Indoor Fun

Free Standing Portable Pull Up Bar - Review

A couple of years ago, after I ditched the gym and started lifting outside at playgrounds, I knew the time would come when I would have to take my fun indoors.  The in my flat kind of indoors.

Nice concept ... but

The backbone of my workouts consist of Pull ups, Push ups, and Dips.  Push ups - no problem.  Dips - I could use two wooden chairs.  Pull ups, however, presented more of a problem.  Unfortunately, there just aren't any nice pipes or rafters around this joint.  Also unfortunately, the Pull up bar that I did own (see pic.) didn't work in this particular flat.  You need solid door jams for this little baby ... and I wouldn't exactly call the construction in this place solid.   So I began to search for a sturdy indoor Pull up bar.  And since I live in a studio, I needed one that didn't take up much space, or better yet, was portable.

The good news was, with my search criteria, only one unit on the market fit the bill.  The bad news was, with my search criteria, only one unit on the market fit the bill.  I suppose, at least, it made my decision fairly easy.

Fits right under the bed

Now, with the high cost of the thing (250), a person living in a normal community might have to take into consideration local gym fees and figure a break even point and all.  Here in Aspen, not so much ... that's only a fraction of a yearly gym membership in our little slice of Paradise.  So my only real concern was if it was going to be sturdy enough.

In a nutshell.  I like it and it  works well.  The whole unit is real quick and easy to set up and tear down.  There are pin holes to adjust the height of the bar vertically, thusly accommodating smaller and taller individuals.  It can also be put at half height (see below) for Dips and non full body weight Pull ups, which I do sometimes when I decrease my rep speed.  I did make a few tweaks with the thing, but overall I'm very happy with the purchase and get a lot of use out of it.  Now some details:

Mojo Grip

Grips.  The metal bar was a bit smooth for my taste.  My solution was to take some punctured bicycle inner tubes and put them to good use.  They're just attached with Duct tape.   Easy peasy.

Half Height

Sandbags.  As you can see, I place 4 sandbags on the 2 base units.  This does two things:  First, it makes it much easier to set up.  Second, it makes it much sturdier.  I know what you're thinking ... what a bother.  And I can see your point.  But seriously, if I didn't figure out a way for the sandbags to be cheap and easy to use, I wouldn't fiddle with them.  They're not critical, but they do make the 'feel' much more stable.  The bags were like 4 bucks, and the sand is on loan from the closest sandtrap of the golf course that I happen to live next to.  They're roughly 30 lbs and stack onto one another by the door when not in use.  Another easy peasy.

The bar hits my chest

   
Dips.  Although the perpendicular handles are meant for dipping, I find that my chest bumps into the bar before I fully 'bottom out' (see pic).  Barely.  But annoying nonetheless.  And turning around, my back hits the bar.  Still, sometimes I use it for Dips and sometimes I just use two chairs.  I actually use these perpendicular 'handles' for Pull ups as well, making them much more shoulder-centric.  Nice.





Dip Hack.  I came up with this configurations to get the full feature of Dips.  Those are milk crates for bracing.  I feel safer using this set up when doing weighted Dips than if I were to use the chairs.

I also wanted to use this picture for the 'outside of the box' thinking that it shows.  I've loosely termed it 'playground eyes'.  Once you start working out at a playground, you look at features differently.  Can I do a Pull up off of that?  What about if I used those?  Or how about if I was upside down?  It's kinda cool.  That's how I came up with the milk crate thing ... I was just thinking, how can I make this work?  Same thing with the sandbags.  I suppose part of it is that I'm just a tinkerer also.  And apparently a rambler as well - one more thing though.



Free weights.  I do have a small set of free weights that I use on occasion, depending on how I feel.  No bench, or rack, or Smith Machine or anything.  Just a small amount of weights that I received way back on my 16th birthday.

Remember, it's not about how much you lift, it's how you lift it!

Pineapple Power

O.I.A. IV

Makes you want to smile!

