Posts Tagged ‘love’

About the Good, the Bad and the Nothing

Monday, July 5th, 2010

Sometimes You want to do the Good Thing and the result is a Bad Thing.

Sometimes You start an Activity with a Good Intention but the Activity runs completely Out of Hand because You were unable to Predict all the effects.

Sometimes an Activity starts with a Good Intention and Ends with a Good Result but much later You discover that you have started a Chain of Activities and the Result of the Chain is Bad.

Good and Bad are Context Dependent.

Look at this little Story:

A Chinese farmer awoke one morning to find a horse grazing in one of his fields. Since nobody came to claim the horse, the farmer used it to plow his uncultivated land. “What a good this horse is for you,” said his neighbor. “We’ll see,” said the farmer. Soon after, the farmer’s 18-year-old son was riding the horse when it shied at a snake. The youth fell off and broke his leg. “What an evil this is for you,” said his neighbor. “We’ll see,” said the farmer. Soon after, the warlord’s agents combed the village, conscripting young men for his army. Because of his broken leg, the farmer’s son was not taken. “What a good this is for you,” said his neighbor. “We’ll see,” said the farmer.

The Devil in the TAROT

The Tarot Card the Devil: The Devil, the God Pan, is the Force of Desire. On the Card we can see that Humans are able to Lift the Chains of Desire.

About the Golden Rule of Ethics

The big problem is that we attach a Value to the Intentions or the Consequences of an Activity and this Value has just two Names named: “Good” or “Bad“.

When the E-Valuation is “Good” we Feel Good. When the E-Valuation is “Bad” we feel Anger, Sadness, Guilty, Depressed or Worse. The Names of the Evaluation trigger the Emotions Deeply.

Most of the time we feel Guilty without any need to feel Guilty because we are not in Control of Everything that Happens.

The Ego, our Identity, is not able to stand the Lack of Control it has on the Outside World.

Humans need the “Illusion of Control” to sustain their Identity. Deep within they don’t want to believe that Other Human Beings or the Forces of Nature (“the Acts of God“) are also Active Agents.

The Science that is trying to define the Good and the Bad is called Ethics.

Ethics is the Philosophical Study of  “the Moral Value of Human Conduct and of the Rules and Principles that ought to govern it” or “the principles concerning the distinction between Right and Wrong or Good and Bad Behavior’

The most important Rule of Ethics is the so called Golden Rule : ” We should do to others what we would want others to do to us” or “do not do to others what you would not like to be done to you“.

The Golden Rule of Empathy and Forgiving is the most important Ethical Rule in many Cultures all around the World.

The Golden Rule uses the Principle of Self-Reference. Something is Applied on Itself.

When we apply the Principle of Self-Reference to the Bad, we move into the Domain of Lady Justice.

Lady Justice

Lady Justice: An Eye for an Eye (Revenge)

About Justice and Revenge

When Bad People don’t want to use the Good Golden Rule some cultures use the Rule “An Eye for an Eye” (Revenge) to do Justice to the Bad Ones. When you do Bad to a Person, the Bad Behavior is Applied to Yourself. “Eye for an eye” is used to make Bad People Aware of the Good Golden Rule.

The interesting point is that the combination of the Golden Rule and the “Eye for an Eye“-Rule  (called Tit-for-Tat) is the best way to solve the Iterated Prisoners Dilemma, a Chain of Conflicts.

Strangely enough The Good (now called Cooperation)  is Accomplished when you just Imitate the Behavior of the Others.

There is One (fatal) Exception to the Strategy of Tit-for-Tat. If you want to operate On Your Own and You think You don’t need the Others to Survive the best Way to Operate is to Betray Every Body. Bad Behavior provides you with a Huge Economic Win but also with a  Huge Social Loss.

When you Betray the others, You have To Protect Yourself for the Revenge of the Others.

To Compensate your Social Loss You have to Buy the Others (Lawyers, Mercanaries, ) or (worse) you have to Force the Others with Violence to Cooperate with You.  In the first Case you lose a lot of Money and in the last case the Amount of Revenge increases exponentially.

To Survive you always have to Balance the Social (“the Other“) and the Economic (“the Ego“). The “easy way’ is to do the Good and the “difficult way“ is to do the Bad.

Cooperation is a highly Effective and Efficient Method to accomplish the Good for Your Self and the Others because Good Behavior attracts Good Behavior and Bad Behavior attracts  Bad Behavior.

