Fitness

My annual bike ride upstate and lunch at the farm providing my CSA, then riding back by the Little Red Lighthouse under the George Washington Bridge

Fitness / Nature / Stories

My annual bike ride upstate and lunch at the farm providing my CSA, then riding back by the Little Red Lighthouse under the George Washington Bridge

I've written about Where to buy the best food around New York City and praised the system of CSAs and the incredible flavor, value, and convenience of the one I participate in from Stoneledge Farm. Every year they host a lunch and invite all subscribers. I think I've gone every year since I started, though they may have skipped a couple years during the pandemic. I forget. I don't take many pictures since I don't post to Instagram or social media. Here are a couple pictures from the farm: I have to post a picture of their cherry tomatoes: You can't tell from the picture, but their cherry tomatoes are the best I've tasted. They picked most of them to deliver in past weeks and…

September 13, 2025

Another 70-pound Turkish Get-Up, also more lifting personal bests

Exercises / Fitness / Habits / Hands on Practical Experience / SIDCHAs

Another 70-pound Turkish Get-Up, also more lifting personal bests

You may remember me posting about Two personal bests in a week: Freedom, in which I jumped 8.4 pounds (3.8 kilograms) in my Turkish get-up to 70 pounds, plus lifted more in my presses. I think I commented that part of why I tried it when I did was because it was the end of a month with 31 days. I do a six-day exercise cycle starting on the first of the month, so several times a year I have days to experiment. Well, last month had 31 days, so I tried my next 70-pound Turkish get-up. I had a few wobbly get-ups in August so even though I had done it before, I treated this attempt with respect. I concentrated on form. I was…

September 1, 2025

My CPR training certificate

Education / Fitness / Hands on Practical Experience

My CPR training certificate

If I'm going to post my certificates from Leadership Institute and Hillsdale College classes, you can bet I would post that I got certified in CPR. The training was provided to auxiliary police officers. It was optional, but once I heard it was offered, I knew I wanted to do it. I hope no one around me ever has their heart stop, but if it happens, I hope my training enables me to save their lives. We also learned about helping with choking and using a defibrillator. I don't remember a situation where I could have used the training before, but you never know. I should have done it a long time ago.

August 13, 2025

Two personal bests in a week: Freedom.

Choosing/Decision-Making / Exercises / Fitness / Freedom / SIDCHAs / Stories

Two personal bests in a week: Freedom.

When I started doing Turkish Get Ups, I struggled with a 25-pound kettle bell. Over the years, I worked up to where I comfortably do them with a 28-kilogram one, which is 61.6 pounds. My next heavier kettle bell is 70 pounds, which is a big jump. I wondered if I would ever be able to do it. I dented my floor when I lost control of a kettle bell and I once injured a rib that way, so I respect the exercise's potential for injury, or rather, the need for safety and form. Personal Best #2 Today I did my first 70 pound Turkish Get Up, one on each side. For those who don't know what they are, here are many posts. In a…

August 1, 2025

I love learning about nature from hands-on practical experience in helping people

Fitness / Hands on Practical Experience / Nature

I love learning about nature from hands-on practical experience in helping people

If you don't know my apartment, this picture and why it makes me feel so joyful and free will take some explanation. You're seeing the space below my window, which faces nearly due south. For the past two months, the sun hasn't shone directly into my apartment. On the solstice one month ago it rose almost exactly to the left, went overhead, and set to the right. Now, a month later, it's passing slightly lower from directly overhead at noon so that some sunlight around midday enters my apartment directly. One highlight of this picture is the sunlight directly hitting the counter and floor. It only just started doing so in the past week or so. You might at first think, "Don't you want the…

July 22, 2025

More love for the recent heat wave now that it’s passed

Fitness / Hands on Practical Experience / Visualization

More love for the recent heat wave now that it’s passed

I wrote the other day in Why I love the heat, even when it’s 95F (35C) on the way to 102F (39C) about how the heat, while uncomfortable, gave me reason to grow, learn, and connect. Among other things, it connected me to the countless people around the world and back in time who live and lived in such conditions. I can learn from our grandparents and people in other cultures. More love for challenge This morning I woke up for the first time in three days after not waking up sweating. Had I not experienced the heat, last night would have felt hot. Instead it felt comfortable. Not relatively comfortable. Comfortable. Complex durable systems like our bodies and minds develop resilience from being stressed.…

June 27, 2025

Ayahuasca and psychedelics: I propose an alternative if you want to learn about ego, life, the universe, and everything

Awareness / Doof / Fitness / Nature / Tips

Ayahuasca and psychedelics: I propose an alternative if you want to learn about ego, life, the universe, and everything

