Category Archives: Fitness

About Me, Family, Fitness, RoadWarrior, Spirit

How being fit nearly killed me – but ultimately saved my life

7 Comments

I know it is hard to imagine but I literally almost died because of my fitness – not because I was morbidly obese or a couch potato but because I was too fit for one part of my body’s own good.  It’s true and 3 years ago my body showed me exactly how much I could take before it gave out, literally.

To tell the story adequately, we need to jump in the time machine and head all the way back to 2009.  I was an overweight dad who had decided to take up karate with my kids.  Now if you know me at all, I am not big on doing things half way.  I am either going to do it or not.  There is very little room for ‘in between’ in my psyche.  I was going to earn my Black Belt in American Karate, period.  I am sure if I am being honest my desire was in no small way spurred on by the fact that my eldest son was in training for his Junior Black Belt at the time and there was no way I was letting him earn it without me being on his heels.

After one particularly ‘hard’ session back when I was an intermediate belt, I found myself completely drained and every joint from my lower back down was in pain.  It was then that I took a long hard look in the mirror – they are everywhere in our Dojo – and realized that I had become only a reflection of the physical man I used to be.  To top it off, I was watching my son train harder than he ever had as he prepared for his black belt test and was quickly coming to realize, there was no way I was going to make it through a Black Belt test if I stayed in the shape I was….and that shape was soft and round.  I knew I had to make some major changes if I was going to ‘survive’ my black belt test and I was determined to do so.    Cue the Rocky Theme music now!!

I set myself on a path to not let my traveling lifestyle be an excuse for being out of shape.  I started watching what I ate for the first time ever (God I miss Fish & Chips).  I became disciplined about working out.  I incorporated weightlifting, running, HIIT cardio and kickboxing all back into my routine.  Eventually the weight started to come off and I started to feel good again.  When all was said and done, I dropped about 30 lbs.  Three years later I felt good, I felt strong, I felt ready.

I felt like I was ready for the next big hurdle, my black belt test.

In order for you to get a feel for what I was facing, let me describe to you the way a Black Belt test works.  It is a two day affair where Day One is the ‘easy’ day physically.  You are required to do all of your Katas (think choreographed shadow boxing fights) at least 3 times, including at least one Black Belt level kata.  Along with that you have to break 5 boards in under 2 minutes using a variety of techniques and finish it all off with a verbal presentation on why you are deserving of the rank of Black Belt.  No problem.  Easy peasy – we got this day.

Day two is ‘slightly more intense’ to put it mildly.  It was by far the hardest day of my life physically.  It starts with self-defense techniques of your own design.  Now these are not demonstrations, they are self-defenses.  It is the closest you will ever come to being attacked without actually being attacked.  You job is to prove the techniques work in most dire of circumstances….and it is your attackers job to simulate the most dire of circumstances.  Once those are done, you do them again….over and over and over again.  Follow that up by a ‘quick round’ of grappling (mine lasted nearly 5 minutes) and then we get to the actual sparring portion of the test, fifteen 2-minute rounds with a black belt or black belt candidate with 30-seconds of rest between rounds.  Oh yeah, and if your round is not considered to be at a Black Belt level, you get another until you have amassed 15 Black Belt level rounds.  But wait!!  There’s more!!  Not only are you sparring a fresh opponent every round, but at the end you get to do multiples (meaning you are sparring more than one opponent at the same time)!!

Now do you know why they don’t let Beginner and Intermediate Belt ranks watch Black Belt tests!?!?

So on a hot July night in 2012 I bowed on the mat for the second half of my test and everyone was in a jovial mood.  I think we all thought it was more of a formality than a physical test at this point.  If you have done the work to that point, you have already earned the belt, you just needed to show it and I was prepared to do so.  Up first were the self-defenses.  I picked my attacker (where this sadistic tradition came from I do not know) and of course picked the biggest guy in the room.  Go big or go home.  Bring on the 6’ 4” – 230 lbs-er!!

The first attack was a Rear Bear Grab from behind (think big hug from behind that traps your arms by your sides).  My body moved just like it should, muscle memory kicking in and taking over for the brain, I escaped and countered in a flash.  I helped my attacker back up from the ground, fixed my Gi and then I felt it.  Something was not right and I knew it immediately.

My heart was racing and I could not bring it back down.

“That was normal right?”  After all, adrenaline had just flushed through my system as a 6’ 4” – 230 lbs man had just attacked me from behind and was continuing to do so from all kinds of angles with all kinds of weapons.  “It’s normal to have your heart racing.  It’s what your body needs.  Blood to activate muscles.  This is normal.”  – the mantra kept running through my head.

After about 20 minutes of continuous attacks, it was time for grappling.  Evidently since this is one of my passions, they decided to add it to my test….all I had to do was to get out of one person’s guard and submit him.  However the ‘one person’ was the one person in the dojo that was the most superior grappler.  Easy enough.  The key to grappling is to relax and slow things down so when you need to explode, you can.  For the entire 5 minute session, I was trying to concentrate on bringing my heart rate down and just couldn’t do it.

“It’s just the adrenaline.  It has to be.”

