Well-being – 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.

Interconnected

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. Today I’m wrapping up the last day of the 14 day mobility challenge from The Ready State working on the splits.

This is the fourth 14 day mobility challenge I have completed since last march. Each two week challenge focused on mobilizing the body into a specific archetypal position or working on an individual system. Prior challenges included squatting, arms overhead, feet and ankles, and the latest one, the splits.

Brute force 12 days off Christmas sandbag workout

I’m grateful for the well of knowledge that is available at the ready state and it seems like each position I try to mobilize, I find an interconnectedness that I didn’t know existed.

Having trouble getting in to a deep squat, it could be your ankles, or your low calf, or your hip capsule. Can’t get your arm overhead, check your lats, or your shoulder, or your oblique. Multiple muscle groups work together in complex movements, which means any of the several groups (or all of them) could be limiting factors.

The point is all of these body systems are interconnected and designed to work together. Dr. Kelly Starrett often says something to the effect of “let’s appreciate how these systems all work together for human function”

As someone who is constantly trying to improve my overall health and well-being, I’m always impressed when I find an interconnectedness I didn’t know about, and I can continue to make progress. It got me thinking about interconnectedness in other areas of my life.

The past year has brought on its own unique challenges and stressors. I know I am, and I would venture most of you are, quick to pick out the challenge or stressor that once removed would greatly improve life. Once the kids are in school, once I get that promotion, once I’m earning more money, once I have more free time. These are pretty common stressors and challenges that could be considered limiting factors to our mood.

Speedy helping out with my hamstring lockouts

More than anything the past year has taught me about the interconnectedness of my stress and emotions. The kids being at home, uncertainty on the job front, social isolation, these are all interconnected in affecting mental and emotional state of being.

Just like ankle dorsiflexion or impaired hip capsules, the stresses we encounter in everyday life are interconnected and limit our ability to get into healthy mental and emotional positions.

I try to spend a few minutes each morning and evening working on these limiting positions and systems, so that I can continue to move with a normal range of motion. As we move into a new year, I’m going to try to spend more time working on the mental and emotional limiting factors that are inhibitors to happiness.

El Duderino feeding his favorite animal at the zoo

Dr. Starrett is also fond of saying, “no one ever wins fitness”, it is a constant journey forward. I think our mental well-being and happiness are very similar. It isn’t a destination so much as a journey, and one that requires constant maintenance and attention. Just like those natural human movements, happiness is ours to regain and maintain if we are will to put in the work.

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

Questions

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. Election season is upon us, my work group is in the middle of a contract amendment vote, and all of us are analyzing how we adjust to COVID-19 measures in our day to day life. To be successful in any of these or many another endeavors requires asking questions, specifically, asking the right questions.

I just finished reading Freakonomics, the book by Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt. For a book that claims to have no underlying theme, it is really a book about asking the right questions before accepting information that is provided.

The various topics themselves (while interesting) are really the backdrop for the true value in the book, which illuminates why we act the way we do. Most topics start with some assumption of the outcome, and then examine the incentives in place that help shape human behavior. The authors write, “Incentive is a tiny object with astonishing power to change a situation”.

As the book goes on, the questions asked generally challenge the conventional wisdom on a particular topic. After positing a question that challenges a typically held belief, the authors then go in search of data, that is run through unemotional regression analysis to isolate variables that are correlated. The results often clash head on with the conventional wisdom

There are several examples in the book that studied early learning test scores (K-5) and various parenting statistics both active and passive (age before kids were born, education level, spanking, screen time, one parent home between age 0-5). As a parent I was very interested to find out that the most highly correlated factors affecting test scores were either genetic or socio-economic, prior to your child’s birth. In other words, your life prior to becoming a parent has more impact on your child’s early test scores, than any of the at home pre-K educational work you can do. (Not that it hurts at all, it just isn’t statistically significant)

While this information is both fascinating and relieving (my boys aren’t doomed because I travel for work), it is the question that is far more valuable. The question being, what can I do as a parent to help my children be successful?

El Duderino helping out with the post workout shake, “Ma, where’s the protein?”

