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The Golden Triangle Part 1: Health

This is my way of categorising the most important aspects of life. I think that it is pretty comprehensive and anything that doesn't fit might be a meta-facet rather than a facet or sub-facet. I use this as a diagnostic tool for making sure that my life is somewhat in balance -- if something feels off or I'm feeling unfulfilled, I look at my Triangle and see if I'm taking care of it -- usually I'm neglecting one or more. A meta-facet would be something like fulfillment, because the point of the triangle is to generate fulfillment. Each facet can be further divided into 3 sub-facets, and in this article I'll go through the 3 sub-facets of ...

Health

  • Diet
This is pretty self-explanitory: it includes what you eat and drink. Everyone's diet is necessarily different, but here's my rule of thumb: "eat 70% plant, 10% animal, 20% nothing". This includes two old adages: "eat mostly plants and not too much" & "eat until you're 80% full". This rule doesn't include water but that's important too. I just have a massive jug of water at my desk, but I'd be interested in your water drinking habits.
  • Fitness
This is another self-explanitory one: it includes you're level of physical exercise and capacity. My rule of thumb for this one is this: "be able to run 7K tomorrow". If you could run a spontaneous 7K, you're probably not doing too badly (up it to 10K if you're feeling confident), and again, everyone's body is necessarily different. I have started doing bicep curls while brushing my teeth and it's like free exercise, because what else would I be doing while brushing my teeth? Speaking of which ...
  • Habits
This one needs more explaining: it includes the basic things you do every day to take care of your health that isn't included in the other two categories. This mainly means sleeping and basic hygiene. The rule of thumb is: "brush your teeth 2 times, sleep 8 hours, shower every 2 days". It's not a catchy one, but I think it gets to the point. I think the key here is regularity. If you always do the same thing before and after sleeping, it becomes automatic, and if there's anything you want to be automatic, it's sleeping because if you're thinking about sleeping, you're probably not sleeping.

That's part 1 of my Golden Triangle, health. I'm not the healthiest person around, but I'm not falling apart either. If this part of the Triangle is missing anything, it's probably flexibility, which would best fit into fitness. I think flexibility is good and probably has benefits that I wouldn't understand, being about as supple as a block of concrete. Feel free to try and poke holes in the first part of my triangle or suggest better rules of thumb.
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