There’s a topic that has come up somewhat routinely on my podcast and I wanted to take a few minutes this week to write about it.
When many of us make an effort to improve some aspect of our lives, whether it be physical, emotional, etc. we do so with something of a plan. Maybe it’s by trying a diet out that we heard was effective or a training plan that promises to get us stronger and/or leaner or maybe we’re trying to clear our headspace by doing something more therapeutic.
What we often forget to do is to take notes and leave a trail of how these changes are affecting us in real time so that we have a track record of what’s working, what isn’t and most importantly, what (if anything) needs to change.
Let me give an example.
Several years ago, I read some literature about intermittent fasting. The sources were credible, the information seemed sound and I advocated for it by writing about in a blog on a website I no longer keep active.
I tried a variation out which would be the one that was popularized recently by utilizing a 16 hour fasting window with an 8 hour eating window. I didn’t track calories, I just ate within my window and tried it for about month.
My results, as memory serves, were not remarkable. However, two points stick out: 1) I didn’t track calories so whether I was unconsciously eating in a deficit, a surplus or at maintenance, I can only assume based on what the scale told me. 2) Any positive or negative benefit otherwise is left to my memory which is not getting better with time. So, when I look back on my first experiment in fasting, the results didn’t stand out in any way.
After my first experiment, I tried fasting in a different way, by doing one 24-hour fast each week. Here again, I tracked no calories, followed the parameter of the fasting protocol for about a month and saw no noticeable results. Just like my first go-round, I had no clear recollection of the good or the bad of the different approach.
Fast forward a few years and I tried fasting again with a slight difference. I tracked my calories meticulously, went back to a 16-8 fasting window and lost 9 pounds in about 2 months. Now, I had data to look back on to say that “something” was happening aside from the otherwise uncomfortable window of not consuming food for X amount of time.
In retrospect, a bit more information would have been helpful too:
How was my mood?
2. How was my energy?
3. How was my libido?
4. How was my sleep?
5. How were my workouts?
These are the areas I would have to rely on my inconsistent memory to provide me.
Why does this matter?
It’s somewhat human nature to, for lack of a better phrase, blindly follow a plan and just hope for the best. If things are positive, we try to stay on the course. If things are negative, we either abandon prematurely or we stubbornly stay on the course hoping things will be favorable soon. In the case of the latter, we might be right, we could also be wrong.
The thing is, we have to remember our individual response to what we embark on. Just because your spouse saw good results doing CrossFit doesn’t meant that you will, just because your grandfather lived to 94 eating bacon every day and smoking cigars doesn’t mean you will reach the same age with the same practices.
However, having data helps.
If the way you’re eating matters, you can track calories, or track eating behaviors, or track diet-related habits and see what changes. Use the 5 questions I listed above as a reference. If you decide you want to try intermittent fasting, a low carb diet, a low fat diet or something along those lines, have a record of what you were feeling, when you were feeling it and data points that can help you understand what’s happening.
As I’ve said many times in the past and will share again: if you’re not keeping track, you’re guessing. And if you’re guessing, there’s a good chance you’re wrong.
We’re all (myself included) trying to get better at something. You can read all the books, all the articles and watch all the videos you like, but if you’re going to make the financial investment, perform the task and not have some quantitative record of what’s happening, what are you learning?
I am back with the final episode in our 4-part series together and Dr. Spencer Nadolsky wraps things up with a conversation on lipids and dietary interventions. Dr. Spencer discusses the basics of what you need to know regarding cholesterol levels, what dietary changes have the most positive benefit and where medication would be recommended.
To learn more about Dr. Spencer and join the LiftRx community:
Note: The following article contains references to suicide. The reader is encouraged to skip this article if the subject is triggering.
Beneath my watchstrap is a reminder.
A reminder of a person I was, a reminder of a life that I lived and a life that I tried in multiple ways to end whether through threat or physical attempt.
Many of these circumstances came when I was merely 20 years of age.
Over the years, that scar has faded as have the feelings and emotions of someone desperate to feel something more meaningful than what I had at the time.
As 2021 ended and 2022 began, I heard about friends of our family who took their lives and even in the news, I’ve seen more reports of people who just couldn’t hang on in this world any longer.
It can be a merciless world…
My wife and I were talking sometime back, and in Marissa’s mind, it’s always been difficult for her to understand how someone can get so low that they feel inclined to remove themselves.
Even though it’s been a very long time since I’ve had those thoughts, I understand it. I understand how someone can feel so desperate to feel valued or loved or appreciated that they convince themselves the world would be better off without them.
