The Curious Case of the Spiritual Gangster

In an Increasingly well traveled world, the Barter Economy and Go-Givers Harvest the highest rewards, knowledge and Information.

The Why:

Travel is one of the greatest gifts you can give to yourself, because of the people you meet and the experiences you have, if you are open minded. In the past, I've written about how The Singing Cerveza Salesman who won my business, today I am going to write about how being generous with what you have can get you the experience of a lifetime.

The Story:

This story took place over the St. Patrick's day Weekend in Memphis, Tennessee. The name's will be changed as always. All events take place in and around Beale Street.

We Started on

Enjoyed a Parade of Boll Weavels, Shriners, Cruella DeVille Cars, and Memphis Grizzlies:

After the parade, we found ourselves at Silky O'Sullivans which was crowded and an amazing experience where I got to partake in a magical bucket. The experiences that this magical bucket called a "Diver" never stopped ceasing to amaze me. It caught eyes and attention, it was communal, and it brought people into our circle that will forever be friends for the rest of time. Our circle grew. The contents of this bucket could be traded, not for currency but for value. The value of a good time. As the day progressed on the contents of the bucket seemed to dwindle but sometimes people would share their time with us and somehow the bucket never seemed to get truly empty. The more we shared, the more a magical haze overtook me, that can only be described as the beginning of the magic of St. Patrick's Day.

The Magical Bucket:

Being from Nashville, TN, I wanted to drop in and say hey to my neighbors at Tin Roof in Memphis because I've been a fan of the Original Tin Roof on Demonbreun for as long as I'm allowed to legally remember.

Here begins the tale of how a pair of Ray-Bans magically passed over two of my close friends and led the spiritual gangster into my life. During the day I was wearing my glasses and couldn't wear my sunglasses. So my first friend wanted to borrow them, of course this is no problem! "J," now with a pair of sunglasses was able to meet "A." "A" had a pair of sunglasses that "J" was able to keep up with because a silly leprechaun kept knocking the sunglasses off A's head. So now my Ray-Bans were able to be commandeered by my good brother Forrester. Forrestor wore my shades until the sun had set and I had my contacts in.

These magical sunglasses were able to lead J and Forrester to their own spiritual gangsters, they had finally come to rest back on my head with one last task: find me a spiritual gangster.

Though my day had been arduous and my feet were calloused, I was not giving up hope to find a true intellectual conversation. The attempts throughout had been many, yet none were fruitful. Since Tin Roof in Nashville was familiar territory for me, Tin Roof on Beale Street quickly became a comfort zone in which I thrived. I introduced myself to some staff and sent regards from Tin Roof in Nashville.

The Dance floor seemed fun, but not this late, my spirit was dwindling and I needed a few more carbohydrates anyway. Returning inside, I found my way upstairs, I found my friends J, N, A, K, B, and Forrester up here!

How Amazing, the Magical Bucket and Sunglasses re-united us! I made more friends, a Real Estate Agent, an Attorney, and an interesting gentleman who's name I never got. But alas, the spirits were not in my favor... yet. All of these conversations were great, but none of them truly enlightening and all ended too soon.

That's when the wind shifted the tide and led me to Elle. Elle was tall, which I liked. She also seemed to be fairly un-amused with her current accompaniment. We hit it off pretty quickly with polite complements traded. Elle had an amazing story being from Hawaii originally, and you don't hear that very often! She Also had a Carmen San Diego thing going on especially since I think she mentioned having lived there, in fact it's where she started her company. I had to know more, why was she in Memphis? Was she merely visiting or did she live there? Elle actually moved her start up from San Diego to Memphis to catch a big Fish and as a salesman myself, I appreciated the willingness to travel, plus it made huge business sense. As the magic of the night increasingly took hold of the atmosphere, the Altruistic Leprechauns moved the magic hands of time and place. The Spiritual Gangster hat was of significant importance to Elle. Perhaps, perhaps not. I will never know.