I finally submit “Thor” – (seriously, when The Avengers came out he did an appearance at the Dallas premier as the Norse God) and get a reprieve long enough to gear up for sparring.  Now I don’t tell anyone but I know I am off my game and even used the restroom as an excuse to buy an extra 3-minutes to get it back together.   Below is a picture of me and my “corner man” in the break.  Nothing is wrong is it?  Heck, I am even smiling knowing what is about to come.

028

“Let’s get ready to rumble!!!!!!!”

It is finally the time we have all been waiting for, the sparring section of the test, the part where everyone fades and struggles.  The part I was determined to shine through and not fall off like so many have before me.  I think my wife described it best.  I started off sparring at about a 7 out of 10 for me.  I did not have a lot of the flash I normally did but I was effective.  By round 7 I had degraded to a 5 out of 10.  By round 10 I was about a 3 out of 10 and by round 15 I was “drunk boxing”.  In fact, in my last round my sparring partner (same guy who was attacking me earlier ironically) did not punch or kick me once and I still fell down 3 times.  I was literally dying at that point and did not know it.

After that round, things got real bad, real fast.

This is where my body started to give out.  I had been training hard for this so it was used to being abused so it took a long time to break.  I would routinely push my heart rate to the 180 – 200 BPM range in order to train anaerobically.  It was ready for a lot but it was not ready for what I had just done.  After my sixteenth round, I passed out on the mat.  Immediately the group knew something was wrong and 911 was called.  I was taken to the local hospital where for a short time I came to and was responsive but not quite entirely there.  The cognitive tests they were conducting were not going like they would hope and then it happened.

 I crashed, literally.

My body literally shut down in just about every way you could imagine. To top it off, my eldest son was there witnessing the whole thing.  I was in trouble and thank God the medical professionals who were present brought me back.

If you want to find an upside, at least my wife and I got to experience what it is like to fly in LifeFlite Helicopter.  She will have to tell you about that experience because I do not remember it (I do have the picture to remind me though – so there’s that).

When we got to hospital #2, they immediately were concerned about aneurisms and/or stroke.  After all, I had just been repeatedly kicked in the head by some top level black belts and was slurring all of my words before I lost consciousness.  Because of that, they decided to keep me in a medically induced coma and on a ventilator until they could learn more.  I spent 36 hours that way and my corner man snapped the picture below to document the process.

photo 2

I was dying and because there was not an obvious cause (like obesity, heart disease, etc.), the doctors were struggling to come up with a diagnosis.  After nearly 2-days of doctors, neurologists, internists and other specialists, they had determined only that I did not have an aneurism.  Fortunately, that was enough to bring me out of the coma and pull the tube (Dear God that sucked).  This is also when friends stopped planning on how to support Joy once I was gone.  I only wish I was kidding about that last statement.

At this point, the medical focus turned from my brain to my heart.  I was blessed to have an amazing medical team including the head of cardiology at Baylor Medical Center on my team.  Eventually they identified the issue as Atrial Flutter.  Now granted, it took 3 days and at least 5 doctors to get to this diagnosis but at least we got there.  It all stemmed back to the first attack in my self-defenses and the elevated heart rate.  My heart stopped beating like it should and never actually allowed for the lungs to oxygenate my blood.  I basically suffocated myself through excursion.  Think about that for a second….because I was fit, my body could handle the lack of oxygen in the short term but not for the 90 minutes plus I put it through.  And because I was fit, my medical team had a hard time identifying why I was there to begin with.  Because I was fit, I nearly died and the medical profession had no clue why.  It is easy to diagnose someone who is obviously morbidly obese – someone who is physically capable, not so much.

Fortunately for me, they were able to surgically repair the defect and I no longer have any restrictions on training.  However the fact that my fitness got in the way of a diagnosis has never left me.  I cannot tell you how many times Doctors and Nurses commented on the fact that they do not get many “healthy” people in the ICU unless it is a function of acute trauma.  The fact that I could take punishment and push my body to the brink got me through that mess but the fact that it also confused the heck out of my medical staff was incredibly frustrating.

More relevantly, I travel for a living and train for fun.  I was routinely getting my heart rate up above 200 bpm in hotel gyms, conference rooms, lobbies and anywhere else I could manage a training session while I traveled.  Being fit meant I could make it through short term sessions (truth being told, I had felt the experience of an elevated heart rate before and had stopped my workouts before any serious damage was done.  Not very often but it had happened).  God blessed me by keeping me safe in those remote training sessions and putting the right people around me when I did crash out.

My fitness allowed me to push through the pain.  Push through the shortness of breath.  Push through the brink of death.  I am quite sure it ultimately saved my life.

Family, Fitness, RoadWarrior

The 100 Day Burppe Challenge (Alternative Title “What the hell was I thinking!?!?”)

2 Comments

I want you to think back to the beginning of the year, all the way to January 1st.  That was the day it all started, the 100 Day Burpee Challenge.  It started off innocently enough, we were cleaning up dinner after a day of parades, football and food and I suddenly realized I really had not officially declared any resolutions for 2015.  The thought of doing 1 burpee a day more than the day before suddenly jumped to mind and I was immediately in.

Now this is not a new challenge for me and I certainly do not claim that it was an original thought.  Truth be told, I have done this challenge for at least the last 3 years but this year I had to be different, this year I had to throw the gauntlet down, this year I had to make it public for the world to share.  WHAT THE HELL WAS I THINKING!?!?

