lean into it
In an effort to make the “right” decision, it takes a strong person to deny themselves what they truly want in their heart, especially if that choice can provide them with an experience they’ve been searching for. There are always going to be circumstances that dictate those choices. We are constantly weighing one outcome to another, balancing the logical wants of the brain to the emotional needs of the heart. It’s always going to be hard to know how to make the correct decision without the benefit of hindsight. These instances happen to each of us throughout our lives, and dictate which direction we take when we come to that fork in the road. Pausing before we make that choice, we look down either direction, finding faults with either decision. There will always be fear on both sides of the equation. WE fear the risk of pursuing what we truly want, and at the same time we’re scared to leave the comfort of knowing what to expect if we stay our current course. Some people choose to say, others choose to explore the new path. There isn’t a right answer, but I think discovering the person you could be, at the expense of the comfort you feel by staying where you are, will always be a better option. The thoughts of leaving the current path are the cracks that allow the light to shine in, and light the way to become the person you want to be or build the life you want to have. Lean into it.
Walking a path of comfort is only beneficial, in as much as it allows you the safety to dream of more. Staying on that path, knowing you want something different, something more, something better will only serve as a detriment to a life you could be living. There is a risk in everything. There is as much risk in staying your current course, as there is in choosing the new path. But in choosing the new path, you are able to grow in the sense that you can find out if that is the life you want. More often than not, even if you fail or it isn’t what you thought it would be, lift goes on, and you will gain something from it. A small piece of the puzzle. A small step towards being the person you want to be. Without the risk there is no growth. Lean into in.
We are all so fucking afraid to be different when that is the whole point of living. To grow. To change. To transform into an ever better version of ourselves. It’s a process though. Each step, or misstep, is a conscious choice we have to make. I believe that no matter what you do, every decision you make was the “right” one at the time. Whether the outcome was good or bad, it provided insight. You came to that fork in the road, weighed the options, and decided. That decision of whether it was to stay comfortable or embrace fear needed to happen for you to be the next version of yourself. It makes you, You. Mistakes make us who we are just as much as the successes. Unfortunately, experience is the worst teacher, as it gives the test before presenting the lesson. But that shouldn’t keep us from trying. To grow, to build, to fail, and to succeed you need to go where you haven’t been before. Nothing food comes easy. Lean into it.
If you come to that fork in the road, then you’ve already dreamed of something better. Live your life knowing that whatever you choose isn’t wrong, its simply part of your story. But at the same time playing it safe by denying what the heart wants is never going to lead to a full expression of who you could be. Lean into it.
modern day mismatch
We seem to be searching for answers to what ails us in the form of pharmaceutical drugs, fad diets, elective surgery, workout programs, etc., even when this trend seems to make matters worse. The majority of interventions basically follow the same strategy, “fix” the symptom, instead of finding the cause. This mentality has been ingrained into our mentality for a century so it isn’t hard to see why this is the status quo. However, it’s easy to see by the substantial decline in health over the last half-century, that the path we are on isn’t the best way to capture health. I think we are looking in the wrong direction for answers — we are looking forward for the next big breakthrough to save us from ourselves, when we should be looking to our past when we were more resilient.
You may be surprised to hear this, but your lack of sleep doesn’t stem from a Lunesta deficiency. In fact, it doesn’t come from any pharmaceutical drug deficiency at all! most likely, it came fro your inability to adjust your lifestyle so that sleep became a priority instead of an afterthought. Poor sleep can manifest through multiple variables — too much stress, food intolerances, circadian rhythm dysfunction, too much blue light, not enough sunlight, eating too late, not moving your body enough, underlying chemical toxicity, and even depression. Basically, your everyday life is creating a mismatch with how you’re meant to be living.
In the past, we came out of the environment. We adapted to the way things were in the natural world and thrived because there was no alternative. We carry those same adaptations (genetics) into the present, where we share 99% of the same DNA as our ancestors, who lived 10,000 years ago. And while, we share so much of ourselves, we’ve lost so much of that natural environment. We’ve built our modern environment to satisfy our desires, at the detriment of our need for the natural world.
Now, we eat constantly, yet we’re never full. We crave input, yet we’re never satisfied. We’re all connected, yet we all share a deep sense of loneliness. We seek dopamine hit after dopamine hit, until no amount of stimulation can bring us out of the dull trance that is indicative of the modern day mismatch.
