Fitness

Fitness / Habits / Nature

A reader’s question on food, eating, and exercise

A reader asked the following: Regarding exercise, I have been able to start with my running and I still have some questions around managing what i eat when.. evening times seem a kind of "let it all go" time.. any suggestions you have towards that would be great. She suggested adding that she's "of Asian origin." I'll share what worked for me. Since there are a million books on diet and exercise, I'm not sure what I share will be new, but I can say it worked for me, and I think what works is more valuable than novelty. First, I'll note I used to let things go when I was home alone. I remember in graduate school I would always have ice cream in…

October 16, 2015

Yoga, attention, nuance, and subtlety

Awareness / Exercises / Fitness / Habits / Perception / SIDCHAs

Yoga, attention, nuance, and subtlety

A reader wrote to ask about my August 2012 post, "Three things I learned from yoga" "With yoga you can use your body alone to create many emotions and learn how to handle them." Have you written more about this? I can only see me creating fear, determination, calmness, anger and patience. These don't count to many, so I wonder what other emotions could one create? I haven't done yoga in years, mainly since I found burpees and other sidchas easier, more convenient, and giving results I valued more, but I learned a lot from it and am glad I did it. And I would still recommend my teacher for anyone interested in yoga. Her background in dance made it more fun and artful. Looking…

October 15, 2015

A miracle contender

A miracle contender

The more attention I put to what I eat, the more important I find it to living a healthy, fulfilling, satisfying life. I wrote before about my rice cooker / vegetable steamer / miracle appliance, the Hitachi Chime-o-matic. I normally don't promote products, but it's so useful, I do with it. An old college friend visited over the summer, saw it, and asked if it's the same rice cooker I had in college. It is, meaning I bought it in 1990 and it still works. Now there is a contender to beat it. I bought an electric pressure cooker. Here's the one I got, the Cuisinart CPC-600:So far I only cooked two dishes in it, but it did great. It cooked a head of cauliflower…

October 9, 2015

Maturity and pasta

Fitness / Nature / Stories / Visualization

Maturity and pasta

I used to think of pasta and rice as staples---that is, the basic food of a meal to put everything else around. Over the years I've decreased the pasta, rice, and other staples in favor of vegetables. Now that I see restaurants' goals less to healthily nourish you and more to entertain your mouth and eyes, I see so-called staples as ways to increase their profit at the expense of your health. I want more vegetables and they want to give me less. Here is a visual tour of my view of how we mature, in pasta. Like many, I liked Spaghettios as a kid. Sweet and hardly any substance. More marketing gimmick than food, I'd say. They don't look that much more appetizing outside…

October 2, 2015

How to make less more

Awareness / Fitness / Models / Nature / Perception / Tips / Visualization

How to make less more

I eat a lot of mixed nuts and peanut butter. As far as I know, they're all healthy to someone without allergies. I eat a lot of them. I found a site that shows pictures of two hundred calories of various foods. I like and eat a lot of broccoli. Here's two hundred calories of broccoli: Looks like an amount that would go a long way to filling me up. Here's two hundred calories of mixed nuts: Not much! They would taste delicious and I love their crunchy, creamy texture, but if I wanted to fill myself with food, I'd choose the broccoli. Here's two hundred calories of peanut butter: Not much either. So how to make less more? I decided that as much as…

September 28, 2015

Awareness / Fitness / Freedom / Nature

Op/Ed Fridays: Get your hands and mind dirty if you want to be healthy

I think everyone I know knows this, but trying to keep yourself healthy by disinfecting everything you touch, thinking all bacteria and other life weakens your immune system and makes you less healthy. People misunderstand bacteria and other life. They aren't exclusively unhealthy, though some are, and don't only exist in a few places. Most of them are symbiotic and are everywhere all the time, including in us, even ones our immune systems have to battle. If our bodies didn't handle them all the time, we'd lose the ability to and an unexpected infection could kill us. The parents I've talked to tell me you get healthy children not by protecting them from every risk but though active, outdoors, dirty play. Get their hands dirty.…

September 25, 2015

Fitness / Nonjudgment / Relationships

How do I make new friends?