One thing changed the dynamic completely this year – The public proclamation, nay challenge, to the entire Facebook world that not only was I going to do this this year, I was brining you all along with me.  I was suddenly the self-proclaimed leader of the #100dayburpeechallenge, hash tag and all.  I was going to document the entire 100 days and get the Facebook world healthier in the process.

See the challenge here 

So as you can see in the video above, it starts off easy.  Heck, I didn’t even bother to change clothes banging the first burpee out in my jeans in the middle of my kitchen.  With one simply video, the challenge was on and people were clamoring to get in.  I had people from all over the country messaging me and responding to my post pledging their allegiance to the cause.  We were one big happy family of sweaty craziness.  But it wasn’t long before I realized this was going to be harder than I thought and harder than previous year.  I was in for a real challenge myself.

Posting everyday on something is HARD!! –

I like to create original messages and not just rehash the same thing every day (‘Did it” of ‘Crushed it’ can only be posted so many times).  So in the beginning there were videos, pics, time lapse and witty banter.  I think I am good for about 30 days, after that I faded fast.  Still did the burpees but you would never know it from following my social media feeds.  At the end, I barely acknowledged that April 10th (day 100) had arrived and that I had indeed completed the challenge.

There are those on Facebook who enjoy watching a challenge but want nothing to do with the challenge –

I think one of my favorite side conversations that happened during the challenge was the creation of the #100daySLURPEEchallenge.  A group of very creative friends created this group pretty much as soon as the #100dayburpeechallenge started.  Fortunately for their waistlines and blood sugar level, their dedication to the cause did not last nearly as long as those attempting the burpee challenge.

People at the gym look at you funny when you do things ‘unconventionally’ –

One of my favorite spots to take pictures and/or videos for the burpee challenge was my home gym at our HOA.  I loved some of the reactions I would get when I would have to do multiple takes of the same video.  They would never approach me and I am sure they thought they were not being noticed but their reactions were a hilarious mix of ‘What is that fool doing?’ ‘Oh, hell no.’ and ‘Why would he do that?’   I just wish I had them on video.

There is not always a convenient place to do Burpees –

This was the most shocking of revelations to me.  One of the reasons I do this every year is because you can do burpees everywhere…….except in hotels with really low ceilings.  Sure, I could go outside and get them in but when you are traveling to Chicago and the outdoor air temp is negative bazillion with the wind chill, you have a better chance of finding me doing burpees outside on Hoth.  So I consistently found myself doing burpees with tuck jumps in order not to crack my head on the ceiling like in the photo below.

Ceiling Height

This thing gets real on about Day 31 –

In the beginning I was getting comments daily from challengers.  Some of my favorites were the pictures and videos of everyone’s kids doing burpees with them and even in stores while they made Christmas returns.  After about the first month, the challenge really starts to get moving and challengers started falling like snow in the Midwest in January.  I even had challengers who set their own rewards at the end of the 100 day challenge, to my knowledge, not one of them actually made it through.  Not even the one whose ‘reward’ was to get on the mat and spar with me.  He in particular has gone noticeably silent.

When it is all said and done – the results are worth it!!

100 burpees in one sitting is no joke.  In order to complete it, you have to be in pretty decent shape.  You also have the mental toughness to commit to a goal and push through to reach it.  If you were one of the ones who made it all the way through, congratulations!  You deserve a treat – perhaps a SLURPEE!  For the rest of you, I look forward to doing it all again next year.

See you on the road.

Family, Fitness, My Favorite Things, RoadWarrior, Travel

The Family Vacation

2 Comments

There is nothing more rewarding about being on the road than being able to bring your family with you.  A couple of weeks ago it was spring break in Texas and we decided this year we would make the most of all of those miles & points.

Radio City Music Hall

Over seven days my family and I took planes, trains, UBERs, Metros, subways and did a lot of walking through both Washington, D.C. and NYC.  There is also no better way to see how neurotic you have become about traveling than by traveling with a group of people who don’t travel every week.  Evidently I travel a bit “differently”.

I am a creature of habit

There is nowhere this is more apparent than in a hotel room.  I am the kind of traveler who unpacks the same way, as soon as I get in the hotel room, EVERY TIME!!  I do exactly the opposite as soon as I wake up on the last day of my residency at said hotel.  To say that my 13 and 15 year old do not follow the same dedication to order would be unwarranted to say the least.  We were lucky just to find all of their clothes let alone actually have any of them actually reside in a drawer, on a hanger or even in the suitcase that brought them to the destination.  Makes you wonder what the lost and found at a Disney resort must look like!!

Working out while traveling with family is hard!!

And this is from someone whose spouse is dedicated to fitness and health as well.  Over the course of the 7 days, I got a grand total of one real workout in (granted, we did average walking over 5 miles a day in these wonderful cities).  When I am on the road alone, I have no problem working out late at night or delaying dinner until after a run.  It is a must attend event for me, I have recently even found a way to make this happen on The Dreaded Day Trip but for some strange reason, my family actually likes to eat on a regular schedule.  Eating at a normal meal time?  Huh, who would have figured?  Might have to try that sometime.

