“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.”
-Marcus Aurelius

The formula to look better, feel better, and live better is deceptively simple.

Eat better, move smarter, live the good life.

Master these basics and you’ll be surprised at how well you can maximize your health and fitness without it completely taking over your life.

But why does it feel like it is so difficult to actually do these things?

Fear is the emotion that keeps us from doing the right thing.

And by learning how to give fear the finger, you can drastically cut back on the friction you come up against in your quest to lose fat, build muscle, and live longer.

A Fear Primer

Fear is one of the most primal emotions, and for good reason.

Fear is the body’s response to an external threat. If we never felt fear, we’d never survive any of the legitimate threats in our environment.

If you are hunting for food and come across a saber-tooth tiger, fear is the automatic jump-start you need to get the hell out of dodge before you become dinner yourself.

But unfortunately, like most emotions, they work best for those living a lifestyle that few still do.

Fear. Anger. Anxiety. Although these so-called “negative” emotions cause more harm than good for most people, we evolved them to survive and reproduce back when we were living in nomadic tribes of hunter-gatherers.

But you aren’t a hunter-gatherer. And you are getting screwed over by fear as a result.

Although fear appears as a result to real objects and events, it also happens for things that you think about.

You can literally scare yourself by thinking about imaginary things, and this is what cripples most people.

My Own Fear of Fitness

I’ve shared elsewhere the fears that I experienced when I first started working out.

As a guitar-playing and non-athlete skinny dude with dyed blue hair, I was risking making myself look like a fool in the small town where I knew everybody.

And the worst thing ever happened: I threw up in front of my buddy the first time I worked out… even though I told him I went to the weight room all the time!

Over time, I learned how to lift weights properly by keeping at it. Eventually, people started noting that I looked like I’d been working out instead of busting my balls for barfing!

What’s giving you fear?

Maybe you’re at the supermarket to go shopping for real food for the first time. Perhaps you’re at home with fresh meat and veggies and getting ready to cook your first pot roast.

Or maybe you aren’t doing anything, paralyzed by the fear of what terrible things will happen when you start doing what you know needs to be done.

Kicking Fear’s Ass

Fear is a good thing. It means you are getting out of your comfort zone. If you never feel fear it is because you are living the same day over and over again.

Most people will only feel 100% fulfilled by their life if they are constantly improving themselves. So they will be feeling fear all the time.

But that doesn’t mean they have to let it make all their decisions for them.

If you want to give fear the finger in your life, here’s a five step blueprint to help you do it. The following five step list will help you get through literally any fear-related problem, health-related or otherwise.

1. Acknowledge Your Fear– One of the sneakiest things about fear is that you don’t always recognize when you are experiencing it. I’m sure you can remember how it felt when you were afraid once before. From now on, whenever you have those feelings, try to think to yourself that what you are experiencing is fear.
2. Identify the Triggers– Fear doesn’t happen for no reason. There is always a trigger, either in reality or (more likely) in your mind. The next time you feel afraid, take the time to figure out what specifically you are afraid of. Maybe for you it happens when I mention that you really need to learn how to cook in order to get healthy and fit in the long term.
3. Know What You Want– As I mentioned, fear can be useful, but it more often than not pops up when we are trying to get something we want. Perhaps you want to live a long life, one with a minimal amount of illness and injury, and one where you are always feeling energetic and have the “fuel” to accomplish anything you want to do with your life. (And let’s be honest, you probably want to look good naked, too!)
4. Understand the Consequences– When fear comes up, you have two options. You can let it hold you back from doing something, or you can give it the finger and do it despite the fear. By letting fear hold you back from learning how to cook healthy meals, you are choosing to go the route of deprivation and fad diets, always working hard to avoid certain foods and nutrients… or you decide to put your health and fitness on the back burner entirely.
5. ACT– If you’ve acknowledged your fear, identified what triggered it, and decided that it’s more important to do whatever needs to be done despite it, then it’s time to take action. If you have decided that it is worthwhile to learn how to cook to improve your overall health and fitness, it’s time to get started. Buy yourself the equipment you need. Get some real food from the supermarket. Find a recipe you could eat over and over again, and get cracking. (You could also sign up for my free Kitchen Hacking 101 course if you’re really looking to make things happen here! )

What are the fears that are keeping you from learning how to eat better, move smarter, or live the good life?

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Breakfast is the most difficult meal to get right.

It is usually the most unhealthy meal we eat each day, chock full of sugar and refined grains, devoid of real food such as meat and fresh produce.

Most of us have to get our asses out the door at the break of dawn and don’t have the luxury to sit down to eat a quality meal. And it’s not exactly easy to find healthy meals to go at 7 am either.

For most Americans, the average weekday breakfast looks something like this: cereal loaded up with sugar (even if you don’t realize it) swimming in a bowl of low-fat (and thus low-nutrient) milk.

This “go-to” meal is a truly bad idea in the long run.

Not only are you overdoing it with metabolism-wrecking sugar, but you are skipping out on the protein and fat you need to really fill up without running out of steam by 10 am and hitting up the vending machine for junk food.

There’s plenty of data that suggests that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, but only if you do it right.

The ideal breakfast is:

1. Low in sugar.
2. Low in white flour.
3. High in animal fat and/or plant starch.
4. Mostly meat, eggs, vegetables, and/or fruit.
5. Quick to prepare.
6. Relatively cheap.

Of course, you’re never going to get all six of these in one meal (if only it were that easy), but that doesn’t mean you can’t improve on your breakfast routine nonetheless.

Without further ado, I bring you six healthier weekday breakfast alternatives!