We ran so fast, so hard, for so long in our pursuit to create a “safe” society where we could acquire new and shiny things to make us comfortable, that we forgot what really makes us human. It certainly isn’t a new iPhone, Smart TV, Uber, DoorDash, Keto Donuts, Veganism, 24 hour news, or any other of the crazy bullshit that is being sold. We are trapped in a cycle that is literally killing us with convenience.
It is no coincidence that stress, sleep deficits, sedentarism, processed foods, exposure to chemicals, lack of social support, pharmaceutical drugs, and lack of contact with nature is having a profound impact on our overall health and wellness. How could it not? The majority of the shit we do is just to be able to afford the shit we don’t need. On top of that, all these factors have an ability to determine whether our genetic blueprints express health or disease. That’s right, the environment we have created is literally killing us.
Sometimes a step backwards is a step in the right direction.
If anyone is familiar with Joseph Campbell, you’ll have heard of the Hero’s Journey. If not, it’s the classic mythological story about how a Hero sets out on a journey of adventure, along the way he comes up against hardship, overcomes, learns about himself and the world, and then returns home with a new outlook. We are the Hero in our adventure story. To create better health, we need to understand that the path we are on is not beneficial to our health and longevity. We have to learn from the hardships that manifest as exponential rate of poor health, so that we can overcome this adversity. We need to take what we’ve learned and return home with a more natural approach to life. There can be harmony between technology and a more natural way of living. Including real food, abundant movement, establishing a loving community, restful sleep, and a grateful mindset are all something we should strive for in our Hero’s journey.
an inconvenient truth
The inconvenient truth within the healthcare industry is that the majority of doctors have been trained to match drugs with symptoms, instead of searching for cures. Worse yet, the legality of pharmaceutical commercials has led to people asking for medications, instead of cures. Tragic.
This pill-for-every-ill approach dates back to the early 19th century where the earliest medical schools were being built with funding from, the OG business man himself, John D. Rockefeller. His financial interests along with the Flexner Report, published in 1910, which sought to delegitimize medical schools that did not advocate for a drug-based treatment methodology in their curriculum, gave way to a new model. That new model is what we now know today as allopathic medicine — a form of medicine that focuses on suppressing symptoms of disease with drugs or surgery, without address the root cause.
But, doctors read research all the time, so shouldn’t they be well-informed?
Yes, in theory. The research they’re reading and utilizing in practice is well-designed and well-conducted. And, UNFORTUNATELY, also fraught with controversy. Dr. Marcia Angell, the former editor in chief of the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine wrote in 2009 that: “it is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgement of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor.”*
Why would she say such a thing?
Because the pharmaceutical industry has lead a majority of the research, which is obviously an impediment to unbiased results. Just like you know you shouldn’t leave a fat kid to guard the cookies, you shouldn’t put people in charge who have a vested interest in the outcome. If you look into industry-sponsored trials, you’ll see significantly more positive outcomes in comparison to governmental, nonprofit, or nonpartisan sponsored trails.**
To make matters worse, there is also deliberate manipulation of data to achieve desirable results. One observational study revealed that 50% of journal editors accept payments from industry sources, with an average payment of over $28k, with some payments reaching half a million.*** This means that editors of the most influential medical and scientific journals, the people who steer the scientific and “evidence-based” health directives are effectively in someones pocket.
Where does that leave us?
It leaves us with the fact that we need to take better care of ourselves. Stop outsourcing your health to people that do not care. Primary healthcare shouldn’t be going to the doctor once a year for a check-up to see if our poor lifestyle choices have caught up to us yet, and if they have, all you need is a pill to keep you going down the same path. That’s bullshit. Primary health care should be taking ownership of your body and your lifestyle, incorporating the best nutrition, movement, sleep, and community that you can. You’re not going to find that insight in a 5 minute doctor visit though, so if you feel that is sufficient to garnering your health so be it. If you want to optimize your life. Stay tuned.
References:
* Gyles, “Skeptical of Medical Science Reports?,”1011–1012.
** Florence T. Bourgeois, Srinivas Murthy, and Kenneth D. Mandl,“Outcome Reporting among Drug Trials Registered in ClinicalTrials.gov,” Annals of Internal Medicine 153, no. 3 (2010): 158–66, https://doi.org/10.7326/0003-4819-153-3-201008030-00006.
