I have always been a person who enjoys sports and the
open air. It connects me with my childhood as well as
with the depths of my own leadership style.
This doesn’t mean that I have always been healthy. I
struggled in the past balancing a healthy lifestyle with a
successful career because I tend to over prioritize (focus
too much on delivering results) leaving little space for
those activities that help me sustain my life as a whole,
such as: eating healthy, sleeping enough, exercising
regularly, being in touch with people I love, taking care of
my plants, meeting people, etc.
When I look back at the habits that ruled my life before I
started to swim I can identify three important ones that
are gone: smoking, injuries and not eating well.
I believe smoking is a multivariable habit (addiction) and
the best way to fight smoking in society is by stopping
people to start smoking. In my case, swimming added up
to the good reasons to stop smoking. I became
extremely aware of the impact good breathing and
oxygen absorption had on my performance and how it
was absurd to follow a swim with a cigarette. Swimming
became a habit I could use to override my need for
smoking: today I don’t need to go for a cigarette, I
need to go for swim!
I used to be the friend who was always injured. I had
knee surgery when I was 19 and never fully recovered. I
can play football and run, but if I do repeatedly, let’s say
more than 3 times per week, I need to stop for over two
months to let my leg recover. I followed this cycle for
around 10 years. Stupid, I know, but this is who I was,
this was one of my habits!
Eating is a pleasure. I also know that it is critical to
support physical and mental performance. I tried to eat
well, my top picks were: fruits, rice, beans, bread, meat
and natural smoothies. Besides missing water,
vegetables and nuts, I overlooked three important
elements: strategy, timing and quantity. Strategy refers
to the role of what I consume in relation to what I will do;
just eating more when I exercise is not necessarily the
best strategy. Timing and quantity take the focus from
“what” into “how much & when?”. For example, rice and
beans are great, but full plates of rice and beans three
times per day is not what I go for now.
Swimming helped me to say good-bye to those three
habits: smoking, being injured and just eating. It also
introduced me to three new habits: getting support,
eating healthy and drinking water.
“
When I look back at the
habits that ruled my life
before I started to swim I can
identify three important ones
that are gone: smoking,
injuries and not eating well.
There are three issues with drinking water. First, it lacks of
social status. People don’t call you up to go out for a
“glass of water”. Second, there not many options of
healthy flavored water, except from “sparkling water with
a lime in it”. Third, drinking lots of water results in going
often to the loo, which raises questions from your friends
about the health of yo