I don't know what it's like where you are, but in New York, people talk about psychedelic drugs a lot. Everyone is talking about microdosing (probably not as much as in California), going to shamans in Peru for ayahuasca, and so on. People describe the value of the experiences as life changing. I'm prompted by a recent New Yorker piece This Is Your Priest on Drugs: Dozens of religious leaders experienced magic mushrooms in a university study. Many are now evangelists for psychedelics, by Michael Pollan. He cites that "Ninety-six per cent rated their first encounters with psilocybin as being among the top five most spiritually significant experiences of their lives." I think we're supposed to think, "Wow, if I take some mushrooms I can…

May 27, 2025

A quarter million burpees

Fitness / Freedom / Habits / Hands on Practical Experience / SIDCHAs

A quarter million burpees

Regular readers know what a sidcha is and that my second daily habit that both became a sidcha and helped me conceive of the concept began with doing ten burpees a day. I think I started my burpee habit in early 2012. In time, that habit evolved into a twice-daily set of calisthenics. I agree that discipline equals freedom, so more than the sizeable gains of saving money, saving time, strength, balance, flexibility, mental acuity, cardiovascular health, self-awareness, humility, and all the other usual benefits of physical fitness, I've gained freedom, mainly mental. I haven't missed a day since I started. Since I do a fixed number, I don't have to keep track daily. I update a spreadsheet I created and it tells me how…

May 25, 2025

Watch me cooking my famous no-packaging vegan solar-powered stew at a workshop at Drew Gardens, Bronx NY

Fitness / Hands on Practical Experience / Nature

Watch me cooking my famous no-packaging vegan solar-powered stew at a workshop at Drew Gardens, Bronx NY

I just found a video of one of the workshops I led at Drew Gardens. I can't believe I thought I lost it. If you've wondered how I make my famous no-packaging vegan solar-powered stews, watch the workshop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeLiAAapjzM Some Reviews Read more reviews here, but some examples: When Josh first invited me over for stew, I didn’t jump at the opportunity. I recall thinking that a quickly prepared meal of some legumes and fresh vegetables heated in a pressure cooker would at best be bland. After decades of consuming processed and improperly cooked vegetables that needed seasoning with plenty of salt, spices and fats, I didn’t appreciate how much natural flavor could be found in the garden. Josh skillfully mixed lentils with fresh farm…

May 8, 2025

What happened to produce stands in America?

Addiction / Doof / Fitness

What happened to produce stands in America?

I passed through Chinatown this afternoon and passed countless produce stands selling fresh vegetables and fruit. A while ago I read in the New York Times that many stands there have a separate supply chain for their fresh produce that's grown relatively locally independent of the supply chain for other grocery stores or farmers markets in the city. While Chinatown is full of produce stands, the rest of New York City has almost none. In fact, people constantly treat my buying fresh as privileged and a luxury. New York City is full of corner delis and bodegas, which are full of soda, beer, chips, and other doof, almost no food. These stores don't stay open magically. People near them are buying those products of zero…

April 7, 2025

In 2025, can you become obese without doof, whose packaging hurts people as surely second-hand smoke, but remotely?

Addiction / Doof / Fitness / Hands on Practical Experience

In 2025, can you become obese without doof, whose packaging hurts people as surely second-hand smoke, but remotely?

We've all seen the graphs and data of rising obesity. People get riled up about it. I have no problem with people living by their values when their choices affect only themselves. I pick up litter daily and hear from Workshop alumni and podcast guests who pledge to pick up litter. They sometimes cry when their hands-on practical experience leads them to see and consciously process what they usually look past instead of at: there's way more litter than they expect. What we see in the U.S. is nothing compared to the places we export our waste to. The packaging no doubt correlates with the transportation and industrial processing that pollutes and depletes yet more. Buying doof drives that systems. Buying doof harms people. I…

April 4, 2025

Sriracha sauce: yuck! Enjoying food over doof.

Addiction / Doof / Fitness / Hands on Practical Experience

Sriracha sauce: yuck! Enjoying food over doof.

It's been almost ten years since I posted Why Sriracha Hot Sauce tastes good. In it I wrote: Did you ever wonder why it tasted so good? Here’s the answer: It’s twenty percent sugar! Out of 100 grams, 20 grams are sugar. Sure, you only have a few grams at a time, so a serving doesn’t have a lot of calories, but that’s a high percent of sugar for when I want something spicy. Progress report on enjoying food over doof I don't think I've tasted it in the decade since. Then in my volunteer work salvaging food that would be thrown away, I ended up with a jar to deliver. It had been opened, so I had a chance to taste it. It's been…