The answer is well beyond the scope of this blog, (although I believe being a role model for general well-being is a great start). Asking the right questions and searching for answers, not accepting what is thrust forth against the data, is another great place to start.

The same applies to the personal well-being, diet and exercise world. There are plenty of conventional wisdom trends that have recently been upended, from high fat low carb eating, to high intensity interval training, to intermittent fasting and fat adapted endurance athletes, the data show a myriad of possibilities that were shunned just a few years ago. Again, for the scope of this blog the individual programs are less important than the questions, what am I doing to be a better version of myself? Does the data support those decisions/programs?

For all of my colleagues voting on the contract amendment, I urge you to ask yourself, what is my incentive, and have I examined the data, rather than the popular narrative?

For all of us approaching election season I urge you to ask yourself, have I researched the issues and the positions rather than the popular sound bytes?

For your own personal growth are you doing the things you can to be better than you were yesterday? I hope you will join me on the path of asking ourselves the tough questions, and maybe even getting a little sweaty along the way.

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

Quality Adjusted Life Year

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. With COVID-19 numbers flaring up in many places around the country, a return to “normal” still seems a ways off. As we all adjust to a new “normal” I wanted to dig in to Quality of life or QOL and Quality Adjusted Life Years or QALY.

Quality of life is a term that gets kicked around they pilot group a lot. It is an extremely broad reaching term with very individualized metrics. I’m it’s most simplistic terms, QOL is the standard of health, comfort, and happiness experienced by an individual or group.

Up close and personal with “scoopy” the excavator on our morning run.

Qualify adjusted life year is an economic term. It is used to quantify disease and treatment in terms of both quantity and quality of life saved. QALY gives us a metric by which we can evaluate decisions about our health and well being for the future.

The two terms have some common ground, but the differences are important. For example QALY is measured on a scale from 0-1. 0 being dead, and 1 being a single year of perfect health. Quality of life on the other hand, encompasses not only health, but happiness and comfort. In other words, you could have a perfect quality adjusted life year (healthy) with lack luster quality of life (stressed, grieving, generally unhappy, etc…)

Covid-19, brings with it some pretty drastic negative consequences, but it also gives us a unique opportunity that otherwise wouldn’t have ever materialized for most of us. The opportunity to completely rewrite our daily routines from scratch while reevaluating our priorities in order to maximize our QOL and our QALYs.

It is easier said than done, and change is never easy especially in times of great uncertainty. The first step is to identify priorities, and realign around them. Ideal QOL is going to look different for everyone because there is no one size fits all for things like happiness and comfort, but health and general well-being is pretty universal. (And a favorite taking point of this particular blog)

Speedy starting to interact more

Personally, uncertainty around my job status as Covid-19 continues to ravage the travel sector, has thrown my stress levels out of whack. But sleep, diet and exercise (with the exception of a new baby) are largely within my control.

My pre Covid routine included a lot of Jiu Jitsu, but that isn’t an option for me and my family right now. Instead I’ve leaned in to what I do have available, kettlebells, sandbags, running shoes and a jogging stroller. Since I do most of the cooking in the house I can prioritize fresh produce and balanced home cooked meals (most of which are even toddler approved). On the sleep side, Speedy has started to put together reliable seven hour stretches giving me wife and I a chance to recharge.

A hot Monday afternoon run during the kid’s naptime. FL summer is here.

How much of our pre Covid routine was helping us live a better QOL and have more QALYs? How much of it was adding stress, reducing sleep, limiting options for healthy habits in diet and exercise? I would wager the average American routine pre Covid was way out of balance in those four key factors (stress, sleep, diet, and exercise).

This is a complex issue, and everyone’s situation is different. If you find yourself working multiple jobs to put a roof over your head and food on the table, there are natural challenges to prioritizing well-being. However, a lot of us have significant down time around a 40 hour work week, and even more if we find ourselves working from home when we used to commute, or are working reduced hours.

As a fitness enthusiast I want to always be in shape for whatever challenge may come. As a father of two young boys I want to have as many QALYs as I can, where I can not only be there with them, but push them mentally and physically. As a pilot who has to leave his family behind on a regular basis I’m constantly adjusting to family needs to balance work with QOL.