It pains me to say that, as an only child, that I would have felt that way and considered leaving my parents with that void in their lives. My parents who only ever showed me love and support and understanding.
I just didn’t know how to accept it back then.
And this reminder on my wrist, over the years it has faded so much that, in the right light, I can barely see the evidence of that former life of mine.
There is never a convenient time to talk about suicide. Even when there are awareness months and weeks and days where people collectively take to social media for the cause. Phone numbers are offered as are email addresses and points of contact. People, myself included, offer themselves, their listening ears and their homes to anyone who feels so much despair that they consider letting go completely.
And since there is never a convenient time to talk about it, I’m talking about it now. To anyone who will listen or read, people are suffering everywhere, just like I did over 20 years ago. People are making threats and taking action because the world they live in is suffocating them. I remember those days, and even when I try not to, the reminder on my wrist tells me otherwise: Don’t forget what you’ve been through.
And here is my very simple plea: Stay alive. At all costs, stay alive.
Had I fulfilled the hopes I had for myself once upon a time, I would have missed out on so many incredible parts of my life: on my wife, Marissa, on my son, Jackson, and our son, Sebastian. There would be no RevFit, I would not have been there for my mother when cancer took my father from this world, I would not have been able to tell my father over and over again how much I loved him before cancer took over, I would not have been here to write these words to someone who may need to see them, that yes…sometimes, the grass is actually greener on the other side.
And if you’re reading this, and you need an ear, from someone who’s been there, this is where you’ll find me:
In the 3rd part of our 4-part series together, Dr. Spencer is back with me as we consider health regardless of body size. Dr. Spencer breaks down what markers might need to be considered to determine what the health of an individual actually is and how not to judge a book by its cover.
To learn more about Dr. Spencer’s work and to join LiftRx:
When I started RevFit in 2009, I was building everything from the ground up. From client one and beyond, it was a slow, often uncomfortable growth period where I constantly challenged myself to do enough networking, meet enough people and get good results through training.
At the time, I was hungry and desperate to fill in every possible space in my planner with training appointments. I would start as early as 5am and often go until as late as 7pm just to get as many people through my door as possible.
My only goal, aside from making my clients happy was filling in as much of the blank space as possible.
And of course, what I sacrificed was my own self-care, time with my loved ones and the habits I was working so hard to help my clients improve.
As business grew and I was able to hire other trainers to help me balance the load, I would find areas in the day to get my own training in, even if it was a less than ideal time or length of time (which it frequently was).
By 2018, I reached a point where I was starting to max out my capacity for what I could do in the span of the same 24 hours everyone else has access to in a day. So, I made a judgment call based on the advice of coaches who ran facilities similar to mine whose success I wanted to achieve: I divided our training blocks and forced blank space into my day.
It was a calculated risk because I knew that invariably I might lose some business. I did, but it was very minimal. What I gained in return was time to breathe, time to train, time to eat lunch, time to decompress, time to run errands for the business, time to do client consultations, time to work on this blog and record my podcast.
I’ve become very motivated by that blank space because it enforces the boundaries I need for my own well-being and to make sure that all of the things that happen behind closed doors at the studio are taken care of.
I don’t train as early as 5am anymore but we do get started at 530a and I no longer train until 7pm. Most evenings, we wrap up by 530p (give or take) so that I can get home to my family and enjoy dinner and some downtime before it’s off to bed and the next day repeats.
Many people work a more traditional day than I do, so 8a-5p or 9a-6p might be more their norm. That means, that if they want to achieve the same blank space to take care of themselves and their health, they’ll have to do so on the bookends (either before work, after work, or both).
It also may require turning into bed sooner at night so that there is room for blank space the next morning. If you’re up late, and you rise late, you’re already behind the ball. And it’s hard to gain confidence in your day when you’re in a race with the clock and the clock continues to win.
As you read this, think about the areas in the span of your day where you need to create blank space. Maybe every day doesn’t need to be filled from bell to bell with appointments and everyone else but you dictating your schedule.
I believe, that even though it’s not perfect and things can still come up that throw your schedule off, the balance you’re trying to achieve with your diet, your training and your goals is going to be easier to achieve once you prioritize the way your day can go outside of your normal schedule.
Much like a lot of things in life, it takes practice. Not only to set the time but to make sure that you get the time.
Speaking only for myself, it was a game changer for me and chances are, it will be for you, too.
Dr. Spencer Nadolsky is back with me for the second part of our 4-part series together. In this episode, we discuss not only the upside and benefits of weight loss medications but where the usage would be deemed appropriate and expectations of how they would work. We also talk about which commonly prescribed medications may inhibit the ability for people to lose weight when taking them.