Looks like the Maui Ski Bus made it to the X Games.  As you can clearly see on the back, it's powered by Pineapple Juice.  I believe that makes it kinda Paleo. 

Actually, you'd think if they had the foresight to see that they might (head scratch) have to take the Bus off of Maui to do some skiing, they would've picked a less expensive citrus fruit to run it on.  And perhaps one that didn't have to ship half way across the Pacific Ocean.

Oh well, maybe next time.

What If ...

What if eating red meat and saturated fat was thought of as healthy by most people?

What if eating grains, seed oils and lots of sugar was thought to be unhealthy?

What if grocery stores stocked far fewer pre packaged, fake foods solely designed for palatibility and shelf life ? (Looking at you Hostess)

What if we instead shopped at small mom and pop stores that carried seasonal, locally produced goods and items?

What if the Government didn't subsidize Big Agriculture, artificially keeping the price of grains and sugar low?  And they consequently got out of the business of telling us what constitutes a healthy diet (food plate, pyramid, what have you).

What if people didn't watch so much television and spend so much time on computers and smart phones?

What if we instead spent more time with our families, our neighbors, our friends - and we became more involved with our community?

What if we concentrated on ensuring that everybody had access to quality food and had a roof over their head?

What if more than 10% of the health care budget was spent on prevention?

Hmmmm ...What If ?

What if we swapped the budgets for Education and Defense?

What if the standard 40 hour work week was scaled back so people had more time to invest in some of these ideas?

Would we then become France?

Seriously though, I could go on and on with the What if's here.  We sure do face a lot of obstacles in our society today, our whole World even.  Way more than any one person could not only hope to solve, but perhaps could even contemplate.  Kind of mind numbing actually.  So does that mean we should forget about it all and just carry on our merry little way?  I don't think so.

I have an idea.  Recall my post on Master the Moment?  That was about exploring the art of focus during intense exercise.  Let's take this focus and begin to apply it in our everyday actions.  In our actions with our families.  In our actions with others in our community.  In our actions at work.  The more focused we are, the more engaged we become.  The more engaged we become, the better we are at making decisions to benefit ourselves and our society.

Unfortunately, like the mindless wandering that occurs daily on elliptical machines and treadmills throughout the World, non-engagement happens all to often.  We merely go through the motions of our jobs, of talking to people, of shopping for groceries.  We go through the motions, but we are not engaged.  We have become Zombies with short attention spans.

Fortunately, each of us has an amazing piece of gray matter between our ears.  Let's use it a wee bit more often and see if we can make this World a better place to live ... one focused moment at a time.

Can you Ear Me ?

I've been thinking about ear wax tonight (yes, yes ... I need to get out more often).  Without even looking up exactly what it is and what it does, I think it's fairly obvious what to do with the stuff, especially when you view it through the Paleo prism:  Leave it Alone!

Kind of a no brainer if you consider it.  Our ancestors likely didn't try picking it out of their ears.  And if it blocked their hearing or affected their balance, they would've been at a major disadvantage.  I suspect it's meant to work its way out all by itself.  Likely cleaning the ear and protecting it all in the same shot.

So why do we in Western Culture like to poke little cotton sticks into our ears then?  To clean the wax out?  Well, isn't the wax itself cleaning our ears out?  Aren't we more than likely just packing or pushing the wax down, possibly setting up to make things worse?

Why do I even think about these things?  Actually, it crossed my mind because I've been taking a break from wearing ear plugs every night, which I've done for years now (silence is truly golden at night if you can get away with it).  But mulling it over, I though I'd give my ears a break.  Not only from the plugs, but also from cotton swabs and music ear buds.  I'm going to let the wax work its way out and see if my head explodes or something.  Seems strange, but looking back, I don't think there's really been a time when I've gone more than a week or two without sticking something into my ears to clean them out.  If nothing else, it should be interesting to see what it feels like.