1. Five-Star Cereal: Puffed Rice with Whole Milk and Fresh Berries

There’s about a 99% chance that you ate cereal with milk this morning. Hey, I can’t blame ya. It’s super easy, and requires no willpower whatsoever to throw together.

But make sure you do it right.

I can’t believe how many grown-ass people I know that still eat children’s cereal every morning. This sugar-loaded and neon-colored garbage is just about the worst way to start your day.

The only worse thing would be if you just ate spoonfuls of straight sugar.

If you’re going to eat cereal, do yourself a favor and stick to the “old-school” types. Wheat flakes aren’t the greatest, but corn flakes are better, and puffed rice is best of all.

These types of cereal are as minimally-processed as possible, and don’t have a bunch of added sugar or any other junk.

Also, instead of skim milk, use whole milk for your cereal. Don’t pay money for de-fatted dairy when the good stuff costs the same. Fat is your friend, folks.

A nice touch is to add some fresh fruit to it. Frozen fruit works as well, but don’t use this as an excuse to get cereal with dried “fruit” already added–that stuff often isn’t even made of real fruit.

Cereal and milk is the go-to breakfast for most people–and it’s pretty easy to prepare–but don’t get tricked into thinking that is nearly as healthy and important as you have been told.

The story of how breakfast cereal came to dominate is utterly fascinating, if you’d like to learn about it. It involves vegetarian quack doctors, health-conscious celebrities, and yogurt enemas.

Seriously.

2. The Old Classic: Steel-Cut Oatmeal with Nuts and Fruit

Oatmeal is another classic breakfast staple that most people get wrong.

Instead of going for packets of powdered oats and flavorings (mostly from sugar), it’s much better to go with the more minimally-processed steel cut oats and add your own extras.

The biggest headache most people have with steel-cut oats is the increased time it takes to prepare. It can take up to 45 minutes to cook in a pot, but there’s a cool hack you can use to reduce this.

In the evening, add 1 cup oats to 2 cups milk (or water) in a bowl and let sit in the fridge overnight. In the morning, just heat up the bowl of oatmeal and you’re ready to go! (If you’re in a hurry, you can also eat it cold.)

Dried fruit and nuts are a great quick way to add more flavor and variety to your oatmeal, as is a tiny bit of vanilla extract. Butter or cream is a wonderful addition as well. You can even (gasp!) use a little bit of maple syrup, as long as you can show some restraint.

3. Plain Yogurt with Fresh Berries

Yogurt and berries is yet another common healthy breakfast that is done incorrectly 99% of the time.

Most people just grab the fruit-and-yogurt packs from the supermarket and call it good enough. Like most pre-prepared food, yogurt has WAY too much added sugar.

The only real way around this is to get your own plain yogurt and add the berries yourself. I like to get the big tubs to save on money.

Look very closely to make sure you are getting full-fat yogurt with no added sweetener. Of the hundreds of types of yogurt available at the store, you’ll be lucky if you find two that aren’t labeled “low fat” or “non fat.”

Also, be sure not to buy vanilla yogurt, as simple as it may sound. It is also usually loaded with added sugar. Add some real vanilla extract yourself if that’s your thang.

Like with cereal above, don’t feel shy to substitute frozen berries for fresh. (Fresh just tastes better, IMHO.)

4. Bacon, Eggs, and Fruit

Here’s the most “advanced” weekday breakfast I suggest, even though it takes much less extra time than you’d imagine.

Bacon and eggs is a classic minimalist breakfast. And if you stick with a simple egg prep such as sunnyside up or over easy, it can be remarkably quick to whip up.

I like to start the bacon frying first, as that’s usually what takes the most time to cook. While this is going, I’ll cut up some fresh fruit (grapefruit and strawberries are some of my faves), then cook up the eggs.

Sure, it’s not as gussied-up as the omelettes and home fries you can throw together on the weekends, but this high-protein, high-flavor healthy breakfast (yeah, I said it!) is one of the best ways you can start the day.

5. Last Night’s Leftovers

Most of the problems with the way our culture does breakfast comes from the stubborn insistence that it use foods that we don’t eat for any other meals.

Lunch and dinner are, for the most part, interchangeable. You can eat the same thing at noon and at 7 pm without violating any social customs.

But breakfast’s a whole ’nother story.

Breakfast foods range from pastries drowned in sugar (bad), cereal grains swimming in milk (better), to meat and eggs (best). But you’d rarely eat an Irish stew or pork chop with asparagus for breakfast, even if they’re ready to eat in the fridge.

I know it’s a bit of a mental hurdle, but try eating yesterday’s leftovers for breakfast sometime.

After a while, you’ll get used to it. And you won’t be as tempted by that cereal that turns your skim milk neon colors ever again.

6. Nothing. Zilch. Nada.

All through my life until a couple of years ago, I forced myself to eat breakfast every morning.

I was never hungry, but I bought into all the hype that breakfast was the most important meal of the day and I would be doing myself great harm if I skipped it.

Well, I’ve been skipping breakfast most mornings for a couple of years now, and guess what? I have gotten into great shape without the hit to my health I was told I would take.

Don’t get me wrong. Skipping breakfast isn’t for everyone. In fact, it probably isn’t for most people.

That’s why I gave you healthy options rather than completely jumping on the breakfast-skipping bandwagon.

But give it a shot for a week or two and see how it goes. If you can make it until lunch without getting so hungry that it gets in the way of what you are doing, you may want to consider giving it the ol’ heave-ho altogether.

Skipping breakfast isn’t just a healthy option (when done right), but it is probably the easiest approach most of us can take towards breakfast with our busy lifestyles.

Is breakfast truly the most important meal of the day? I’d say it depends on how your body works. What I can say is that the way most people do breakfast is actually doing more harm than good.