*** Jessica J. Liu et al., “Payments by US Pharmaceutical and Medical Device Manufacturers to US Medical Journal Editors: Retrospective Observational Study,” BMJ 359 (October 26, 2017): j4619, https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.j4619.
mind and body
Most people think of their body as only a vehicle, distinctly separate from the mind, passively carrying them through life, only needing the intervention of a doctor-mechanic to fix what’s broken, or at least temper the symptoms of suffering with a prescription to dull any physical discomfort and allow them to continue with their mental effort. But one cannot work optimally without the other. An alchemy exists between the mind and body that allows us to operate at a higher level if both are respected. It affects the quality of our thought, as much as the way we walk, talk, and act. The union of muscles and intellect create an indefatigable spirit that makes us a more complete human than if we were to develop one area at the expense of another. For example, if you combine athletic talent with great intelligence, you’ll have greater depth than anyone who is only familiar with half of that experience.
success comes with consistency
It is important to understand that success can only come with consistency. It’s about finding pleasure in the journey, about overcoming the fear of what-if, about showing up day-after-day so that you can build a life, career, or body you want. None of that is possible without making a conscious choice everyday, to do the things you need to do to become the person you wish to be. Only then will you have the momentum where results start to show. And by then, you’ll have fallen in love with the process, guaranteeing you further success as you continue.
Too many people are focused on the outcome instead of falling in love with the journey. You can sacrifice all that you are to arrive at a goal, only to lose what you’ve gained because that isn’t who you are, it’s only who you scarified yourself to try to be. You didn’t put in the real work to make you that person — establishing the routines, adopting a new lifestyle, making the slow and necessary changes over time. Instead, you thought you could expedite the process. You told yourself to make sacrifices to arrive at the end goal, but once you got there you didn’t know how to keep it.
The life you want lies within the choices you make everyday, but you have to love the process. You can’t simply focus on writing the summary and then wonder why you don’t have a book yet.
prepare for the unexpected
Unexpected events are inevitable, just look around. When they happen, people are always shocked. Afterwards, they say they knew this was going to happen, and try to explain the events away by some fanciful Monday morning quarterbacking. Yet, in searching for a plan to move forward, to be more resilient, they make the mistake of preparing for events that already happened. The thought process becomes “how do we fix the thing we just death with” instead of preparing for the impossible thing coming next.
You can apply the same concept to fitness.
The very definition of fitness is being well adapted to a certain skill or environment. If you’re a runner, you run well. If you yoga, you bend well. If you lift, you pick heavy things up well. With enough practice you can acquire a level fitness to excel within your chosen category. However, running further, stretching longer, or lifting heavier, only makes you better at what you know, it doesn’t prepare you for what you don’t. And, because unexpected events are inevitable, we need not limit ourselves to one exercise, skill, movement pattern, or thought process.
Think about it like this… You step awkwardly on some uneven terrain on your run, and pull a muscle — maybe a bit of strength training could have helped. You bend over to pick up your child, and tweak your back — maybe a yoga class would have improved your movement quality. Or, you get winded walking down the snack isle — maybe it’s time for some cardio, among other things.
The point is, things are going to happen. The more varied your training and thought processes, the more resilient you will be. Find something you love, and let that be the foundation, but don’t let it limit you from discovering the benefits other modalities can bring into your life.
— —
My foundation is strength training. I incorporate “movement” or “mobility” days into my lifting scheduler so that I am able to move well in and out of the gym (for anyone that wants to know what that looks like send me a message or comment). Additionally, I will admit I not a fan of cardio anymore, but I do manage to get 15-20k steps a day while outside in the sun. This mix has allowed me to look, feel, and performance better than I ever had in the past. I take the same approach to other aspect of health as well. Don’t limit yourself. Be harder to kill!
book summary: Why We Get Sick
TL:DR — We get sick because we are insulin resistant. (I saved you $25)
3 out of 5
What is Insulin Resistance and Why does it matter?
One of insulin’s main roles is the regulation of blood sugar, which rises and falls throughout the day in response to our choice of food and stress load. At its simplest, if you eat sugary foods or encounter stress your blood sugar rises, because high amounts of glucose circulating in the blood are dangerous, insulin is produced to drive it into the cell for energy, or store it in fat cells for later use. If this occurrence happens too frequently, there is a reduced response to the hormone insulin. It’s like listening to your friend bitch about the same thing day after day, eventually you get tired of hearing about it and stop listening. This is bad because it can lead to high blood glucose levels, or “hyperglycemia” — the universal sign of diabetes. Even worse, with higher levels of circulating glucose and insulin, come lower levels of brain and sexual function.
What makes us Insulin Resistant in the First Place?
