Healthy living instead of candy bars and whiskey every night. How about it, Elon Musk?

Ilon Musk is a model of success. His innovations are amazing and changing the world. Usually such rich entrepreneurs try to be perfect in everything. Including lifestyle, promoting healthy values. Musk, however, is an exception to the rule.

For a long time, he has prided himself not on proper nutrition, but, on the contrary, proudly declared his love for sweets, fast food and alcohol. And encouraged everyone to sleep as little as possible and work 100 hours. Over the years, Ilon has changed his stance a bit and looks more in the direction of a healthy lifestyle.

“It’s better to eat good and live small.”

Yes, this is the radical motto Musk has lived with for the past few decades. And this despite the fact that his mom has been working as a nutritionist for 50 years. But even the advice of the most dear person could not change the mind of the entrepreneur, who sincerely believed that it is better to live a small and beautiful life than a long and painful one.

In his student years, Ilon conducted harsh experiments on himself. He managed to eat on one dollar a day, buying inexpensive products in wholesale stores. Cheap sausages, bread, pasta with tomato paste and so on. And he really managed to keep within 30 dollars a month.

Musk did not conduct this experience only because he was limited in funds. Of course, he could afford to eat more expensive food. But the point was to see how much money he needed to exist. And he realized that he didn’t need a huge salary to live a normal life. The issue wasn’t finances, it was freedom, which gave him so much more in finding the truly important things in life.

A chocolate bar in the morning and a glass of whiskey in the evening

Of course, at some point he got tired of cheap and monotonous food and started eating differently. But different doesn’t mean right. Musk’s morning started with a candy bar, for lunch he didn’t care at all and ate whatever the delivery guy brought him. The reason was that he always worked hard during the day and didn’t enjoy eating anyway.

But for dinner, Ilon preferred French cuisine and barbecue. A glass of whiskey was an obligatory attribute. Musk even wrote in social networks that “alcohol is the solution to problems”. With a glass of whiskey he came to popular evening shows in the United States, for which he received criticism from NASA. Musk, responding to this, always cited the example of one of the record holders for longevity, Frenchwoman Jeanne Calment, who drank wine every day.

Do not sleep and do not exercise

The entrepreneur honestly said that if he had the opportunity, he would never exercise at all. He did not like running, jumping, participating in team games. It is said that such dislike came from childhood. Musk then lived in South Africa, was a weak child who was often beaten after school.

He also has an interesting relationship with his sleep regimen. Musk was convinced for a long time that sleep was the most useless thing in a person’s life. His main motivation was that people limit their working hours to 40 hours a week.

But if you work 100 hours a week, you can complete a project in four months instead of a year. That’s a completely different productivity. He made up for the lack of sleep with tons of coffee and Diet Coke.

A change in attitude

By the time Musk was 49, though, he realized he needed to change his habits. He doesn’t say exactly what the catalyst was. Apparently, it was just a realization that he needed to take more care of his health. No, he didn’t go on a strict diet or participate in marathons, but he did change some things.

Ilon tries to minimize the consumption of sweet foods, drinks more water. And he considers it a key point that you should never eat or drink 3 hours before bedtime. By the way, he has also changed his attitude to sleep and now sleeps at least 6-7 hours. He came to the conclusion that in the long term, little sleep reduces efficiency.

Musk has also started to exercise more. He hired a personal trainer and works out at least twice a week. Ilon is still not a fan of activity, but already treats the process without aversion. In the last few years, he has taken up martial arts and even sent all five of his children to jiu-jitsu classes.