health

I have been fortunate to be around some great minds in my young life, minds much more methodical and academic than I.  From these people I take what I can and what seems applicable to my job, as well as attempt to better my knowledge on my own. I am not an expert in any topic that I use daily for my job but I feel for the community I am apart I have a wide array of abilities to help people to become healthier. I give away a lot of free advice which should or should not be paid for. That is a topic for another day, but I feel that many in Crossfit gyms take for granted what some trainers know and have the ability to do. This is where the problem lies, most do not take advice, nor do they feel like they should listen. They all know everything, right? Right.

First we need to define health. Websters defines health as the general condition of the body or mind with reference to soundness and vigor

I believe one should be a bit more holistic. It is too easy to get caught up in the rush hour of life with work, stock market, politics, petty differences between people, and things that matter not in the long run.  When is the last time you woke up and turned your phone on/checked your phone 10 minutes later because you wanted to catch the still of the morning and smell of your morning coffee? 

How often do you say to yourself that you have to workout extra because you ate extra? Do you skip sleep to go workout? 

When was the last workout you had, where the goal was to train your mind and not your body?

Health and Wealth in our society seem to be so synonymous. I find this disturbing. Sure, I hope all to have a roof over the head, live in a safe place, and eat quality foods to ensure their life is one of health, not wealth.  Health is waking up refreshed, enjoying your job, and getting out of the day what you wanted instead of trying to get it over with so you can wake up tomorrow and get it over with  again so you can get to Saturday to enjoy your day. 

When was the last time you looked in the mirror at yourself and were completely happy? Do you have people in your life that are quality (quality meaning that you will not make excuses to put them on that list)? How long have you said "I want to loose 15 pounds" or said other people are stronger or leaner than I because of …excuses excuses excuses. Make the change. That change is listening to your coaches, but that starts inside you.

In my opinion, the thing that halts any type of health we are hoping to gain, is stress. Stress is not something we relate to problems at work (even though that is true), but stress is anytime where our cortisol levels are elevated, the fight or flight response hormone. Problems at work, stress. Problems with relationships, stress. Having kids, stress. Moving, stress. Starting a new job, stress. Going for a new one rep max deadlift, stress. Stress, again, is anything that elevates our cortisol. The problem with most people is that regardless of what is going on in their life, bad or good, they decide to come to my gym and attempt to put out full effort. "I have been sleeping awful lately", so they decide to come to the gym and add more stress. "I had a fight with my significant other so I decided to come to the gym." "I drank too much last night, so I decided to come to the gym." None of these are positive excuses to come in and add more stress to your life. Yes coming to my gym and putting out effort for an hour is stressful. 

Our minds and bodies can only handle so much of it. Think of it as a bucket. If we add stress from our job, our relationships, traffic, eating healthy, our team loosing on Monday night, a friend dying, and then adding on any type of training you want to accomplish at the gym there will be a point where that stress spills over and we crash. We have a meltdown. In some people this can be incredibly serious. This is overreaching, overtraining, or adrenal fatigue.

Hormones play a massive role in our health. Insulin and Cortisol are incredibly powerful and have so much to do with our ability to lift heavy weight, sleep well, feel good, and be lean. Cortisol is secreted by the adrenal cortex whenever our mind is stimulated to be a bit more alert (deadlifts, fights, powerful dreams, negative talks at work). A bit of cortisol is fine, and is needed, however whenever it is elevated too often it inhibits our ability to sleep properly, supresses our immune system, and elevates a blood sugar (which can be lethal) where the hormone insulin comes in and pushes that blood sugar out (into cells). As you can see, if we elevate our cortisol too often our immune system will not work properly (in addition to adding so much stress it will not be able to cope with all the negative chemical reactions in our body), we will not sleep where our ability to recover through our immune system takes place, and then we will have elevated blood sugar where insulin spikes. 

Insulin is the reason why our body stores fat. It is a storage hormone, and when we eat food, mostly carbohydrate of any kind, our blood sugar elevates depending on the density of the carb source. Here the problem lies in our society. We are fat and sick all the time, and we attempt to have more chemicals and drugs fix this. If we constantly are stressed with elevated cortisol levels, we cannot cope with it because of our immune system and lack of sleep as well as having continually high blood sugar. If we eat horrible processed foods our blood sugar will be constantly elevated in addition to the cortisol blood sugar, which will require insulin spikes far too often, which stores fat on our body, way too often. 