This is primarily the result of our busy lifestyles and inability to sit down for a meal of quality food in the morning. But that doesn’t mean you should give up all hope.

One (or more) of these six options is bound to work for you and help get every morning started off on the right foot.

What do you usually do for breakfast during the week?

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Look better.
Feel better.
Live better.

Does that pretty much sum up what you want to get from your health and fitness?

As much as we’d like to think we’re above it, we all want to look good naked. It improves our prospects, relationships, and sex lives. It improves the way others see us and treat us.

It limits the time we spend sick or injured, keeping us on our feet doing the things that are important. It helps us spend more days on this planet doing them.

It helps us to wake up in the morning feeling good. It helps us go through the day without feeling like crap. It helps us feel excited about life and enthusiastic about our part in it. It helps us sleep soundly at night.

Sounds great! But how do we get there?

The world’s full of ultra-specific diets and exercise programs, all claiming to be the “magic bullet” that will get you into the greatest shape of your life.

Most of them will fail in the long term, owing to their ultra-strict rules and inability to work in our modern world of harmful temptations.

Athletes, models, and actors aside, physical health should be a means to an end in your life, not an end itself. And as such, you should approach it with a sense of balance, and with open-ended principles rather than hard and fast rules.

After more than ten years of interest and experience in this whole health and fitness world, I think I’ve found the “treasure map” that can get you there as well.

And today, I’m here to share it.

Eat Better, Move Smarter, Live the Good Life

These are the three “pillars” upon which the LMVM philosophy of health and fitness is built, each of which are composed of three “principles,” as follows:

Eat Better

• Eat Real Food
• Balance Feasting and Fasting
• Cheat Occasionally

Move Smarter

• Move Your Body
• Don’t Overdo It
• Make It Fun

Live the Good Life

• Sleep More
• Be Social
• Follow Your Bliss

Think of this as “eat less and exercise more” for the twenty-first century. We’ve evolved beyond the paradigm that had us starving ourselves, eating gross food, obsessing over shady supplements, and spending too much time at the gym doing exercises that did us little good.

Here is the nine-step guide to looking better, feeling better, and living better.

1. Eat Real Food

Low-fat. Low-carb. Low-calorie.

It’s easy to get paralyzed by all the conflicting dietary information out there.

Most diets will give you results in the short term, if for no other reason than they force you to restrict your consumption of certain types of food that you are used to.

But to be successful in the long term, you need to focus on what has worked for others in the long run.

In the past hundred or so years, the human diet has undergone drastic changes. Where we once relied heavily on animal fats and plant starches for our calories, we have increasingly become dependent on things such as sugar, flour, and vegetable oil.

Instead of our food coming from farms and fields, it now comes from factories and laboratories.

The lowest common denominator between successful long term diets is that they limit “new school” foods and promote the consumption of “old school” foods.

If you are looking to lose fat and build muscle, there is no more fundamental change you can make than eating a diet of Real Food: minimally-processed meat, vegetables, fruit, eggs, nuts, and seeds.

If you know what you are doing, dairy, grains, and legumes can fit here as well.

But if your great-grandparents didn’t eat something when they were your age, then that’s a good sign that you probably shouldn’t either.

2. Balance Feasting and Fasting

“In order to lose weight, you need to consume fewer calories than you burn off.”
-Every Weight Loss Article You’ve Ever Read

Mostly right. But the law of conservation of energy has been misunderstood by everyone from scientists to diet gurus to Average Joes across the world.

While a caloric surplus leads to excess calories stored as fat (or muscle) and vice versa, it doesn’t necessarily mean that calorie-counting is necessary.

In fact, the large amount of calories that humans consume and burn off, the relatively tiny amount of which is necessary to cause drastic weight changes, and the high degree of error with which we can measure calories all mean that it is impossible to count calories as precisely as needed to effectively be a realistic tool for weight loss (or gain).

Instead of being as simple as the deposits and withdrawals you make with your checking account, it is remarkably difficult to quantify the energy that is truly going in and out of our bodies.

Rather, energy balance is primarily regulated by the body, with genes and hormones calling the shots.

Instead of stressing yourself out (and burning your limited willpower) trying to count the grains of sand in the Sahara, it is much more efficient to give your body the fuel it needs to run efficiently without putting it into “famine mode” or gorging on foods that are too good to ever stop eating.

If you are eating Real Food, your focus should instead be on balancing feasting and fasting. You should feel hungry as often as you feel stuffed.

If you only eat one meal a day, you can safely gorge yourself every time, but if you do three meals plus two snacks, you’ll have to be more careful about how much you eat (though you won’t have to feel hungry too often).

By not trying to starve yourself or consume as much as possible, you reduce the stresses on your body that would otherwise get it to lose muscle and gain fat.

3. Cheat Occasionally

The perfect is the enemy of the good.

Unless you live in a metabolic ward in a laboratory, you will be tempted by an endless onslaught of unhealthy yet delicious food.

Pizza, burgers, fries, nachos, mac and cheese, soda, burritos…

The temptation to “cheat” is never-ending. And you should occasionally give in.

Strict diets that give you no leeway are destined to fail for most people in the long run. It just requires too much willpower and requires too much sacrifice. Especially when there is no need to be perfect.

’Round here we have a saying: 90% is perfect, 75% is good enough.

If you follow a super-strict diet, you will see no difference than if you fell off the wagon for 10% of your meals.

This little hack will allow you enjoy all the benefits of eating a diet of Real Food, while still giving you enough space to indulge and go out with friends and family without being a total pain in the ass.