Seven Virtues

The Seven Virtues

About the Seven Virtues.

To do Good or to do Justice you have to Apply the Same to the Same because The Same Attracts the Same.

The Same not only Attracts the Same. The Same Repels the Not-the-Same.

The Same Law:  ”Look-A-Likes Like Each Other and Repel the Organisms that are not looking alike” (called Genetic Similarity Theory) also explains Evolution. This rule was detected by Charles Darwin when he wanted to explain the huge amount of Cooperation in Nature.

When you Apply the Same to the Same (Self-Reference) it generates a Fractal Structure in which the Same Structure Repeats Itself on Every Level (“As Above, So Below“).

It Looks Like there is a Universal Moral Law that explains  Behavior on Every Level of the Universe.

Some Scientists believe the Moral Laws are Eternal Truths. This believe has a long History that goes back to Ancient Rome (Cicero), Ancient Greece (Plato, Socrate) and Ancient Egypt (Ma’at).

During the Renaissance (“Rebirth“) the Moral Principles of Rome, Greece, and Egypt were reborn and transformed into Moral Systems based on the Four (Prudence, Justice, Temperance and Fortitude) or the Seven Virtues (The Four Virtues & Faith, Hope and Love).

When you understand and apply the Universal Moral Laws you use the Virtue of Prudence (Wisdom, Knowledge).  To Apply the Golden Lesson you need to have Courage and a Strong Will, the Virtue of Fortitude. When you keep the three Virtues (Wisdom, Justice and Will) in the right Balance you are practising the virtue of Temperance.

They last three virtues are derived out of the First Letter to the Corinthians written by Paul:

“If I speak in the tonguesof men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames,but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love”.

Balance of Ma'at

The Golden Rule of Ma'at (Forgiving and Empathy)

About the Temperance of Ma’at

Ma’at (later  named Sophia ) was one of the (3×3) Nine Egyptian Neteru . She represented the Virtues of Truth, Balance, Justice, and Order. Just like Lady Justice she uses a Scale.

The dead person’s Heart was placed on the scale, balanced by the Feather of Ma’at. If the Heart weighed the same as the Feather of Ma’at, the deceased was allowed to go on to the Eternal Afterlife and gained Immortality (Heaven).

If the deceased had been found not to have followed the concept of Ma’at during his life (if he had lied or cheated or killed or revenged) his heart was devoured by a demon and he died the final death and was Reincarnated (Hell).

The Human,  the Talking Baboon,  had to start all over again to Learn and Apply the most important Golden Lesson of the Universe.

The way of Ma’at was to Act out of the Center of Conscioussness, the Heart. Acting out of the Heart is called the Virtue of Love.

Ma’at was also the God of Balance, Rythm and the Cycles. The Good and the not-Good moved the Cycles of the Universe.

The Good and the not-Good came out of the Same Source, the Void, the Sekhem, the Source of Infinite Potential and Love.

The Tree Faces of Shiva

The Tree Faces of Shiva (Creator, Destructor and Brahman (Void, Love, Infinite Potential))

About the Trinity of the Mind

In the Eastern (Gnostic, Egyptian, Indian, African, Mystic) Believe System the Good and the Bad are both created by the Demiurg (or the Logos, “In the beginning was the Word and Word was God“) one of the Creations of the Void. The Void exists outside our Level of Existence. The Void is a Mystery.

The Good and the not-Good, the Bad, are Complementary Opponents. Their Union is the Whole. They Share the Void, the Empty Set. The Empty Set contains Everything that is Impossible.

The Good and the Bad Move the Cycles of the Universe. They represent the E-Motions (Expansion (Desire, Creation) and Contraction (Control, Destruction)) of the Void.

The Good and the Bad Cooperate by Competing to bring the Lonely Souls back to the Void.

The Good, the Creator, and the Bad, the Destructor, are Two Faces of the Same Entity, the Spiritual Trinity, who came out of the Nothing.

The connection with the Void can be found in the Middle (the Golden Mean) of the Body, the Heart, the Link between the Triangel of the Material World (the Body) and the Triangel of the Spiritual World (The Mind).

The Heart, the connection with the Void,  is the Seat of Consciousness. It is also the Seat of the Emotions (Soul).

