The idea for this blog came about last weekend when I was doing some cleaning around the house and ended up finding one of those body tape measures that you use to wrap around different body parts to see if they are growing or shrinking.
Just for fun I decided I was going to see how much my arms and legs have grown since the last time I measured them (I believe 6 months - 1 year ago). To my surprise I have put on a whole inch of muscle to my arms, growing from 11 inches to now 12 inches, and I believe about 2 inches of muscle on my legs. Although I still have a long way to go to get where I want to be in terms of muscle mass I am very happy to see progress in my muscle growth.
What does this mean for you?
When you start out on your journey, most likely the only way for you is to go up. Maybe right now, with whatever path you are on, you are looking up to being as good as the influencers in your area or you may even want to go beyond them! But sometimes starting can be very scary and hard because you are so far from where you want to be.
But when you start to move towards where you want to be and reward yourself for every little success you have, you will be able to embrace your journey and have fun in the process of getting to where you want to be.
I love the analogy of the baby learning to walk. When you were a baby learning how to walk, you fell down a countless number of times. But you and your family never got mad when you fell. Instead everyone was happy when you could get one step before falling, then 2 and 3 and so on!
If you treat yourself making progress toward your goal in this same way, you will notice how much easier it is to keep going and striving for success.
Closing thoughts.
What is it that you really want to do in life, but feel like you can't do because you aren't "good enough"? The first step is to start, then over time you start to become alright at your skill, then good, then great, then hopefully you even become one of the best if not the best in your area. But it all starts with making progress each day and rewarding yourself for your progress and achievements!
I wanted to make today's post for those of you that are looking into laptops that would be an ideal fit for work, travel, video editing etc. The computer we will be talking about to is the Microsoft Surface laptop. I share what I like about the computer and what I don't. I don't want to just name off some pro's and con's but instead, I would like to give you a more personal honest review on the Microsoft Surface.
I have been using the computer for about 5 months now and thought it would be a great time to make a review about it.
Also not being the biggest computer geek, I will be making this review as simple as possible. Because you are also probably only reading this to decide whether or not this computer is for you and you don't care about every little spec of the computer. What I like about the Surface Laptop.
The design / quality: The Surface Laptop has one of the best designs out there in my opinion. I have the cobalt blue laptop, which gives the computer a sleek, modern look/feel. It is also very portable and lightweight. When comparing it to my MacBook Pro (I have the 2015 MacBook) for the most part it feels like a more luxurious computer, and that is because of the alcantara keyboard. Being a guy that loves luxury and exotic cars, it is very important that the products I invest in use high quality materials. Microsoft could've saved some money by just using a full metal casing for the whole laptop but instead they knew that using a high quality material would make their customers feel just that much more comfortable while typing which I think is a great touch to a laptop (plus the alcantara just feels extremely nice to touch!) The battery life: I notice that the battery life on this laptop is insane, I can charge the computer about once a week or even every 2 weeks (depending on how much I use it and what I use it for) And even in its highest performance mode with the brightness all the way up I don't even have to worry about the computer dying on me.
I usually only use the Surface for editing thumbnails, writing blogs, and watching YouTube, and every once and a while for video editing (which we'll talk on later). Although editing video did drain battery faster than anything else it wasn't too dramatic on battery life.
Overall for what I use the Surface for battery life is great, and I am very happy with it!
Thetouchscreen: This is one thing that really surprised me when I started using the computer. I never thought I would be including this in the blog, but for some reason or another I am really starting to love the touch screen. Although it isn't my "go to" for most tasks, it is very useful for getting around the computer fast or scrolling through something I am reading. It also seems to stay pretty clean even when I am using it a lot.
Currently I don't have the pen that Microsoft sells for its touch screen devices, although I think it would be a great investment for those of you that are photo editors, or work on art on your computer. For now using my fingers with the touch screen works perfectly fine. And although this isn't my favorite point about the computer, I am surprised at how much I actually use, and like this feature!
What I don't like about the Surface Laptop.
Video editing: Although I am not the greatest video editor, I have had a few years of experience with using iMovie (the free video editing software on the MacBook Pro). It is by no means the best video editing software out there but I find that it is very easy to use.
Now on the Surface, I have tried using Adobe Premier, and the free version Davinci Resolve, and for one reason or another they just didn't make sense to me. Even the stock video editor on Windows isn't the best for editing video IMO.