4. Move Your Body

Like dieting, many people will get paralyzed by information before they even lace up their sneakers.

Don’t do this!

It’s more important to get moving in the first place than to try to find the “perfect” training program (if that even exists).

Stick to the basics you already probably know. Start going for walks. Do simple bodyweight exercises such as squats, push ups, and pull ups in your home. Go for a weekly run.

Once you get more advanced, join a gym and start doing deadlifts, cleans, and presses. (They aren’t as intimidating as you might think.) Do a few minutes of sprints each week.

If you want any guidance on finding the Perfect Fitness Program it’s this: move your body the way it was meant to move.

Compound movements (like those mentioned above) are in, as well as full-body workouts. “Chest day” and “arm day” are out.

By doing these “big movements,” you are saving time by working multiple muscle groups. You can exhaust yourself and give your central nervous system more of a stimulus to burn fat and build muscle.

You are using your body the way it was designed to be used, and therefore your body will look the way it was designed to look: lean and mean.

5. Don’t Overdo It

Conventional wisdom has it that you need to make great sacrifices if you want to get into shape, and spending hours upon hours each week working out is the first casualty.

Conventional wisdom is wrong here.

If you are doing the “big nine” exercises, you don’t need to live at the gym. You are giving your body the acute stresses it needs to get stronger without doing a bajillion bicep curls, crunches, or chest presses.

Another big win here is that you avoid the risks associated with overtraining. If you are an athlete, it might pay to push yourself to the limit, but if you’re a regular guy with a day job, it just doesn’t make any sense to risk injuring yourself.

Forget “training to muscle failure,” especially if you are doing big lifts like cleans and deadlifts. It’s unnecessary.

What you should instead be focused on is pushing yourself as hard as possible, until your form starts to go bad, and then stopping.

And instead of heading to the gym every day, you should learn how to take it easy. Three hours is the absolute maximum you should spend working out each week. Two is reasonable for most people. And the rock stars out there could probably do it in one.

But don’t skip happy hour with friends because you need to go to the gym. It’ll still be there tomorrow.

6. Make It Fun

What exercise is more important than walking, jogging, sprinting, squats, push ups, pull ups, deadlifts, cleans, and presses combined?

Doing something physical that you really enjoy.

I’ll admit, there’s a certain amount of fun that can be found in working out, but most of us, if we’re being honest, will admit that it’s not the most enjoyable thing to do.

I don’t care if you never set foot in a gym, as long as you find some fun and physical activity to do regularly.

Skiing, hiking, surfing, biking, and rock climbing are some great examples. Getting together with friends to play football, soccer, basketball, or ultimate is awesome as well.

One of the greatest benefits of being in shape is that it makes physical activities more enjoyable, and one of the best ways to enjoy physical activities more is by getting into shape.

It’s circular, but it’s so true.

Think of “gym time” as the concentrated part of your week where you push yourself to the limit in a systematic way designed to optimize your strength and fitness. Think of “fun time” as the part where you enjoy being fit to the fullest.

7. Sleep More

The biggest stressor that most people experience (and can simply change) on a day-to-day basis is sleep deprivation.

Until the invention of the light bulb, people got somewhere between eight and ten hours of sleep every night. These days, we get around seven.

Making room to “give up” a couple of hours each and every day may sound like a fairy tale to you, but it’s easier than you might think if you set things up correctly.

Worried that you won’t be able to get everything done? You will be more productive during your waking hours, able to more than make up for the time you’ll otherwise be sleeping.

One of the biggest “a-has” I had during my year without an alarm clock was how driven I was in the mornings. Where previously I dragged myself into work, propped myself up in a chair, and half-assed my way through things waiting for lunch to roll around, I now hit the ground running as soon as I wake up.

Sleeping more will increase your energy levels and focus, allowing you to make more with the fewer waking hours you have in a day.

You may need to learn some basic time management, but getting more sleep will bring stress levels down (keeping you leaner), make you more attractive, and help you to simply enjoy life a little more.

8. Be Social

Humans are a social species.

When compared to the rest of the animal kingdom, we characteristically always live in societies with others.

From the tribes of around 150 that characterized our pre-agricultural roots to the massive and densely-packed modern cities that most of us now live in, we never seem to be far from our fellow humans.

Unfortunately, we’re now able to live lives that are pretty isolated, living by ourselves and getting all our social activity from whatever interactions we have at work, then going home to spend long hours in front of television and computer screens.

But being social has documented strengths at improving health, particularly longevity.

No matter what, you should make it a priority to have a solid social network in your life (even if you are an introvert like me). Even better is to find active people to help “make it fun” as I wrote about above.

The good news here is that you now have permission to skip the occasional workout (or at least move it back a day) in order to hang out with friends. Better yet, you can make this a part of your “occasionally cheat” strategy as well and go out for drinks and dinner with them!

9. Follow Your Bliss

“I say, follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.”
-Joseph Campbell

Few people have had a more profound impact on how I approach my life than the late mythologist Joseph Campbell.

One of his most enduring philosophies is that everyone should follow their bliss–or constantly work on doing the things they love to do in life.

All too often we become broken down by the time we reach our mid-twenties. We think that all our glory days are behind us and that we are now powerless to get what we really want. Instead, we become passive, start doing what is “expected” of us by society, and resign ourselves to a life a mediocrity.

Well, fuck that!

Like most people, I’ve seen some dark days in my life, but nothing has ever made me feel better than making it a priority to actively pursue my passions each and every day.

I starting writing LMVM two years ago, not with the goal of getting people to become amateur bodybuilders (the tacit goal of 99% of fitness sites out there), but after realizing that being healthy and fit makes pursuing your dream easier and more enjoyable.