This also got me to thinking about a couple of other 'grooming' techniques we use today that are a novelty in the scheme of things:  Nail clipping and hair cutting.  Now, I don't plan to experiment with stopping either of these, but I don't think Paleolithic people had Barber Shops or nail clippers.  Hair and nails would probably just 'wear' down from everyday use.  I'm guessing that to be the case anyway.

Well, nothing like taking my brain for a spin around the the Block of Useless Thought.  I'm off to bed ... hopefully to dream about stuff a little more interesting.

WATT ?

 O.I.A. III

Anybody else have a 1.1 Gigawatt Snow Super-Pipe lighting up their front window like a $800 Xmas tree?  Anybody?

Hey Buddy, got a light?

Every time they flip the switch on that thing my circuit breaker flips.  Just kidding.  I think they have like a dozen semi trucks with nothing but generators on them just to power the lights, Jumbotron screens, heaters, outdoor Yakitori grills and whatever the heck else one needs to put on the Winter X games. 

Recession?  Ah, its Aspen ... why the hell not.

Keep it Under Control

In the last post I stated that I believe you should keep your mind focused when you're lifting and sprinting hard.  It is also my opinion that you should keep your body in control in these situations as well.  What do I mean?

No Herky-Jerky is what I mean.  I guess bodybuilding types would call it 'cheating' or cheat reps.  Basically - twisting, leaning, or otherwise contorting your body to leverage an advantage so that you can squeeze out another rep or move past a sticking point.  Oh, this works all right.  Been there and done that.  You can certainly pump out another bicep curl or pull up if you angle it right ... but why?  Why take on the increased risk of injury for another rep or two when you can climb that hill with safer alternatives?  Because it looks cool in the gym?  Well, if that's you, then I'm not going to be the one to convince you to change your ways, just don't come crying to me when you injure yourself trying to look all macho.

The great thing is, we can reap the benefits we need from lifting and sprinting hard, without taking on undue risk of injury.  But don't let me have you thinking that by lowering the injury risk we're at the same time lowering the intensity level.  Oh no.  The intensity must still stay high.  And I'd even say that as you get better at this stuff, you'll learn to safely increase your intensity level ... little by little.  This is partly where the mental focus comes in that I talked about in the last post.  Learning to listen to your body is so key ... I know I keep harping on this in my blog, but it truly is important in all that you do.

Pack Full of Plates

When I first ditched the gym a couple of years ago, I was worried about not having enough 'weight' to do the heavy lifting I was used to.  I'm fairly strong and knew that if I wanted to keep things in the 7-10 rep range as I did at the gym, I would somehow need to add weight.  I decided it might be healthier to do that by stuffing a backpack full of weights rather than by stuffing myself full of donuts.  So enter the backpack full of weights.  A brilliant idea actually.  And in itself not dangerous, but as you can guess by the title of this post, I started to let things get a little out of control.  I started to play a numbers game by counting how much weight I could pile into the pack and how may reps I could do ... always trying to climb higher and higher.  Now wait a minute you may be thinking ... isn't that the idea of getting stronger, by slowly making progress.  Sure.  Nothing against progress.  Nothing against tracking numbers for that matter.  But what I'm preaching here is to be careful if you go down this path.  Be careful that 'playing' the numbers doesn't become more important than listening to your body and how it is reacting.  The weight in and of itself is not important ... working really hard and fatiguing your muscles is the goal.

I remember occasionally getting anxious before workouts, sometimes even taking coffee (which I don't like) in order to psyche myself up so I could hit the weight and reps that were next in line.  Again, nothing wrong with trying to do your best, but when I 'knew' that I had to get one more rep than last week, or put 5 more pounds in the bag and complete X amount of reps, I was setting myself up for injury.  Instead of focusing on muscle failure, I was focusing on numbers.