March 26, 2025

My biggest downside to aging so far

Exercises / Fitness / Habits / SIDCHAs

My biggest downside to aging so far

I've passed the milestones everyone my age has. Some I like, like developing patience and wisdom. I may not have much of them, but more than before. I felt my potential strength decrease in my thirties. In my forties I lost yet more, and found even walking counted as exercise. Also in my forties, I noticed injuries took longer to heal. Injuries that in my twenties would hurt and affect functionality momentarily, then go away, and in my thirties bother me for a while, in my forties would linger for months. Months! I have three pains that have lingered for months that I don't think even injuries caused. I'm writing and editing a lot. I think they came from just sitting too long without moving.…

March 21, 2025

The value of family support when living by your values when society opposes them: Janae Marie Kroczaleski, part 2

Fitness / Nonjudgment / Relationships

The value of family support when living by your values when society opposes them: Janae Marie Kroczaleski, part 2

Living true to our deepest values is its own reward. Fewer rewards are greater, all the more so when it requires struggle. All the more so when it deepens our closest relationships. Living by the values of sustainability---community, health, reciprocity, liberty, freedom, and stewardship, for example---is challenging today. No matter what I do in trying to live more sustainably and leading systemic change toward sustainability, people say others can't do it. If it's easy, they say, "it's easy for you, but others can't do it. You're privileged" or something like that. If it's hard, they say, "it's too hard for people to do. It's not practical." Whatever helps them sleep at night knowing they're violating their values, especially their deepest ones. They wield their excuses…

January 25, 2025

The emotional struggles of living by your values when society opposes them: Janae Marie Kroczaleski, part 1

Choosing/Decision-Making / Fitness / Nonjudgment / Relationships / Stories

The emotional struggles of living by your values when society opposes them: Janae Marie Kroczaleski, part 1

Almost ten years ago in this blog I wrote about an experience of art expressing something I didn't know could be expressed. Ingmar Bergman's Fanny and Alexander captured an emotion I felt with my father and no one else. That emotion hit me hard. It was powerful. It influenced big decisions in my life, especially to learn and teach the social and emotional skills of leadership. I just experienced a similar effect, this time with my relationship with my mom in the movie Transformer, which I wrote about last week. Whereas Fanny and Alexander evoked my childhood relationship with my dad, Transformer evoked my present relationship with my mother. I show the clip below of the scene with the main character and the mother. First…

January 24, 2025

A video of my twice-daily burpee-based calisthenics routine at the start of 2025

Fitness / Freedom / Habits / SIDCHAs

A video of my twice-daily burpee-based calisthenics routine at the start of 2025

Here is my twice-daily calisthenics routine at the start of 2025. For context, here is a list of all my sidchas, standard operating procedures, and preferences. I have found discipline creates freedom. This sidcha creates freedom, peace, connection, calm, and more. The calories burned and motivation required are negligible in comparison to those benefits, and are benefits themselves. I started in 2011 with ten burpees a day, then added and refined. My evening set differs slightly (planks instead of crunches, for example), but mostly like this video. This video shows my odd-numbered-day pattern. On even-numbered days I vary slightly based on what workout I do that day (cardio or lifting). I do this routine after Making my bed and turning off the alarm within a…

January 2, 2025

Year 14!, day 1, daily burpees

A recent morning burpee

Fitness / Freedom / Habits / SIDCHAs

Year 14!, day 1, daily burpees

I started doing burpees on this day in 2011. I haven't missed a day since. I've done them daily over 22 percent of my life. By my spreadsheet, I've done just over 241,000 so should reach a quarter million in 2025. The point isn't the numbers, though, nor the fitness, though I like my pulse being nearly off the charts low for men my age. The simplest way to put it is quoting Jocko Willink: Discipline equals freedom. Most Americans seem to see fitness and diet as horror shows. They're out of shape, don't know why, don't know what to do about it, and do things like pay trainers not because the trainers provide a service but because paying people motivates them to act. People…

December 22, 2024

Ozempic: A drug that achieves what sustainability does, but sustainability doesn’t trade one dependence for another

Addiction / Doof / Fitness / Freedom

Ozempic: A drug that achieves what sustainability does, but sustainability doesn’t trade one dependence for another

The New York Times wrote a piece "Ozempic Could Crush the Junk Food Industry. But It Is Fighting Back" that reported people happy with results that I've found from living more sustainably. Except my way didn't cost me anything, trade one dependence for another, or risk any side effects. It didn't require willpower either. People think it did, but I think they just don't know how to change habits without using willpower. The quotes in the article of people's results from taking Ozempic sound almost as desirable as mine, not counting their extra costs, side effects, and dependence. For decades I couldn't stop from consuming doof. I concocted bargains and elaborate attempts to reduce, but failed, at least as long as I just tried to…