Yes, this stuff will help make you look good naked (hey, I’m all about that too!) but I’m more interested in helping the guys who are doing big things with their lives achieve their goals more easily.

I have no studies to reference here, just anecdotal evidence, but I can still say with confidence that going after what you want in life–as long as you balance it with the other eight principles here–will lower the chronic anxiety that leads so many people to take on unhealthy habits in the first place.

Eat Better. Move Smarter. Live the Good Life. These are the three pillars of the code we choose to live by. To live a self-actualized life and optimize ourselves physically without becoming a social outcast or becoming a victim of “shiny object syndrome”.

Throw out the old rules. These are the new ones.

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More than half of all U.S. households own one of their products.

They are one of the most valuable companies in the world.

If you would have bought 2,000 shares at $10 apiece 10 years ago, you would now be a millionaire.

I’ve got a confession to make: I’m a bit of an Apple geek.

I’m not too insane about them, but I think I still make it into the “fanboy” category.

I don’t have an iPad (and am not really sold on them) and I’m never one of those people queuing up outside of the stores on product release days, but I do have an iPhone and a MacBook Air.

And I’m 100% confident that these are the best phones and laptops on the market.

But there’s also a lot that you can learn from this humble technology company when it comes to health and fitness.

Welcome to the Apple School of Fitness.

Here are your five lessons:

1. You Don’t Necessarily Need to Be #1

Sure, everyone knows that the iPhone is one of the world’s best-selling cell phones, and the iPad is the industry leader in tablet computers (can you even name one competing product?).

But there’s one area where Apple has been #2 for a long time: its Macs.

Although the Macintosh was a revolutionary product when it was released in 1984, it wound up playing second fiddle to Microsoft after their Windows operating system took the world by storm in the 90s.

The Mac would never again be king of the PC mountain.

So did Apple send its flagship product off into the scrap bin? Hell, no! The Mac lives on today in a wide variety of laptops and desktops running the Mac Operating System.

And instead of Macs becoming second-rate PCs, they have gone on to redefine what personal computers can be.

To devotees, the Mac is superior to the PC in every way. It is cleaner, faster, more powerful, and more user-friendly.

When you’re trying to look and feel better, there’s no shortage of people who are #1 in the fitness department to look up to.

You can find bodybuilders, athletes, and actors with insanely chiseled physiques all over TV, the internet, and the covers of books and magazines.

It’s easy to think that you need to look just like them in order to really reap the benefits of being in shape.

But in order to look like a bodybuilder, athlete, or actor, you need to be prepared to dedicate your life to it entirely.

All due respect to the people who decide to pursue those passions, but most of us really aren’t interested. And we shouldn’t feel bad if we never get mistaken for the shirtless guy on the cover of this month’s issue of Men’s Health.

Achieving a high level of fitness is doable for anyone. It will make you more attractive, it will improve others’s perception of you, you will live a longer life, and you will minimize illness and injury while achieving energy levels that will allow you to follow your bliss in life.

And you don’t need to let fitness take over your life in order to get there.

2. Focus On Simplicity

When the iPhone was introduced in 2007, it was a revolution in simple design.

At that time, the industry leader in smartphones was RIM’s Blackberry. It contained a tiny screen and a full keyboard that needed to be reduced to microscopic size. (Hell, I’ve even seen people who needed to use tiny styluses to use them!)

When Steve Jobs first introduced the iPhone, most people scoffed. Instead of a keyboard, it only had one home button and utilized a touch screen.

Sure, it looked good, but could you actually use the thing?

The market proved the naysayers wrong, and the iPhone quickly became the best-selling phone in the world. And it’s still going strong five years later.

Instead of the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink attitude most hardware companies take with their products, Apple goes against the grain in trying to make their products as simple as possible.

When it comes to taking control of your health, you should do the same.

Instead of worrying about complex supplements, you should focus on getting your nutrition from real food. And rather than fretting over making your food from complex recipes, you should have a few basic go-to meals that you rely on for most of your food.

And instead of chasing every new exercise fad, you should instead focus on the few exercises that give you the most bang for your buck.

3. Focus On Power

The half-assed workout has been the dominant paradigm since gym culture really went mainstream.

Instead of doing powerful compound movements, we do light isolation exercises. Instead of doing fierce workouts that incorporate the entire body, we focus on just a few muscle groups and call it a day. And instead of giving their all during intense exercise, we plod along slowly on the treadmill and catch up on CNN.

Part of the reason that most people think they need to live in the gym if they want to really get in shape is the culture of half-assing it that has led people to turn the gym into a place to hang out rather than a place to get down to business.

When you’re working out, be there completely. Nothing wrong with listening to music or keeping the TV on for noise, but don’t let that steer your focus away from why you’re there.

Similarly, make sure you push yourself as close to the edge as possible during your workouts without compromising your form.

4. Focus On User-Friendliness

In contrast with PCs, which are notorious for needing a hefty chunk of time to get up and running, Macs are famous for being ready to go right out of the box.

Their instruction manuals make Ikea’s look like a Physical Chemistry textbook. Compare this to the prototypical experience of being on hold for hours with customer service as you try to troubleshoot your PC.

Walk into most gyms these days and it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer number and types of equipment available.

Crazy cardio machines. Strength training equipment straight out of Drago’s lair from Rocky IV. An endless variety of classes from spin to yoga.

Where does the madness end?

Now more than ever, it’s possible to spend your life in the gym and have little to show for it. By falling prey to the “shiny object syndrome” that keeps you from mastering a small amount of exercises, you can get bogged down in the minutiae of constantly switching up your routine.