The Hat:

The Curious Case of the spiritual gangster

But I do know that the exchange of ideas and thoughts in not only English but in Spanish as well was worth more than any classical education could buy. To read more on how to get more from your education while travelling abroad and the significance of learning a second language, read my article about Staying Healthy while Travelling Abroad. 

Before Hailing a ride, Elle and I exchanged items in order to guarantee we would re-unite at a future point. The Spiritual Gangster hat that she had placed such High Value on and my Ray bans which I didn't pay anywhere near to full price for were traded.

I valued very much my sunglasses because of the magic that they were able to work for my brothers and for me, so I wonder what magic and good fortune will bring because of the Highly Valued hat? Stay Tuned for the update of when the Spiritual Gangster Strikes again! Elle and Myself had exchanged so much information and generosity; however, it was time for me to retire to my room for the night. Elle was awaiting a friend anyway and I urgently needed a change of socks.

So I hailed a Lyft home and had one more amazingly intelligent altruistic conversation with my Driver, T. Fortunately, due to the wonders of technology I was able to get word of my brothers whereabouts and that Elle had finally reunited with her friend.

The Moral

What this whole story comes down to is this, that even though currency is simply a means of exchange, true value can be found from meaning, conversation, and experience.

Through true friendship, kind acts, and generosity, you can truly have an amazing time. As Eric Weinstein said in a Joe Rogan Podcast, "Take something simple like a harmonica" something completely unexpected and using it in a different way "Something you get as a party favor as a kid" he continues "There's 4 secrets and suddenly the world opens up" ... "There's so small a number of secrets and you have to have a reason." "They're small financial options, you can exercise them or you can not exercise them."

 Body language is the language of the world, and that's a tale for another day.


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How your lifestyle eating habits can affect your finances.

       One of the things that helped me reach healthiness and happiness was my choice to decrease my food intake. This involved several variables, including diet changes, eating habits, and shopping decisions.

       Let me preface by saying that I'm a big proponent of Intermittent Fasting which I learned from Martin Berkham. As soon as I implemented Intermittent Fasting into my lifestyle several things changed for the better... I lost weight and starting reaching my physical goals then I noticed that Since I was eating less, I was saving more money to invest in my Roth Ira and Mutual Funds. So not only am I living healthier by reaching and then maintaining a healthy body weight, thus saving money on future health care costs, I was also help invest in my own personal retirement as well as looking forward to creating a college fund for my unborn children.

      After a while of eating less through Intermittent Fasting I started reading experts such as Gary Taubes and Mark Sisson. A Paleo diet is something of another discussion, but after implementing major clauses in what constitutes a Paleo Diet into my Lifestyle Routine, I noticed exponentially significant changes.

      Similar to statistically significant, "exponentially significant" refers to small, impactful changes relative to time observed.

      By Eat. Stop. Eat. (Brad Pilon) principles, as well as, key principles in Paleo Dieting I have maximized my Fitness and Diet regime and also my Financial Regime.

     Previously, I touched on this same subject.

How Fasting and a Frugal mindset helped me achieve happiness

For over a year now, I have been preparing to enter the real world. This preparation has focused mainly on financial planning and lifestyle changes that I want to carry with me throughout my entire life. I grew up relatively poor and fat. I was sad on the SAD (Standard American Diet) diet. While there will be time for my story later (I can remember sitting in the kitchen eating spoonfuls of sugar! YUCK!), I want to explain one habit I changed in my diet and lifestyle routine that has significantly impacted the way I look, how I feel, and how I spend money.

I have been on the fitness and diet journey for a while, several years in fact. The first time I lost weight going from 270-280 (122 kg) down to 200 (+/-100 kg) in a very unhealthy manner. I lost a lot of hard earned muscle mass, but I got my first ever serious girlfriend! Yeah, we were in love, things were great. Until I started gaining weight again. The stress of a long distance relationship, typical first year of college diet, and general lack of knowledge led me down the road that most people all over the world (Im studying abroad in Spain as I write this post and I am seeing the exact same mistakes in the gym and on diets and diet knowledge that invade the fitness industry) take in regards to diet and health, buying into the next big trend. 