Too much insulin causes insulin resistance — for every 1unit increase in fasting blood insulin, a person can experience a 20% increase in resistance. When a process excessively activated, the body will dampen its response to the excess stimulus in order to reduce the activation (think antibiotics and bacteria resistance). If a cell, whether liver or muscle, is inundated with insulin, it can do nothing to directly reduce the insulin the pancreas is producing, but it can alter itself to ensure that insulin has a smaller effect; becoming resistant. As this occurs in countless cells/tissues throughout the body the prevalence of insulin resistance rises.
How to Fight Insulin Resistance?
Stop eating processed carby foods and switch to whole foods. Additionally, move your body in a way that challenges it daily. As muscle contracts, it's able to take in glucose from the blood without using insulin, reducing the burden overall. Because movement enables this insulin-independent process, our blood insulin naturally lowers during and shortly after exercise.
37 laws to live by
Laws to Live by
If it’s not a hell yes, it’s a no.
Only deal with people that love you back.
Perfect isn’t possible. Excellence is. Chop wood, carry water.
Always be grateful.
Ignore the rules you don’t agree with.
The best way to predict the future is to create it yourself.
If you think it’s impossible, then it is.
Ideas are nothing without action.
The things that matter the most should never be at the mercy of the things that matter the least.
The time is now, not tomorrow.
It’s not what you know, it’s what you consistently do.
Take what is useful, disregard the rest.
Life is happening for us, not to us.
Let learning lead to action.
Sometimes the process is more important than the product.
The limits of my language equal the limits of my world.
Losers have goals. Winners have systems.
Frustration is a matter of expectation.
Life favors the specific ask and punish the league wish.
Finding purpose is greater than searching for happiness.
Discipline equals freedom.
When you say “Yes” to something, you are saying “No” to something else.
Total honesty at all times.
Your choice creates your challenge.
Nothing quells anxiety more than action.
Make choices as the person you want to be would make.
Strength has no detriment.
Productive is different than busy.
It’s not what happens to you, but how you react that matters.
Have integrity. Practice what you preach.
You never get today back.
An addiction to distraction is the end of creative production.
The caliber of your practice determines the quality of your performance.
Take ownership.
Everything you want is on the other side of fear.
Vulnerability is the price the brave must pay to arrive at iconic.
Always love like it’s the last time.
health is an act of rebellion
Albert Camus once said that “the only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.” That’s pretty good, but Robb Wolf took that sentiment and mixed it into one more fitting for our current health crisis by saying “the only way to deal with an unhealthy world is to become so absolutely healthy that your very existence is an act of rebellion.” As an armchair rebel and habitual line-stepper, I like both. As a Health & Performance coach, I’m partial to Robb’s take as it fits my narrative on prioritizing health above all else.
The idea of improving health is, and ALWAYS will be an active process. Yet the way this crisis is being handled has left me with no patience, like an out of work doctor. Simply distancing yourself by sitting in your house while Taco Bell gets delivered by DoorDash is not in any way a pursuit towards improving health outcomes because you decided to wear a mask when you answer the door. We are trying to solve the wrong problem. If we’re so worried about the transmission of poor health, why is it legal for someone right next to me to light up a cigarette and blow it in my face.
Personally, I thought this whole ordeal would be a wake up call for health challenged people. I’ve had clients too afraid to leave their house because they might contract the RONA, yet they’re at home in their jammies taking peanut butter shots to the head, thinking they’re going to be safe because they wash their hands and wear a mask. The main problem is still being missed.
Let me lay it out. HEALTH IS CUMULATIVE. It is affected by everything you do — from the way you think, what you put in, on or around your body, and even the environment you find yourself in. Dr. Terry Walhs said it best; “Your genes load the gun, and the environment pulls the trigger.” Meaning you are born healthy (most likely) and you have the power to keep it or destroy it by the choices you make. Whether by food, or alcohol, or poor sleep, or stress, or toxic burdens, or a combination of all.
You would think that because everything we do affects our health, something like a gym would be an essential business. NOPE. People are going to jail for trying to improve themselves….
So you see, it is an act of rebellion to be healthy these days. Take Atilis Gym in New Jersey. In May, they decided to defy the government mandated shutdown and open their doors to the public who wished to get their workouts on. Obviously, Big Brother, doesn’t like blatant acts of defiance so the owners were given citations for every day they remained open until their eventual arrest yesterday. In the interim (between May and the arrest) to deter this rebellious activity, the government went so far as to try to shut the power off to the building, but that didn’t work because the gym owners paid 3 months in advance. Next, the authorities had the plumbing to the gym turned off, which caused the place to flood. The gym closed for a day of clean up and was opened up the next. The following attempt to stop the gainztrain was to hire a locksmith to come in the middle of the night to change the locks on the door. The gym owners found a solution by TAKING THE DOORS OFF the building and making it a 24 hour fitness facility. More gym access is better for everyone right? WRONG! The owners were arrested shortly after this on the ground that they were not operating their business within the proper guidelines for COVID-19 safety.
