Stroller running – Serenity Through Sweat

Health values

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. This week I want to talk about health values and decision making in health and wellness.

I recently heard Dr. Anthony Balduzzi as a guest on the Primal Blueprint Podcast. Dr. Balduzzi is a naturopathic medical doctor who runs the Fit Father Project, a website and fitness program geared towards helping busy fathers get and stay fit and healthy.

Speedy and El Duderino’s first camping trip

This is a goal that is as admirable as it is enormous, especially considering the myriad of health issues that plague most Americans. What stuck with me more than any of the specifics of Dr. Balduzzi’s health and fitness recommendations, was his take on the use of goal setting.

There is plenty of research and technique on goal setting, how to do it effectively, the benefits it has on outcomes, etc… What Dr. Balduzzi does with his clients, mostly father’s, is get them to link their goals to everyday health and wellness choices.

Getting used to the sleeping bag and the tree tent

While individual daily habits are easy to overlook, if those same habits tie in to your overarching goals they will be easier to maintain.

Want to be able to play with your kids, a morning mobility practice will lubricate muscles and joints and help prevent injury.

Want to go on that family hiking trip, eating a healthy diet and losing a few pounds makes climbing the mountain that much easier.

The best hiking destinations have playground at the end

Want to live long enough to be a part of your grandkid’s lives, a regular exercise routine promotes longevity.

And while it’s sometimes hard to see how reaching for pecans and berries instead of Ben and Jerry’s makes you a better father. If you’re goal is to be able to keep up with your kids on adventures well past your 60’s one of those choices is supporting your goals while the other isn’t.

SerenityThroughSweat is paradoxically both a selfish and at the same time selfless pursuit. The mental and emotional reprieve, the hormonal release, and the physical benefits of SerenityThroughSweat are ones that I alone enjoy. At the same time, being a healthier, stronger, calmer, father and partner is something that pays dividends to the whole family.

Aligning your health and wellness choices with your overarching goals means you need to first identify those. These can be as specific or as broad as they need to be based on your own situation.

Two zwift rides with 3400′ of climbing. Happy to feel back in the saddle with team TriGoodBeer

Maybe you want to be able to plan that family hiking/biking trip, or maybe you just want to dance at your child’s wedding. For me, I never want my health or fitness to be a reason I turn down an opportunity, especially one for a family experience.

While that isn’t always the driving motivation of my health and wellness choices, (that selfish part of SerenityThroughSweat) it is a guiding principle along the journey.

Stroller running El Duderino to the neighboring playground

What are your goals and are your current health, wellness, and lifestyle practices supporting them?

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Family tradition

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. This week I want to talk about a family tradition I was able to finally get back to.

Part of the traditional polish Easter meal as far back as I can remember in my family has been pierogi. My family makes pierogi the way Hallmark channel families make Christmas cookies.

There is an assembly line of pierogi production that involves the whole family and consumes not only the entire kitchen but also the entire day.

The dough is made from scratch, rolled and pressed into circular form, before being stuffed and crimped. The cabbage (a family favorite) is sauteed for hours before being ready to fill the pierogi.

Each pierogi has to be boiled and quick cooled before being stored. The pierogi have to be wrapped so they don’t stick to each other in the freezer when it is time to fry them.

I have bypassed this family tradition and labor of love for the past three years since El Duderino was born. Every year I said I wanted to do it, and Easter came and went without me making the time.

Speedy helping crimp pierogi, and acting as official taste tester

The past year has put a lot of things in perspective and a family tradition was not something that I was going to pass on again.

That said, pierogi production isn’t exactly a toddler friendly activity. So my wife and worked together to make sure we could keep the boys active and still share the tradition with them.

She took El Duderino out for the morning and afternoon while I worked at a furious pace during Speedy’s morning nap. I then finished production one handed while holding Speedy after we both stopped for a lunch break.

Despite the fact that El Duderino has passed every time I’ve fried up some pierogi, I’m glad I made the time to share this tradition with my boys, and my family.

