Coach AA's Sunday Newsletter

Hey hey! All of us see only one facet of the world around us. From the elite sportspersons that we admire, to the business persons running gazillion $ corporations, to movie stars and all that. We see them at their best. But there are other sides to it. Turning the lens on myself was something I was able to do only in the recent past, during lockdown. What is the price of passion? It was an import...

Hey hey! Hope your Sunday’s off to a good start. If not, a nice long walk in the evening, or catching up with some friends is in order. Or curling up with a good book. I am currently reading The Swerve . About 100 pages in and hooked! Recommended by one of my friends who reads way more than me, I had to start it immediately. Thankfully, it is not way over my head (which I suspected it might be.) I...

Hey hey! In this week’s episode, I want to talk to you about feeling better. Whether you go to the gym or play sport or haven’t found the motivation or time to start your fitness habit, an often overlooked part of life is recovery. When we focus on adequate recovery, we feel great. And this allows us to do things better - whether it is work, or life, or simply being us. Start with recovery: 7 stra...

Hey hey! I am travelling - hence the delay in the post and the audio quality. I had a lot of fun writing this post as this is something that’s been on my mind for the past few months, and I had the chance to put it down here. Variety is the spice of life The need for variety and change is constant. You want variety and choices in your workout routine, in the places you eat, the things you do, wher...

Hey hey! Today’s post is about 5 books that I have learned a lot from. Books are great mentors. Books allow me to read and process at my pace. I love books. But for a few years, I read considerably lesser than I had ever done. I was caught being busy. I sacrificed the time I spent reading by time I was doing. But finally, I caught myself and re-started my reading habit. Using today’s post to share...

Hey hey! Fundamentals seems to be a boring word. We either dismiss them as basic or obvious. They might be. But they are what brings home the gravy. Here are a few things that I learned, and am still in the process of learning. You have access to adequate information. In certain cases, too much of it. And along with it, there are your prejudices and preconceived notions about a few things, especia...

Hey hey! My delaying the morning coffee experiment is going well. I find that I’ve reduced the amount of coffee I drink too. My aim is not to stop drinking coffee (what?!? why would you do that?!?) but to figure out my energy management and abrupt crashes. Today’s post is about something else. It is vaguely on a topic I love - books. It is about a weakness of mine - buying courses/certs/books and...

Hey hey! Today’s post is about a black/white tool for taking stock of your weekly eating. And how once you know this score of yours, you can take control of your weight loss journey for the rest of your life. Hooked? Let’s find out and take control. A battle of extremes An extreme diet for a few weeks. Counting calories. Going off sugar for a month. All solid techniques to lose weight and get your...

Hey hey! Today’s post is about listening to your body. You’ve had Monday morning blues, you’ve had hunger pangs, you’ve had butterflies in your stomach, you’ve had your heart broken - they all feel a certain way. The complex emotions and thoughts and feelings combine with the physical structure to provide a complex signal. Your body is zillions of chemical reactions. And these chemical reactions p...

Hey hey! Hope your Sunday is going well. I had a relaxed start to my Sunday, after having a lot of cake last evening. Right after I hit publish, gonna head out and get my training sorted, so I can get back to that cake later in the evening. For this week, I wanted to talk to you about the demonisation of carbs. Carbs are NOT the enemy. Junk carbs are, and we are surrounded by them. But in our regu...

Hey hey! In this week’s post, I want to discuss how we dismiss the sensible stuff and instead focus on the nonsensical. And I’ll use myself as an example to kick it off. The crux of today’s post is a “Do This!” for anyone who is looking for better health and fitness and wants to just get started, or back to a routine. If you are someone with a gym habit already, you will find the mobility and stre...

Hey hey! Today’s post is about habits and addictions . We are all addicted to things, and I don’t mean any clinical addictions. Whether they are de-stressing mechanisms or old habits that have not gone away, we cannot contemplate life without them. In all probability, we don’t even think about them. They just are a part of our lives. I learned a valuable lesson when I was able to stay away from my...

Hey hey! Hope your Sunday is going well. Mine’s off to a slow start but isn’t that the point of a weekend. It took me a bit of time to get my brain firing and to assemble my random thoughts into some semblance of cohesion. Topics like climate change and the invasiveness of the human species are ones I’ve thought about for a relatively long time. And sometimes that connects with something I am actu...