When the Heart Weights like a Feather, the Upper (Mind) and the Lower Trinity (the Body) connected by the Emotions are in Balance.

The Bad and the Good are Attractors. When the Attraction becomes too High you get Addicted to the Bad or the Good. A huge Expansion is compensated by a huge Contraction to Balance the Cycle. When you want to avoid the Pain of Contraction you have to Balance your Life.

The Two Triangels with the Heart in the Middle are the Same As the Seven Chakra’s (2×3+1) and the Seven Virtues of the Renaissance.

The Seven Chakra’s together with the Spiritual Trinity are Similar to the Tree of Life, The Egyptian Pesedjet/Neteru and the Jewish Sephirot (3×3+1).

The Seven Chakra's

The Seven Chakra's

About the Trinity of the Body

When Body and Mind are in Balance, the Ideas of the Spiritual Trinity are received by the Trinity of the Mind and are Implemented by the Trinity of the Material Body in the Material World (Earth).

When the Mind is not connected to the Body and the Spirit, the Ideas become Abstractions (only Words) or the Impulses of the Desire of the Body Takes over Control.

When the Mind is not connected to the Spirit Innovation stops and Old Ideas (the Seeds) Repeat Themselves All the Time. The Human becomes a Machine Caught in the Wheel of the Good and the Bad.

The One, the Spiritual Trinity, who is The Void, the Good (the Creator) and the Bad (the Destructor), uses the Strategy of Tit-for-Tat, the Trickster.

The Trinity Imitates the Behavior of the Humans or We the Humans Copy their Behavior (“We are made in the Image of God“)!

The One wants to make the Humans Aware of the Fact that the only way to Survive the Infinite Chain of Conflicts (Dilemma’s, Contradictions), which is Life, is to Cooperate (Live out of the Heart) with the Infinite Potential, the God of Love.

Implosion

The Big Implosion

About Destruction

The Golden Rule of Ethics tries to avoid the Negative Emotions, the Emotions of Loss. It wants to Create a situation were Everybody is Happy.

The Golden Rule of Ethics helps a lot to Evaluate our Intentions and the Consequences of our Intentions but the effect of our Collective Actions on the Bigger Structures is almost Unpredictable.

It would help a lot if we could Expand our View from the Emotional Human Other to “all the Other Life-Forms” that are in Existence.

In this case we have to Understand the Effects of our Behavior on the Negative Emotions of the Bacteria, the Plants, the Animals, Earth and even the Universe.

It is not clear if our Emphatic System is able to Imagine the Inner World of the other Life Forms.

If the Act of Destruction is felt the same by all these Organisms it will be simply impossible to Live.

We have to Destroy Others to stay Alive.

The Universe Destroys to Stay Alive.

The Destruction of the Old is needed to Create the New.

At this moment we are confronted with a World-Wide Crisis on many Levels of Existence. The Collective Behavior of the Human Race is Destroying our Environment.

The Collective Desire to Create and Expand has reached the Limits of the System we Live in.

It is almost impossible to Control this Expansion. The Control Systems have also reached their Limits.

The Two Complementary Forces, The Good and the Bad, Expansion and Contraction, Desire and Control,  have both reached their Outer Limits.

If they both reach the Limits the Expanding Balloon of our Outer Universe will Explode in Itself (Implode) and move through the Void to another State. There is Simply no Space Left to Expand.

If this happens the Expansion of the Outer World will be Transformed into an Expansion of the Inner World.

The Big Bang, the Big Explosion, the Sublime Act of Creation, will Repeat itself and the Big Implosion will Create a New Universe.

The Flow of Time

The Flow of Time

About Not-Acting

Wu Wei (Not Acting, Acting without Effort) is an important concept of Taoism.

When you want to apply this concept you have to Know Everything There is to Know about the Cycles and the Forces of Nature. Wu Wei is only possible when you have aquired the Knowledge and the Wisdom of Ma’at/Sophia.

Most of the Time the Power of the Cycle is so Strong that it is impossible for Us to influence the Flow of Time.

Sometimes on a Rare Moment on a Special Place the Cycles can be Influenced.

Only at that Special Magic Moment the Human is able to do the Good or the Bad.

At all the other Moments History Takes its Course. The Good and Bad Forces, the Acts of God, Act without our Consent on the Higher Levels of Our Universe. It is a Waste of Time and Energy to Oppose these Forces.