When traveling with the family, throw the rules out the window

I have a few rules around when I travel.  They are the core of my routine when it comes to staying fit while on the road and you can read all about it here .  With the exception of ‘See Fruit – Eat Fruit’, I gladly broke every single rule I have made for myself on this trip.  One thing I realized is that the rules are selfish when you are traveling with family.  They are (purposefully) self-centered because when you are on the road alone or for work, you can afford to be self-centered.  In fact I can make a strong argument that YOU SHOULD BE SELF CENTERED ON THESE TRIPS!!  When you are on the road with family though, it is time to be others-centered.  We had a couple of great meals that normally would not be RoadWarriorFit approved.  New York pizza slices, sandwiches from chains you can have anywhere, even burgers and fries at The Harlem Shake.  For example, let your child drink the melted ice cream and caramel sauce with a straw!!

Legal Seafood

Some rules are universal

I am fortunate that my boys are finally of an age where they actually will trust me when I say ‘Trust Me – you will want to try this’.  We had several great meals on this trip that we could not have had at home (New York City pizza, late night at The Harlem Shake, lobster rolls at Luke’s Lobster in DC) but the one that won hands down was brunch at The Red Rooster in Harlem

Red Rooster

OH MY GOD…you have to try this place.  Martin Samuelson has completely outdone himself with this new Harlem mainstay.  My point here though is not to give you a glowing restaurant recommendation but rather that the experience was the important part.  I got to share a phenomenal brunch with the most important people in my life.  It was an experience we could not have had at home (and the chocolate French Toast is to die for).

The biggest lesson learned on the trip? 

Traveling with others is better than traveling alone.  Even though I was not able to enter or exit a room in less than 2 minutes or get a work out in every day or avoided all fried food, the experiences and memories we were able to develop as a family were worth it all.  I saw my boys marvel at the NYC skyline, I saw them humbled by the National Mall and astonished at the atrocities of the Holocaust.

Yeah, it was a good trip.  Now it is back to the grind and following a bunch of rules.  See you on the road.

Diet, Fitness, Spirit

Pressing the Reset Button

Leave a comment

Do you ever get to the point where you feel you just need to press the reset button on life?  I do and I am there right now.

One of the dangers we all face as RoadWarriors is the anonymity we have.  If your travels are like mine, you end up in a different city every night, seeing different people along the way.  For me this means being alone in a sea of people.  Constantly making acquaintances but never really developing relationships is one potential pitfall of the RoadWarrior life.  We were designed for connection not seclusion.

It is amazing how social you can be without making any real connection with anyone. 

This is not a good place for me mentally and it reflects in my choices.  It becomes easy to stop being disciplined about diet (“Sure, I’ll have the fries with that”).  It becomes easy to skip a work out (“One missed workout is not going to kill me”).  It becomes easy to have that extra glass of wine (“I’m not driving anywhere”).  It becomes easy to sink away.

Put that cycle on repeat and then ‘suddenly’ you have a set of choices that have become habits that are hard to break.  That’s when it is time to hit the reset button.  No one ever said you had to wait for either New Year’s Day or the start of Lent to evaluate and change some things in your life after all.

Here is what my reset button looks like.  It is spending the next 30-days being hyper focused on ensuring that my daily actions reflect the lifestyle I am preaching and desire.  So for the month of April (no this is not an April Fools’ joke) I am going to be eating clean, working out daily, increasing my average sleep time, abstaining from alcohol and sharing the journey with all of you.  I know myself well enough to realize that I need to fill my time alone with healthy activities otherwise it is all too easy to fill it with those that degrade my health.  Scarily enough, I consider blogging on the healthy list and I also know I need the accountability that making something public creates.

So I am choosing to bring you along for the journey by blogging daily on how the journey is progressing.  I’ll be tweeting meal choices and the work out of the day.  I will share with you where the wins were, where the stumbling blocks arose, the pitfalls you should avoid if you choose to follow along and (hopefully) the results in mental and physical health.

Will I feel better?  I can’t imagine any other outcome.

Will I reinforce good habits?  I better, that is the whole point of this exercise.

Will I end up over sharing?  You can almost certainly bet on it.

So let’s get this trip started and I am looking forward to seeing you on the road.

Diet, Fitness, RoadWarrior, Travel

The Dreaded Day Trip

1 Comment

I have a love/hate relationship with the ‘Day Trip’.  I love the way they look on the calendar.  Morning flight, midday meeting, return flight the same day and finally sleeping in my own bed, all within a single day.  Heck, I can even tell my lovely wife that I will be “home that day”

The problem is I do not live my life on paper

As I write this, I am sitting on the first flight out to Chicago.  I will also be on one of the evening flights back in to Dallas tonight.  Nearly 6 hours of travel time for a 4 hour meeting, of which I am only leading an hour of.  It is days like this that make me want to banish the ‘Day Trip’ from my calendar forever, or at least severely restricting the geographies I am willing to schedule these life sucking journeys to.

You have to have a strategy in place to stay RoadWarrior fit!!

There are so many pitfalls that the Day Trip puts in your path from a health and fitness perspective.  They really are just evil.  Let’s take a look at them and how to avoid them.