Luckily, I didn't have some catastrophic injury or anything.  My problems came about when I tried to use my whole body to squeeze out that last, or extra repetition.  Every other month or so, I would tweak my neck by doing this.  Not bad enough to stop lifting (if it was, I wouldn't have continued by the way, I'm not a masochist).  Just degrees of uncomfort when I would turn my head side to side.  And then there was that one time I just reached for something at work and my upper back tweaked out.  It definitely wasn't from the reach.  I had set up for that injury from heavy weighted pull ups earlier in the day.  But like I said, it wasn't the 'heavy' part that did it.  It was the herk-jerky bounce, kick, or what have you, to get that last rep out. 

Now when I work out, I focus on failure.  If I don't happen to feel as good this week as I did the one prior, that's okay because I'm not chasing numbers.  I will still reach failure.  Whether I use slow reps, static holds, extra weights or some combo of all of those, I know I will reach muscular failure.  That itself takes a load off my mind heading into my workouts.  And for those of you who think this sounds all sissy like and that the only real way to know if you're progressing is to look at the numbers ... I say that you don't know how to listen to your body properly.  Touche!  If you are paying attention, you will damn well know if you are making progress or not - or worse, over training.  

So my point here is to keep it under control.  Focus on controlling the weight during your repetition. Focus on reaching muscular failure.  Whether that be via a machine in the gym, or a pull up or dip outside.  And it doesn't matter if you're using moderate rep speeds or going very slowly ... Keep It Under Control.

Master the Moment

Mastery just sounds cool doesn't it?  The word itself conjures up the ideas of respect and commitment.  We should honor and be humbled by all those who make the effort to become the Master of something right?  Well then, take a bow.  If you're embarking on or living this Primal Lifestyle, then you're striving to become the Master of your own body.  You're learning to focus on what makes it tick.  How it reacts to various foods, different stressors, and an assortment of movement and exercise patterns.  Paying attention to how much sleep you need, how much recovery is best for you and how much time you spend outside in the Sun and fresh air.  There is a lot to listen to if you have the patience.  And nobody else is going to do it for you.  You are the only one who can dial in and process all of this information and feedback and use it to become healthier ... to become the Master of your own body.

A great place to begin listening to your body and practice mastery is during those moments you're working hard - when you're lifting and sprinting.  Specifically, during the exact time when you're under load.   If you're following a general High Intensity lifting protocall or sprinting hard, your time under load (or moment) is minimal.  As in not a lot.  Like 20 minutes or so a week.  Maybe less depending on how you tackle it.  And it's not all at once.  My point here is that in the scheme of your total time for the week, your time under load is negligible.  So this makes for a great opportunity to really tune into your body.  Focus in on your muscles as they fatigue from the load.  Focus on your leg turnover, arm drive and core strength as you sprint.  Focus on what your body feels like when it is working really hard.  Concentrate on the connection between your mind and your body.  

Your thoughts should not be wandering about during these intense moments.  You should be paying close attention to your body's internal ques.  Mentally, this is basically the opposite of what it takes to complete a marathon, or any endurance event for that matter.  In these situations, people have to play mind games or figure out tricks to keep themselves moving along.  Maybe here and there they listen to their body, but as a percentage of time, this is usually minimal.  Especially when they're just training as opposed to competing.  I've heard people say that they enjoy this time as they can let their mind wander and unwind.  That's nice.  That's what sleep is for people.  Or maybe ditching the chronic cardio and saving yourself a boatload of time you can spend more precious moments with loved ones or accomplish something you've been meaning to finish.  Let your mind wander ... sheesh.  Most people seem to spend no shortage of time doing that.  I think the World needs a little more focus actually.  I'm not talking 24/7 its on like Donkey Kong intense-focus stuff.  Just more time tuning in.  Okay then, moving right along.

Focus Grasshopper!

Another reason time under load is a great place to really focus, is for safety purposes.  The more closely you're paying attention to how your body is reacting in these situations, the easier it's going to be to avoid injury.  Think of it this way, are you more likely to make a mistake or do something stupid when you're really focused or when your mind is on another planet.  Enough said.
 

In these moments when we have laser like focus between our mind and our body, we're in an exponential learning zone.  Every little detail of how our body is working and responding is magnified.  The time we spend in this area is critical along our path to mastery.  What we learn about ourselves here gives us a path to move forward.  A path to discover our limitations and, more importantly, our possibilities.