It is arguable that they were practicing outside of the guidelines, so there may be precedence. In the two months they fought to be open, they limited the amount of people in the gym at any given time, ask for distancing within the facility, had everyone to clean up after themselves, and DIDN’T REQUIRE MASKS. The funny part was that NO ONE contracted the virus who attended the gym. While their methods were contradictory to what the CDC has been telling everyone, what they did seems to have worked. Maybe the government doesn’t know everything.
As anyone in the Iron Game knows, if you’re waiting for the research you’re behind the curve. It can take as long as 30 years in some cases for certain techniques discovered in the basement of the dirtiest gym to come out in research papers. That aside, we should all have the freedom to choose whether or not we put ourselves at risk. It seems crazy to think that liquor stores, marijuana depots, gun stores, Mc-FUCKING-Donalds are considered ESSENTIAL, yet the once place where you can go to actually improve your health is closed.
Our health has become an act of rebellion, but should it be?
Like many countries, Norway order all gyms to close in March to prevent the spread of the RONA. But unlike every other nation Norway decided to use their free time effectively and not binge on Netflix and Quarantini’s. Norway funded a study to determine whether the closings of gym were really necessary.
The study was a 2 week randomized trial of almost 4000 participants — half had access to the gym, the other half did not. Ages ranged from 18-64, and all were stated to not have any underlying health conditions. Those who were invited back into the gym were met with enhanced safety measures that required hand washing prior to entrance, a minimum distance of 3 feet of separation when doing floor exercises, 6 feet within higher intensity classes like Spin, and NO ONE WAS REQUIRED TO WEAR A MASK. You may think there is going to be an apocryphal ending here, but no. There was no difference in transmission rates between groups. In fact, only one person contracted the virus during the whole study, and he got it from his workplace.
The take away here is that the risk of transmission does not seem to be increased by going to the gym. I guess the argument to this is that most gym goers are relatively more concerned with their health, thus healthier overall. However, isn’t that the point!? Also, comparatively, the obesity rate for Norway vs. the U.S. is 3% to HEAFTY 30%. So again, that may play a part in it all, which just harkens back to my soapbox rantings of the past. Anyway, all this begs the questions, why not let people go to the gym? The risk of infection in the community is seemingly so low that the benefits are outweighed by the advantages. We can’t stay locked down forever. And we are going to be in this for a long while, so why don’t we stop making health so fucking hard to accomplish.
Link to study — https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.24.20138768v2
nothing worth having is easy
Recently, I confronted a client of mine about why her progress had stalled. She confided in me that she broke down, strayed from the nutritional recommendations and eaten A LOT of something we agreed was not on the menu. She wanted to know if she messed up the whole program. I told her no. You took a step backwards, but you didn’t ruin the whole thing. Just continue doing the program as we talked about, as if this didn’t happen. Dwelling on the past will only make the situation worse, and we are both here to make you better. I told her to take this opportunity to transform a breakdown into a breakthrough. The fact that you are interpreting what happened as a mistake shows your desire to change, and that is a positive. Use that energy to propel you forward.
We all fuck up in one way or another. Personally, I think it’s better to do so on your way to success than at the end. There’s nothing like achieving what you want, only to have it taken away after the ceremony. If you can learn along the way, you can make small changes to redirect your resolve. It’s all part of the Hero’s Journey, you start off strong, sometimes you stumble, or even worse you fall, but each time you get up you know a little more than the last time and can get a little further than before.
Nothing worth having is easy.
there are no shortcuts
There are no shortcuts. I don’t want to hear about the new five minute workout you found on Instagram that you can do from the comfort of your own home, it’s bullshit. Any description of a workout with the word “comfort” is a waste of time and doesn’t work. Well… it might work for people who’ve forgotten that turning into a couch potato isn’t the same thing as going vegan. But don’t tell me that you honestly think five minutes of exercise is going to improve your quality of life.