Disturbed Sleep Schedule:

For me at least, a Day Trip involves a very early flight (today’s departure time was 6:43 AM) and a late return (I am landing at 10:00 PM).  That meant I was up at 4:30 and will not be heading to bed until probably around midnight assuming that there are no delays heading home.  That makes for a very long day and more importantly, for very little sleep.  There are thousands of studies that show the importance of sleep to both physical and mental health.  I rarely get my full allotment of sleep before or after a day trip.

Coping Strategy – Get to bed early the night before

I know you saw that one coming and to be truthful, I suck at this one but it is a must.  You know you are not going to sleep on the plane so make sure you get your Z’s in the night before.  Need help making this happen, click here

Lack of Exercise:

I truly wish I was the type of person who got up early in the morning and exercised but alas, I am not.  The only times I work out in the morning is when I either have a late afternoon flight or the weekend (and even then we are not talking about early mornings).  Packing so much travel time in one day often means I am breaking the first rule of being RoadWarrior fit:

Rule #1: Do something, ANYTHING, everyday!!

When you are already scheduled to wake up at 4:30 it is really hard to set that alarm and stick to it another 30-60 minutes earlier.  3:30 wake-up call just to get an exercise session in?  C’mon, not happening.

Coping Strategy – Plan for the down time

There are times I have been able to work out on a day trip.  I have been known to walk airports for the hour before my flight.  I know which airlines clubs have fitness facilities in them and this trip I even packed my workout clothes and shoes to get a workout in at the Hilton in O’Hare (great gym that is accessible from the terminal) but in over a decade of travel, THIS IS THE FIRST TIME I HAVE DONE THAT!!

hilton gym1

If you know you have a Day Trip in a particular week, plan to exercise around it.  None of us can or should do a true workout every day.  Your body needs down time to recover so use these days wisely.  Get a great workout in the day before (it will help you sleep also) and make sure you get one the next day.

Crazy Diet:

At 5:00 in the morning, I am not going to be breaking out the cookware to make the healthiest of breakfasts so I am usually grabbing something to go.  Now I am talking fruit and shakes, not Poptarts so let’s not get too crazy.  However that is usually followed up with a ‘working lunch’ (read: local sandwich shop or my favorite, Pizza) and a dinner at the airport.  Most of the time, this is breaking my last rule for staying RoadWarrior fit:

Rule #5:  Never eat somewhere that you could at home!!

In other words, I try and avoid the chains as they are about easily replicated food and very rarely about the quality nutrition we should be looking for.  That is not very easy to do when you are dining at the airport.  So very often I end up having a shake for breakfast, a protein bar for lunch (especially if I am presenting – it is really hard to present and eat at the same time) and another protein bar at dinner.  That may sound like the next fad diet but I can assure you, it is not good for you in the long run.

Coping Strategy – Get a good breakfast

You can have a great breakfast without waking the entire house up.  Prep your food the night before so it is ready to go in the morning.  I love breakfast tacos and these heat up in the microwave very easily.  Pair an English muffin smeared with Peanut Butter to a bowl of berries and greek yogurt.  You get the point but make sure this one meal is complete and at least you know you are starting the day well.

Sedentarism:

Yes, I just made that word up but take today as an example.  Between the car rides to and from the airports, two plane rides and the meeting with the client, I am sure I will be sitting for at least 12 hours today.  12 HOURS!!!  That is how you get DVT people, no really, it is.

Coping Strategy – Move every chance you get.

Pretty self explanatory.

It is Just Rude:

Picture for a moment my wife’s version of these trips.  She is awakened at 4:30 AM by me trouncing around the house getting ready to leave, the dogs waking up and being active with me.  She is then left to fend for herself with the boys all day including getting them ready and off to school, playing chauffer for various events, making and cleaning dinner, monitoring homework and being disciplinarian when needed.  Then at the end of the day, having me reenter life like the conquering hero right before (or sometimes well after) everyone heads off to bed.  Sounds like a great day, right?  Wrong.

Now, I understand the desire of parents of younger kids to be home in time to tuck their kids in to bed.  That also relieves some of the stress on your spouse if you can handle that portion of the day but my kids are teenagers.  I can assure you that they have NO DESIRE to have me tuck them in at night and the stressful part of the day is not bed time.

To put it simply, my wife hates Day Trips

Coping Strategy – Communicate

I have been known to just ask my wife if she would prefer a day trip or if I should just head out the night before.  I also try and make sure I have something in the crockpot that morning so that dinner is just that much easier for her.  Acknowledge that these trips are probably just as hard on your spouse as they are on you.  Believe me, they will appreciate the effort and acknowledgement.

So there is my argument against and my tips to help survive the Dreaded Day Trip.  I think everyone is healthier and happier if you can tag a night on somewhere (I prefer the front end of the trip) but if you can’t at least there are some ways to mitigate the damage.

Safe travels and I will see you on the road.

Family, Fitness, My Favorite Things

Because you can do anything if you believe it!!

Leave a comment

I have been spending a lot of time around wrestlers recently.   After years of training in martial arts, my eldest has joined the high school wrestling team and is loving every moment of it.  It is the perfect sport for him to be quite frank.   His individual performance directly helps a team goal.  All he has to do is be better than the person on the mat opposing him.  Take care of your business and the team benefits.  Where my son is the center of my attention, some of the other wrestlers really captured me.

