Fitness

I turn down foods with added sugar, refined oil, and alcohol than ever. People seem to assume there's some morality behind it. While I avoid packaging, there's a more visceral motivation behind them. It's about laziness, as I'll explain. Various changes to my diet have led to losing unwanted body fat. When I started these changes, a few years ago, in my 40s, I got definition on my abs that I never had before, and I've been athletic since high school. I love that the changes took no effort, just changing my diet. I couldn't have anticipated how good fitness would feel. It's part of what drives my fitness sidchas. You can call me vain for liking how I look in the mirror, and I…

I'm traveling and ate at a restaurant. Nothing special, a vegetarian Thai place in Ventura, California. The food tasted sweet and felt slightly sticky. After I finished, I asked the waitress if they added sugar. The answer was yes, but she didn't have the courage to answer directly. She said something like, "they might have added something." I didn't want sugar added. I realize I live in a world where people eat so much sugar that sweetened things don't taste sweetened to them since they're so used to it, which probably contributes to the world's growing obesity rates. Restaurants probably feel they'd lose business without sweetening their food. I feel violated by the restaurant for sneaking unhealthy additives that may increase sales but worsen my…

Cardiovascular means of or related to the heart and blood vessels. We call "cardiovascular" exercises like jogging, swimming, rowing, elliptical, and others that don't stress any one muscle or group too much so we can do it long enough to burn a lot of calories. People associate so-called cardiovascular exercise with losing weight. I'll grant that those exercises can burn through a lot of calories. I've come to doubt their effectiveness at developing the heart, lung, and respiratory system effectively---not to say they hurt, but I don't think they help as much as people think. Building muscle usually requires stressing it. To build biceps, for example, you have to make your biceps exert as much force as they can. While not the only way, lifting…

In June I measured my heart rate at 45 beats per minute with an app, which said I was off the charts for a 46-year-old male. Since then I'd measured a few times and repeated the results. I also turned 47. I measured when I wasn't moving around but Harvard Medical School wrote, "The American Heart Association recommends checking your resting heart rate first thing in the morning (but before you get out of bed)." This morning I woke up before the alarm, got up, got the phone, lay back down and checked my pulse: I guess it might have been lower if I hadn't gotten up and crossed the room and back. The screen showed 39 beats per minute while it was reading, which…

(I'll probably get in trouble for this post. Only read if you take responsibility for the consequences.) Every performance field makes a big deal of failure. Look it up. Fail big! Fail fast! Failure is how we learn! Fail! Fail! Fail! I typed "You should fail" into duckduckgo and the top responses were: "8 Reasons Why You Should Fail As Much As You Can" "Why You Should Fail" "This is Why You Should Fail | Will Smith" "You Should Fail, And Fail As Often As You Can" I agree. I don't think of failure as the old mainstream definition. Failure is a learning experience. If you never fail, you'll never know or reach your potential. I could go on but you can search the web…