Now that you know what hormones do to our body, I will tell you why calories in and calories out are not what you think. I had a member ask me today what I cheated with over the weekend. (since we ran into each other at the grocery store and I glanced and possibly commented on her shopping cart : ) ). I said I had tacos, chips and salsa, and beers Saturday. I had some pancakes on Sunday (this is NOT what I normally eat, but I felt the need). She was appalled and then asked what extra workouts did I do in the gym to fix that? Absolutely nothing. I lift weights, I run, I row, I jump, and I do things heavy and fast, typically heavier and faster than the average person. I have more muscle than the average person and because of this, as I sit here and eat my dinner and watch monday night football, I am burning calories. You on the other hand who did your 30' of stair master today and curls and calf extensions are not. You are storing fat, I am burning it. The reason for that? Muscle burns calories, more muscle, more calories burned. To have high levels of muscle, we need to practice the major lifts; cleans, snatches, deadlifts, presses, jerks, and rows. These 'coincidentally' have the highest hormonal response on our body. It requires a bit of 'everything' to deadlift 2.5x your body weight. Squat twice your body weight, or run a 6 minute mile at 200 pounds. 

2,000 calories are not 2,000 calories. If I ate 2,000 calories of broccoli and you ate 2,000 of white table sugar do you think that our body would look the same? Would we sleep the same? Absolutely not, so why are we a calorie counting nation, when will we realize the importance of insulin and cortisol?

Our hormones have a powerful ability to build is up, at the same time have that same ability to break us down. Once broke down, it is too late. Sleeping improperly, being irritable, having weird food cravings, lack of sex drive are all signs of on the way of being broken down. What is life without proper sleep and waking up feeling well? What is life being angry all the time and eating fake foods (processed, nastiness), and what is life without sex? What is health without these things? 

Knowing what stress does to our body, why do members in my gym always want to do more? Why do they always want to long met cons which levels our bodies with high levels of cortisol? When they wake up tired, sore, and mentally beat down, why do they think the answer is more? The answer is they need more intensity. Last friday, at my gym part of the day (the main part) was devoted to a 10' work capacity test, it was simple. 10 minutes on the air dyne, attempting to gain 300 calories. It is the worse activity I have ever attempted, for you cross fitters, Fran feels like a warm up compared to this. I have done it twice, and last time I almost started crying during it. After it, I layed on the ground for I do not know how long trying to regain my center. Too many of my members simply got off the bike, walked to the board and wrote their score. It was amazing, in the worse kind of way. The thing they lacked was intensity, they lacked the ability to mentally produce any type of urgency to get the task at hand done. Anybody who did the challenge correctly felt the need to do nothing after their 10 minutes of 'riding a bike'. FIGURE IT OUT.

10 things to become healthier.

1. Sleep

2. Eat Meat, vegetables, olives (oil), coconut (oil), avocados, eggs, some fruit and starch (gluten free oats, potatoes), and no sugar or processed food.

3. Do activites that bring you happiness. Read, meditate, go to the beach, play basketball, anything that restores your mind.

4. Take vitamin D, C, b-complex, and panothenic acid (b5), and some type of fish oil

5. Love

6. Laugh

7. 2 days of cardio based exercise (hike, run, row, swim, bike) and 2 days of heavy lifting (squats, presses, pulls, etc)

8. Take time to rest while awake. Take 10 minutes at lunch before you go back to work to sit in silence, sit in the sun, in a park. Sit in quiet.

9. Listen to your body, I know you are tough, but when you are sick and tired, your body is telling you something.

10. Educate yourself on all things you find interesting. 

9/11

I rarely cry. Not because I am unemotional or lack feelings, but I just somehow don't allow my tear ducts to water up. Sure I get sad, have bad days, feel like everything is going the wrong way but somehow pull it together enough to not tear up. That is not to say that tearing up is bad, we all just have ways of dealing with stress, emotions. Some cry, some alienate, some drink, I like to life semi-heavy things : ) 

I will cry tomorrow. I don't know why, and can't really pinpoint the emotion but, September 11th brings about a tenderness that I rarely have. 