November 25, 2024

Two updates to my sidchas and standard operation procedures

Awareness / Fitness / Habits / SIDCHAs

Two updates to my sidchas and standard operation procedures

I'm updating My sidchas, standard operating procedures, and preferences in two ways. Cardio days First, in my 6-Day Exercise/Mindfulness Cycle, I'm changing day 6, which was "Cardio, at least 300 calories rowing or meaningful effort plogging, biking, walking, or climbing stairs." I did cardiovascular exercises for two reasons: To improve my heart and lung health and capacity To burn more calories Since around May, I've been experimenting fasting on day 6. That is, instead of burning more calories, taking in fewer. Doing cardio almost inevitably led to me eating more on those days, so exercising more wasn't in practice leading to getting rid of fat I didn't want. In practice, fasting is resulting in getting rid of more fat I don't want. As for heart…

October 16, 2024

New resting heart rate: 46 bpm

New resting heart rate: 46 bpm

Before this morning's colonoscopy, they checked my resting heart rate. The nurse let me keep the tag they wrote it down on. There it is: "HR 46". Unlike earlier pulse measurements taken after treatment that included anesthetics and other medications that may have slowed my pulse, they took this one before anything else. I had just walked to the hospital. It was actually lower Actually, for a while the reading on the machine read 43 beats per minute. The anesthesiologist who connected me to that machine (before administering anything) noted it, but didn't record it so I won't report it, but I still saw it and a medical doctor acknowledged it. Why I care about heart rate I consider heart rate among the most important…

October 1, 2024

What I learned about my diet and fiber from a colonoscopy

What I learned about my diet and fiber from a colonoscopy

Last year I got a colonoscopy, as recommended for my age. When I woke up from it, the doctor asked why I didn't follow the procedure to empty my bowels. He couldn't see anything. If you've had a colonoscopy, you know that the doctor has you take medicine that flushes everything out of your colon so he or she can see your tissue. I told him I followed the instructions to the letter. He said he couldn't see anything. Soon enough it came out what I eat: fresh whole fruits, fresh whole vegetables, legumes, whole grains, and little else. Some mushrooms and nutritional yeast. I thought fiber flushed the gastrointestinal tract. In some ways it does, but it also coats the colon wall. The standard…

September 25, 2024

Other thoughts after knee surgery

Other thoughts after knee surgery

Amazing results and gratitude I walked back from surgery. To clarify: I walked two-and-a-half miles on the knee they did surgery on a couple hours after they did it. Years ago I would never have imagined it possible. Now I know it's normal, but experiencing it hits more viscerally than hearing about it from friends. Recovery will take weeks or months, but it seems little given what they did. I feel gratitude to the surgeon, his team, and modern medicine. Waste As usual, a lot of unnecessary waste was produced. Many things that could have been cleaned and reused were disposable. The nurse insisted I use things like their disposable socks that, when I didn't use them, were no problem. How much else disposable was…

August 24, 2024

Resting heart rate: 44 beats per minute*

Resting heart rate: 44 beats per minute*

My latest pulse measured at a hospital was yesterday: 44 bpm, but with an asterisk since I had just had knee surgery under general anesthesia, so who knows what drugs were affecting me. On the other hand, maybe it was just because I had been lying still for a couple hours. My pulse is the number in the upper right corner. My blood pressure was 111 over 79, which a search says is normal. The next challenge is doing burpees with my knee bandaged until the swelling passes. I handled yesterday's evening burpees by doing them in the morning. Yesterday was also a lifting day, so that morning I did my full lifting routine and both sets of calisthenics before the work day began. I…

August 23, 2024

“There’s no food here, just vegetables.”

Addiction / Fitness

“There’s no food here, just vegetables.”

This post may look like it's about poor people and free food but it's about our culture. I've heard this quote several times at the community fridge where I volunteer: "There's no food here, just vegetables." I help deliver a lot of vegetables from the farmers market. People coming to get free food tend to prefer pre-made meals and doof. I recommend reflecting on what the statement means and implies. It's said when people are crowding the fridge and cupboard trying to find what they want, seeing that there's a lot on the shelves, but it's fresh vegetables, which they don't want. The community norm is to consider fresh vegetables not food. It's tempting, especially for liberals, to say someone who isn't homeless doesn't understand…

August 14, 2024

On considering when to decrease my daily exercises started over a decade ago, now in my 50s

Choosing/Decision-Making / Exercises / Fitness / Habits / SIDCHAs

On considering when to decrease my daily exercises started over a decade ago, now in my 50s

I've meant to write this post for years. It may be the longest past due. Why? Because it relates to many parts of my life and involves decisions that will affect me the rest of my life. I'll stick with the basics to put the main thoughts on paper, so to speak. When I started doing burpees daily, it was ten a day for thirty days with a friend in 2011. I didn't expect to continue them daily for an indefinite period. Within those thirty days, the value of an exercise needing no equipment, spotter, etc that exercised much of my body became clear. I knew two conflicting things: practice would enable me to increase but aging would lead me to decrease. In the years…

August 3, 2024

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