Reflecting
In the 21st century developed world, it is easier than ever before to stay 100% comfortable all day. You can satiate every urge before it is too acute. Always warm or cool enough. Full or overly full stomach. Anything heavy carried by (another) man or machine. Instant free dopamine hits.
But it is better to let yourself get a little hungry. Nothing tastes as good as real food when you’re in a calorie deficit. I’m switching out some of my eggs and meat for sprouts to drop a few pounds of fat for some upcoming BJJ where I want to compete leaner. But in addition to tweaking what I eat, I’m also tweaking when I eat. I’m letting myself get a bit hungry. It feels great physically. It is also useful mentally to work on being able to focus and persevere despite an easily remedied hunger.
Comfort is the enemy of performance. It is worth experimenting with doses of discomfort that replicate our ancestral conditions. Focus your mind on the best ways to solve that discomfort with substantive solutions. It goes beyond intermittent fasting to hitting pause on all of the quick fixes that are so mindlessly available. The world of endlessly indulgent food is also a sedentary, pornographic, and indebted world. See how it feels to skip the easiest solution for the next few minutes and replace it with the best solution for the next few hours.
Training
This morning’s whiteboard —
Every minute x 8: 3 back squats w/bands and chains
Every two minutes x 5: 12 deficit kb sumo deadlifts as heavy as possible
Every two minutes x 5: 16 goblet lunges as heavy as possible
Another hour of weightlifting post-WOD:
Then off to the sauna.
Next run:
I’m training for the Grindstone Running Festival’s 100 km race:
I’m trying to stay focused on strength training, but keep getting goaded back into signing up for races; I watched Just. One. Mile. over the weekend which helped fire me up to register for another.
Don’t give pain a voice.
- Chadd Wright
Fueling
Trout and a scramble of eggs, garlic, sprouts, and bacon:
Supplementing
I plan to eliminate at least one supplement for any new one I start. While I like trying new things, over the long-term I want to get to a simple plan. My friend Cam Sepah, CEO of Maximus and a professor at UCSF Med School, is one of the world’s greatest debunkers and has saved me a lot of expense and bother in shooing me away from all sorts of faddish supplements. He says “no” so frequently that it earns him a lot more credibility in my mind when he occasionally says “yes”. Most recently, I asked him about Kisspeptin therapy for increasing testosterone. He was a strong “no”: it has a short half-life, suppresses endogenous testosterone, and requires multiple injections per day. Pass. Will add to the “no” column in subsequent posts.
Measuring
To avoid getting offtrack, it is probably necessary to weigh your food or weigh yourself (I prefer the latter but either works). I use a smart scale daily to track percent body fat. But for an even simpler measurement, waist size let’s you know if what you’re gaining or losing is fat or muscle. Adding pounds and shedding inches off your waist? That’s muscle. To avoid inadvertantly backsliding, when you get to your optimal waist size, avoid easily adjustable belts. Wear one with hole punches instead of one that slides. Even better: get one made with only one hole punched.
Recovering
I loved recovering from my recent trail ultra marathon on Lake Geneva. The hotel was fantastic overall, but their gym wasn’t. So it is always good to travel with a few pieces of fitness equipment. The best portable gear is a good jump rope and a resistance band. Three rounds of two minutes on the jump rope with a one minute break gets in an eight minute warm up followed by pull aparts, curls, skull crushers, and ham curls with the band for a workout that you can do anywhere. Take some gear; deprive yourself of any excuses.
Closing
Congratulations to the fittest man and woman on Earth: CrossFit Games winners Jeff Adler and Laura Horvath. Earned.