Autistic, Down Syndrome, Dwarfism, underdeveloped legs and partially function arms

DSC_0011

Those are just a few of the challenges I have seen kids walk on to the mat with.   Kids who live their lives at a ‘disadvantage’ to all of those ‘regular’ kids, stepping on to a foam covered battle field to see who can best who over the next 6 minutes.  The kid on the right above could not straighten his left arm or expand his left hand but he battled every step of the way.  And you know what??

More times than not, I have seen them win!!

I absolutely love it.  These boys becoming men adapt their wrestling style to make the most of what they have rather than what they don’t.  In just the last 7 days, I watched a sophomore who was born with Dwarfism perform ankle picks to perfection.  His lack of height was his advantage because no one could get low enough to stop his shot.

I have watched in awe as a boy whose knees were nearly locked in place immediately drop to his hands and move with the agility and quickness of a spider monkey.  Then once he was able to get his opponent to the mat, completely smother them with his upper body strength.  You see, his legs have very little muscle tone but his upper body is ripped.  Once he got you down, he kept you down.

I have witnessed autistic teens who struggled to sit in the stands before their next match walk onto the mat and not only win the match but win the whole tournament (see below).

DSC_0764

You could literally see the switch turn on in his head as his feet hit the mat.  This was familiar ground.  In his mind, this was where he wanted and was meant to be.  And it was beautiful to watch.

Just as powerful as watching these young men compete was watching those around them.

Their Teammates – All of these boys were from different schools but all of their teammates supported them unconditionally.  When they walked on the mat, their entire teams stopped whatever they were doing an paid attention.  It was must watch viewing and everyone was centered.  These boys were more than a ‘part’ of the team, they were the center of it.

The Spectators – It did not take long for the spectators to notice (heck, I obviously did).  When you have 7-14 mats running all at one time, it is easy to lose track of who is where.  When these young men were on the mat, everyone knew and everyone cheered and clapped.  Regardless of the match outcome.

The Opponents – There was no taking it easy on these guys.  They were there to win and expected their opponent to show up to do the same.  The boys they faced gave them everything they could handle.  Just what they deserved

But this shouldn’t be a surprise!!

Wrestling has always supported being your best.  The training is grueling to put it mildly.  Bodies are broken and rebuilt and those who are the best wrestlers are the ones who are the strongest mentally, not necessarily physically.  So what can we take from these boy’s example?

  • Focus on what you do have not what you don’t.
  • It is not about what the other guy can do, it is about what you can do.
  • Believe it and you can do it.
  • If someone is willing to put themselves out there, support them unconditionally.

These boys focused on their strengths and capabilities, not their limitations.  The people around them supported them unconditionally and they proved successful.  More on all of those points later but I want to leave you with the following video.  It is the NCAA Wrestling championship round from 2011 at 125 lbs.   Pay particular attention to Anthony Robles, the wrestler from Arizona State then ask yourself where you may be getting in your own way.  Remember, it is never about what you can’t do and always about what you CAN do.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5W4RZq1NRg

See you on the road!

Diet, Fitness, My Favorite Things, RoadWarrior, Travel

Being Resolute

Leave a comment

Calvin

So it is the second week of the year.  The holidays are over, vacations are complete, the airports are becoming sane again and being resolute in the commitments we made over the new year may be becoming a bit harder than we expected.  Making resolutions always seems really easy, being resolute is another story entirely.  If you are like most Americans, your resolutions centered around 1) health 2) money and/or 3) relationships.  So as a RoadWarrior, how do we ensure that our resolutions become habit?

You decide in advance what you will and won’t do and we only make decisions once.

The problem with most ‘resolutions’ is they are focused on the end results and are not date specific.  In order to achieve them, we need to focus on the steps that will get us there, this is where the RoadWarrior Rules come in to play.

Let’s hypothetically say your resolution was to lose 10 – 15 lbs.

The first thing you need to do is to set a date.  When are you going to lose this weight by?  Don’ just ‘Begin with the End in Mind’, clearly define when is the End arriving?  A date is what moves a resolution to a goal (we’ll talk about moving the goal to a lifestyle later).

Next we need to set the activities (rules) that need to be followed and excluded until the goal is achieved.  This is exactly what the RoadWarrior Fitness rules are all about.  They are the Guardrails that set you up for success in your health journey on the road.  As a quick review:

  • Do something….anything….every day!!! – I really don’t care what it is. Run, lift, do Pilates, hit up a Beachbody DVD, walk the local mall/tourist attraction or train at a local martial arts studio.  Heck, I have been known to run on the treadmill in the Admirals Club and have been caught running stairs in the airport.  If you are doing more than a day trip, you need to be doing something active.
  • If you see fruit, eat it – Often times when you check in to your hotel, there are apples on the counter. Or in the gym, there is a basket of fruit.  Or in the airport gift shop, there is a refrigerator with various fruit options.  Pretty simple rule, see it….eat it.
  • Don’t eat anything fried – For the most part I avoid anything fried while on the road (there is a wonderful place in Fort Lauderdale that has lobster corndogs that I make an exception for though…unbelievably good and you can check them out at coconutsfortlauderdale.com). What this also means is I do not do ‘cheat meals’ on the road as my cheat meal usually involves something fried.  Those are saved for being at home with the family where we can enjoy it together.
  • Workout first, then you can have wine – I love red wine. I believe there is a reason that Jesus’ first miracle was turning water into wine… just sayin’.  However, my rule on the road is I will not have wine (or any other alcohol) if I have not had a workout first.
  • Don’t eat in any restaurant you could eat at at home – The restaurants you find at home and on the road are chains. They are all about systems and duplication.  Nothing necessarily wrong with that but I want quality and nutrition.  Ask the front desk or Yelp/Google/Urban Spoon about whom to go eat with.  Every region of the country has a specialty that when prepared right is fantastic tasting and fantastic for you.