So, I got on the web, joined some forums, picked up a muscle and fitness mag and did what everyone does, jumped on the treadmill like an experimental mouse. In fact, as the fasting methodology is beginning to take hold coupled with my time spent living in a city with more daily activity along with my terrible history of diet and exercise I sometimes feel like I am just a mouse being used in these experiments.

Anyway, Financially this was a big mistake for me as I was spending so much money on supplements for weight loss and muscle gain. I was buying trendy diet food items like shakes and bars. Purchasing fad diet pre-boxed meals. This money could have been spent on a nice dinner date or stowed away for a future plan.

Alas, I mindlessly plugged away over training and over eating. Wasting precious time, energy, and money. When I could have been treating my taste buds a delectable fresh salad with chopped turkey breast, ingredients totaling ~$1 I was instead trying to enjoy every last bite of the $2.50 "natural" protein bar.

College budgeting was always tough because I go to school in a typical college town. Desert town in the summer with nothing to do but in the fall and spring traffic jams on the small country highway are frequent during peak social hours. Part-time jobs are seasonal, this may be a reason I turned to blogging and trying to find ways to earn money online. I remember having to forego going out with friends or buying a new whatzit because I had spent it on a textbook 3 days prior. Forced to stay at home and study or play a video game, I'd take a shower, look at myself in the mirror, and wonder why I was still fat and still struggling with money. I was a finance major, this should be easy! I keep doing what everyone tells me, eat 6 small meals, cut carbs, work this, etc. etc. 

No wonder so many of us burn out! Why do we regain weight after "dieting" and return to our old spending habits after weeks of successful planning and budgeting?

I think most of us just haven't taken the time and patience to find out what works for them by doing the research and making the necessary lifestyle changes.

This is me before I started on my final journey in weight loss to where I am now

Weighing in around 250 pounds

In the following, I'm on the very left:

In mid-november, I was making great progress at losing weight and becoming healthy again. I was taking a cross-fit class and really focusing on my diet. I was basing it all on the knowledge I had used before, the same knowledge we all probably use. But then, I hit the nightmarish plateau. This time though, I was ready. I had tried the "muscle confusion" B.S. before and had since found out it was just a sales tactic. This time, like every time, I hit the internet. Scoured the forums. Talked to my good friends in Exercise Science. How to get through it. What to do differently.

Looking back, it was destiny. I somehow got referred to Martin Berkham's website and his methodology of Intermittent Fasting. 

"Ok, I'll try it, but I dont like it. It goes against everything I've ever been told."

I was legitimately worried about going into "Starvation mode" and retaining fat being so food deprived during the day that I was going to be no fun to be around.

I was completely wrong. After 1 week, I dropped 10 pounds. The weight loss slowed, but that's because I was still making a few dietary mistakes here and there, but I stuck with it.

Here I am almost a year later before a major milestone:

 In the next few weeks, I would go on to set a new Bench max: 375# Deadlift 495# and Squat 365#

I would later implement reverse pyramid training because these ratios are way off. I am now focusing more on legs and deadlift. 

Not only has leangains worked extremely well for me, Martin's site has been one of the biggest driving forces in my reignited fervor for making Frugal Son a better resource.

My weight loss was further accelerated when I changed my diet even more. On my first year of Intermittent Fasting I was still eating a bunch of crap focusing only on method and numbers.

During my semester abroad in Spain, I injured my shoulder playing rugby. I thought this would greatly set me back, and yes, I did allow myself to binge eat and skimp on the diet just a tad. I gained some weight back, but I would later learn this was due to major glycogen depletion and overtraining. The shoulder injury was a result of going too hard, too long.

During my post injury depression the imagined weight gain drove me crazy. That's when I discovered Mark Sisson's website. After just a month of healthy, clean eating through natural food, yet with the allowance of some junk food post training (this is mostly due to the college/young person lifestyle) I'm looking better than ever before:

Weighing in at 85 kg (roughly 187 pounds)

Due to the muscle atrophy during my 3.5 week hiatus from lifting heavy and I'm still struggling with heavy bench and almost any form of Incline bench exercise. The injury has really been a blessing in disguise. I have been able to slow down and focus on building quality muscle using the Pyramid method Martin Recommends.

