Stop spinning your wheels

There are a lot of ways to waste time, and a lot of reasons to do it. I like to waste time on weekends, when my wife and I play hooky from household chores and go on a walk instead. In pretty much all the other areas of life, making efficient use of time is important to everyone.

Think about it. If you are a typical red-blooded American, you probably wake up at the last possible second, get ready for work, microwave some sort of hot/lean/egg/meat/cheese "pocket" or stuffed toaster pastry thing and eat it in the car on your way to work, washing it down with a cup of coffee from one of those Keurig machines that people seem to love so much. Why? Because it's fast!

Maybe you go to the gym on the way home, flip the beast mode switch because if you work out harder you don't have to work for as long, right? not seeing changes yet? You are probably missing a few pieces of the puzzle. You are spinning your wheels on that one.

People don't like to waste time. I hate wasting time. I have turned away clients who refuse to commit to at least 3 months working with me. Why? Because time is the one thing we cannot get more of. Money? Sure. Friends? Unless you're a complete asshole, yes. And so on...

I have wasted plenty of time in my life. If I think about all the unproductive conversations, relationships, and jobs I have had-commitments that have gotten me nowhere-it could give even a badass like Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry or Bruce Willis in Die Hard a panic attack.

So if you are looking for shortcuts, go get some steroids, or liposuction, or T3 shots, or a fake tan, or HGH, some Adderall to wake you up and Ambien to knock you out (F.Y.I. you might kill someone in your "sleep"). The law of action-reaction boils down to one thing: there a consequences. Take steroids, grow bitch-tits. Lipo, you might die on the table or have cottage-cheese belly. Do T3, the body will reduce production and you will have to take it forever. Adderall affects norepinephrine, dopamine and serotonin pathways in the brain, possibly leading to depression and adrenal fatigue. Although Ambien is "less likely" to get you hooked than pharmaceuticals like benzodiazepines, there are still unpleasant side effects that should be considered. Oh yeah, you rape and kill in your sleep. 

The only way to truly reduce the amount of guessing you need to do to get those results in the gym is to find out more about your body.

Exactly how much body fat are you burning when you ride the bike? Run? Walk? Lift weights?

How many calories do you need each day and from which sources?

Is your level of stress affecting the production of other hormones in the body?

When is cortisol highest in your body throughout the day?

How is your blood glucose affected by the meal you just ate?

Why do these things matter? That is too much for this blog post. I guess I'll just have to write a follow-up.

The point is: stop wring your time and find out what your options really are. With whatever you a struggling with.

If it is your weight, do that lab test I have been telling you about for the last few months. If it is stress, reduce it by using adaptogens like coleus forskholii and natural sedatives like valerian root and melatonin. If it is glucose, get a glucose tear and test throughout the day, log your food, compare notes with your trainer or dietitian. If it is an unproductive relationship or job, maybe stop wasting your time waiting for things to change and move on with your life. And while you're at it, stop killing people in your sleep, it's just weird!

Tanka Bar

I found a great bar for people who are following an anti-inflammatory or paleo eating strategy.
Check it out:

1:1 protein to carbs
Soy free
Gluten free
GMO free

Buffalo is the first ingredient - Do I need to keep going? It just gets better: Tanka bar is made by native americans! Hell yeah.

New Favorite Magazine

My new favorite magazine is Paleo Magazine (Wow, this is starting out like a 5th grade book report). My wife picked it up at the grocery store a few weeks ago and I have been reading it little by little ever since then. So pretty much every time I take a dump at home.

What do I like about Paleo Magazine? Here's a list:

• Citations after every article. This is not some dumbed-down word-vomit written by some bored-with-life writer who knows next to nothing about trying to live a fitness lifestyle. I can tell that each PM writer is coming from a personal place, and not compiling a haphazardly thrown together crapshoot of "expert's recommendations" that are 20 years out of date. This is the real deal, and if you don't believe it, you can look at the studies. They are right there in your face - Boom!
• Positivity. In the article Paleo is a Practice (Paleo Magazine February/March 2013), Adam Farrah lets the reader know that giving yourself slack in not only OK, it is good for you. When it comes to dealing with setbacks and bumps in the road Farrah asks these questions, "Are you an encouraging coach or a relentless bully? Are you living in the present or are you stuck resenting and replaying the past? Are you reliving your mistakes over and over in your head?" I get stuck doing that sometimes, and it never gets me anywhere! Very refreshing to read an article on a topic like that written by a man and it not come across as a total wuss-fest.
• Shopping resources and pantry lists. Complete with website info to find out where to get things, tips and tricks and things to watch out for. Very helpful.
• I just checked out the Paleo Magazine website, which is very cool despite not being completely finished (when opened, the community tab says something like "coming soon"). Big deal - I can live without want ads for kombucha cultures for a little while longer. There are lifestyle and recipe tabs that more than make up for the lack of a paleo craigslist or whatever that means.