Being resolute is a matter of being prepared more than disciplined.  Preparation allows you to avoid areas of temptation and put the actions that lead to success first.  These are my rules regarding healthy living on the road.  Start with your goal and set up the rules that will lead you to success in savings, improving your relationship, spending more time with you kids, whatever.  Be resolute.  Be better in 2015.

See you on the road.

Diet, Family, Fitness, RoadWarrior, Travel

Failing to plan is planning to Fail

6 Comments

Sometimes I feel like all I do is plan to be on the road.  What clothes are clean?  What toiletries do I need to replace?  What’s the weather going to be like at the destination?  These are all things that readily run through my crazy road warrior head but the planning is not just limited to what I have to deal with, I also pay attention to what is going to happen back on the home front.

I am the one in the family who does the grocery shopping and meal planning.  It has become a bit of a Sunday tradition/therapy for me.  Sit in the morning with the coupons, see how much I can save while shopping and then spend the afternoon cooking one good meal to start the week as well as staples that can be thrown in the microwave throughout the week.

Where I have fallen short is not having a plan that is flexible and varied

Not to say the least about communicating that plan to my beautiful wife so that she might be able to execute on said plan.  I leave to eat restaurant meals throughout the week and leave the family at home with all kinds of ‘options’ but nothing solidified.  So in the bustle of wrestling practices, weightlifting, orchestra rehearsal, kickboxing and karate, the family is stuck grabbing whatever is ready in the fridge/pantry or making a Shakeology before racing out the door.  It is not the ideal and quite frankly, it is my failure.

You see, meal planning is not an issue for me.  I have no problem coming up with a plan for the week.  I also have no problem communicating it, where I lack is including creativity/variety in the plan.  I would eat the same thing all week without issue.  I enjoy structure and familiarity.  My family would appreciate eating something besides grilled chicken, brown rice and broccoli though.  I needed a solution that met all of our needs.

So I themed each day of the week

This gives me the structure I work best within but challenges me to vary the menu from week to week.  So here you go, here is my weekly ‘meal plan’:

Meatless Monday – Pretty simple to explain and especially appreciated in a house where one of us mostly eats vegetarian.

Taco Tuesday – Food delivered via foldable, edible container.  Could be Fish Tacos, could be Asian Lettuce Wraps.

Wet Wednesday – Soup!!

Throw it out Thursday – This day is all about the leftovers.  We are terrible about eating them unless we set a day aside to make sure we do.

Fishy Friday – Something from the sea (to be transparent, we eat fish at least 2-3 times a week already)

Sizzling Saturday – My day to fire up the grill

Sumptuous Sunday – I usually have more time to really try something different and time consuming.   This is normally the day I try and emulate something I have had on the road as well as cook for the rest of the week.

Each day is supremely flexible in the fact that we can use what is on sale, try new recipes, make it ahead and take it with us (coming soon on this ‘Picnic Parents’), make extra for lunch the following days, accommodate both vegetarian and meat lovers……you get the point.

Most importantly, it sets everyone up for success!!

The only step I have added to the normal routine is to be sure that the meal plan (including recipes) is printed out for the week.  Cut and paste from the websites/Pinterest boards that are relevant for the week…..I may even try putting together a shared board for my wife and I for the week……huh, just thought of that one.  Thanks!!

So remember, while you are about to race out for the week, your family is hunkering down awaiting your return.  Do everything you can to make their week as successful as yours!

See you on the road!!

Fitness, RoadWarrior

What’s your tribe? It’s bigger than you think….

Leave a comment

Everyone has at least one.  That group of people you feel most at home with.  You can probably tell who they are because they are the ones the embrace your crazy.  All the things that drive others nuts make them feel at home and comfortable.  Now that you have those other crazy folks in your mind, think about all the folks who don’t fit that mold.

“Sure I’m crazy.  But at least I’m your kind of crazy”

You see, I have been training for my first ever ½ marathon.  What that means to those of you non-runners out there is that I spend a good deal of my Sunday mornings on my ‘long run’ of the week.  It is the time when I am out logging between 8 to 14 miles at a time.  There is no way I could do this on the treadmill.  I would shoot myself but being outside on the road lets the scenery change and interact with all the other crazies that are out there doing the same thing.  I have become a part of the ‘running tribe’.  That is when I noticed a trend…..

Tribe members acknowledge each other.  They encourage each other.  They commiserate with each other.

Walkers (no, not that kind of ‘walker’ all you Walking Dead fans) always wave and acknowledge other walkers.  I watched 4 different groups of cyclists acknowledge each other this morning alone.  Every runner I came in contact with was quick with a smile/nod/wave.  It was very encouraging…….but I also noticed a second trend.