To learn more about Dr. Spencer’s work and to join the LiftRx platform:
So much of my life over the past two years has been a blur.
Yes, I know much of that is wrapped up in the coronavirus and how it’s affected every person in every area of the globe no matter who they are.
But for me, personally, it’s been nowhere more apparent than in watching my son, Jackson, in his teens.
He was 12 when the world took a sharp turn in March of 2020 and as I write these words, he celebrates his 14th birthday. Just wrapping my head around the fact that I have a teenager is strange enough, but due to the virus itself, we haven’t seen Jax as much as we did prior to 2020.
Much of this was a result of his mother and I doing our damnedest to keep him from testing positive for the virus. While no efforts are considered foolproof, it was less because of fear of Jax getting COVID and more because there is so little that our mostly low verbal son would be able to express to us if he was sick.
If you’ve followed my writing for awhile, you’ll know that Jackson’s autism is in many ways his superpower. He is almost always a bright light whether he’s singing, dancing, putting together Legos or watching a movie. We’ve always been able to ebb and flow with the fact that what Jackson couldn’t express in words, he could achieve in action or other means of expression.
And autism aside, he is coming more into his own as a teenager. Slowly, he is starting to speak more and not just by scripting answers. The teenager in him is expressing his opinion, cracking jokes and, if the questions are simple, he can give you a genuine response.
Of course, there are the very teen aspects of body odor, body hair, and just enough rebellion to keep the rest of us wondering what’s going on in that mind of his.
For myself, my life completely changed 14 years ago when Jackson came into this world. I know how being a part of his world has made me better and watching the young man he’s turning into is fascinating.
His little brother, Sebastian, remains completely over the moon with his big brother. It’s arguably his favorite time when Jackson is with us (despite the fact that most 14 year old kids don’t want to hang out with a 4 year old).
And to the boy who continue to transform in front of our eyes, we wish you the happiest of birthdays. You continue to make us proud.
It shocks me to say it but Dr. Spencer Nadolsky hasn’t been on the show since Episode #13 in May of 2016! He returns this week to join me for my next 4-part series. In this episode, we talk about his brand new program, LiftRx, and what he’s looking to accomplish with this exercise and nutrition platform. Tune in to find out the details.
To learn more about Dr. Spencer’s work and to sign up for LiftRx:
In the mid-90s, I was at a listening station at a bookstore, tuning in to an artist I had heard good things about. His name was Nick Drake and the song I listened to that day was called “Way to Blue”. Before the chorus finished, I was crying in the middle of that store. Music has always had a grip on me that movies and books could never quite hold a candle to.
Many years later, I took the cue from a book called “1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die” by Robert Dimery, and listened to every album in the list that I wasn’t already familiar with. Not surprisingly, Nick Drake’s album made the list.
While lists like these are subjective, I knew it would be an aggressive undertaking. When I removed all of the albums from the list I already was acclimated to (let’s say a mere 25%), I still had several hundred albums left to cover.
I loaded them up on my iPod, decade by decade, and started to dive in.
The original book starts in the 50s and works its way into the 2000s. While I didn’t listen to every album in the order it was listed, I did cover each decade at a time. So, I didn’t touch the 60s until the 50s was complete, etc.
It took me about a month of daily listening to cover the list in entirety.
As someone who is fiercely passionate and opinionated about music, I had always kept something of a distance from certain artists who are considered iconic in music history. Artists like Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, Leonard Cohen, and even bands like Joy Division stayed further than arms length from me. I knew their importance as artists but I had no perspective to approach them from. As a result, much of my life I steered clear, for the most part, and let my tastes guide me other places.
There is an opinion, I don’t know who to credit it to, that “nothing new” in music was created beyond the 70s. After delving through the list, I am inclined to agree.
While certain styles of music may have evolved into the following decades and improved with advances in studio engineering, there is actually little (if anything) that became a pioneering achievement beyond the 70s.
One of the things that I found fascinating by approaching the list in the way I did, was that those same artists I kept my distance from now “sounded” different when you heard them amongst the landscape of other artists at that time. Some bands/musicians were a true product of what was happening socially, geographically and politically at the time. If those same artists would have been placed anywhere else in history, they may not have had the same impact.
So, when I got to Lou Reed, Iggy Pop and the other aforementioned artists, the lightbulb kicked on: Now, I understand. Now, I “get it”.
And that understanding led to me completely embracing those artists, all of whom, save for maybe Cohen, I am still listening to routinely today. I respect Cohen but I really have to be in the mood to listen to him.