It’s far better to stick with a small number of exercises that are well-suited for the human body.

Walk, jog, and sprint. Squat, push up, and pull up. Deadlift, clean, and press. And not much else.

5. Do Everything As Well As You Possibly Can

Apple wasn’t first to market with an mp3 player, smartphone, or tablet computer.

They lagged behind everyone else in all these departments. And when they did release the iPod, the iPhone, and the iPad, people thought they were too simple, too basic, and not powerful enough for serious use.

Apple defied the critics and showed that their products could be both simple and powerful.

They did this by not half-assing anything, and only selling products that were as close to perfection as possible.

You might take this the wrong way and think that you need to figure out the perfect diet or exercise routine before you take action (you shouldn’t).

Instead, you should take this to mean that you should perform every exercise and cook every meal to the best of your ability.

The iPod, iPhone, and iPad weren’t perfect with their first models, but became more and more so with each release. What they were was as perfect as they could make them at the time.

Every time you work out, you shouldn’t try to lift as much weight as you can, but to take yourself as close to the edge as possible without compromising your form.

Every time you cook a meal, you shouldn’t try to make a dish that will get you into the next season of MasterChef as a contender, but rather make something tasty as quickly as possible without botching it.

By making things as simple and effective as possible, you can take the lessons learned from Apple to take your health and fitness to the next level.

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Fat is back.

After decades in exile, being blamed for everything from obesity to the Star Wars prequel trilogy, fat is slowly starting to clear its name.

There really wasn’t anything of substance to hold against it in the first place, but a perfect storm of bad science, media sensationalism, and misguided governmental programs helped to cement the idea in most peoples’ minds that fat is bad.

But people started questioning authority. They saw how little they succeeded on low-fat diets (and hated eating food that tasted worse than the cardboard boxes they came in).

No doubt fat has a long way to go until it reaches a true renaissance, but that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy a little debauchery while getting healthy at the same time right now.

Adding fat to your food is one surefire way to turn up the flavor to 11. Here’s a list of the best ones to keep on hand, plus some guidance on how to navigate the rest.

Nutritionism Revisited

First, all fat was bad.

Then, unsaturated fat was good while only saturated fat was bad.

Now, omega–3 and omega–6 polyunsaturated fats are all the rage, while trans fats are the devil. (Oh yeah, and saturated fat is still bad.)

Get used to it folks. The nutrition world is just going to get more and more complex, and what’s “good” and “bad” is always going to be changing.

You can get really hung up on what science says is “good food” and “bad food” today, but it’s going to be a completely different story tomorrow.

My criteria for food healthiness goes something like this: The longer humans have been eating something, the more you should eat of it.

Evolution is cruel force, and it ensures that no species can survive on a diet of food that will kill it before it can reproduce.

I’ve said it before, but it’s impossible that meat and animal products are 1% as bad as you hear about in the mainstream media. We would have gone extinct long ago if this was the case.

Admittedly, this rule of thumb isn’t terribly scientific in the strictest sense, but if it works why not keep using it?

The one thing worth taking away from nutritionism for this article is that saturated fats are better for cooking than unsaturated fats.

Saturated fats are stable and non-reactive, while unsaturated fats (particularly polyunsaturated fats) are susceptible to oxidation.

Furthermore, all fats have a “smoke point” temperature where they should no longer be used.

Bottom line: you shouldn’t set off your smoke detector when you are heating up oil in your kitchen.

Butter

Butter’s had a rough go of it.

After The Great Fat Scare, most people ditched it en masse for such monstrosities as margarine.

But it’s time to put butter back in the fridge.

Time has vindicated most fat from the charges laid against it. And the trans-fat controversy of a few years back shows that food from fields and farms is almost always better than that from factories and laboratories.

Humans have been eating butter for thousands of years, so the likelihood of it being dangerous is quite low.

Butter is dirt cheap and can be bought just about everywhere, from the farmers market to the gas station.

Plain butter is best for topping off cooked food or low-heat cooking. It contains solids that burn at a low temperature.

One solution is to use ghee instead, which is butter that has had the solids strained out.

Ghee can be found in most co-ops and natural foods stores, or you can make it yourself by melting down butter and straining it through cheesecloth.

If that sounds like a pain, you might just want to stick with another of the high-saturated fats I list later.

Olive Oil

Thanks to the popularity of the Mediterranean diet and low-saturated fat diets in general, olive oil can be found at any supermarket you go to.

However, this is one thing that I suggest you don’t just grab whatever’s cheapest.

Olive oil goes rancid, which means it not only can taste off, but may potentially be detrimental to your health as well.

Colavita and Goya are two prominent brands that you can find most places. You can always go to your Fancy Pants Food store if you want to increase the likelihood of you getting the good stuff. Trader Joe’s is a good budget option if you have one nearby.

Technically speaking, olive oil stands up to heat relatively well, but it really is at its best when you use it as-is, as a topping for meat and veggies, or a component of an easy-to-make sauce such as vinaigrette.

Coconut Oil

Coconut oil is the “it” fat of the moment. More and more supermarkets are carrying it every day. I’ve even noticed Trader Joe’s start to stock it in the last few months.

It has the “health halo” of being a vegetable oil while having the tastiness of a highly-saturated fat.

In fact, coconut oil is one of nature’s most highly concentrated sources of saturated fat.

Which can only mean one thing…

Coconut oil is perhaps the best frying oil you can buy.

Unlike the fragile oils composed of unsaturated fat, coconut oil holds up well for heavy-duty tasks such as searing meat.

Which isn’t to detract from the taste, which is delicious. Even if you aren’t a big fan of coconut, the refined oil mellows it out and makes it a great all-purpose frying oil.

