look both ways
The Law of Attraction says you should only focus on what you want to attract, but that is the quickest way to be unpleasantly surprised by the bus that hits you as you’re crossing the street to pet that cute puppy. It’s good to focus on what we want, but to get there we must be conscious to the reality we live in.
You don’t need to dwell on the dark side of things, but you need to be aware that they exist. In doing so, you can navigate through life effectively — e.g., look both ways as you cross the street, and live long enough to get your own puppy one day. If you’re able to hold onto a sense of awareness, along with the intention to create a better life for yourself, then the dark side can be kept at bay. You will always be one step ahead of the proverbial “bus.”
data over dogma
If you come to me with a problem, I can tell you how to solve it and show you why, while another “expert” can show you something completely opposite and present you with “evidence.” So, who is right, and what should you believe? Today, it’s increasingly harder to answer those questions because the other guy is saying the same thing.
It seems we have arrived in a world where there are no real facts, only dogma presented as truth. There are studies to support literally any viewpoint, most prove very little, but are used as a statistic to elevate one side of the argument above another. A large part of the problem is that people are more concerned with being right, than effective. In other words, what they’re selling is more important than the results.
There is only what is true and what isn’t, right? How could it be any other way? I don’t know. Somewhere along the line we lost the ability to tell the difference. Choosing what feels “right” versus what is correct. We now follow advice based on the emotional appeal, instead of rational speculation. Because we make decisions based on our emotional attachment, if it challenges us, it must not be true. We believe what we want because we can always find what we need to support it, and that is comforting. We have abandoned truth, and with it we’ve abandoned authority an authority on any given subject.
If nothing is true, then no one can effectively debate the narrative critically because there is no real basis to do so. All becomes a spectacle. The biggest wallet can afford the most blinding lights. Just as the loudest voice can deafen the most diverse thought. It’s dangerous. We are all aware of how much corporate influence has one what we are told to think about our health, and even politics.
No longer do facts about your daily life matter. All that matters is what you believe. It has been dubbed the “post-truth” era. The narrative we choose to follow separates people, just as much as it unites people under a different banner. Truth means both sides can’t be right. Blurring the lines of what truth is, so that the emotional attachment becomes paramount means that anyone can be “right” simply by the depth of their convictions to a cause, not their merits.
I agree, it’s fucking confusing. The facts should remain the facts. Only from there can we build a foundation which can elevate all people. We all want to belong, to have a special connection, to live our best life, and sometimes it takes coming to a painful realization that we were wrong about something we have believed so strongly in. It is a necessary process of transformation that is profoundly lost. If no one knows where to find truth anymore, where does that leave us? I have no answer other than for everyone to take complete responsibility for your life and your health.
Unfortunately, this whole scenario has the ability to lay the foundation for terrible ideologies to arise. Not because they’re better than any previous beliefs, but since facts don’t matter it’s all about baffling people with bullshit. Whoever screams the loudest must be right because they are getting all the attention. If we don’t have access to the facts, nor can we tell the difference when we’re being misled, we can’t expect to ever find the right answer. If there is no barometer in which to measure the “hose of knowledge” that is the internet, there is no facts to live by. If there is no facts to live by, there can be no foundation to build upon, If there is no foundation to build upon, then everyone will just gravitate toward whichever dogma fits their narrative the best, whether it’s true
what comes out is what’s on the inside
Your reaction to anything is the most powerful thing you can control, because it will influence all future events in your life. As Viktor Frankl, a man who survived the worst of the Nazi prison camps, said, “it is the last of the human freedoms to be able to choose how we act in any given situation.” Whatever happens to you, you have the ability to choose how you respond.
Whether you get fired, dumped, lose something, or get cut off in traffic, it’s important to remember that all these events are distinct They often pass as quickly as they happen. The problem is we often can’t let go of the feeling they created. We choose to hold on.
You never die from a snake bite. It happened. You die from the venom. The lasting impact of the event that created it. If you cut yourself, the natural process of the body is to heal. It doesn’t remain open as it would be subject to greater complications. When something happens to us, it is the choice, the holding on to the pain the event caused, not the event itself.
Holding on to the pain we’ve experienced can only manifest in negative emotions. Those negative emotions do not let our “wounds” heal. Instead, they create larger problems by influencing our future decisions. Pretty soon you start to think that it’s not you, but it’s other people, or things that happen to you, that re causing you to feel those negative emotions, but those outside events can’t create those internal feelings. Those feelings come from within. We’ve chosen to react in a certain way, by holding on to the pain we’ve been caused.
What comes out of you is what’s inside of you. Ask yourself the following question — if you squeeze an Orange, what comes out? It’s not a trick question. The only acceptable answer is Orange Juice.
Extend that metaphor to when someone “squeezes” you. Someone says something you don’t like, behaves towards you in a way you find offensive, does or says something that you perceive as hurtful, and out comes anger, bitterness, callousness, fear, hatred, resentment, stress, anxiety, or tension. Immediately, you say that you’re feeling this way because of how someone else acted toward you, or what someone else said, or did, but in reality — what comes out is what’s on the inside.
