is a way to connect your computer through a server that is located somehwere else. So even though I am located in Japan, the VPN makes it look as though I am connecting from in the US. As an added feature, my true location is hidden which means more security.

It is as easy as downloading the program, choosing the location you want to connect to, and going to the page you want to see. It’s also cheap. With a year subscription for the company I chose, it is a little under $7 a month. Not bad at all.

I went with a company called HMA (Hide My Ass) after comparing various companies and the value that each offered. I also like the name. HMA also seemed to be highly recommended on the web and had a 30 day money back guarantee. I had tried a free service a while back and it didn’t work to well. So far I have been really happy with HMA’s VPN.

You can check out the service yourself here: Hide My Ass VPN Service. If you choose to purchase using this link, you will also be helping out Simplistic Thoughts as I get a part of the sale.

Connecting your PS3, XBOX, and other devices through VPN 

Watching movies on my computer is okay, and I can even hook my computer up to watch them on the TV, but I really wanted to be able to use Netflix, Hulu, and other programs through the PS3. Running Netflix through the PS3 runs smoother than it does running it through the browser. It wasn’t bad through the browser, but I would occassionally have to wait for loading, while the PS3 has been perfect.

There are two ways to connect your PS3 or XBOX through a VPN service. The best method is to purchase a router that allows you to connect directly to a VPN service. There is a list on HMA’s router page. You can find it here. They also have instructions on how to hook it up. Once you connect your router to the VPN service, any device you connect to the router will be under that IP.

The second method is to connect directly through your computer and then share that connection with your PS3 or XBOX. This is much more complicated and not the best method, but will save you from having to purchase another router. I went this method, and it works now, but after several wasted hours I wish I would have just bought the router. If this sounds like the way you want to go, check out this page. It has the instructions on how to set it up.

It has been great being able to access Netflix and hulu and watch US TV again. If you are feeling the same way, sign up for 30 days. You can always cancel it later if you aren’t happy with it.

Hide My Ass VPN Service

Also, when you connect your PS3 through a VPN service you may need to change the DNS number on the PS3. Doing a quick search should bring up how to do this and what numbers to use. Now download the Netflix app on your PS3 and you should be all set.

At least it did until I started using tabs as bookmarks. Everytime I wanted to look at a page later, I would just leave it open in a tab. After a few days I would end up with so many tabs I couldn’t find the the tabs I actually needed to use. Instead, I end up with a lot of wasted time clicking back and forth between tabs I forgot I even had.

A couple days ago I came across a solution. An add-on for Chrome and Firefox called TooManyTabs. The program allows you to save your tabs for later and move them out of view. It sits as an icon on your browser and allows you to have many pages open for later, but keep them out of sight. It doesn’t have a lot of features, but I think that is actually what I like about it. It’s really simple.

However, after using it for a few days, I realized something else: I really don’t need all those extra tabs anyways. If I don’t have time to look at that site now, I am probably not going to look at it later either. I do still use TooManyTabs, but not as much as I thought. Instead, I just limit the number of tabs that I am allowed to keep open to five. At the moment I have four tabs open. One of those is my e-mail and one is this post that I am writing right now.

I use TooManyTabs to store pages that I have to use on a regular basis for work, but don’t need open all the time. Websites that I work on on everyday or every couple days. By keeping them closed most of the time, I save myself a lot of time having to search through a bunch of tabs.

So, if you like to have a lot of tabs open then get the add-on, but realistically you can probably get the same effect by just realizing that you don’t need all those pages open in the first place.

If you are reading this post, then you are searching for the secret on how to lose fat, gain muscle, and get in shape the easy way. So here it is:

There isn’t one!

There is no workout cheat or magic pill. Getting in shape takes hard work, and if you are looking for the easy way, then you aren’t really thinking that seriously about it. How often do you hear a gold medalist or professional athlete say that they didn’t work hard to win the medal. That they just had a “special” program. No, they got there through hard work and sacrifice. The only time they say it’s easy is when they are getting paid to sell something.

The truth is that getting in shape isn’t easy. It takes hard work and a strong mentality. It takes a “I’m gonna do this no matter what” mentality, not a “well, as long as it’s only 10 minutes a day “.  You will most likely need to change your exercise and eating habits,  and possibly your sleeping schedule, and other habits as well. These are all very difficult things to change, and if you need to be willing to sacrifice a daily piece of cake or chocolate.

Does this mean that you need to workout an hour a day everyday? No, but you have to be willing to. I can put an intensive workout into 15-20 minutes, but if I am not willing to do more, I am probably not going to stick with it. However, when it comes to 5 minute workouts, that really isn’t much. At least not when it comes to getting your whole body in shape.

The bottom line is that it has to be important to you. If it is, then going through the pain and struggle isn’t only worth it, it’s rewarding.

The first thing I changed when I got home from the US was my diet. Okay, so I ate all the stuff I bought home from the US and then changed my diet. I figured out how many calories it would take to maintain my weight, and then reduced that by about 600 calories per day. Since I have to know how many calories I am eating I also have to keep track of my calories. This is actually a good thing, because it helps me eat better. knowing that I only get a limited amount of calories also forces me to eat more nutritious food. A few Oreos and I can’t eat for the rest of the day.

On every seventh day, I over-eat by about a 1000 calories. My weekly total is still down, but by over-eating my metabolism won’t drop and I will continue losing fat weight. It also helps keep you on track if you get to eat whatever you want once a week.

My workout consists of mostly exercises I can do without any extra equipment, pullups, pushups, squats, etc. The key is to do one exercise until exhaustion and then to quickly move onto the next exercise. Don’t allow your body too much rest.

I should also mention that I exercise 5-6 times a week. I have found that 2-3 just doesn’t cut it if you want results. Maybe if I was more active each day it would be better, but I spend a lot of time on the computer. Without the workout I don’t get enough exercise each day to maintain decent muscle development. This may seem like a lot for some people, but the good thing is that it is easier to stay in routine because you are doing it almost everyday.