There is an old country saying — shit or get off the pot. I think Nike stole it and translated it into Just Do It. Either way, both are an effective way of saying that you have to do the work to get the result. People don’t want to workout because it’s uncomfortable, they don’t want to change their diet because it’s unsatisfying, and they don’t want to improve their lifestyle because its inconvenient. But let me ask you how comfortable, satisfying, and convenient it is when you’re carrying around extra weight, slamming pills for your health problems, and fighting physical degeneration? The majority of discomfort comes from trying to REMAIN comfortable at any cost!
If you’re not willing to put in any effort toward improving your health, I just have to ask why? Is it because making the choices you know will make you better are too hard or uncomfortable? Should you go out to party? Order pizza for dinner? Skip the gym and sleep in? I guess it a much easier way to experience life, but is it really better? If this is you, I’ll never understand your mindset. Please don’t be one of those people who look around at others who have better health and say “I can’t believe how lucky that guy is, I could do that if…” STOP. You could do that if… what? You put in the time and effort? If you commit to whatever is making it work for him? If you’re willing to invest as much time as him? What is he doing that you can’t do? I’m pretty sure you could do the same if you wanted to. So, what stopping you? Please do not provide me with an excuse, because there will ALWAYS be one. and the WORST part about excuses is that they will ALWAYS be valid to you to give you a reason not to start. Shit or get off the pot. Know where you stand because there are no shortcuts to optimizing your life.
take responsibility
Disney World opened up recently. Their guidelines were pretty standard. It required people to wear masks while in the park, UNLESS you were eating. It isn’t hard to tell where this story is going… What happened was everyone at the park said “No problem, I’ll just keep eating all day so I don’t have to wear a mask!”
Has there ever been a better analogy for the current state of American values?! People want to stuff their face all day, so that they don’t have to wear a mask, yet stuffing their face all day makes them more susceptible to a virus that they need to be protected from by wearing a mask. What am I missing? I thought this whole Corona situation would be a wake up call for people, but it seems like they’re just asking for limes. Either way, the hilarity of the situation is only weighed down by the tragic nature of it all.
Disney has since closed the loophole, and instituted “safe zones” for eating without a mask. Alternatively, America has not closed their mouths — neither in opposition to wearing a mask or putting down their hotdogs for healthier options.
While I am not a fan of the mask, I understand that we are all in this together, so I’ll put the mask on while I’m grocery shopping or if I decide to spend my entire unemployment check on a day at Disney. I’ll honor the fact that there is a time and place for wearing a mask, but I IMPLORE you to hone the fact that you should not be a good host for viruses.
Please understand that there are two sides to this equation — viral avoidance (mask wearing) and staying immune strong (healthy lifestyle). We all need to TAKE RESPONSIBILITY for both.
choose a leader, not a friend
Today, I had the good fortune of finding a new gym to workout in. For that I am grateful. However, while I was there a Karen came up to me from across the room to ask me if I could cover my nose with my mask. As frustrating as that is, I complied as to not rock the boat too much in this new environment. She looked like one of my clients — middle aged, health challenged, low muscle tone, with a belly. Just generally looked like someone who has been content with counting years instead of reps or calories. She was polite, but seemingly lost as to what really impacts her health. Apparently, my nasal breathing crossed a line.
After our exchange she turned around to address a group that was gathering in another corner of the gym. Turns out Karen was a TRAINER! Disbelief sat in, and I had to shake my head in bewilderment. There are certain things I don’t get, like how grown men can wear jeans with flip-flops or people that use oat milk — how the fuck do you milk an oat? Even more, I’ll never understand how this person could be held to a standard of a teacher. This isn’t coming from a place of disrespect, but how can anyone expect to learn from someone that is just like them. She was training a group of people just like her — middle aged, over-fat and under-muscled.
Again, I’m not here to criticizing so much as to question how people expect to get better at any health metric or improve body composition if they’re taking advice from basically the man in the mirror? IF you wish to improve, why take advice from someone just like you? I understand there may be a certain level of comfort mixed in with this situation — e.g., someone who looks just like you is easier to get along with because they “know” your problems — but do you really think progress is going to happen? What is the point of working out if there is no progress?
We are the sum of the people we keep around us. Just look at your 5 closest friends. Their income, status, weight, eating and exercising habits, lifestyle, etc. are probably close to yours, which is fine if you are happily enjoying your circle. HOWEVER, if you endeavor to improve your life, you are going to have to step outside your circle. When it comes to business or health, we all need to seek out people who are where we want to be or have accomplished something we wish for ourselves.