Becoming the Master of  your own body is a process.  A journey.  An experience.  It is not about conquering your body or making it become bulletproof.  It is about listening.  Playing.  Working hard.  And everything in between.  It's about exploring who you are and who you want to be.  It is about being ALIVE.  And it is a quest that is never ending.

Free Soup

This weekend is the 61st Winterskol Celebration here in Aspen.  It's an annual Winter Festival we have that features various events throughout town.  Last evening was Soupskol.  This is where they block off two streets downtown, set up 30 stalls for restaurants and retailers to serve from and, well, its Free Soup for all.  I helped our Chef again at this years event.  So that means I basically stood there in the freezing cold, ladling out 25 gallons of soup, 2 ounces at a time, for 2 hours.  Its all good though.  It was quite fun with everybody in good spirits (wouldn't you be with free soup for dinner).  And the soups are quite tasty as this is essentially advertising for the participants in the event - they want to make sure they have some quality product.

don't eat meat

We served a Ham Tomatillo soup, which I labeled as Porkalicious.  Pretty good stuff.  Anyway, today I was talking to a customer at the store about the event last night and we were going on about how nice it was and all ... and then as if on que, she whispered at the end of our conversation 'I won't tell anybody you were serving a soup with meat in it'.  Sigggh.  As I mentioned just a couple of posts ago, people just assume you're a vegetarian if they think of you as healthy (at least this certainly happens to me often enough).  I just politely told her I eat plenty of meat and left it at that.

People get pretty creative with the white stuff

Not an hour later I was walking around town checking out the snow sculptures and ran into another customer from the store.  His first question was 'Are you still running a lot?'  Now, I don't know this guy.  I see him at the store occasionally and he has obviously seen me running around town in years past.  So I told him that, no, actually, I don't run anymore... I do sprints instead.  And that in fact I had just done some this very morning.  He was all ears and at the end of our brief encounter he stated:  'I'm pumped up, I'm going to do some sprints'. 

One more funny tidbid.  I was having lunch down in the break room yesterday and one of the big honcho's from the store came in to join us (never seen him down there before).  And guess what?  He had an avocado, sardines, and some nuts.  Want to take a stab at what I was having for lunch?  He had no doubt seen me grabbing my lunch and was inspired to try it.  This is not the first time this has happened to me either.

There are fireworks on the mountain tonight

I suppose the take home message here is that people take notice if they think you're healthy and wonder what it is that you do.  Sometimes they have preconceived notions of healthy (vegetarian, cardio running, etc) and sometimes you surprise them.  Now, I'm not even going to get into the whole train of though on how it's a bad idea to just emulate people you think are healthy (especially professional athletes by the way) and just leave you with an idea:  Lead by example.  People are indeed watching.

Tough Guy

If you've read my blog thus far you know that I usually go out of my way to make the point of our individual uniqueness.  I go on about how we're all different and how you should listen to your own body and do what is right for your situation.  Well, that's all good and true, but it's not a pass for you to skip on making hard decisions about what it is you ultimately want to achieve health wise, and face up to the reality that this will involve some tough physical and mental work on your part. 

Tough Guy eh?

We're fortunate that we can, for the most part, pick and choose our food and activities.  And that's nice, but I think it makes our everyday lives too easy in a sense.  You say you don't like the taste of liver or heart?  Well guess what, your body sure likes it.  You don't want to sprint or lift intensely?  Hey, you don't have to.  It may or may not make you live longer or become faster or stronger.  But it sure gives your body the opportunity to do so.  Am I talking about going to your local Zoo, jumping some fences, and seeing if you can outrun a Cheetah?  No.  I'm just talking about working hard sometimes.  I like doing my sprints twice a week, but if you think I've got a smile on my face and I'm whistling Dixie as I take off down the Launching Pad, you've got another thing coming.  It's friggin hard work.  What I dig about it though, is that it's quick, safe and effective.  I bang em out and I'm on with the rest of my life.  I count my lucky stars that the quality of my sprints or high intensity lifting doesn't influence whether I will eat or be eaten.  But that doesn't mean I don't work hard.