Many adults wonder how to make new friends. If the following sounds familiar, read my response below it. I feel like I only have like one guy friend maybe 2. The one we don't have a ton in common but our wives are friends so we hang out. The other is a guy friend from work we eat lunch together quite a bit and chat at work but never anything outside of work. I am sick of not having any friends I can do stuff with and what not. How can I either get my work buddy to hang out some or how can I make new friends. I am not into bars or what not and only drink a little here and there. Here…

September 22, 2015

Fitness / Habits

I don’t have time for the elevator. I take the stairs.

I live on the fifth floor and come and go from home several times a day. If I take the elevator, I have to make extra time to exercise for the time I'm standing in the elevator depriving myself of getting my heart pumping. It's faster and more convenient to take the stairs and not spend the same time making myself more lazy.

September 21, 2015

The farm where most of my food this summer came from

Entrepreneurship / Fitness / Nature

The farm where most of my food this summer came from

Almost anyone who talked to me over the summer heard about how much I love the vegetables I've been getting through what they call Community Supported Agriculture. You pay a farm at the beginning of the season, then when the plants start growing, each week they deliver what's ready that week. I go to a drop-off location a few blocks from my home and pick up my share. Once a season I volunteer at the drop-off point, helping organize. They organized a trip to the farm, about 120 miles north of New York City, and I jumped at the chance to go. Here are pictures. I learned that the farm lies on a lake bed from eons ago, which they said made the land fertile.…

September 14, 2015

Fitness / Nature

People who push addictive substances on us

The poppy plant grew forever. People consumed it for a long time and it was no problem. As a raw plant it caused no serious health problems. Eventually someone figured out how to refine part of it and found that refined part brought them pleasure. Then people refined it more. To their credit, they found helpful uses for it, but then others realized they could make a lot of money on turning it into a powder or other highly refined form and selling it. It made people feel very good. They would forget about their problems while under the influence. Their addiction also led them to let go of the rest of their lives. Many destroyed their health because of it, driving them back to…

September 13, 2015

I touched my toes for the first time in over twenty years!

Exercises / Fitness / SIDCHAs / Stories

I touched my toes for the first time in over twenty years!

In college I could put my legs in front of me, keep my knees straight, bend forward and touch my toes with my fingers. It was easy and I thought nothing of it. I don't remember the last time I could do it after college until last night. Why did I do it? It took me two or three months of twice-daily stretching to get there. I'd been embarrassed for decades at how un-limber I was. A few months ago I started trying to do an L-sit, which means doing this: I read L-sits exercised your abs well and I've developed enough definition in my abs that I wanted to work them more. I couldn't do the exercise if my hamstrings were too tight. I'm…

September 10, 2015

Fitness / Habits / Tips

Don’t reward yourself with unhealthy things, or anyone

"I did such a great job, I deserve this." Who hasn't said that in front of some cookies or ice cream? "I worked hard. I earned this." Who hasn't said that before lazily neglecting something important, calling it indulging themselves? "This employee has never made a mistake. Let's promote them." How many managers have rewarded box-checking behavior like that? If you tell yourself, and behave accordingly, that something unhealthy is a reward, you tell yourself that something unhealthy is good. You train yourself to do the unhealthy thing more. You create unhealthy habits. I recommend not doing that. You can find healthy things to reward yourself with. If you don't think a mango could reward you as much as ice cream, that's because you've trained…

September 9, 2015

Exercises / Fitness / Habits / Perception

I don’t earn fitness, I enjoy it. It’s not about deprivation, it’s about doing what you want.

People see fitness as something you have to work hard for, doing painful things or spending long hours at the gym, avoiding eating things they like and having to eat things they don't. It's been the opposite for me. From my perspective, anyone with those beliefs doesn't know what they're talking about. They are confusing satisfying craving with enjoyment, sweating with misery, pleasure with good, and avoiding with depriving. People describe my diet as healthy. I've never avoided eating something I liked, nor eaten something I didn't like. When I first learn something is unhealthy, I still eat it, but I keep thinking about how someone is trying to profit from hurting me---like from hydrogenated oil, refined sugar, corn syrup, and things like that---and I…