There are always a plethora of excuses not to do something, especially with two young boys ruining around. One of my biggest parenting struggles, is deciding what things I want to pass down to my boys and what things inevitably fall by the wayside.

This year family tradition for back in the win column, and I mean to keep it there.

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Cowards

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. As we move into mid June and into the fourth month of some form of reduced social contact due to COVID-19, I want to talk about fatigue.

In order to facilitate clear exchange of ideas and discussion (and because I had the importance drilled in to me in AP Chemistry class in high school) I’m a big believer in taxonomy. Fatigue (as it will apply to this post and future discussions on the blog) is a physiological state of reduced physical or mental performance.

First stroller run with my new running buddy

Fatigue can be brought on in a number of different ways. Since this in large part a fitness blog, fatigue in most of our discussions is brought on by physical exertion. Touching on parenting and aviation, fatigue can be brought on by disrupted sleep patterns and stress. Fatigue can also be brought on by both too much mental stimulation as in a tough day at the office, but also by too little mental stimulation or a routine day at the office just monitoring the instruments share known as boredom fatigue.

This blog is filled with examples of physical exertion, and while most physical exertion leaves me energized and mentally and emotionally recharged (SerenityThroughSweat). There are some debilitating days deliberately designed into the training plan, all alliteration aside.

First stroller run with Speedy (his name not my pace, I was fighting my legs the whole way)

As a pilot, I’ve had fatiguing days where lots of things went wrong and I was strained to keep everything together safely. I’ve also had days that were just as fatiguing, where it was smooth sailing but there instruments seemed to lull me to sleep.

One thing is certain, regardless of how fatigue develops and accumulates, it diminishes performance. “Fatigue makes cowards of us all”, sometimes attributed to General George Patton, and sometimes to Vince Lombardi, gets to the heart of the matter.

A snapshot of the last 14 days of mobility work on the overhead position

Again, taxonomy is important. Most of the time, coward is a derogatory term used for someone who lacks courage. In the context of this post, it refers more to someone who lacks the will or ability, to do or endure unpleasant things. While that is still somewhat on the derogatory spectrum, I think it is less offensive in that form and more of a temporary state of reality that we all find ourselves in from time to time.

Regardless of your profession or your predilection for physical exertion, we are all experiencing various stages of COVID-19 fatigue. Which also means, many of us are already, or are on our way to becoming, cowards. Before you get defensive, remember this means lacking the will to do or endure unpleasant things.

Getting in some projectile meditation, by far my best 6 consecutive shots

I know I am personally tired of social distancing, tired of being stuck inside, tired of not being able to do things with friends and family that I otherwise would. I’m saddened by the loss of life, the economic hardship, and the stress that Covid-19 brings. Since Florida has re opened, it has seen new records three days in a row for new Covid-19 cases. It seems as though as a state, and in larger part as a society, we have lost the will to endure the unpleasantness required to combat this pandemic.

The good news is, cowardice does not have to be a permanent character trait, but rather can be limited to a temporary state. Regardless of what unpleasantness we may find ourselves unwilling, or unable to endure, there will always be sources from which we can draw strength and bravery, to combat our own fatigue and cowardice. I hope that you have many such sources in your life, and I’m honored if this is one of them.

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Common Carriage

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. Studying for my commercial pilots license I remember being especially drawn to the murky idea of common carriage. I think it has a lot of similarities to the murky situation we find ourselves in now as we start to re open the country.

I’ve been told on more than one occasion that I missed my calling to be a lawyer. I enjoy a good heated debate, especially if there is reason, logic, and meritorious points to be made by both sides. I think this is what drew the 20 year old college kid into the idea of common carriage, and why it has stuck with me after 13 odd years despite having little to no relevance in my professional life.