Same thing with food.  There may be bickering in the Paleosphere about what is the healthiest of fare, but we know for sure that the majority of the stuff you find in a grocery store is garbage.  So just stay away from it most of the time.  Pick fresh foods instead.  It's really not that confusing.  Oh, you can way over think this stuff (and I'm as guilty as anybody in this realm) but don't bust your base diet over a few optimization parameters.  Or not work hard physically because you don't know if it's better to do Pullovers or Pullups ... or at what presise speed to do them.  Just do yourself some hard work - in as safe and simple a context as you can figure out.

And figuring it out is the hard part mentally.  You don't have to sift through all of the Scientific literature or anything, you just have to do some reading, see what makes sense to you, and then go try stuff out.  Begin to put together the pieces of what it takes to make yourself healthier.  It will probably seem challenging because it is.  But you know what?  Nobody is going to do it for you.

Alrighty then, how did my little tough guy act come over?  I'm probably preaching to the choir if you're reading this particular blog, but I know there are people out there who just want to take the easy path or make excuses, and then are mad at themselves for not getting the results they want.

So, what are you going to do to toughen up today?

Pocket Chocolate

I'm going to let you in on a little secret ... On most days, if you were to reach into one of my back pockets at about 11 am, you would find yourself some tasty dark chocolate.  It's in there warming up, getting ready for me to devour it after lunch.  You see, dark chocolate is more flavorful at a slightly warm temperature.  And as I've figured out, in your back pocket for about an hour is just perfect.  At least in my back pocket it is - your back pocket may vary.  There is one thing to be careful of though: if you're having lunch outside in the summer and your backside is in the Sun, you have to remove the chocolate.  Otherwise it'll start to melt, and that's no bueno.  And messy.

Its just one of those odd things that my strange brain has figured out.  Like eating avocados and sardines together.  Anyway, my current favorite is the bar in the picture.  Its yummy. 

I go in streaks where I eat too much of the stuff (like now), but the way I look at it, there certainly are much worse addictions.  When I slide that bar of chocolate into my pocket, a big smile comes across my face.  My lunch will have a perfect ending yet again!

Pedal Force

I took the Pedal Force for a spin yesterday.

OUTSIDE. 

It's January.  I'm in Aspen.

And I didn't dress up like an Eskimo or anything.  The conditions (including the roads) were just like a typical Spring or Fall day.

Okay, okay I know I've been doting over our extremely unusual weather the past couple of posts.  We're supposed to get 6 or so inches of snow from the system blowing through this weekend.  So maybe Winter will finally be arriving ... and I'll stop doing these dull updates.

Sound

Okay, this short post is kind of coming from left field, but that's just how my brain works.

You know how you can tell by the sound of something what it is?  Take for instance the sound of the UPS truck coming down the street.  Even if I can't see it first, I know that big brown truck is right around the corner just by it's distinct sound.  So what happens when you hear something and it's out of context?  Your brain plays tricks on you is what.  Even if its just for a moment.  I like it.

Street Sweeper

I was just sitting here at my computer and had that very experience.  I heard something and instinctively knew what it was.  But it couldn't be.  Maybe it was this other things instead ... and then, No, I knew it was the first thing and I figured out why.  For a brief moment I was very confused just by the sound of something.  No sight involved.

The pic on the right is what it was (not the actual culprit tonight).  The trick was that hearing a Street Sweeper in Aspen, in January, is like hearing a Snow Plow on the road here in July.  And the Snow Plow is what my brain thought it had to be, because it is indeed the middle of Winter.  But then my brain went, wait a minute, we don't have any snow on the roads.  A Street Sweeper in January, geesh, who woulda thunk it.