We all need a mentor or a leader to show us what is possible to achieve and a path that can take us there. That person NEEDS to be someone outside your circle. If your coach looks like the “before” picture, how far do you really think you’ll be able to grow under their tutelage? Worse yet, how could they even begin to provide you with the idea of a different or greater tomorrow? Inevitably, you will have more of the same.
nothing quells anxiety better than action
We don’t procrastinate because we’re too busy, we do it because we’re scared of discomfort. Change that today! Watch inspiration take hold and pave the way toward a new life. You’ll be surprised how far you can go if you stop letting fear dictate your momentum. Embrace the resistance, the challenge, and the change. There is a reason successful people have more opportunities, it’s because they take more chances. Those chances are what harden us against the call to come back inside where it’s safe, and open us up to a new reality.
How do you know when you arrive at the threshold for change? You hear the voice of resistance — the invisible force of self-sabotage, pride, and ego — pleading for your comfort and safety; “it’s too risky, you shouldn’t do it.” But do it anyway, because nothing quells anxiety better than action.
The only better time than now to make a decision to improve your health or your life, was yesterday and you’ll never get that back.
everybody raise your hand
Everybody raise your hand… now raise it a little higher.
If you’re like most people you raised your hand fairly high, but still had something left to give, which gives you the ability to raise it a little higher on the second request. Why not give it everything you have at first?
You’ve never seen a successful author who says “I had a really good line, but I’m going to save it for my next book.” Or a professional bodybuilder who says “I had a few reps left in me, but I’ll save it for the next workout.” Instead, you hear things from the greats like “success is my only motherfuckin option, failure’s not.” The best people give their best effort all the time.
We hold ourselves back by setting up fictitious barriers in our head to stop us from committing to fully engaging in the work that needs to be done so that we can use that as an excuse not to try because we are SURE we are going to fail.
These barriers are all self-made and self-imposed. Fear of failure is never a reason to not give your best effort. At worst you will have to change an opinion, method, or direction. Yet, without fully committing, seeing it through and failing, you never give fate an opportunity to intervene.
There is only one you. Give your best effort at who you want to become because if you’re not living the life you dreamed of, you already failed and haven’t realized it.
choose wisely
Reactions matter. It’s much better to be optimistic and disappointed than pessimistic and right. Being positive or being negative isn’t going to change the situation at hand, but it will change the way you feel about it, and even has the ability to affect future outcomes.
The way you talk and think about your experiences has a major influence on how you perceive them. Your thoughts are tightly linked to your emotions, so thinking subtle things like “that was too hard” or “I’ll never be good enough” can leave you in an anxious state of mind that hinders future performance. You probably think it just affects you in the short term, but your self-talk has the ability to sink deep into your subconscious. If you begin to internalize negative self-talk, if can become a huge roadblock on your path toward reaching the person you want to be.
Think of our reactions as subconscious programming. Dr. Bruce Lipton, found that 95% of what we do every single day is controlled by our subconscious mind**. Your deepest, most unrecognizable, thoughts are driving your performance, and ultimately your life. How you choose to program it is up to you. And in the words of Viktor Frankl, it is “the last of human freedoms is man’s ability to choose his attitude in any given situation.”
Choose wisely.
book summary: Sacred Cow
Sacred Cow by Diana Rodgers & Robb Wolf
4 out of 5
TL;DR Eating meat isn't killing the planet, however if we want to thrive it would BEHOOVE (get it, ha!) us to implement sustainable farming practices.
Do #vegetarians live longer than meat eaters?
No. However due to confounding factors around health, non-vegetarians are more likely to smoke or excessive drink, ultimately leading to earlier death therefore skewing results.
Are we eating too much #meat?
Our consumption has declined since the 70's — from 2.7oz per person/per day to 1.8oz as of 2016. We've made up the difference by increasing our intake of calories from sweeteners, grains & seed oils.
How much protein should we eat?
The RDA (aka MINIMUM WAGE OF #NUTRITION) states 0.8g per kg of bodyweight. This recommendation is only enough to keep you alive, not optimize your life. The AMDR (acceptable macronutrient distribution range) has a better grasp at 10-35% of calories coming from protein. Largely comes down to your goal.
Is grass-fed healthier than regular #beef?
Marginally yes. Perhaps not worth the money from a nutrient perspective, however if we look at sustainability, ethically raised meat will have less environmental impact overall.
Isn’t it possible for me to get all my nutrients from plants?