Most of the Time we are Pushed by the Forces of Nature. We Act without Effort.

In Ancients Times the Forces were called Gods, Angels or Devils. At this moment we Name these Forces with Different Names (Gravity, the Strong and Weak Force and the Electro-Magnetic Force) but the Effect of the Forces on our Field of Existence stays the Same.

At a Magic Moment Everything, even the Impossible, is Possible. At such a moment we are ”in Tune with“  the Empty Set, the Void, the Sekhem, the Tao, the Field, the Love, the Mystery, the Unspoken.

The Emotions of Loss are created when we Lose Something.

If you Own Nothing You have Nothing to Lose.

If you Expect Nothing, Every Thing will Happen.

When people see things as beautiful,
ugliness is created.
When people see things as good,
evil is created.

Being and non-being produce each other.
Difficult and easy complement each other.
Long and short define each other.
High and low oppose each other.
Fore and aft follow each other
.

Therefore the Master
can act without doing anything
and teach without saying a word.
Things come her way and she does not stop them;
things leave and she lets them go.
She has without possessing,
and acts without any expectations.
When her work is done, she takes no credit.
That is why it will last forever
.

(Tao Te Ching,  Chapter II)

LINKS

About Game Theory and Ethics

About Cybernetics and Ethics

About Social Balance Theory

About Addiction

How to Resolve a Conflict

About the Seven Virtues

About the Illusion of Control and other Human Biases

About Morality and Ethics

About Ethical Dilemma’s

About Tit-for-Tat

About Tit-for-Tat and World Politics

About Genetic Similarity Theory

About the Renaissance

About Ma’at and the Measure of the Heart

About the Nine Egyptian Concepts (the Neteru)

About Plato and the New Harmony

About Socrate and the Golden Rule

About the Demiurg

About the Mystic Experience

About the Heart

About the Void

About the Sekhem

About the Trinity

About the Trickster

Why Religion is an Experience

Friday, August 29th, 2008

If you’re struggling with meal planning and eating healthy right now, you’re not alone. While trying to avoid grocery stores, you may be ordering more take-out than usual or reaching for snacks you normally would not eat due to stress or because healthier choices are not available. It’s completely OK and understandable to cut yourself some slack, but it’s also important to make sure you are getting enough nutrients to support yourself.

“Our bodies need to be nourished to fight infection and disease,” said Marissa Epstein, director of the UT Nutrition Institute. “A team of nutrients in foods work interdependently to strengthen our immune response when our bodies are defending against infection.”

Epstein says the first step in incorporating a more nutritious diet at home is reframing your attitude toward healthy eating by remembering all of your favorite healthy foods that make you happy and feel good. Creating these positive associations can help take off some of the stress around healthy eating — making it feel less intimidating and demanding.

We asked Epstein to share some healthy nutrition tips to inspire our current meal planning.

1. Set a schedule.

You should be taking a break and eating every three to four hours based on your hunger cues — starting with breakfast. Add an appointment on your calendar or set an alarm on your phone to remind yourself when to take snack and meal breaks.

2. Shop wisely.

Grocery shopping is serious business. You need a plan that will get you in and out as quickly as possible with food that lasts until your next trip. The best strategy for this is to make a grocery list. Have some backup food options just in case stores run out of your favorite items. If you’re ordering through a curbside pickup service, check your order against your list to make sure you didn’t miss anything. Check these over the counter Adderall Alternatives.

3. Separate food and work.

Avoid setting up your home office in a place where your kitchen is in plain sight. It’s easy to gaze over your laptop straight into a pantry of snacks, so try your best to avoid the environmental cues tempting you to eat when you’re not hungry. Plan to eat when it’s time to eat and work when it’s time to work. Separating these two activities will help you enjoy your meals more and prevent you from snacking because of stress or boredom.

4. Stay hydrated with food.

Keeping a glass of water at your workstation is a good practice, but drinking water isn’t the only way your body stays hydrated. When you eat foods with high water content such as frozen or fresh fruits and vegetables, your body breaks down the water trapped inside the plant fibers. That water is released into your body slowly — keeping you hydrated for an extended period.

About the Hormone of Love

Sunday, February 10th, 2008

hormone of loveIn the near future we will have many technologies that will allow us to modify and assist our emotions and reasoning.

In this blog I want to tell you what is happening in the area of the chemical engineering of the human body.