If you have not heard the story of the Sheep, the Wolf, and the Sheepdog check it out, its a good little story. I feel that it depicts much if not all of our society. Most of us are sheep. We go about our business and try to lead a decent life hopefully living for the right things (good people, fun times, bettering ourselves). However sheep are harmless, we are incapable of wanting to hurt somebody and in those regards, cannot do harm unless by accident. Then there are wolves. Wolves feed on the sheep, without pity. They see the sheep and understand their gentleness, they know of their lack of capability to produce violence, therefore feed. Then there are the few who are sheepdogs, who mentally possess the notion of violence and kindness at the same time. They have a bit of wolf in them but are more sheep than anything. The sheep never know when it is coming, they never have a clue. They sleep better at night having sheepdogs who are slightly violent, a bit of wolf in them, walk around unknowingly, bust most of all willing. 

When the sheepdog is asleep, the wolf feeds on the sheep. 

September 11th, 2001 was a feeding. Such a feeding that it compares to December 7th, 1941, if not supersedes it. Nearly 3,000 sheep died because of what the wolf, Osama Bin Laden ordered on 9/11. The main wolf let loose the ignorant, supposed martyr wolves which led to the largest attack on American soil.  

We get up everyday, typically to an alarm clock, which we hate and drive to work, which we typically hate. We focus on the negatives and how early it is or how we would rather be sleeping, or doing pretty much anything else. I do it often, too often. Life can be a beautiful thing if you look through eyes that are attempting to be beautiful. Imagine waking up and hating your alarm, being upset that your coffee took a little longer than expected to receive, or that you had to eat your healthy breakfast again because you feel that you are 10 pounds overweight which consumes your mind everyday making you miserable. Imagine that is your typical day and you go to work and find out upon arriving that it's your last, maybe even your last hour on this earth. Well spent? I hope not. That happened for many New Yorkers. That happened to many families in New York. Death does not affect just the deceased, it affects the people that they inspire, love, and care for.  

Almost 3,000 people woke up that disastrous day in September, 2001 not knowing that it'd be their last.  Waking up to my clock radio with reports of a building being blown up left me puzzled, but seeing live the 2nd building being hit left me speechless. To this day it has left my speechless. 

I was 15 when 9/11 happened and really could not comprehend it but in 2004 I saw a HBO documentary titled '9 Innings from ground zero'. It told a story of families and people in the city and how they dealt with the attacks. Some people in the documentary had family members in the towers, or others were just New Yorkers dealing with the injustice put on them on that day. The common thread between everyone is baseball, yankee baseball to be more specific. Yes, the yankees are the evil empire, however the things that they did for that city; the people hugged, the houses visited, and minds put on hold for just a bit to forget the atrocious acts are things of legends. The visits to firehouses, to houses of 3rd graders who lost their dad on a flight, or to a grown man contemplating suicide because of his brothers death in a tower. The common feeling of patriotism at the yankee games in late 2001 were what got the people of New York through the hard times. The chants of USA on a nightly basis, wearing flags around town, and players from all nationalities running onto the field with flags of the stars and stripes was a thing of pride, is still a thing of pride as I have watched the documentary everyday on 9/11 since 2004. Where has this gone? Where has the random hug of a neighbor, and salute to the 50 stars on our flag, or the emotional pick up of a stranger gone? (If you have not seen this, please seek it and watch it, it is truly amazing)

Life is bigger than me, it is bigger than you, and its certainly bigger than our daily problems that bring us down. I take the attacks on the towers personal, I do not know why but knowing and attempting to comprehend 2,500+ being killed for fanatical reasons that have no stage in a rational mind is not ok with me. I hope it is not ok with you, and the 11th of September is a reminder how fragile life can be, how short life can be. At any instant we can be taken, worse for us personally, someone we love could be taken. Do not go by tomorrow without taking in fresh air, hugging the people that you care about, or recognizing that you are still on this earth and people just as good as you were taken for no reason at all. 

I look at the flag differently, just as I look at 747's differently. The day changed me forever, and will never forget where I was. Innocent people were taken, sheep were fed on and massacred. This is not ok, and never will be ok. A flame will always burn in my heart for the victims, as well as a flame of disgust for wolves. Be in the moment and cherish the little things, because one day that external flame will be gone regardless of what side you are on.

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