I’ll start by saying I don’t really know what common carriage is because it is an Intentionally unclear regulation, but it was very important that I be able to regurgitate the concept for my commercial pilot check ride. The idea is, when you get a commercial pilots license, you can be paid to fly airplanes. But, you can’t just go around doing business with, and flying anyone who asks, because that would make you a de facto airline, and subject to different standards, procedures, and regulations. So you are left with this intentionally murky grey area where you can have individual contracts for flight services so long as you are not “holding yourself out”

If you are still following along awesome, if not, that’s kind of the point. Individuals can do business with each other because a one on one business relationship places the onus on both parties to vet each other. When providing a service to the entire community, some sort of overseeing body does the vetting, theoretically in the best interest of those being served. In other words, if I’m hiring you to drive my car the responsibility is on me, but if I call an Uber, the department of transportation has made sure (in theory, I don’t know, it’s just an example for those of you not aviation inclined) that the driver and Uber have gone through the appropriate processes and procedures.

As we start to re open our communities to business I think there is a lot of similarities in the murky nature commercial services. Let’s say like most of us you’ve been socially distancing for more than a few weeks and you need a haircut. You happen to have an aunt who is a stylist and she was already coming over for mother’s Day. Can she cut your hair while she visits? Is it ok if you pay her? That’s only one person so it is an “individual contract” not a willingness to cut everyone’s hair.

My dad is a homebrewer, and a quite accomplished one at that. He has brewed beer for countless family gatherings and events, and has been asked to brew beer for friend’s events and weddings. But, he is not allowed to accept payment for brewing beer for those events or weddings, it must be a gift, otherwise he would be distributing alcohol without the proper processes and procedures (established by the governing body in the “best interest” of the community)

Without getting too political (this is normally a fitness and fatherhood blog) I think it is possible for the social contract to be strong enough to remove the need for heavy handed, intentionally murky oversight. If you want to cut hair out of your garage you should be able to, and your customers should know what type of precautions you are taking. If you want to buy someone’s beer, you can ask them about the brewing process to see if the ingredients and cleanliness meet your standards. (And the beer will probably be garbage if it doesn’t anyway)

The onus to take precautionary measures for the good of each other is a concept that should guide business decisions whether it is an individual contract or a community service, and whether it is government mandated or not. I think companies that want to compete moving forward will do so not just in terms of product quality and service, but also cleanliness and safety precautions. Likewise, consumers should be able to make the decision what businesses that want to support based on those same criteria.

All of this is foreign, and there is no playbook, but giving people the freedom to do the right thing, rather than bogging them down with murky regulation is what will help all of us move forward towards Serenity together.

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

This week in SerenityThroughSweat, Speedy is 6 weeks old and showing some appreciations for mom and dad’s sleep deprivation. My longest stroller run to date with El Duderino and some much needed projectile meditation.

Preparedness ASAP

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. Today I want to talk about how we handle ourselves after the dust settles. Hindsight is always 20/20 and there will undoubtedly be questions as to what we could have done better, individually, locally, nationally, and globally. While playing the blame game is gratifying, and I’m sure there will be plenty of nefarious actions/inactions to examine, the real truth is more important than fault.

ASAP, in this context stands for Aviation Safety Action Program as opposed to As Soon As Possible. (Although you should also make preparedness a priority as soon as possible). My master’s thesis was on Safety Management Systems in airports and a large portion of that I spent researching various ASAP programs. One of the core tenets of ASAP programs is something called just culture, and I think that is our only hope for unravelling this catastrophe.

The safety of the overall system is enhanced by collecting, analyzing, and applying data directly from the frontline. But, the only way to get truly accurate date is from frontline users who find themselves in hazardous situations largely because of a lack of preparedness, or mistakes. Just culture is the idea that we should be more concerned with identifying hazards in the system, both proactively and reactively, than reprimanding those who encounter those hazards. If people aren’t afraid of being reprimanded, they are more likely to point out their mistakes so that someone else won’t make them, and the whole system gets better

As an individual, how prepared were you for this event? When did you start to take it seriously? Did you already have some money set aside in an emergency fund, some extra food in the pantry? Have you been taking care of your health to avoid potentially complicating conditions that would put you at a higher risk? These are all questions that need to be answered, not so that you can blame yourself, but so that you can asses the vulnerability in the system and shore it up.