Hey hey! Hope you are having a great Sunday so far. Last week, I published a post about 3 months of learnings from the Indian club. I realised that the videos related to the post were not showing up properly. My apologies for that. That’s been fixed. You can see the post over here . And for your convenience, I’ve re-shared below the article for the week in this post as well. Apologies for a shoddy...

Hey hey! Hope your weekend is off to a good start. I was laid out by COVID over the past week and some, and that’s why there was no post last Sunday. Today’s the first day I am feeling close to normal, and finally able to sit down and write. On to the two things for this week. * Hustle . There’s nothing wrong with hustle. There will be a time in our lives when we need to throw balance out the wind...

Hey hey! How’s the weekend panning out so far? If it is not going your way, even something as simple as 30 minutes to yourself or catching up with a friend will set your energy right. On to the 3 things for today: * What is the stuff of personal miracles and transformations made of? You already know the answer. You are just searching outside in a frenetic manner when it takes patience and looking...

Hey hey! Only one piece this week. I was travelling and meeting friends during the week and did not want to squeeze in editing and re-drafting posts. So, let’s get right to it. As always, if you enjoy this or any of my writing, I’d love it if you can spread the word. Do First. Understand Later. I am not a religious guy. I know little about it. As soon as I discovered a disinterest in it, I stopped...

Hey hey! Hope you are having a good time of things. I am excited about what I have in store for you today. * The Particle and the Wave . We are constantly boxed in. We are constantly divided into extremes. Are you FOR this or are you AGAINST this? And if you are FOR something, there’s the baggage of 75 other things you are apparently okay with. Let’s learn from light, and look at how we need at le...

Hey hey! Weather in Madras, blah blah blah. Weekend, blabbity blah blah. Let’s get right on with it, shall we? The three things for this week’s edition are: * How to find the right direction . Or do we have the courage to stop and ask questions? Or are we going to allow our sunk costs to tell us what to do? * What we believe is the game-changer versus what the actual game-changer is . A Derek Sive...

Hey hey! Weekends are for unwinding, and not for sucky work stuff. Take care of yourself and you’ll have a much better week. On to the 3 things in this week’s edition: * A wake-up call to not ignore . A gut feeling that I did not quite know how to follow or investigate, as I was busy being busy. And how a crisis allowed me to look up and view things differently. Maybe you will see a new perspectiv...

Good morning! The 3 things for you today are: * Swimming upstream . Salmon swim upstream to spawn. You need to swim upstream to keep your health and fitness and sanity. * Relaxed concentration . While finding Flow is hard, there are other similar methods to start at. * Have difficulty falling asleep ? You hit the bed but the zzz’s just won’t come? Well, this is the post for you. Before we begin, I...

Hey there! The 3 things for today are: * on Streaks and Cycles. * the Law of Intertia. * Training indoors vs outdoors, air conditioner or not, and such questions. on Streaks and Cycles Skip sugar for a month. Walk 30 minutes every day for 30 days. Be vegetarian for a year. All of these are streaks. You are attempting to do something every day for an uncomfortably long duration. Streaks are good fo...

Hey hey! What ruckus are you creating today? What’s different this weekend from the previous weekend? And most importantly, what’s keeping you up at night? On to the 3 things for this week. * How to avoid getting sugar cravings in the first place. When cravings come, it depends on our state of mind - to resist or not. But what if you could avoid it even happening? It is a chemical signal, after al...

Hey hey! Back this week with 3 pieces for you. * Finding balance . Balance is elusive. There are long-term aspects and immediate aspects to be looked at. Signals are delayed. And yet, balance is important. What can we learn from how ecological balance works? * How do some people make things look easy ? Is it just easy for them? Are they lucky? * On miracle diets and fixes , yet again. Coz it is al...

Hey there! I decided to take a break from writing for a week. I am sure you missed me. Well, back at it from today. Here are the two pieces I have for you: * Making a case for keeping a much closer eye on effort and a softer eye on the results. As opposed to the current mentality of only the results matter. * Why the time delay in our body is important to acknowledge and understand. Let’s get into...