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Category: Health and Fitness

Life Changing Results

Published on December 20, 2022

Exercising regularly is one of the hardest things in the world for some people.

Which is why it’s SO important to not make it any harder than it needs to be.

I will be the first to admit that I take an easy route that ends with me under the bar each day:

  • I have an at-home gym
  • I have my clothes ready the night before
  • I take a long, hot shower
  • I drink a big glass of water with creatine
  • I foam roll for 15 minutes
  • I write my workout down for 5 minutes
  • I do workout specific stretches for 5 minutes
  • I play loud, vibed up music

…And THEN I’ll get my workout started.

Even after 20 years of working out religiously, the workouts themselves haven’t gotten any easier—I’ve just gotten better at showing up and tricking myself into doing the work.

I learned long ago that wake-up -> bar isn’t the path that works for me. The resistance (misery) eventually becomes too much and leads me to stray from the path. I’m the type that needs to ease myself in. This is what keeps me on the path.

Hard, misery-inducing workouts coupled with misery-inducing steps leading up to the workouts are glorified in today’s world and it’s no wonder regular exercise is so damn hard for so many.

Don’t feel pressured to go this route.

While it’s undoubtedly true that massive action will lead to massive results… it’s the consistent action that’ll lead to the life-changing results.

Becoming A Primary Caregiver

Published on November 29, 2022

We don’t think to inspect things that aren’t broken.

We’re too busy and distracted for that.

But, inspecting things that aren’t broken (on occasion) is an excellent strategy for ensuring they stay that way.

For example, I have a doctor’s appointment this week and asked to get general blood work done.

Why? Not because I’m sick, feeling ill, or have any noteworthy symptoms—but, to ensure my levels are solid and aren’t trending in the wrong direction considering I’ve never gotten it done before.

This isn’t something my doctor would just think to do out of the blue—he’s way too busy and distracted for that.

This is something I have to think of on my own because I need to be my own primary caregiver—as nobody will (should) care or think as intimately about my ongoing health goals/issues as me.

And the same is true for you.

I asked: “How do you practice vulnerability in your life?” I hope the answers inspire you to practice it more in your life, too.

Back To Zero

Published on September 19, 2022

Before reading this, do a body scan and progressively relax one muscle at a time starting with your forehead and ending with your toes—get your body back to zero percent unnecessary tension.

When done, how much tension would you say you released that you didn’t even realize you were holding?

Well, that tension is the equivalent of you pushing the gas in your parked car.

Multiply that over the course of an entire day—and you can imagine how much energy is being wasted.

The challenge is that tension is often the default, unconscious state—we don’t even realize we’re tensing up when we do!

Go ahead and do another body scan and see how much tension already came back.

…This is why we have to make relaxing a conscious effort.

Both for energy efficiency and bodily health. Tense muscles become brittle—and brittle is prone to injury and disease. Relaxed muscles are flexible—and flexible is healthy and resilient.

Doing a progressive relaxation body scan—regularly—is an excellent strategy.

How can we do this? Here are 3 ideas to get you started:

  1. Set a timer: every time the timer goes off, do a body scan and get back to zero.
  2. Use a trigger: every time your phone rings or buzzes, do a body scan and get back to zero.
  3. Time-block: After each meal of the day, do a body scan and get back to zero.

The goal, like any other habitual practice, is to move relaxed from conscious to unconscious so it becomes more and more our default state.

P.s. In case you missed it, here’s the best of what I posted to MoveMe Quotes last week.

Don’t Skip Leg Day

Published on April 15, 2022

Today was heavy squat day at the gym.

Family travel, however, interrupted the normal routine.

So, after driving 6 hours and settling in to my destination location—I got creative.

I ran an elevated pace mile, did 100 jump squats, and 50 lunges.

This is a good example of what “firm in resolve; flexible in approach” looks like.

Life will happen.

Find other ways to make your top priority tasks happen when it does.

Exercise Shouldn’t Be Torture

Published on December 28, 2021

“Exercise should be a celebration of what your body can do. Not a punishment for what you ate.”

Dylan Thacker, Twitter

Most people try to “punish” themselves into being fit.

They “kill” themselves at the gym. Sign up for military-like bootcamps. Pay personal trainers to scream at them when they’re fatigued. There’s a whole lot of self-induced torture going on in the exercise world today.

And then those same people are surprised when they’re miserable and hate the idea of exercise. And it’s no wonder!

I’m here to tell you this doesn’t have to be your reality.

You don’t have to torture yourself into good health. In fact, this shouldn’t be your path towards good health—it’s an ugly path. As Dylan says above, it should be a celebration.

So, how do we celebrate exercise? By aligning ourselves with forms of movement that we enjoy doing (at least more so than others).

Because let’s not make exercise into something it’s not—it’s always going to involve work. It just doesn’t have to involve torturous work. Some ideas:

  • Sports—Focus on the ones you enjoy more than others. Many of my friends play in recreational sports leagues—you could, too.
  • Movement based activities—Martial Arts has acted as a rock in my exercise life since I was 11. Dance and yoga are good ideas, too.
  • Play—got kids? Play with them and a good workout is virtually guaranteed. Don’t have kids? Play an exercise video and follow along from home with someone who makes movement enjoyable.

There’s a million ways to move. Experiment and find what works for you.

Don’t be like most people—celebrate your way to being fit instead.

Movement ≠ Work

Published on November 12, 2021

The more we associate movement to work the less likely we are to do it.

When you look at kids, movement is natural.

They run, skip, and jump without any mental resistance or worries at all—all while being told that they need to calm down and “stop,” by adults.

How ironic, that when we get old, we are told we aren’t moving enough and that we need to start running, skipping, and jumping more.

…And then end up paying huge sums of money for boot camp trainers, fitness guides, and programs that’ll hopefully, somehow, maybe retrain our brains to overcome the mental resistance and worries that were once non-existent.

Maybe, we could learn a thing or two from kids.

Maybe, if we stopped looking at exercise as an obligation and looked at it as an expression of bodily freedom, we’d more joyfully move our way to health without so many daily, mental battles and wars.

A Hard To Grasp Truth About Fitness

Published on October 13, 2021

Equal actions often produce unequal results in different people.

Otherwise, everybody could copy precisely what their favorite fit person was doing and get precisely the same results.

As nice as that would be, it isn’t the reality.

Some people never lift a weight and appear fit. Others lift religiously and appear unfit.

While this is a hard truth to grasp, the secret to escaping this demoralizing thought process is actually quite easy: stop comparing yourself to others.

Because while equal actions may produce unequal results, positive actions always leads to positive results in the individual.

And so while your results may not look the same as the person whose lifestyle you’re copying, what also isn’t the same is the person you become after taking those positive actions.

No self-improvement effort is ever wasted. Not even the ones that fail miserably.

The biggest waste isn’t to have tried and failed—it’s to never have tried at all.

For what those initial efforts offer us is something that never trying never could: insight.

Remember this when others are:

  • Eating what you’re avoiding
  • Skipping workouts when you can’t
  • Drinking what you shouldn’t
  • Choosing lethargy when you couldn’t

What some people can do to stay fit isn’t what YOU might have to do to stay fit—keep taking positive actions anyway.