by Gunnar Engblom   

The Big Five for Health. Gunnar’s Midweek Bullets

Coffee. Michael DernbachAs promised last week, this delivery is shorter. It is still a bit of an experiment, so please have patience. Have a coffee. I am mixing cats and dogs, apples and oranges.  I am sure you don’t share all of my interests, but on the other hand, if you get this in your mailbox or read it on the blog, at least you share some. Since it is concise, you can either explore further or just skip the bits of no interest to you.  Just as last weeks I am covering my main topics: Birding, Upcoming tours, Health, Podcasts I’ve listened to, Running and Guran Guran (my band).
Ready? Here we go!

Birding

  • I am extending the special offer 15% discount for March-May until Monday March 26 at midnight (Peruvian time). You best hurry if you don’t want to lose out on this. Check out this blogpost with the details.
    Just as I am writing this, I have a couple interested in a 5 day Manu road and Machu Picchu between April 1-7… spring break. Any other teachers out there who want to join?
    Also, one person just signed up for Carpish/Unchog April 12-16.
  • I liked this article by Kenn Kaufman. I Became a Better Birder When I Stopped Focusing on the Males. Even dull birds are interesting.
  • My book review of Noah Strycker’s Birding Without Borders was just published.

Upcoming tours

Here are upcoming and confirmed trips from Mid-July until September, some that still have a few vacancies which you can sign up to for best price. The trips in April to June you find in my last week’s Midweek Bullets.

Big Month October. 
October will be the month of celebration for Kolibri Expeditions in Peru. You may join us to try to set a raise the bar for greatest number of species recorded in a single country. Hopefully over 1100 species. You can join the full month for $6500 or sign up for parts.
More about the details and the exact program in my Midweek Bullets next week.

Brazil in October – Want to see a jaguar?
We are setting up another jaguar and birding safari in Pantanal first week of October. If you are dreaming about cats and wildlife, plus spectacular birds, you could join us on this epic trips. It will last one week for best price and still ample of time. One can combine with a week of birding and bird photography from Sao Paulo afterwards.
Details follow the next week. Stay tuned.

Best videos I have seen the last week.

  • Leather made from mushrooms. The future is near. Vegan leather.
  • Absolutely hilarious Chinese promotional video for their indestructible phone

Best podcasts this week.

  • Fascinating life story from Airbnb founder Joe Gebbia on the Tim Ferriss Show. Part 1. Some stories Joe are telling! Also lots of Life Lessons to learn here. To see opportunity. To work hard to meet a goal. To find a solution to something which seems impossible.  The word tenacity comes to mind. Don’t give up. Don’t get discouraged by rejection.
    I listened to the podcast while running. Many of the latest interviews comes with video like this one below. This is a fantastic interview. Don’t miss it. Download the podcast and listen to it while on the run or doing chores.

Health

  • Fasting. Last week I made a big deal about this. Here is a fun article (or should I say rant?) by Jason Fung – the fasting Guru I talked about in the last GMB. What’s the difference in power between fasting and LowCarb High Fat (LCHF)? Obviously, fasting is so much better.
  • Coffee is VERY GOOD for you. The more the better. I was reminded opening a short read Coffee Fights Disease and Extends Your Life the other day. I have heard it before. One of the most compelling was the interview Ben Greenfield did with Dr Sanjiv Chopra. This was the first time I heard of that coffee actually was that good for you, and that I should have not remorse for loving it.  In the interview Dr Chopra summarizes his book The Big Five Five Simple Things You Can Do to Live a Longer, Healthier Life. Yes, it is spiritual wellness guru Deepak Chopra‘s brother. The journey of the two brothers ending up in USA from India, and their successes is wonderfully described in their book Brotherhood. Get the Audible version, because the it is great to hear them read the chapters themselves. Try Audible and Get Two Free Audiobooks.
    Me re-listening to the interview above, I thought I’d mention the other four of the Big Five I implement (most) every day.
  • Meditation. I have listened to a bunch of highly effective people on various podcasts, reading books about creating good morning routines as well as books on fitness, health and entrepreneurship, etc, etc, ….and 90% of them mention meditation as the magic bullet for success. Since a year or so, I have tried to practice it with a short session in the morning. I am not great at it, but it has been helped to get a free introduction via the app Headspace and then sign up for a subscription (for a while).
  • Nuts. Eat nuts every day. Do it mindfully. One by one. Walnuts have lots of Omega 3, Brazil nuts contain Selenium which may protect against prostate cancer, pecan nuts have beta-sitosterol which helps against benign enlarged prostate and peanuts (not really a nut, but anyway) are good for the brain.  When joining Amazon Prime’s 30-Day Free Trial you can get a large choice of good quality nuts with free shipping. Check for the Prime logo.
  • Sunshine – D-vitamin. You are about to go out and it is a sunny day. Before you go out, you smear yourself with sunblock factor 50 or more. Wrong! Chances are you are not getting the D-vitamin you need.  There are many people who are D-vitamin deficient with serious health problems, and although you can of course take a supplement, the easiest way to get enough D-vitamin is to get exposed to sun. Get the sunblock on after 20 min or so depending on your latitude and time of day, if you will remain in the sun, so you don’t burn. The key is to expose yourself just a little bit. The risk of skin cancer is with prolonged exposure and burning. I have the last year often running without my shirt on, or I have done some morning exercise in the sun in our apartment open air patio.
  • Exercise. No problem there for me, as I am a runner. Maybe even too much of the good thing. Marathon running is perhaps a bit extreme. But don’t underestimate walking. Get yourself a treadmill, and with a piece of wood and some thick books to adjust the height of your laptop and voilà! You have a walking treadmill workstation. You get loads of aerobic training without leaving the office.  Here is my set-up.
    If you want something more fancy, you can buy this awesome workstation off Amazon.