September 7, 2015

Choosing/Decision-Making / Fitness / Freedom / Habits

I’m lucky: I put on fat immediately and lose it slowly

"He's so lucky! He never puts on weight!" "She's so lucky! She loses weight so fast!" I hear people say things like that all the time. If I eat one unhealthy meal, I can see it on my belly. But then even after running a marathon I don't see that fat go away. Fat goes on immediately and takes a long time and a lot of work to get off. I'm lucky! I'm lucky I put on fat fast if I overeat and lose it slowly because it means I have to make fitness a way of life, not something I sometimes do. Doing something sometimes instead of consistently adds choice, which means you can choose not to do it. Dieting correlates with lack of…

August 29, 2015

Exercises / Fitness / Habits / SIDCHAs

A reader’s SIDCHAs

A reader and friend wrote about his SIDCHAs: Hey Josh, How's it going? I was reading your blog and found your SIDCHA example and explanation post. Really enjoyed the distillation of it all, especially as my insecurities have many times led me to search for info rather than action. One thing I have been (attempting to) do is a Daily Review. It's just a checklist of all the SIDCHAs I do: [X] Reflect on Purpose [X] Make the bed [X] Stretch [X] Review Calendar [X] Write Journal [X]Plan Today :: Asana > DuoLingo > Headspace Sometimes its hard to even do those things but I feel like the habit of looking at the daily review is that first important foundation of confidence. At the top…

August 13, 2015

60,000 burpees!

Exercises / Fitness / Habits / SIDCHAs

60,000 burpees!

Somewhere around today I hit 60,000 cumulative burpees since starting in December 2011. I don't keep track rigorously, I only know I haven't missed a burpee. Sometimes I do a few extra, like to show someone how to do them, if I lose count and want to make sure I do enough, or if I want to make up for eating candy. What started as ten burpees per day has grown. Then ten was challenging. Now ten is easy. When my skills develop to make a SIDCHA too easy, I make it more challenging. Also, as much as burpees exercise most of your body, they have you push with your arms but not pull. So I added reverse-rows. Also, as my abs got more defined…

August 12, 2015

Fitness / Leadership / Stories

Old man still got it

My team won the first sports tournament I played in on Sunday that I remember since college (which I don't remember that well). I may have won some tournaments playing with the elite teams I played on in club and the co-ed team I went to Nationals with in 1998. There's nothing like the feeling of winning a hard competition. It was just summer league, more of a fun league than competitive, but it still counts. There are points in close games where, if you want to win, you have to put the players on the line who will win the game. In college and even sometimes in clubs, that meant me. However nervous inside, I walked on the field confidently, or as confidently as…

August 11, 2015

SIDCHAs in the wild

Exercises / Fitness / Habits / Leadership / SIDCHAs / Stories

SIDCHAs in the wild

After driving a smelly twenty-seven-year-old pick up truck with wobbly steering and a barely functional clutch all night from my cousin's wedding outside Pittsburgh to my friend's networking day-long workshop in Manhattan, one of the session leaders asked the attendees to describe ourselves. I was too tired for small talk. He gave us paper and crayons do illustrate our descriptions. I asked if I could demonstrate instead of illustrate. He liked the idea. So when my turn came to describe myself, I brought everyone into a circle, told them my burpee-starting and SIDCHA stories, and had everyone do a few burpees. Everyone loved doing burpees. They get the blood flowing and your lungs breathing. In a group they're fun. Afterwards, people thanked me for making…

July 29, 2015

Fitness / Nature

Justified! Research confirms that restaurants aren’t that healthy.

Days after posting "Eating at restaurants seems weirder the more healthily I eat. Same with pre-prepared food" I found the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition posted an article, "Fast-food and full-service restaurant consumption and daily energy and nutrient intakes in US adults." It found that eating at fast food and full service restaurants affected people's diets roughly equally---in particular, increasing calories about the same amount, as well as other indicators, like amount of fat, cholesterol, etc. A summary of the article wrote More than 18,000 adults answered survey questions about what they'd eaten over a two-day period. Compared to participants who ate food prepared at home, those who visited fast food restaurants consumed an average of 190 more calories per day, 11 grams more fat,…

July 15, 2015

Awareness / Fitness / Habits / Nature

Eating at restaurants seems weirder the more healthily I eat. Same with pre-prepared food.