Tribes do not acknowledge other tribes.

For example, have you ever noticed when one motorcycle rider passes another, they put out a quick waive?  Happens almost every time.  They are part of the same tribe and acknowledging each other.  I actually think it is pretty cool but have you ever seen a motorcyclist waive at a monster truck driver?  Or a mini-van?  Or a sports car?  Nope.  Doesn’t happen.

The same thing happens in the fitness world.  Of those walkers and cyclists I referenced above, only one group of cyclists acknowledge me and I had to wave first.

But what if we expanded our tribe?

What if our tribe was not cyclists or walkers or runners?  What if our tribe was fitness enthusiasts?  Think about it, that cyclist had the same struggle I did this morning getting out of a warm bed to put their training ahead of comfort.  Those walkers are putting their health above their comfort just like the cyclists.

We live in a world where people live in the virtual and pay more attention to the screen in the palm of their hand than the actual world around them.  Join me in the commitment to engage with all fitness enthusiasts you encounter.  Give a wave, a nod or a good morning (if you can still carry a conversation) to everyone out pounding the pavement.  The world will be a better place for it and it will expand your tribe.

And let’s face it, when the zombie apocalypse does hit and ‘walkers’ takes on a whole different meaning, we are going to need all the tribe members we can get.

Diet, Fitness

It is just a number!!! Get over it!!

Leave a comment

Lately in the Bowen house there has been a lot of focus around numbers.  Both my youngest son and I have celebrated birthdays, one a milestone at 13, the other ‘just another year’.  To say there has been a focus on age is putting it mildly.  I can still hear him begging for Facebook, his own checking account, etc. etc.  Add to that my wife’s clean eating challenge.  She is a Health and Fitness coach (read more here) and formed a group dedicated to clean eating.  This group has been obsessed with weight and weight loss.  They post on it almost daily, which creates a great sense of accountability and motivation but wow, numbers flying everywhere.  Last but not least, my eldest son is now a high school wrestler and is hyper focused on making a particular weight class.  Weighing in, counting calories….

Numbers! Numb3rs! Numb3r5!

So as I sit on yet another plane, obsessing over the status level this flight/mile/night will achieve, I cannot help but let my mind wander through the plethora of numbers we constantly obsess over.  If you are anything like me, you have one, one particular metric that you are constantly evaluating yourself against.  It is your bell weather as to how your health measures up…….and it is probably completely faulty (let alone unhealthy).  So let’s go through the most common metrics and debunk their ‘value’.

Age:  This one really is just a number, just ask any Facebook quiz that was ever made.  I am a relatively healthy 42 year old but next to some 42 year olds, I look like Adonis.  Compared to others I look like a slug.  Consider this, I share the same birth year as Willie Robertson of Duck Dynasty fame as well as Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson.  Compare those two below and tell me age is anything more than a chronological number.

 Dwayne-Johnson Willie Robertson

Weight:  I have to admit, this is the one I track.  CONSTANTLY.  This is my go to ‘health metric’  I am on the scale literally every single day.  I have been known to weigh myself both before and after workouts to see how much water weight I lose in a session.  I have a problem.

‘Hi, my  name is Andrew and I am a scale-aholic’    ‘Hi Andrew’

The reality is that the 175 lbs. I weighed after getting out of the hospital 2 years ago is very different than the 175 lbs. I weigh now.  You can gain or lose lbs. in a matter of days just by controlling your salt and water intake.  Look at the comparison below of what a 5 lbs. of fat vs. muscle looks like.

5 lbs fat vs 5 lbs muscle

Not all weight is created equal.  What you weighed in at this morning (unless you are about to qualify in a particular weight class), does not matter in the long term.

Body Mass Index (BMI): This one really is just a derivative of weight and is by far my least favorite metric.  The fact that almost all professional athletes, men and women who are at the peak of their physical fitness, are considered obese by this metric is infuriating to me.  As best as I can estimate, my buddy Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson (hey, we share the same birth year.  We’re tight!) has a BMI of somewhere around  31.1.  On the simple BMI scale, any value above 30.0 is considered obese.  Really? Obese? I dare you to tell him that!!

So if these are all bunk, what should we focus on?

How you feel!! – Ok, I realize that there is no easy scale to measure this against but it is the most important metric.  I definitely feel better at 175 lbs than I do at 180.  I feel way better at the 175 I am today than the 175 I was 2 years ago.  Don’t under estimate judging this.

Keeping Score – I don’t want you to walk away from this article thinking you should never know what you weigh or what your BMI is.  They actually do have value, but not as a static metric.  Track them over time.  Keep score and pay attention to the trends.  You will be amazed at what you discover about how your food choices and activities will show through allowing you to make better decisions down the road with how very specific things effect you.

How you measure up – literally:  By far a better barometer to health than just weight is your body fat% and body measurements.  If you know your measurements, there are plenty of calculators out there that will estimate your body fat %.  Look at the pictures of fat and muscle above again.  Replaciing 5 lbs of fat with 5lbs of muscle won’t do anything for the scale but it will sure make you feel better.

What’s your go to metric?  I would love to hear from you and how you use it (or if you are like me, obsess over it).