Coconut oil will set you back more than butter or olive oil, but it’s a good idea to keep a jar around, if only for high-heat frying.

Sesame Oil

Sesame oil is one of the oldest vegetable oils and is still manufactured by a labor-intensive method.

It has an extraordinarily high amount of unstable and pro-inflammatory omega–6 fatty acids, which is the reason that most vegetable oils make my short list of “things to avoid eating.”

So why does sesame oil make the cut?

Because you use so little of it.

Think of sesame oil as kinda like hot sauce. The flavor’s really concentrated, so you don’t need a whole lot. You put a few dashes on your food and you’re ready to go.

It’s insanely flavorful. And particularly well-suited for Asian dishes.

I’ve found it to be pretty widely available, although not so much as olive oil. It tends to be a little more expensive, but a little goes a long way.

Lard

It’s coming back!

No other fat has been a bigger victim of the low fat health fad than lard. In a matter of decades, it went from one of the most-consumed fats in America to one of the most difficult to find.

The apparent deathblow was dealt by vegetable shortening, which was marketed as a “healthier” alternative, even though the charge was led by Crisco, which is short for “crystallized cottonseed oil”. (Ewwwww…)

But sure enough, as people are becoming more and more skeptical of low-fat diets, lard is making its way onto more and more supermarket shelves.

Lard has a decently high smoke point, and the lack of solids make it a better choice than butter for frying, though perhaps not as good as coconut oil.

If you are going to track down lard, beware the hydrogenated stuff. You don’t want your food messed with like that. Unfortunately, I’ve found that this is the most common lard on the market.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

The list of fats and oils doesn’t stop there. There is an endless supply at your local supermarket vying for your attention.

Shelves are overflowing with nut and seed oils such as canola, sunflower, corn, soybean, and my favorite, plain ol’ “vegetable oil.” (What’s with the vague labeling, bub?)

These oils are almost always high in unstable (read: probably rancid) polyunsaturated fats and low in stable saturated fats. Best to avoid ’em.

Avocado oil and macadamia oil are a couple of recent entrants that seem highly decent on the surface. They’re low in the omega–6 polyunsaturated fats that make me worry about the other nut and seed oils.

But I’m by nature leery of foods that humans have been eating for less than 100 years, if for no other reason than the inability to really prove that humans can thrive long-term on them.

Palm oil seems good on the surface, but it’s a horribly inefficient crop, taking up a lot of land and displacing endangered orangutans.

Fish oil and flax oil are used more as a supplementary food. But if you are avoiding most heavily-processed foods and eating seafood, you’ll be better off.

Many other animal fats, such as tallow and duck fat, exist but are very difficult to find. (And are probably not worth the effort.

What are the fats you like to keep on hand?

Looking for the newest variation on the bench press? An improved bicep curl to throw into the mix? Or how about the hottest new ab exercise guaranteed to give you an 8 pack in 30 days or less?

We guys are particularly susceptible to “shiny object syndrome” when it comes to working out.

We think we need to learn hundreds of exercises and master insanely-specific workouts in order to lose fat and build muscle.

But working out need not be so damned complicated.

It’s far better to master a handful of exercises than have a half-assed ability to do a thousand.

Compound movements. Full-body workouts. And brief, intense exercises. This is the philosophy of minimalist fitness.

But how do you put it into practice? How do you get the most bang for your exercise buck?

It turns out you need only nine exercises. Ever. For the rest of your life. Here’s the breakdown.

1. Walking

Don’t laugh.

Walking is hands down the most underrated exercise of all time. And also the most neglected.

A recent study found that Americans take about 5117 steps each day. This is just barely above the threshold of “sedentary”–5000 steps each day.

On the other hand, another study found that Amish farmers took between 14,196 and 18425 steps each day. This gives you a much better idea of what amount of waking the human body is “supposed” to do.

The great thing about walking is that it is easy to incorporate into your life without having to hit the gym. Park further away. Get a dog. And find more active things to do with your spare time.

Whatever you do, find a way to walk more.

2. Jogging

Cardio gets a bad rap these days.

It shouldn’t.

Although the “cardiobots” spending an hour on the treadmill each day while they catch up on CNN are overdoing it (if for no other reason than they are wasting too much time), they have some precedent for doing so.

Of all the physical tasks humans are capable of, our strongest ability is in long-distance running.

This is the result of our need to literally chase large animals until they dropped in the past–a behavior now known as “persistence hunting.”

However, you don’t need to take things this far.

A run of 30 minutes each week will be more than enough for most people. And bonus points if you get off the treadmill and outside to do it.

3. Sprinting

If walking gets ignored, and running gets trashed, then sprinting gets all the glory these days.

And for good reason.

HIIT (high intensity interval training) is like the Lady Gaga of the fitness world right now. You just can’t go anywhere without hearing about it.

As the theory goes, pushing yourself for short, all-out bursts boosts your metabolism and fat-burning hormones with just a couple minutes per week.

Perhaps the most famous protocol is Tabata sprinting, which consists of eight rounds of 20 seconds of all-out sprinting followed by 10 seconds of rest.

It’ll be four of the most brutal minutes of your week, but more than worth it in the long run.

4. Squats

Although you rarely see people doing them in their everyday life today, squats were once a crucial movement.

Before all these newfangled chairs came along, the common resting pose was a deep squat, with both feet firmly on the ground. (You can still see this in many Asian societies.)

Squatting requires you to use every muscle in your lower body. And that’s pretty badass.

While its more common to see people doing squats with a loaded barbell across their backs, I suggest you instead start with air squats, and progress towards pistol squats as they get easier.