This is the biggest complaint I have about the computer. Obviously it is just personal preference, and you may enjoy editing videos on the Surface (especially if you are a professional video editor).
The screen: Although the screen isn't terrible by any means, and compared to most computers it is phenomenal, I noticed that when I would edit 4k video, it always looked sharper on my MacBook Pro. I know this isn't the biggest thing in the world to complain about, but I wanted to add this in the review to be honest about what I think of the screen and the computer as a whole.
Closing thoughts.
All around the Surface Laptop is a great computer. I actually had a hard time coming up with the things I don't like about it.
For the money, you do get more bang for your buck than its main competitor (the MacBook Pro) but if you are going to start editing video, it may not be the best computer for you.
However if you want a great all around computer for everyday work and tasks, it would be the better choice IMO.
If this review was informative to you, and the Microsoft Surface Laptop sounds like a fit for you click the link below to go check the Surface out for yourself!
I want to start off this blog by stating that I am only going to do this challenge as a sort of experiment. This is not really my normal challenge to try, but I thought it would be a fun experiment to see if I am able to gain muscle on about $10 per day.
Hopefully this will even act as motivation for you to start bodybuilding / bulking with whatever budget you currently have!
In this blog I also wanted to share with you a few different tips on making this $10 per day challenge easier for you each and every day.
This isn't a blog on living poor, or having a poor mindset. I am doing this challenge to save money, but also as a way to discover more healthy, tasty, cheap foods / meals.
A little backstory. This is something I don't talk about that much, but I love amazing foods. This is great for making meals and eating well, but it can be quite pricey. In fact I was spending a good chunk of my paycheck on food. Which is good and bad, its good in the sense that I am able to invest in my body with some of the best food, its bad becase I was shelling out probably around $500+ per month alone of food.
Intermittent fasting.
The first tip that will help you the most is to start intermittent fasting. If you have been following my blog or YouTube channel for a while, you know that I do intermittent fasting nearly everyday. I usually am not that hungry until later in the day, so it works out perfect if you are someone who isn't hungry early in the morning like myself.
However if you want to start intermittent fasting, then it will take a couple weeks to get used to if you have never done it before. But if your goal is to eat cheaper on a daily basis and save money on food, then it will be well worth the effort.
Start to cook for yourself.
This is probably one of the hardest parts of eating cheap, but IMO it is the second most important. Think about it, if you always eat out how much more money do you end up spending? Most likely this number is going to be too much to count.
If your really want to eat cheap, eating out will not be worth it. It may be convenient, but you also don't know every ingredient that they put in the food. The great thing about cooking for yourself is that you can control what goes in your food.
But if you are like me, you love eating at Chipotle. I admit Chipotle is one of my favorite places to eat, but I could easily spend between $9 and $12 on a bowl alone there. Although Chipotle or other restaurants may be filling the money it costs isn't worth it if you are trying to eat on a budget.
Using brown rice and an affordable source of protein. Staying around $10 per day can be very hard to do for anyone. We can get around this by eating healthy and cheap foods such as, chicken, beans, brown rice or white rice, cod, or pork. By making a meal with a good source of protein along with brown rice, it will be easy to stay around that $2-3 mark per meal!
As I am writing this section I also remembered one food that is a very high source of protein and cheap. Lentils, are a great way to eat healthy on a budget and are very filling.
makes you resourceful.
This challenge will also help you think outside the box. I have been eating on $10 per day for a little over a week now, and I have noticed that I am not as much in a routine of eating all the same foods for every meal. Although there is still some of the same things I eat, there are many new cheaper foods I am trying that are healthy. Create a safety net.
One of my biggest reason I am doing this challenge is because I was spending a ridiculous amount of my money on food. Although I could still save some money, I noticed this to be a bad habit of mine. I would literally buy great tasting health food just because I had the money to do it. Although health is very important, I don't believe you should spend all your money on food.
I have been building a safety net over the last few months, but I know I can create this safety net much faster if I am able to stop spending so much money on food. If you are spending most of your money on food, start to look at what foods you are eating on a daily basis that you could switch out for something cheaper. As an example, for me it was chipotle, which I could just switch out with some brown rice and some kind of protein. What is it for you? What can you switch out and replace?
Closing thoughts.
I hope this has been a huge help to you, if you are having trouble saving money on food. It is very hard for many people to not spend lots of money on food, and by making this choice to do this challenge you are breaking yourself out of the excessive spending habit!