My favorite thing about the website is this cool quadrupedal movement video workout. I love stuff like this! Check it out: http://paleomagonline.com/learning-to-crawl/
Tell me what you think!

My life after heroin

There was a commercial several years ago. You know the one. The star was an egg, or maybe the really angry girl who trashed the kitchen screaming about how bad heroin fucked up her life. Whatever, she was right about the fact that it messes you up really bad.

I'm writing this because earlier today I talked on the phone with an old friend who is going through a rapid detox from methadone. Sometimes they do that if you don't pay enough on your bill at the clinic. He wanted to get off methadone anyway, and this is his chance to be free from opiates.

This is also a really dangerous time, because the tolerance is low and if the addict uses, there is a much great chance of overdose. If you have ever lost a fiend or relative to heroin, this is usually how it happens. That's how completely twisted this drug is.

Detoxing from an opioid is the worst feeling in the world. It feels like every part of your body has a headache, fever and chills at the same time. You are so tired, but you can't sleep. Food is the most disgusting thing on the planet, except maybe watermelon. Liquid fire is shooting out your butt every five minutes. You feel sexually aroused and totally asexual at the same time. You might hurt so bad you cry, but crying feels fake and it bugs you that you are even doing that. Everything hurts. Everything is disgusting. Nobody understands. Nothing can fix you... On and on and on....

... For five days.

When the opiate fever breaks, there is the uneasy feeling of being born. Addiction's afterbirth is still covering your body, no that's actually sweat.
I remember feeling so nervous and alone that I actually though I might pull my face off because I felt like that much of a freak. "Might as well do something totally weird, I feel like Freddy Krueger anyway," I thought to myself as I made a hot-as-hell bath. Showers require standing up, and I was exhausted from not sleeping for a week.

July 5th thru 10th 2008 was one of the hardest weeks of my life. I say one of the hardest because that was by far not the only time I made it through the sweat-lodge hallucinating hell that is opiate withdrawal.
That was an important week for me, because after staying clean for almost 3 years, I was ready to stop opioid replacement therapy. This would be the last
I made myself a promise that I would do whatever it took to go through detox again.

It gets better from there. So much better. When I stopped using heroin in 2005, I had over $20,000 dollars in a tangled labyrinth of defaulted loan debt, court costs and medical bills. I had no formal education, no real job skills and no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I just knew I wanted to do something else and be someone else.

I am extremely lucky to have the right people in my life. My support system has been amazing. My wife (who has never been an addict) has been there for me through all of it. I can't imagine if we had stayed broken up after the time she left me after she found out I'd been using (She saw me getting high in my car in front of her house, like she wouldn't know)!
I have made a lot of amazing friends in the years after treatment. Friends I don't see enough, but they are still great. I went back to college, and i might actually finish! I discovered my love of healthy lifestyles and launched a career as a trainer. Most of the best moments in my life have been after surviving addiction.

I can't change the fact that i am an addict, and no one knows why it happens to people. Some people think it is a disease, some think it is a symptom of something else, like being molested or your parents didn't love you enough. Whatever it is, I'm glad at least God made me smart enough to sauté half my brain and still have enough left over to not drool on myself. Not all the time
Life is not easy for anybody, and getting better has been (and continues to be) the hardest thing I have ever done. And the hardest thing for any addict, whether the drug or choice is food, sex, candy, gambling, or TV.

So if there is a chance for him to read this blog, this is what i would want him to see:
My brother from another mother,
I'm so proud of how far you've come, and I know you can make it the rest of the way. You can do anything for one day at a time. You don't have much further to go, and you are strong enough to do this!

Milk Cravings

Dear Internet,

How's it hangin'? I see you've been busy lately. So have I.

I just thought of some band names:

Milk Cravings
Inflammatory Responses
Off-limits
Inflammation Factors

My cholesterol was 203 as of April 26. I freaked out and tried everything i knew to lower it. You know, oatmeal, blah blah blah.