If we have chosen to hold on to the pain of our past, it will always be there to remind you the next time something similar happens. We have to make a conscious choice to respond to the challenging events in our life in a way that will allow us to heal and be open to the future we wish to have. Don’t let yesterday, take up too much today, because that’s how we build tomorrow.
health begins with you
The implicit message centered around achieving health is that “if you do what you’re told, everything will be fine.” There are no shortage of government mandates, guidelines, and recommendations to keep you “safe” and “healthy.” Most people buy into the mainline narrative around safeguarding their health with little hesitation or thought into what is being recommended. I often wonder what needs to happen for people to take responsibility for their health. We’re experiencing both an epidemic of obesity, and at the same time, a pandemic that proportionately affects metabolically challenged people the worst. AND YET, people still fail to take full responsibility for their health. They falsely assume that someone else has it all figured out because it was reported on the evening news.
If these people get sick, it is never their fault because they listened. They did the low-fat, high-stimulant, low-protein, high-carb, and moderate exercise regimen. It failed them, and because of that they are a victim. They’ll say; “society failed me, that is why I am in poor health.” When in reality, they are in poor health because they failed to take responsibility for their actions. This is the same line of thought that people cause people to ask their doctor for medication’s, instead of searching for a cure. It’s outsourcing your health.
I’m assuming this attitude of victimization developed in childhood where all of us were forced to sit, read, and learn to regurgitate information with the promise that if we did, we would have good life. However, I think current events should dictate that responsibility should be taken in all avenues of life. I don’t know anyone who became successful at anything by following someone else’s plan. To be successful in life it is very hard to follow someone else’s map. Similarly, I don’t know anyone who presents as a vision of health, who follows the governmentally mandated dietary guidelines, or fad diets.
We are all so uniquely different that having one general guideline about how to eat, or how to live your life is never going to work towards building a healthier future. We need to get away from being victims of circumstance. We need to take responsibility for our health. We need to take what works and get rid of the rest.
You have an obligation to yourself only. You can only change yourself. You shouldn’t let other people dictate what you should be doing, or tell you who you need to be. You have to take responsibility. You have to decide what is best for you. True health improvements always begin with I, not we.
failure is a signal for change
In our effort to change, we often get derailed. We think that because we failed all we need is to exert greater effort or persistence. That may be true, but it could also signal that it’s time to change tactics or strategies. Rarely, should failure be a signal that we’ll never be able to succeed in our efforts. For example, imagine you find yourself with a half eaten donut in your hand on your way home from the gym. Should you come to the conclusion that you’re unable to stick with the nutrition plan laid out by your wonderful trainer? Or should you realize that since it’s too difficult to resist the temptation of stopping in the donut shop when you see that “hot light”, you should probably change your route home?
The first conclusion serves as a discouraging departure from progress that your are trying to make, whereas the second creates a solution that serves as a corrective guide, allowing you to refine your strategy. Creating healthier habits can be as simple as changing your environment.
vulnerability is necessary for change
A client of mine, while happy with his progress, was having trouble accepting how certain things weren’t as they used to be. It’s inevitable that we’ll miss certain parts of our past selves as we move away who we were, but we have to let go of the things that do not serve the person we want to become. A large part of that is allowing ourselves to be vulnerable. I sent him the following, hopefully if you’re having trouble in your journey it can help you too…
“You’ll be a different person in a year from now, but in order to get there, you have to go through the process of transformation, in both body and mind. There’s that period of time where the caterpillar goes into the cocoon and is most vulnerable, in doing so, it comes out on the other side a new “person.” A certain part of the process is delaying gratification, another part is finding patience and learning to love the journey of who you can be. It’s a scary process because it’s a divergence from everything you have ever known. However, in order to grow, it’s going to require you to accept the vulnerability of change — just as the caterpillar accepts going into the cocoon — so you can allow yourself the opportunity to come out a different person on the other side.”
if you need a chemistry degree, it’s not good for you
If you need a chemistry degree to figure out the ingredients on a label, then it’s probably not good for you. That goes for food, as seen with just about anything on the shelf within the perimeter of the grocery store, as well as the lesser thought about personal care products, which are probably even more burdensome. Personal care products are anything you put on your body. Things like deodorants, antiperspirants, cosmetics, female care products, shampoos, skin creams, perfumes, etc. When we slather these things on ourselves, it gets soaked up by the skin, and surreptitiously enters directly into our lymphatic and circulatory systems, depositing in internal organs and body fat. The increased burden to our body becomes clear when we realize that unlike the food we eat, the substances we apply topically completely bypass the filter we know as the liver. These substances can accumulate over time causing endocrine disruption (fucks up your hormones), and many of these chemical compounds even have links to cancer.
Some of the worst offenders:
Antiperspirants are filled with toxic compounds, the worst of which is aluminum. On study showed that after regular application it may contribute to disease processes such as breast cancer. Men are NOT excluded from this either!
Skin Creams are full of petrochemicals (crude oil derivatives). A 1985 study showed that mineral oil, a crude oil derivative, has so thoroughly infiltrated our tissues that nearly half the 465 participants were found to be developing lipogranuloma, which is the body way of establishing a barrier to the deposit of oily substances.
Detergents and Cleaning Products. A European study concluded that household cleaning products had a significant impact on respiratory function in those who used them frequently. Researchers equated the damage to smoking a pack of cigarettes a day for 20 years.
There is plenty more fun stuff where that come from. The point here is to be conscious about the products you are buying, and how you use them. Primary health is YOUR JOB, not your doctors. All our actions have consequences. Take a small step towards a healthier you by using some of the resources below to check out the products you’re using currently. It they don’t pass the test, throw them away and get something better.
Environmental Working Group’s Skin Deep
IReadLabelsForYou.com
WellnessMama.com
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.