I may not be throwing up 375 pounds on flat bench anymore, I'm still much stronger than the other gym-rats (more like gym-mice) I'm definitely looking better than ever and feeling fantastic. Thanks to what I consider the Holy Trinity in Weight Loss and Exercise: Berkham - Sisson - Taubes. Taubes is the least important, he's like the Holy Ghost. You only hear about him once in a while and you know some stuff about him is important, but you largely pay him no mind. I respect Taubes for his (somewhat over-zealous) fight against obesity and his research skills. Sisson and Berkham are the like the Holy Father and Son ( I am not going to prioritize here)

So how does the story relate to Finance and Frugality?

Remember in my hay-day, I was chomping down on protein bars pre-workout and guzzling protein shakes with 3 raw eggs and 6 oz. of whole milk post workout?

Now, I skip both. Opting instead for an easy fast of anywhere from 12-20 hours. Drink 10g of BCAA's pre-workout. Post workout I take a fish oil and multi vitamin with plenty of salad and lean meat. On rest days I enjoy more fat heavy meats and lower carb options. 

I buy several ingredients for my salads: Tuna, Turkey, tomatoes, spinach, cabbage, and nuts. Sometimes broccoli, peppers, onions, etc. 

The greens cost no more than $2 each totaling $6 and through rationing and guess work when it comes to calorie restriction, they usually last me 5-6 days depending on how frequently I eat. That's a $1 a day. We will trade that for the $2.50 vitamin bar I was previously eating.

Tuna in cans is really cheap, and I consider one small can of tuna in water to be negligible in the fact of any mercury content.

Turkey is around $6 for 2 pounds of breast filet and will last me 2-4 days depending on days I eat white fish or chicken or turkey as the main course. It's tough to say what i eat as I ultimately eat primally as possible. We can trade the lean meat and eggs for the sugar rich protein shakes.

Without getting to intensive on budgeting and number running (which probably gets boring to read anyway) 

I haven't been to the ATM to withdraw money in the last week and a half and I've still enjoyed going out to eat with friends and socializing almost every night. The point I'm making is that eating healthy and being healthy is not expensive like the madhouse the fitness industry would have you believe.

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day!

Well yes, it is. I never said it isn't! But my definition of breakfast isn't the same that multi-million dollar fast food and restaurant franchises would have you believe. My definition is the concrete term of "breaking the fast" hence: breakfast. 

Skipping breakfast means skipping the bacon, egg, and cheese McMuffin saving me my health, time, and money (and idling gas expenditure). The $2 coke and $3 sandwich I just skipped let me sleep in or gave me time to take my dog for a walk.

As Brad Pilon says in Eat. STOP. Eat.

"The fitness industry doesn't want you to fast, they can't bottle it up and sell it. How can they sell a habit?"

A habit that leads to naturally reduced calorie intake, better mental awareness, and the following straight from Brad Pilon's book, which I highly recommend:

In dozens of published peer reviewed scientific studies, short-term intermittent fasting has been found to have the following health benefits:

• Decreased body fat & body weight

• Maintenance of skeletal muscle mass

• Decreased blood glucose levels

• Decreased insulin levels & increased insulin sensitivity

• Increased lipolysis & fat oxidation

• Increased Uncoupling Protein 3 mRNA

• Increased norepinephrine & epinephrine levels

• Increased Glucagon levels

• Increased growth hormone levels.

I never want to hear the excuse "Losing weight is expensive!"

It isn't.

I spend less than one hour in the gym and for only a few days per week. Allowing me to save time and energy. This extra time has allowed for me to pursue my passions and increase my knowledge. Im able to spend more time now doing what I want, which is figuring out a what I want to do with my life after college.

That's becoming more and more clear every day, and that's why this post exists...

I eat less food. I don't have the urge to spend $1 at the coke machine anymore. I skip the drive-thru. No more late night eating after a night of drinking with the amigos.