I can't believe the changes in how I see food my last two changes in food habit created. And I can't believe how easy and cheap the changes were. The changes were to buy a farm share, where I pick up fresh vegetables from a drop-off place near me each week, and the other was my two-and-a-half-week experiment not buying food where I had to throw away packaging after. Each farm share shipment has enough vegetables for side dishes for a family for a week. Since I'm one person, I have to eat vegetables as main dishes every day to keep up with all these vegetables. I don't have space for pasta, bread, and other filler. I was worried about not knowing what to do…

July 11, 2015

Fitness / Habits / SIDCHAs

A 30-year Sidcha: running, swimming, or biking every morning

The New York Times wrote about a woman who ran, swam, or biked every morning at 6:30 for thirty years in "On the Trail, Every Day for 30 Years." She has over a quarter-century on my burpee sidcha! The article begins: Just after 7 a.m. on a sunny Wednesday in June, a 61-year-old woman darted in front of taxis in Columbus Circle outside Central Park. A few seconds later, she proclaimed — to no one, to everyone — how great it was to be alive. The woman, Gisela Mandl, wore a bright green T-shirt, gray running shorts and white knee-high compression socks. She had just finished a 35-minute run through the park and was starting an eight-minute jaunt back to her apartment on West 48th…

July 8, 2015

Fitness / Freedom / Leadership

July 4, 1939: “I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth”

Lou Gehrig was one of the greatest athletes of the twentieth century. He died in his prime from the disease often named after him. On July 4, 1939, he gave his retirement speech, which I copied below. Some career highlights from Wikipedia: He was an All-Star seven consecutive times, a Triple Crown winner once, an American League (AL) Most Valuable Player twice, and a member of six World Series champion teams. He had a lifetime .340 batting average, .632 slugging average, and a .447 on base average. He hit 493 home runs and had 1,995 runs batted in (RBI). He had a rare disease we now call ALS, which results in rapidly increasing paralysis, difficulty in swallowing and speaking, and a life expectancy of less…

July 4, 2015

Making a habit stick makes other habits stick easier

Exercises / Fitness / Habits / SIDCHAs / Visualization

Making a habit stick makes other habits stick easier

In yesterday's session on starting habits, when I described how easy it was finally to floss my teeth daily after I started my burpees. An attendee asked me to clarify. After the session ended, others asked me to clarify more and the following diagrams emerged. Starting burpees This chart schematically shows my burpee habit performance. Flossing before burpees This chart schematically shows my flossing habit before I started doing burpees. The red line shows my flossing effort, overlaying the gray line of my burpee effort. Flossing after burpees This chart schematically shows my flossing habit after starting burpees. Conclusion Making a habit stick makes other habits stick too. I think of making a habit stick as a skill, or set of skills. The more you…

June 15, 2015

Fitness / Nature

I don’t listen to people who talk science about nutrition.

Knowing a lot of science of nutrition is like knowing a lot about physics for billiards---it probably indicates poor behavior. I think pool reminds people of high school physics problems. They often ask me or presume I'm good at it. But knowing physics doesn't help you play. What helps you play is practice. There's physics in pool but there's physics in everything. Knowing where you should hit the ball doesn't give your muscles the precision to hit the ball accurately. Likewise, knowing what you should eat doesn't help you eat what you think you should. People in the United States act like they have the greatest knowledge of nutrition yet they eat about the least healthy of any place. Nutrition has more variables than we…

June 12, 2015

Exercises / Fitness / Freedom / Leadership / Nature / SIDCHAs

Have you striven for excellence?

Have you put everything you had into something? Have you tried as hard as you possibly could? Have you run until you dropped? Skied as fast as you possibly could, risking injury? Decided to lift a weight you couldn't conceive of lifting and done it? Have you run sprints in the rain, alone? Have you put your name and reputation on the line for all time? Have you said no to things anyone would say yes to because the sacrifice was worth it? Have you doubted everything you thought was right because your experience taught you things school never could have taught you? Have you risked bankruptcy, friendships, jobs, your home? Have you put yourself into the unknown so deep you didn't know if you…

June 6, 2015

End of content

No more pages to load