The same questions can be asked of our local entities. How much PPE do hospitals local hospitals keep in storage on a regular basis? How have your representatives worked to set up testing and triage? What have they done to help small business owners? These questions are asked not to sway votes come November, but to establish a better play book for the overall health of the system when the next crisis hits.

On a national level, what information was known and when was it acted upon from a policy standpoint? There are far too many political intricacies that are way over most of our heads to fully understand the process in it’s entirety. But the truth will never come out if the end game is blame.

You don’t have to scroll far through a social media feed to find memes on how both the left and the right botched the handling of this pandemic. If we can look at this from a point of just culture, we might be able to make things better for ourselves rather than tearing each other down.

I’ve written before about holding myself accountable for my own shortcomings, and I think that’s a vital part of Serenity Through Sweat. But, I think it’s also important to be able to forgive ourselves, when we misstep, especially if we can make the system stronger in the process. Honesty, forgiveness, and growth, are the best way forward after this pandemic, and the best path towards Serenity.

Thanks for joining me and stay sweaty my friends.

This week’s SerenityThroughSweat, Speedy is three weeks old and the sleep debt is accumulating. A few stroller runs with El Duderino looking for work trucks, and an attempt at Amish Friendship Bread starter. (It takes ten days so stay tuned for results)

Bad Mood Rising

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. As COVID-19 continues to direct our everyday lives, and quarantine and social distancing measures carry on, a lot of negative emotions that normally run in the background are bubbling up to the surface.

Just like the classic Creedence Clearwater Revival song, many of us may find a bad mood on the rise during these times. I think it’s important to recognize we are not our thoughts or emotions, but we are largely defined by our actions and choices.

Having negative thoughts, having a bad day, feeling angry, depressed, afraid, jealous, etc… Does not make you a bad person. Thoughts and emotions are natural parts of being human, and the “negative” feelings have their place. It is up to us to be mindful of these thoughts and feelings and choose to act on them with purpose.

We carry these negative emotions with us all the time. They are a natural and normal part of us. Most of the time they are a small fraction of the whole. Like an ounce and a half of yeast in six cups of flour. But with the right environmental stressors, that tiny amount of yeast can cause us to bubble over. But those emotions can also help us create something beautiful.

Many times over the course of this last week, I’ve found myself jealous of my wife. She went back to work as a teacher two weeks after giving birth, and is maintaining caring for our family with her new work schedule like a rockstar. I on the other hand, am still adapting to what my self identity looks like staying at home and not flying. I know this emotion is based on my own uncertainty and insecurities. It is a constant battle to be self aware enough to remind myself that this is a natural, (even if uncomfortable) feeling, and that my outward demeanor as a husband and father is my choice.

I think any of us at home with kids, particularly toddlers, are finding new limits to our patience. El Duderino, at two years old doesn’t understand why we can’t go to the playground, or the library, or to see his friends at daycare. And those frustrations, along with the normal two year old toddler temper tantrums, are enough to test anyone’s mood. It’s my job as his father to maintain composure despite the uncertainty, and throughout the temper tantrums, to foster a nurturing environment.

Now more than ever, Serenity Through Sweat, is a vital part of my mental health regimen. Especially for grapplers, who are normally used to relieving stress by consensual choking, finding alternative and positive physical outlets is crucial. Those negative thoughts and feelings can control us, they can define us, or they can fuel us. The choice is ours, and the path to serenity is long.

Thanks for joining me and stay sweaty my friends.

This week’s Serenity Through Sweat, my second go around and homemade bread, (the first batch didn’t have yeast) some stroller run miles with El Duderino, and throwing some arrows down range in the backyard happy place.