I know, kind of geeky, but it got me to thinking about sound in general.  And then more specifically about the prevalence of noise pollution in our society today.  Background noise is everywhere, especially in Urban environments.  And I think without even knowing it, this low level (and sometimes not so low level) noise can contribute to our overall stress.

Maybe this is not as critical as other things can be in our everyday lives, but it's just one more thing to think about.  Obviously it becomes more important when we're trying to sleep or perhaps concentrate, but have you considered its impact when you're eating?  I'm sure you've heard before to take time and enjoy your food.  Try not to eat when you're under stress or rushed, right?  Chew your food well, savor its flavor and smells, yada yada yada.  Well, what if you're trying to do this all while a loud conversation is going on right next to you, or you're sitting outside and there are dogs barking, and car alarms going off, and airplanes flying overhead.

I know, its not so easy to have all of your meals as picnics in the High Alps with the von Trapp family.  I wasn't trying to be depressing here.  It just got me to thinking is all.  Wouldn't it be nice if noise was the exception rather than the rule?

Consistency

Consistency is King.

I don't think you'll get too many people to argue with that statement.  At least not in terms of nutrition and fitness.  And while there are many individual components of lifestyle that you can apply consistency to, I'd like to focus on one that's not likely at the top of your radar: learning.

Jamie over at That Paleo Guy just did a brilliant blog around the notion that you have to take the time to learn how you as an individual tick ... with specific regards to nutrition and exercise.  Definitely go and read that piece over as I'm basically just going to add my two cents to it here.

The key is to continually learn about how you personally respond to what it is you're eating and how you're exercising.  And sleeping.  And how you handle stress etc, etc.  The point is, take in as much information that is feasible for your situation and then start applying what makes the most sense to you and fits your lifestyle.  There is no one size fits all approach as we all respond in different ways, and are in different places.

By consistently learning and applying, you will start to take control of your own health.  I think a lot of people initially have analysis paralysis and freak out over the subjects of nutrition and fitness.  They are convinced there is too much information, it takes too much time, and either want to give up before they even start or perhaps hire someone else to plan these things out for them.  Or read somebody's book and just follow the steps.  It may seem daunting, but you don't have to learn it all at once.  As a matter of fact, you can't learn it all at once.  This is an evolving process where we are all figuring things out together and helping each other along.

I believe the more you become a participant in the nuts and bolts of why it is you should eat this and not that, or exercise like this and not that, then the more you will become invested in your own health.  And not just the why, but how you respond to it.  Learn to listen to your body.  It takes time no doubt.  But as Jamie argues in his piece, it will pay off.  In the end you will have the information to make decisions for yourself and determine what works, what doesn't, and what you can and are willing to get away with.  It's like a big puzzle.  And if you consistently plug away at that puzzle and learn how the pieces fit together, you will be taking an enormous step toward your health freedom.

Consistency works for a lot of things in life:  Investing, Career, Relationships.  Its no different with learning how your body works.  Consistently putting in a little time and effort will reap huge rewards in how you look, feel and perform.  Your health is worth it.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year.  Is this the Last Year, or did the Mayans just run out of paper?

What?

I took the picture on the right today of the Rio Grande park next to where I work here in town.  There is something very, very strange about it.  Can you guess what it is?

Not that I'm an amateur Meteorologist or anything, but I do follow the weather here closely.  Typically, we start to see green in the Rio Grande park the first week of April.  Early would be the last week of March and if we have lots of snow, it can be as late as May.  It's the first day of the year and the whole park is essentially green.  It was white most of December and a little in November, so it has technically thawed or melted off.  Do you have any idea the set of circumstances that has to occur for us to see grass here in January?  Heck, I ate my lunch at work today outside in the courtyard without a jacket.  Amazing.  It has just been amazing weather here.  Unless you're a skier I suppose ... but I'm not.  Global warming?  Climate change?  I could care less, I'm just enjoying every minute of it.  If we always only had 3 months of winter here instead of half of the year, I would probably never want to leave.

I wish everybody a Happy and Healthy 2012!