health

How YouTube Can Help Your Health and Personal Finances

November 10, 2019 by Mike Mabrouk

YouTube is probably where I put most of my time at when it comes to boredom entertainment. And it’s definitely for a good reason. This platform has everything that can both entertain you and be educational. The whole framework of everyday random people posting content trying to teach you from their learnings or simply even just exploding stuff is awesome to me. Endless hours of content are online for you to watch basically free. This is why I wanted to write a blog post on this. I want to make sure everyone capitalizes their time with this platform for improving themselves at no investment whatsoever.

What I like about YouTube

So, I like learning and I like learning in an easy digestible fashion. And that is the power of YouTube. Screw the I have to read a textbook to get familiar with a topic. What I love about this platform is the freedom to watch whatever videos you want in the topic you are interested in from different perspectives too. The traditional textbook is written by an author who updates publications with new “lingo” just to pocket more money. The best is when a professor themselves has written a textbook that you have to buy for three hundred dollars. Now while I do have some jokingly not jokingly comparisons with the traditional form of schooling in this writing, I am not by any means saying you should substitute school with YouTube. The platform of YouTube though does provide an outlet of content that can assist with your schooling efforts along with learning about what life has to offer that a classroom will never teach you.

What topics I like to watch

There are many subscriptions I have that align with topics I love to watch videos on. Everyone is unique with what they are interested in and what they would like to learn more about and explore with. For me, there have been some topics especially of recent that I love to focus on and learn more about. I am a huge sucker for personal finance videos on YouTube. Personal finance is a category that is not really talked about or brought up a lot with daily conversations and learning efforts. I believe it to be very important to know what the heck to do with my own money, the money I owe, and the money I will earn. There are a plentiful number of channels that have their own tips, tricks and strategies for personal finance, what they recommend and how to go about it in a quick and easy fashion.

Two other topics that I also enjoy binge watching are success stories with personal health & entrepreneurial efforts, along with traveling abroad videos. The success story videos show you people who have actually took action in their lives to improve themselves and make a success out of their situation. The two categories that fall into this topic that I enjoy watching are weight loss stories and people who have started up their own business from scratch whether that is an online business or even running a franchise. Both of these topics directly and indirectly motivate me to push myself as well since I am literally watching people who have pulled it off and are doing it as we speak. I think it is good to have this kind of content in your life to spark some motivation in you and to push yourself even further with whatever goals you have in mind.

Now the traveling abroad videos are simply awesome. You can learn so much on YouTube from peoples’ personal travels whether it being a country that you have always had on your bucket list to visit some day or even tips and tricks for the best ways to handle expectations and preparations for visiting a country. I love love love watching travelers visit countries that are not so common travel destinations and may even be considered dangerous to the everyday person living in a westernized country. These videos show the true insights of how the media does spin things to make it seem everything is awful but in truth, we are all human and while there is bad everywhere there is good everywhere as well. These travelers and documenters show the insights of how the locals live, the traditions they have and even the cuisines they indulge in. It is a real fun category to spend hours on learning more about what is truly going on with the rest of the world and how the media never focuses on the good sides with some of these “unpopular” countries.

The real danger of YouTube

Recommended videos can lead to binge watching YouTube. And I am talking worse than Netflix. At least with Netflix you to a certain degree know what you are getting yourself into, but not YouTube. Two hours can pass by in a blink of an eye and before you know it, you just absorbed so much good learning content that makes you think why the heck is this not the traditional form of learning compared to sitting in a school classroom for two hours.

Conclusion

Yeah YouTube is just awesome. I myself spend a lot of time on it and I believe it is a better form of entertainment to learn from and improve yourself than many other mediums including television. While I did list some of the topics that I love to watch, keep in mind YouTube has everything and anything that you may have an interest in and want to learn more about. I definitely recommend taking advantage of this platform. With that being said, thanking you for reading this post and check out some of my other previous blogs posts I have written on topics dealing with health and wealth.

Thanks everyone,

Mike M.

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How To Kick and Punch Your Way To Health

October 12, 2019 by Mike Mabrouk

Jab…Jab…kick…kick, something like that the instructors are shouting out to the class making everyone sweat their behinds off. I like to think that I have had especially of recent a decent workout ethic and I wasn’t too out of shape but let me tell you, this class I signed up for has kicked my butt to the moon. It has been a while since I have seen a puddle of sweat on the ground from a workout and we are not even talking 50 min. It’s so strange after the workout though that I am sweating like crazy, everyone has the same pain in their eyes but yet we all walk out feeling great. I mean after these classes you can tell everyone (after a few minutes of wanting to punch the instructors) walks out of the building with a smile on their face feeling pretty darn good. So, what is this type workout routine and class I am talking about?

If you couldn’t guess from the 500 hints, I am talking about boxing. Well actually I have been doing a kickboxing class, but I’ll combine the two since they are generally the same idea.

What entails kickboxing?

So, there are many franchises that have opened and have become popular it seems to be in recent years that focus on kickboxing and boxing. Now when I refer to this I am not necessarily talking about learning how to box or kickbox to become an amateur and start doing actual amateur fighting. I’m referring to the group fitness classes that give you a pair of gloves and focus the workout around punching and kicking bags. These classes are led by an instructor for less than an hour (typically) and focus on burning calories while providing an all body workout experience. For the kickboxing classes I have signed up for, our classes have an instructor shout out an action for you to do whether it be a certain punch or a kick and everyone in the group finds their own bag to perform the action called out. It’s a nice way to hold yourself accountable since the instructor is giving you the workout usually running up and down motivating everyone and you are watching everyone around you which helps when the energy level is high in the class. The workouts revolve around the punches and kicks (for my classes probably split half and half) and you have other body workouts sprinkled in as well. We have jumping jacks thrown in, a lot of abdominal workouts like planks and crunches, even some more leg thrown in with air squats etc. Overall, the workout itself is a quick 45 min or so of high intense level all body movements that can give you a solid complete workout.