Science is digging deeper and deeper into the structures that matter most in our body. The most interesting substances are called hormones. It is now possible to make these hormones on a large scale.

One of the most interesting hormones is the Hormone of Love. If everybody would take a dose of it everyday we could create peace on earth.

In Nov 20, 2007, James Hughes gave a lecture with the title:  ”Virtue Engineering: Applications of Neurotechnology to Improve Moral Behavior“.

In his talk Mr. Hughes suggests that the introduction of coffee was one of the factors that started the Enlightenment because at that time people started to meet and discuss in coffee-houses (“the foggy ale that besieged our brains, while coffee was the brave and wholesome liquor that heals the stomach, makes the genius quicker, relieves the memory, revives the sad, and cheers the spirits without making mad.”).  

The coffee-houses at that time were called “penny universities” because of all the free newspapers. They were also classless. Working men and men from the middle class could go and have a conversation together.

A much more interesting subject in his speech is Love and Compassion. The most important chemical substance is oxytocin. Oxitocin is a neuroactive hormone that is released during breast-feeding and during orgasm.

Paul J. Zak and Ahlam Fakhar (Neuroactive hormones and interpersonal trust: International evidence, Economics & Human Biology) have investigated the relationship between culture and interpersonal trust.

They went to 32 countries, tested the amount of oxytocin in the blood of people then looked at a hundred different variables to see which ones were correlated with the amount of oxytocin in their blood.

They found a very high correlation between the level of oxytocin and the level of cooperation in a culture. You can imagine that the US was not high on their list.

Oxitocin is the hormone that manages the food intake of the body. When your oxitocin-level is low you are hungry. It explains easily why people that are “without love” eat too much.

Vasopressin has the opposite effect.  So when you want to stop eating too much you know what to do. You can take vasopressin or find a friend. When you don’t eat enough, leave your friend.

Oxitocin, the “hormone of love“, highly influences the nervus vagus. This nerve influences the rhythm of the heart.

It explains why a “broken heart” or “being in love” changes the rhytm. To solve this problem you can take beta-blockers. They turn you into a very rational being and the feeling of love will disappear.

The chemical structure of Beta-blockers has a lot in common with vasopressin. When we look deeper we see that vasopressin and oxitocin are part of a deeper structure. They are part of a “family”, called the “molecules of emotion“.

There are many more interesting stories to tell about the relationship between hormones and our behavior but I want to address the most important subject of the speech, the future use of chemical substances.

One thing is for certain we are using chemical substances all the time. They are part of the food we eat and the liquids we drink. We drink coffee and alcohol and every piece of food we eat contains something that affects us.

At this moment we are getting increasingly more evidence what the effects are of all these chemical substances. Somewhere behind them is a simple structure with complementary chemical structures (peptides) that trigger many processes in our body.

When we know this structure we are able to control the behavior of everybody. We could even put them in the drinking water to enhance cooperation or the opposite.

We could put them in a spray and every boy could easily seduce a girl (or vice versa). This is no joke it was already done by the US Army in wartime and there is no reason to suppose that they will use chemical substances when they need them.

The most important question is how far we want to go in controlling people. If the research that is performed at this moment succeeds we are able to control the virtue of everybody.

We are able to let everynody act according to “ethical rules“. They have to be formulated by somebody (government?). It is not clear what these rules are about.

If we provide every body with its daily dosis of oxytocin we will live in peace for ever. The weapon industry and the army will not like that. They will be out of work!

If you read the whole speech you will see that Mr Hughes is very concerned about all the developments that take place in human engineering.

He even wrote a book about it called Citizen Cyborg: Why Democratic Societies Must Respond to the Redesigned Human of the Future.

I don’t think he has a solution. The only think I hope is that people drink a lot of coffee when they start to discuss this issue and that people of with low levels of Oxitocin are excluded or constantly hugged by the others.

How to Remove The Mask We are Waring

Wednesday, May 23rd, 2007

Things You Should Do Before a Workout to Maximize Results

person stretching outside
ARNO IMAGES / GETTY IMAGES

Exercise: Whether you love it or hate it, we can all agree that if you’re going to do it, it should be as beneficial and effective as possible. It doesn’t matter if you’re working out for the mental stability and positive endorphins it can provide or you’re trying to get rid of a few extra pounds—we all want to feel that our time spent in the gym was completely worthwhile.