First layover run in a long time and I couldn’t have agreed for a better day

Your priorities, your ideas on wellness, happiness, and comfort, can be realigned at any time, and there is no time like the present. There is always room for better choices, better QOL, more QALYs, and some SerenityThroughSweat.

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

This Country’s Healthcare Problem

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. If the title is any indication, I might have bit of more than I can chew. Healthcare is a hot button issue, only made hotter by being an election year in the face of a global pandemic. Here’s my two cents, take it for what it is worth, ( but you should take it we are headed for a recession after all and every penny counts)

Finding uses for our quarantine Amazon habit

This country has a huge problem with healthcare. There I said it. But not the problem you think. This country has one of the most robust hospital networks in the world, some of the most talented practitioners, and some of the most innovative medical scientists. The overall cost and access point might be a bit askew but that’s not really the major problem either (although it does need addressing). So what is the problem?

All of these items just mentioned are “sick care” not Healthcare. The system currently in place is designed to help you get healthy from a point of injury or illness, rather than cultivate you as a healthy individual from the start. Taken in that context, America’s sick care although expensive is tremendous. But it doesn’t take a long look to realize our healthcare is in the trash. Obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, sedentary lifestyles, and a plethora of highly processed garbage food options are there not for far too many of us.

If you’ve been a reader of the blog for any length of time, the message (although it is likely lost in my lengthy lecturing) is one of total well-being, and largely by taking steps that are within our reach. Diet, exercise, sleep, hydration, mental and emotional well-being, these are life skills that everyone has room for improvement in, and lead to this hazy concept of Serenity.

There is no time like the present to start the work on your own Healthcare. If extra time home and a global pandemic isn’t the kickstart you need, what is?

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

This week’s SerenityThroughSweat, STEM challenge with Amazon boxes and matchbox cars, some quality backyard time in the kiddie pool, some solo miles sans stroller, and I even went back to my roots for an old jump rope workout I did years ago.

Faith, Hope, and Reality

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. I have seen this quote from James Stockdale thrown out from a few different sources and I wanted to add my two cents on it. (You should probably take it, we are headed for a recession after all)

“You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end, which you can never afford to lose, with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”

The current reality is uncertainty. We still have a lot to learn about this virus. We don’t know the best ways to protect those we love and still function in society as we knew it. We don’t know what the economy, and more importantly our individual jobs and communities will look like after this is all said and done.

I have a tremendous amount of faith in the human spirit. Humans are capable of incredible things and I have no doubt that though this pandemic will significantly alter our trajectory as a species, it will not end it. However, faith and hope are not a tactical plan.

There are some things though that make sense to do no matter what happens. Simon Black, the author of the Sovereign Man (whom you should check out if you are not familiar), says this frequently about having a plan B. In a time of uncertainty where there is no playbook, a plan B with elements that are good for you no matter what is a good place to start.

If you have read this blog for any length of time, (thank you) you know that I’m constantly advocating for, and actively pursuing, physical, mental, and emotional, well-being. Working out, meditation, hydration, diet, sleep, are all things largely within our control, that are helpful no matter what. Whatever situation arises, you will be in a better place to tackle it from a complete state of well-being.

Budgeting is a skill that can be practiced and applied to many areas of our lives, and again is helpful no matter what. Confront the brutal facts of your reality, are you living within your means? Can you put aside money for a rainy day? Can you put aside food for a rainy day? Can you budget your time for well-being activities or hobbies that cultivate life skills. Scratch cooking, self defense, hunting, gardening, sewing, carpentry, etc… Will all be more useful in the whatever society emerges from this than watching Netflix.

As we move forward together to face whatever life looks after all of this, I hope that things will be better and brighter. In the meantime, reality dictates same drastic changes, and I’ll be working on my plan B.

Thanks for joining me and stay sweaty my friends.

This week’s SerenityThroughSweat, my first time out running since speedy arrived, a stroller run with El Duderino, and some outside time with the sandbag and training mask. There has never been a better time to use a training mask. I used to get all sorts of weird looks, now I blend right in.