Contemplative Fitness

On my commutes back-and-forth to Fallbrook, I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts about fitness, strength training, and endurance training. I’ve come to the belief that it’s all just fu***ng madness. I get aggravated and sickened every time I listen, but I keep listening because I want to stay in touch with where the “experts“ stand on so many of these variables.

The more I listen, the more I go back to my basic values when I begin that business 30-years ago…

- If you’re breathing hard and sweating you’re head of the game.

- Lift heavy things regularly, but do so properly.

- Eat more vegetables than anything else.

- Rest when you can, if time allows and stress doesn’t get the better of you.

- Be consistent. Do something physical every day for at least 30- minutes.

Really, to me that’s fitness, and Health even, in a nutshell. Everything else is just commentary and speculation.

Science is important, there’s no doubt, but we can overcomplicate some basic principles by applying too much science too frequently, and establishing metrics that, in the big picture, are meaningless.

There, I said it… 

And the band played on…

And The Band Played On… On Tuesday evening, November 8, 2016, I went to bed believing I’d wake up the next morning with Hillary Clinton having been elected the next president of the United States.

Yesterday, I went off the rails with my eating. It wasn’t a sight for kids. Pancakes, spaghetti, ice cream, and that was all before 4 PM. One rule of thumb I use after a day when I come off the rails is simply this…

I don’t try to compensate for it the next day. I don’t eat lighter. I don’t skip meals. And I don’t starve myself to make up for a bad day of eating the day before.

I know many people who do this — after a bad day of eating, they’ll skip eating the next day until dinner time, or just eat as little as possible. The problem with that is, due to an imbalance of glucose and insulin caused by the bad eating day, a person who skips meals to make up for bad eating is likely to become so hungry at the end of the day that they over eat.

So if you have a bad day eating, like I did yesterday, simply wipe it off the books, try to forget about it, and eat a normal healthy day ahead — without skipping meals or eating less to compensate for a bad rating day. That simply doesn’t work.

Think of it this way — under eating during the day usually leads to over eating at night.

So, after a bad day of eating, shrug it off and eat normally the next day. I promise you’ll be better off. I know I will…

rc

To Die As A Child...

Striking in appearance, and with an unequalled cunning, the wolf spends much of his waking hours working — hunting and protecting his family. There is little downtime for the wolf. He is the workaholic of the canine family. A wolf that lives to an older age, dies with a look of wisdom, but also with a swagger of fatigue, and a weary body.

The Labrador Retriever plays every day of his life. Recess begins on awakening, and lasts all day. Despite any gray on his face and fatigue of his body, he dies as a child. The wolf lives an autonomous life and must fend for himself. The Labrador Retriever is born into system of chill, with little more to do each day than to play and to rest.

We humans are born as Labrador Retrievers, but are gradually taught to become more like the wolf. By the time most of us are in our mid-20s, the Labrador Retriever inside is a faint memory, living deep within our daily wolf. Play gets cast aside in favor of hunting — the providing and earning we require to attain the acquisitions synonymous with cultural respect. Maybe I'm lazy, or maybe I recognized early on that, despite life's requirement for us to survive as wolves, it's important that we keep our inner Labrador Retriever alive. I have built my life largely around this ideal.

I get to do recess for a living — recess for other people. When people are with me, they’re generally like Labrador Retrievers set free on an agility course. They leave tired, but always smiling. Ask any of them and they'll tell you that time spent exercising is a necessary break from their wolf-like life. If only for an hour, they are children, playing with weights, balls, stretching, and in some cases, jumping. For many, time exercising is the best part of their day.

As for my own life, it is designed to be roughly 3 parts wolf, to 2 parts Labrador Retriever. Though much of my day is constructed around chasing that which I need to survive and protect myself from harm, I take recess several times per day in the form of strength training, balance work, and cardiovascular exercise — er, play. I think this is a good way to be.

So where am I going with this...?

If you recall your school days, they didn't start in the classroom. They started on the playground before school. After a few hours of wolf training, another recess was necessary. I have no memory whatsoever, at least when it comes to myself or my friends, of anyone going straight home from school and continuing wolf training. We all took time to play, yet again, because we knew it was important and so did the wolves who raised us.

Today we celebrate Labor Day — a day for the worker. We hold in the highest esteem, the effort that millions of Americans have given in the name of our collective pack. But this day is always a good reminder for me, that it’s the Labrador Retriever in each of us that enables the better wolf. So as we all head back to work soon, let’s remember the value of play, whether it’s in the form of exercise or recreation, that a physical release, not only makes us better prepared to be the wolf, but it usually makes us happier.

A Labrador Retriever plays every day of his life, and despite any gray on his face, he dies as a child… rc

Some mixed thoughts on social complexity, Dunbar’s Number, and evolutionary mismatch — all in one happy-go-lucky blog…

Outnumbered: My Brain Hurts… Most early humans, going back millions of years, have lived in groups of 50 to 150 individuals.

Well, I guess it’s a way to keep people coming back for more exercise… 

I have an idea…

There’s two possible outcomes — what you’re capable of, or not.

Need help finding what you’re capable of, hit me up…

A true story of flyin’ and lyin’. Enjoy…

Saved By An Exceptional Lie… I hate small talk — with all the hate you can possibly hate something with.