What is the Learning Curve?

Ok real talk for a second. Since I always experience it and I am absolutely sure I am not the only one, these classes are very comfortable to show up for your first time and not feel out of place. Sure you may look like the new person in the group, but that is going to be the case with anything you try out for the first time. I would absolutely NOT be intimidated walking in, watching a class and potentially be thinking what the heck am I about to sign up for. These are designed to be fun, high intense workout classes that you get to work at your own pace. I need to repeat this because I think this is key. These classes are designed for you to work at your own pace. You can control how much you want to get out of each workout with the effort you provide. Honestly, I think that may be one of the best parts with these types of classes. Some days I just don’t have it and some days I am ready to take on every villain out there. Your output determines your result and each person in the class can individually determine that themselves.

Also, I want to mention how the expectation when starting out is you have no idea what you are doing which is everyone when they start out. So, don’t worry about not knowing what the class is doing since the instructors are helpful and they will help teach you the proper ways. I am talking from my experiences from both my current gym and the other gyms I have stopped in to checkout.

Who is this class really for?

These types of classes are really for all ages, sizes, fitness levels you name it. Like I have mentioned, with the classes really allowing you to control how much effort and output you want to use, it allows for all people to jump right in and join the group. From my experiences, I have seen older gentlemen, older women, young kids, people trying to lose weight, people trying to get tone, in shape and out of shape people. Literally everyone. I have seen people walk in with friends to try the classes and I have seen individuals say screw it and come in by themselves to check the classes out. And they all have survived.

Free trials

Most of these types of classes and gyms provide free trials where you get to check out the class and participate in it before you actually sign the dotted line saying, “add it to the card”. I think this is another great perk where you get to see not only if this is the right type of workout for you but if the gym is the right fit for you as well. Everyone is in their own unique situation, so even if a friend really likes this one gym do not be afraid to say it’s not a great fit for me and check other places.

Hopefully you got something out of this blog post with me talking about my experiences at a kickboxing gym and why I think it can be a really good option for you to checkout. I would absolutely 100% recommend at least checking them out and seeing if they are a fit for you. Thanks everyone for reading and check out my other blog posts as well.

Mike M.

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Don’t Let Eating Like Crap Make You Feel Guilty

September 18, 2019 by Mike Mabrouk

Your watching the football game with a bunch of friends and all of a sudden, it’s half time and everyone starts to feel a little hungry. You of course are used to eating your salads for lunch and can not wait to have the one you meal prepped for the week but then realize that…well everyone is in your living room and you will end up being that person who just eats in front of everyone while everyone just stares at you starving out of their minds. I am sure you know what I mean and may have experienced it with being the person eating and the friends staring. That’s a tough situation. First of all, you are eating in front of everyone when you know everyone is dying to have a bite of anything healthy or not. And the worst part is you have the audacity to whip out a salad. Everyone is currently mentally judging especially since we all know football season equates to football food. And I am talking pizza, wings, buffalo chicken dip, all the goodies.

This is a scenario I would say definitely applies to the situation of eating like crap but not having to feel guilty. I am a believer in situational treat yourself days. These are the type of days where you get to create memories and enjoy the little things in life. In the scenario above, this is enjoying the football game with you best friends and the best food on this planet. It is important to understand and have the mentality that it is okay to take a break from healthy eating to live in the moment. Mentally, you need to be able to teach yourself that no one is meant to be eating healthy every single moment of their life. There is a reason why all this delicious horrible food has been invented and is consumed on the regular.

Scenarios like these are unique to everyone as each individual has their own fun days and own unique ways of having fun too. This includes being social which tends to entail having some drinks or a nice meal put together. And when I mean nice meal, I mean order every appetizer imaginable.

The way through my weight loss experiences of justifying and not feeling guilty for having a day like this goes back to my favorite concept of the numbers game. By some freaky universal law, luck and results are created through more opportunity and mindset (aka energy from you but that’s a little too out there for me and this blog). And opportunity to maintain your healthy status or even lose weight is created from having a lot of days where you move towards that goal you set with eating healthy and/or exercising. So, if you have a routine of eating healthy normally, the every now and then occasional day of being social to live life and have fun will not truly haunt you. To give a number to this, if out of the seven days of the week, you decide to have one bad day of eating and let’s throw in a half day for the after-work party of course, then the law of numbers still has you at five and a half good days of eating. This overall, is excellent when trying to achieve your health goals. The majority of your time is focusing on being healthy and it will show good results for you. And it is up to you to realize this and not feel guilty when you (everyone) has those days where we just simply let it go to enjoy life.

PS: When talking football, I am a big Cleveland Browns fans so when its time to eat during gameday, I tend to indulge out of frustration. So, plenty of experience from my end.

Thank you for checking out this blog post and please give it a like and follow the blog. Much more content on here with everyday issues we face. Trying to provide a perspective of how best to overcome these obstacles and use them to our advantage.

Mike M.

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