The Biggest Loser starts on Tuesday. And I am excited. I am going to put an extra page up here on the site to track the results. I don’t know if I will be Running with Comics this time because my knee is still messed up. I am thinking about getting a bike. Maybe we’ll be biking with comics this time.

Ben Franklin’s advice today gives us a set of healthy living techniques to live by.

Temperance: Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.

I actually heard a lot of teachings on temperance lately. The terminology actually is used to refer to self-control in all areas of our life–not just in eat or drink. It is important as narrative art comic book entrepreneurs, we have self-control in our day-to-day lives so we can keep getting better at our craft and not letting the world of mediocrity take advantage of us.

EAT NOT TO DULLNESS

In preparing for the Biggest Loser on Tuesday, I’ve actually been eating a little more than I should to get some weight to lose. I hope to weigh in at 160pounds. Dropping 25% would put me at 120. Which is pretty low. I’ve noticed that eating too much tends to slow my reaction time down by a good 30 minutes after eating and I am very tired lately sometimes sleeping 8 or 9 hours. This is a lot of time lost of productivitiy. The good news of eating just what you need is quick in return. Gives you energy to do your task. Eating should be a motivating activity. Not a sluggish one.

DRINK NOT TO ELEVATION

I’ve heard of many artists getting together and having  ‘Drink and Draw’ nights. I’m sure this is a good time had by all. In listening to Ben Franklin’s autobiography, he actually figured out that it would be more beneficial to eat the bread and the water to get their full nutrients in their raw form would be better for you than to eat the watered-down barley set to make alcohol. A lot of indians at the time always drank alcohol and were constantly being taken advantage of by the people who were on more consistent thinking.

SELF CONTROL

Whether you eat too much, drink too much, or sleep too much, or are too easily angered, or you don’t perform your work when you should, or countless other things in which you wish you were better at…all things take self control, or temperance to give you the life you want to have. No one can make you do anything you don’t want to do. That is the freedom of the human mind. You get to decide if you want to live a life for all its worth by controlling yourself to do beneficial things to you and others and reap the benefitting consequences. Or, you get to decide if you want to live a life doing harmful things to you and others and reap the destructive consequences of that behavior. Choose wisely.