Yes, but only if you want to look like a pile of hashbrowns. Most people cannot thrive on a meatless diet because nutrients in plants are not as bioavaliable & most contain antinutrients causing multiple issues. Plus, you would get fat trying to match nutrient profiles: You'd need to eat 600 calories of beans & rice to get the same amount of protein you can get from only 160 calories of beef (3.5oz), not to mention B12 & heme iron.
Are cow farts killing the atmosphere?
No. Methane from cows is natural, whereas fossil fuels are not. Fossil fuels come from “ancient” carbon that has been locked underground for millions of years, and when extracted, adds new carbon to the atmosphere. Cows transform existing carbon, in the form of grass into methane as part of their digestive process. Methane is then farted out, broken down into H2O & CO2 molecules which are cycled back to grow more grass & the cycle continues.
more exercise isn’t the answer
Why do most people choose to exercise? I assume it’s deeper than simply making an attempt at being healthy, and more along the lines of wanting to lose weight to look good naked. That’s fair, I TOO want to look good naked. HOWEVER, I am here to tell you not to fall prey to the simplistic mantra of “calories in, calories out.”
More exercise isn;t the answer in your quest for a sexy body. Multiple studies carried out by health and fitness experts have concluding that exercise doesn’t really result in much weight loss(1,2). A study from Harvard University, reported that exercise alone was not adequate for preventing weight gain in people who are already overweight(3). Furthermore, after 8 weeks of your favorite aerobic exercise, you’ll hit a plateau, where continuous work will not bring you any further progress AND may even cause you to lose muscle while storing more fat.
None of this is to say that we shouldn’t be exercising, but relying on it to get you the body you want without addressing all other aspects of your lifestyle is misguided. The reason why certain exercise protocols — specifically, resistance training — are implemented when it comes to transforming your turnip shaped body into one made for selfies is that it helps RETAIN MUSCLE while cleaning up the diet is largely responsible for the reduction in fat mass. Both are necessary for the best results, but neither will give you the best results on their own.
References in link
why can’t we get better info
Why is it that the only thing we hear about how to protect our health during this pandemic revolve around external precautions? Social distancing, masks, quarantining. There’s no ethical reason behind the lack of advice regarding diet and lifestyle. Unfortunately, it all comes down to the financial interests of large corporations who DO NOT have your health, or best interests in mind.
Bolstering health is relatively simple. Eat whole, unprocessed foods. Get outside in the sun. Move as much as you can. Sleep like you’re on vacation. And connect as much as you can with the people you love. Yet, none of this is talked about. Instead, we have things happening like governments deciding the best choice for our health is to CLOSE NATURE (beaches) while they leave McDonald’s open.
We were in a health crisis before this pandemic came around — obesity, heart disease, diabetes. It seems to me that if we had been having the correct conversations about health PRIOR to this, it wouldn’t be as bad. Wearing a mask is not going to make everything okay because all you have to do is remove it and shove some waffles in your mouth. What ever happened to wanting to be resilient in mind and body?
Part of this is taking ownership of the issues at hand, but I understand that most people only listen to headlines. Unfortunately, headlines are driven by corporate interests, not the wellbeing of the public.
The financial health of large industries, is more important than your individual health or longevity. As a matter of fact, the food industry directly objects calls for healthier guidelines. An example of this can be seen in a health report by the World Health Organization — composed by a panel of 30 experts from 22 countries. The conclusions were commonsensical: too much sugar and fast food are unhealthy. NO SHIT!! However, despite this obviously being sensible advice, a protest against these findings arose within the food industry. Actions by the Snack Food Association, Wheat Foods Council, Corn Refiners Association, International Dairy Foods Association, the Sugar Association, and many others, called for ceasing all financial support of the WHO by the United States. This was based on the grounds that the report was garbage science, not founded on any concrete scientific consensus.
There’s a reason we aren’t getting quality information regarding health and it’s because the narrative is directed by those who seek profit.
the present moment is all we have
In nature, animals fight or chase one-another because someone is hungry. After the confrontation (or dinner) everyone goes their separate ways, carrying on with life instead of dwelling on what just happened for the next few hours or days. Nature flows simultaneously with time.
In the modern world, we encounter things like arguments, getting cut off in traffic, or Karen trying to ruin the cookout. Afterwards, we rarely go on with our lives, instead we relive the past situation and experiencing the same emotions allowing it to affect us long after the event happened. As humans we spend too much time stuck in the past.
The present moment is all we have. Everything that happened to you, every encounter, every decision and subsequent outcome made you who you are. This is not to say that we need to be happy about everything but we are the product of our experiences — good and bad. So live your life right now, and never look back because it’s all working out how it was meant to be.