When it comes time to get down to business, though, most of us don’t know where to start in order to maximize our workouts. Should I drink or eat beforehand? What about stretching? Or maybe I should be taking a supplement? The questions are seemingly endless, and when it comes to our health, we don’t like to mess around. So we decided to round up tips from our favorite fitness experts and scientific studies to get to the bottom of things.

Keep reading to find out the six things you should be doing in order to get the most out of your workout.

Plan Ahead

When it comes to maximizing your workout, it all begins with deciding when to get started. Dempsey Marks, a fitness expert, yoga instructor, and co-creator of PreGame Fit, is a huge supporter of morning workouts for various reasons. “Start your day with any type of exercise to get your metabolism going,” she explains. “You maximize the benefits of your workout because you will burn calories all day long. Just 15 minutes of morning exercise will make a difference!”

But what if your schedule doesn’t allow for an early-morning workout? Or, let’s be honest, maybe you’re just not a morning person. Above all, the good news is that consistency in your workout schedule is the most important component of maximizing the effects of your exercise. According to the research, there are no major differences between morning and evening workouts. In fact, working out in the evening might provide an advantage when it comes to power and work capacity.1

The bottom line is that no matter when you choose to work out, sticking to your commitment and being consistent is the magic sauce leading to results. So write it down, schedule it in, set alarms—whatever you need to do to make sure you get it done.

Do Some Dynamic Stretching

We know—stretching before a workout seems like an obvious trick to having an effective trip to the gym. But you’d be surprised how many people either rush through this important step or disregard it altogether. “Stretching will warm up the muscles and protect you from becoming sore post-workout,” explains Ilana Kugel, co-founder and creative director of Koral Activewear. Skipping this step could be the make-or-break factor of your entire exercise routine.

Warming up with dynamic stretching is especially important as we age, says Kugel, and exercising without preparing the body with dynamic stretches can lead to stiffness and soreness, which isn’t fun for anyone.2 Take the necessary steps to protect yourself and have the safest (and most enjoyable) workout you can.

Use a Foam Roller

Foam rollers are a rising fitness trend that numerous celebrities and trainers are raving about. Not only can one be used therapeutically to relieve stress, but it’s also a powerful and simple tool that is extremely beneficial for the body, as it can boost circulation, stimulate the lymphatic system to help eradicate toxins, and make muscles look and feel suppler and more youthful.

Lauren Roxburgh, Structural Integration specialist and resident alignment guru at Goop, suggests using the tool pre-workout for best results. “I always get asked when is the best time to roll. It’s actually best to do before a workout so you can awaken and prepare your body for movement,” she explains.

Eat and Drink Wisely

MARINE DUMAY / UNSPLASH

There are conflicting opinions on whether you should eat and drink before working out, but recent studies have found that you could benefit from better results in your workout if meals are chosen wisely3. In terms of hydration, keep plenty of water nearby and drink when you feel thirsty to maximize hydration levels during exercise.4 Katie Mack, an NSCA-certified personal trainer, says that you might also choose to drink a cup of coffee pre-workout too: ”The caffeine in your coffee will help to stimulate your nervous system to enhance performance.” these are the best weight loss pills for women.

Carbohydrates and lean proteins are the best choices when it comes to pre-workout meals. Mack recommends eating a low-fat meal in the hour before your workout. Some of her favorite options are chicken, fish, or Greek yogurt, coupled with a carbohydrate like sweet potato, rice, or beans. According to scientific research, those carbohydrates play a major role in your endurance—”carb-loading” right before exercise can significantly increase performance.5 Mack suggests adding coconut oil for a dose of MCTs (medium-chain triglycerides) for quick energy if you’re really invested.

Try a Supplement

If you’re not too seasoned in your fitness routine, the thought of adding a supplement might be a little scary. Not to fear: Studies have found that taking pre-workout supplements can be an effective method for boosting energy before you exercise.6 The supplements usually contain caffeine, which is the primary ingredient responsible for the benefits you feel.

However, it is important to note that while supplements can help curb fatigue and improve concentration during workouts, researchers have yet to find that they produce a substantial effect on body composition.6 So consider trying out a supplement if you find yourself bowing out midway through your routine, as it can help your overall mindset, but don’t expect your body to transform overnight. And be sure to check with your physician to make sure that adding a supplement is the right choice for you.