Not only that, during the lunch hour while everyone is clamoring to find a place to sit and eat, I'm in the library brushing up on the latest trends in utilizing Social Media for E-business, one of my current consultancy jobs.

Several resources exists to help you get a better understanding. My recent favorite is the Salk Study that took two similar groups of mice and fed each group a diet comprising of 60% calories from fat, this is like eating potato chips and ice cream for each meal! One group was allowed to eat ad libitum all day while the other group was restricted to a feeding window of 8 hours, when they were allowed to eat ad libitum. Control groups were fed a diet consisting of 16% calories from fat. Groups generally ate around the same amount of calories daily and after 100 days of observation the fasted group showed better health markers and remained 28% lighter.

What are your ideas on fasting? What sort of diet choices do you make to help make the end of the month a tad bit easier? 

Defining the Frugal Lifestyle

Frugality is more than just buying cheap stuff or being a penny-pincher. Sure, I may always pick up a penny off the ground if it happens to catch my eye because I can still hear my Grandmother, Mimi, saying “A penny saved is a penny earned” but that doesn’t mean I’m constantly scouring the parking lot for loose change. Like everything, frugality is a way of life that extends far beyond that of just physical money.

Frugality and leading a frugal lifestyle can be found in every aspect of your life from diet, exercise, work, family, future, time management, and even your hobbies. Behavioral studies show that people who are Frugal have the tendency to acquire economic goods or services in a patient manner in order to achieve a long term goal. While I wholeheartedly agree this is true, we love to save money for that nice new shiny trinket we’ve wanted since we were 7 years old, be it a laptop, car, house, massage, cruise vacation, or whatever your amazing mind can dream up, I believe that frugality is a mindset that transcends mere economic and spending tendencies.

We can extend our frugal tendencies into our diets, for example. Being frugal is what defines us. We can forego the McDonald’s $5 Big Mac and settle with two $1 McChickens instead. But why even stop there? Why not skip the drive-through entirely and benefit from a fast?

 We have the ability to wait a week or a month, maybe even years and go without a T.V. in order to buy the biggest and best. But we don’t stop there, no, we research our big purchase, we wait… Until just the right time and we pounce. We chase what we want with such fervor that nothing can get in our way. If I were an animal, I’d be a Cheetah, waiting, watching, enjoying the sun, then at just the exact right moment a chance to get nice big juicy antelope would present itself.

We feast.

We love getting the biggest bang for our buck. We are disciplined. Frugal folks and families like us don’t follow the crowd. We don’t mind hanging on to that old suit we had when we were fat or stopping to look at the dining room chair on the side of the road, so what if it has a tear in the fabric? I don’t care that someone shot me a funny look or grimaced.

It’s the end of the month and it’s your uncle’s birthday at the Ritzy Restaurant where you can only choose between Filet Mignon and Pan Seared-Salmon none of the main courses are under $25. It’s ok, I’ll settle for the house salad, soup, or split a plate with my brother, we’ve got bigger plans in the works.

We are contemplating and calculating but not devious or mischievous, that would not make us frugal. We do not need to lie to get a better deal. We will happily tip the waiter more because he gave us outstanding service. We don’t complain or argue because this would be a senseless waste of energy.

Whether or not we believe in a higher power, one entity or many, we find happiness in our way of life and we feel more virtuous for it.

Frugal philosophy extends into our work life. We make great managers and leaders. We are patient and forward-looking. We help cut costs and save the company money, but we aren’t brutal or cold. For us, just like any corporation, maximizing shareholder wealth is important. We are the shareholder’s in the happiness of our lives and the lives of those around us.

We are frugal and we are happy. We are free. We care about money and it is important, yes, but it is not main focus of every second of our lives. Because hey, we are Frugal, and we’ve already researched this and know that spending too much time on any one thing will ultimately lead us to failure.

For us, frugality comes naturally, even though we sometimes have to work at it. Check out [url=http://thepathtofrugality.blogspot.com.es/] The Path to Frugality [/url] if you are interested in more ways on making the lifestyle change to that of a more frugal one.

What do you think? I want to hear your comments about what being frugal means to you.