I had it rechecked on June 2 -  a month later. 207. Conventional wisdom sucks.

I talked to Molly, the nutritionist at my work. She broke it down for me. Starches cause inflammation and certain other foods (like ALL dairy).

So I am having the biggest milk craving ever, and almond mild just tastes like dookie after my insane 122-hour-long work day. No, really it was just 12 hours at work.

Thanks for listening.

Internerd Wheat Stuff

I was looking at some things on the internet today and thought you might find these interesting. Some interesting trivia about wheat:

• Wheat has been in the human diet less that 10,000 years. http://www.mercola.com/article/carbohydrates/paleolithic_diet.htm
• Wheat contains gluten, a protein that can cause or accelerate inflammation in the body. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluten
• Most wheat products are refined and stripped of their nutritional value. Enriched grain products are still less nutritious than whole grain products - even with the added vitamins and minerals! Many products that say "whole wheat" have misleading labels - Look at the ingredients to make sure you are not falling for a marketing tactic! http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=66
  

Progression

What do you do when you can do 20 push-ups no problem? You might put your feet up on something or put your hand on a medicine ball and do traveling push-ups. They could be plyometric push-ups with a clap. When those plyos get easy, you can start clapping above the head or behind the back. My spell check does not recognize the word plyometric, which is indicative of the typical person's lack of knowledge about exercise.

I am a personal trainer. In my line of work, these adjustments to an exercise are called progressions. a push-up is a push-up whether is is on a wall by an old lady or if it  is done with your feet in a set of rings and each of your hands on its own stability ball because you are a TOTAL BEAST. A good trainer will progress you through variations of the same exercise as your ability grows.

As a recovering addict, I have picked up a lot of mantras and sayings along the way. At some point, I realized that a lot of my problems were because I had failed to look into the future and figure out what was about to be happening in my life. I'm not talking about any wierdo crystal-ball-tarot-card stuff. Just putting pieces together and and figuring out what I was looking at. I developed a method of being a focused person and called it preparing for what's next.

I was 27 when I learned a basic life skill. It felt like the clouds opened up and Jesus himself came down from heaven and told me about it! It was a total epiphany – for real!

All I had to do was figure out my next step and make sure everything was in place to make it happen. I knew I wanted to have a normal life and spend it with the insanely amazing woman I was lucky enough to be dating. I put this into practice by starting a savings account, just in case I lost my job or something. So I wouldn't be completely screwed. I knew I wanted an education and began (slowly) digging myself out of a HUGE pile of debt so I could eventually go back to school.

That was six years ago. Now I am married to that woman, we have all that married people stuff like a  cool house with a dishwasher and a yard that I get to mow and hate doing. I have been a personal trainer for 3 years and though still chipping away at my old debts, I have been also chipping away credits at school!

I am one of the most fortunate people you will ever meet. How does a strung-out 115-pound heroin addict, hustling for dope on the streets of Memphis (Ranked one of the most unhealthy cities in the U.S.) that had given up any hope for a regular middle-class life (which sounds really stupid, but that is what I wanted when I was a kid) make such a huge comeback? How does that same guy reinvent himself into someone who helps other people reinvent themselves? Who does that? How am I not dead or in jail?

Preparing for what is next – progression. A little bit at a time.

A few months ago, I started working at a new gym. Although it was hard for me to leave my clients and my co-workers, it was time for the next part of my life. I have grown my knowledge and skill at my new gym and I am starting to see my business take off!

I want to change more lives and help people to make these positive changes. Because of the nature of our business, we can only help those who can afford out time, or who consider personal training to be important enough to go without certain things so they can work with one.

So much of being a trainer is teaching people to make healthy choices. In my opinion, the workouts are pretty much secondary to the diet and lifestyle coaching that is given during a session. Sure, there are those people that just want their butt kicked so they can justify eating half of Panera for lunch. They will get a butt-kicking workout, burn hundreds of calories and not lose a pound. Anyone can make somebody sweat.

What's next for me is finding a way to to give back. I want to find a way to bring the fitness lifestyle mainstream and make words like plyometric something everyone knows. I am up super late writing this, and I might be very tired tomorrow, but if you see me ask me about the idea that my wife and I came up with today. I will be making steps toward it, and soon it will be a reality!

Life has been good to me, and now it is time to give back.
I don't want to be just a personal trainer anymore – I want to make Memphis a healthy city!