As much as I love music, and I love music down to my bones, I couldn’t really appreciate the icons and the legends of rock history without understanding the framework from where they came.
Once I did, it was a revelation.
It got me thinking about how the average person approaches nutrition and exercise.
What many people know about food and training is what the population at large has shown them. They are victim to the trends of the moment. Much like music, if you don’t take the time to delve past what the radio (the public) plays you, you’re going to miss some very important areas. You might only be exposed to fad diets, misinformation and you never really understand why so many of the available options don’t quite work for you.
As a result, you might hear about things like intermittent fasting and all of the supposed (and actual) benefits of it but it doesn’t mean that it applies or would work for you. It only has those benefits for certain people. Keto is interchangeable in this conversation, as is veganism or any other diet that is defined by a name.
We (collectively) hear what people tell us about health but we don’t look beyond the surface of it. With music, if all you know is Bob Dylan, maybe you get no further than Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, Donovan or Woody Guthrie. That’s not a bad thing but your palette sure is limited.
When people hear about the value of temporarily tracking their food, assuming there is not a psychological barrier to doing so, maybe they dabble in it but they don’t practice the skill enough to see how effective it is. They kind of “get it” but not really. That’s not saying you need to track but if you’re going to do so, commit to it for awhile. Educate yourself.
Or maybe people hear about the importance of a macronutrient like protein. With the inclusion of resistance training, they might not take the time to develop the skill in adding that nutrient, (animal or plant-based), consistently into the diet to see how transformative it can be.
We could argue over the merits of intuitive eating, flexible dieting, very low calorie diets, etc. and there will never be a shortage of dietary methods to experiment with and learn from (just like there will never be a shortage of bands to fall in love with or detest).
What I’d like you to do is to dig deeper and learn more about food and how you nourish yourself. Just a friendly reminder that food documentaries and fad diet books are not a good place to actually learn about food.
With training, maybe you’ve heard about the advantages of sprint intervals, high intensity training or “metabolic workouts”. They sound good on paper, maybe even with magical results, but you don’t take the time to understand the efficacy is in the dose (more is not always better) and even if certain types of training might be contraindicated for your body.
And, if you’re inclined to agree with the notion that nothing new has been accomplished with music in the last few decades, I would argue that the very same could be said about food and exercise, too. Most of what we know about has been the relative truth for decades now.
My challenge to you is to learn more.
Learn what make your body feel good.
Learn what portions of food make you feel satisfied but not stuffed.
Learn the amount of food and the style of training your body performs its best at.
Learn what foods make you feel bloated or tired.
Learn what style of exercise leaves you empowered to “fight another day”.
Learn what foods can stay at close proximity in your home without being triggering.
Know that the foods that make me feel great may not be the same foods that make you feel great. We are allowed that individual response.
Much like taste in music is subjective, so is taste in food and training and how our body responds to both.
Truth be told, you don’t have to take my word from it. The “lightbulb moment” has happened for many of my clients at RevFit, too:
From Pam H: “Things clicked for me when I learned to hit the calories my body needed for fat loss and to dial in my protein. I lost 40 pounds this way. I know exactly what I need to do I just need to commit to doing it.”
From Mary W: “My lightbulb moment came when I realized that everything I wanted to accomplish for myself and my body was at least 75% mental.”
From David L: “I can’t run from the fork. Meaning, one can train vigorously for five days a week, but not maintaining a reasonable diet will sabotage that effort.”
From Rachel H: “I know that personal bests come slow for me. I made a vow to myself that I wouldn’t miss a training session for 12 weeks and I train 3x/week. During that time, I only missed two sessions, making it in for 34 of 36 sessions. By the end, I had hit a new personal record in my trapbar deadlift.”
You don’t learn these things by playing a cameo role in your health. You learn them when you commit to programs that resonate with you.
When you experiment and “listen” to the cues, you’ll learn things about yourself that may not have been apparent before.
So, take that journey. Look beyond food for sadness, food for solace and food for fear that you may not see the next meal (assuming you are of the privileged who are not without).
Look beyond training for fat loss or training as punishment for something you ate. Learn to appreciate what your body is capable of and the circumstances under which you’re at your best.
Pay attention to the framework you approach your health from and once you find that context, you’ll “get it”.
Just like our clients did.
(Pictured below, Nick Drake’s “Five Leaves Left” which originally featured “Way To Blue”)
Kate Galliett and I conclude our 4-part series this week by putting the bow on our conversation and formally introducing her new book “Becoming Unbreakable”. In this episode, we get to chat more about her “6 Pillars” that she breaks down formally in the book as well as the origin story for how the book came to fruition.
Jason Leenaarts 