    As for me, I shall probably soon instead get a smart-TV to connect to the laptop, and put inside bookshelf in front of me. This way, I’ll keep my head looking forward instead of down on the screen, which will be better for posture.

Productivity

I found a few easy applicable tips just flipping through Flipboard. Best tip is usually, not to do too much Flipboard, because you get sucked in. On the other hand you may learn something. Just set a time limit, if you do find yourself flipping.
Here is how to be more productive. This is old stuff really, but worth repeating.

My Running

I am still not running as much as I would like, since I needed to catch up with a backlog of Kolibri Expeditions stuff including quotes, new programs, marketing and planning after almost 5 months of way too many days away from the office.

I am still getting some extra aerobic training while working, by using the treadmill above walking for 3-4 hours per day, apart from shorter runs around 10k. Skipped a run day yesterday, but just ran 16k today, so hopefully the long walks will make up some for lack of running. I shall make a test next week to see what my what speed I can maintain at a low HR of 135.  I think I have not too much in fitness, by maintaining all this walking. I am considering doing the NatGeo 10K race on April 22, just to check if I am losing a lot of speed by doing all this slow aerobic training. It will be about time to start with faster workouts around then anyway.

Guran Guran

That’s my band. In 2016-2017 we got together again after a hiatus of 25 years. Last year we released a brand new album. Since a month  ago, you find the songs on Spotify, Apple Music, Google Play and other digital media platforms.

Although, my songs are 20-30 years old, but just released, it seems in many ways they are still very current.
Check these two YouTube videos. They are in Swedish of course, but you can activate the English captions to get what they are all about.

The first one and title song to the album is about refugees fleeing wars and conflict, to be met by xenophobia and threat of rejection of their asylum status. The song was written during the Balkan refugee crises.

The second song in 30 years old from when I lived in the immigrant dense Stockholm suburbia Tensta (1985-1998). Rinkeby is just next door. Both have got bad rap in the press very recently including a 60 Minute crew attacked as they tried to film there. We filmed without any problems of course and the result is this video which has gotten over 215 000 views in less than a year.

More videos will be uploaded with English lyrics shortly. I would very much appreciate if you subscribe to our channel.
Oh, and there is a song about birding too. You may have heard it. This one is in English. BIRDPARTY.

I will be going to Stockholm in June and get the band together again to do some more recordings and one gig. Furthermore, in August we shall also do some gigs in Sweden.

It is a wrap up, folks… Not quite as long as last week… but still a bit long. OK. Next week under 2000 words, promise.
Let me know what you liked and what you did not like about this post.

Gunnar Engblom is a Swedish birder who lives in Peru since 1998, where he operates birdwatching and nature tours for Kolibri Expeditions. He is also a dedicated 3:04 marathon runner, right now training for Gold Coast Marathon, Australia in July 2018. In 2016, Gunnar additionally re-launched his rock’n’roll singer career with his band Guran Guran.

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