You’ll save your back in the long run, plus you’ll train your balance as well–a crucial part of fitness that too many people neglect.

5. Push Ups

Bench presses may take all the glory, but push ups are the real king.

They work more muscles. They can be done anywhere. They can be made increasingly difficult by moving towards clap push ups, one-armed push ups, or any number of more difficult variations.

Don’t let this humble exercise go under your radar.

6. Pull Ups

Next up is the all-time gym class favorite, the pull up.

Sure, a lot of people are hitting the lat pulldown machine, but you can safely ignore the peer pressure.

Between push ups and pull ups, your entire upper body is called into action, including your core.

That means no more endless sessions of crunches. Ever. Again.

7. Deadlifts

Of all the nine essential exercises, only three require weights. And I suggest you go barbell or go home.

There’s nothing quite like lifting a really heavy object off the ground to build strength in your lower body.

Most guys like to avoid deadlifts and squats, and focus their weight lifting almost entirely on their upper body with the mistaken belief that it will give them the hips of Kim Kardashian.

Don’t fall for this silliness.

Take a look at the physiques of crossfitters–people who do insane amounts of deadlifts (and squats, for that matter).

Do you see a bunch of people with huge hips out of proportion with the rest of their bodies? Of course not. Hit the bar, buddy.

8. Cleans

Out of all these exercises, cleans are the most technical, most difficult, and most likely to get you hurt.

The key (as always) is to focus on form rather than number of reps, and stop trying to push your body to complete muscle failure.

Cleans are a full-body exercise, requiring your legs, arms, and core to work in tandem to bring a weight up to the racked position across your shoulders.

I suggest you go with the hanging power clean–starting with the bar hanging from your arms rather than resting on the ground.

9. Presses

Last, but not least, the press has been overshadowed by his flashier younger brother–the bench press–for far too long.

Once a well-known strongman (and Olympic) staple, the O.G. press is now better known as the military press or overhead press to distinguish it from the bench press.

However, the military press is safer. It requires less equipment. And between them and push ups, you’ll never need to hit the bench again.

These nine exercises encapsulate what the human body is designed to do–move, climb, and lift. Low-intensity, medium-intensity, and high-intensity.

It works every muscle. It trains your strength, speed, and power. Your endurance and stamina. Your flexibility, stamina, and coordination.

These nine movements are all that is needed to maximize your fitness while minimizing the time and energy you spend in the gym.

If you could only do nine exercises for the rest of your life, what would they be? Any important ones you think I forgot? Or ones you think I should have left off?

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“The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”
-Nelson Mandela

In 1953, he co-founded the only all-black law firm in South Africa.

With the African National Congress (ANC), he organized numerous attempts to protest the unjust system of apartheid, which ultimately led to him spending 27 years in prison.

After the dissolution of government-sponsored segregation, he won the first-ever multi-racial presidential election in the country.

During my recent trip to South Africa, I read Nelson Mandela’s autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom. At a whopping 656 pages, it took me almost the entire two weeks to read!

Yet every chapter was utterly compelling, painting a portrait of a man who was unwavering in following a passion that most thought impossible to achieve.

I also visited Robben Island, the isolated landmass just off of the Cape Town coast where Mandela spent the majority of his imprisonment.

Here, we were able to see the courtyard where Mandela hid the manuscript to the autobiography he was writing, as well as the tiny cell he called home for more than a decade.

To say that this man has accomplished a lot with his life would be a gross understatement. He has achieved a level of self-actualization that very few of us do.

And it is for this reason that I think he is worthy of further analysis at LMVM.

Nelson Mandela? On a Men’s Fitness Blog?

While the fitness levels of people such as Chris Evans, Tim Tebow, and Arnold Schwarzenegger (in his 70’s heyday) are no doubt impressive, I tend to be much more interested in the health habits of people whose impact lies outside of the realm of acting, bodybuilding, and athletics.

What’s the point of eating better, moving smarter, and relaxing harder if our calling in life lies outside these routes?

Should we just not bother? Are these things a waste of time that would be better spent elsewhere?

No!

Not only does being in shape help you to meet the physical challenges in life, but it prepares you for the more intellectual ones, as well.

Exercise, Even If You’re the Only One Doing It

On reading his autobiography, I was struck by just how much attention he has paid to his fitness.

Here are a few quotes I pulled out:

“I enjoyed the discipline and solitariness of long-distance running, which allowed me to escape from the hurly-burly of school life.”

“On Monday through Thursday, I would do stationary running in my cell in the morning for up to forty-five minutes. I would also perform one hundred fingertip push-ups, two hundred sit-ups, fifty deep knee-bends, and various other calisthenics.”

“Exercise was unusual for African men of my age and generation… I know that some of my younger comrades looked at me and said to themselves, ‘if that old man can do it, why can’t I?’ They too began to exercise.”

“I attended the gym for one and a half hours each evening from Monday through Thursday… We did an hour of exercise, some combination of roadwork, skipping rope, calisthenics, or shadow boxing, followed by fifteen minutes of body work, some weight lifting, and then sparring.”

Mandela was active his entire life, to the point that most people he knew thought over-the-top.

While I don’t think you need to spend the amount of time that he did in the gym (around two hours per week should be sufficient for most people), it’s hard to argue with the results.

As of this writing, Nelson Mandela is 93 years old, an age that few people are fortunate enough to reach.

Y’think working out had anything to do with it?

It’s Never Too Late to Kick Some Ass

In 1990, Mandela was finally released from prison.

He was 72 years old at the time.

Since then, he has won the Nobel Peace Prize, served as president of South Africa, and oversaw the remarkably peaceful reconciliation that occurred after the abolishment of apartheid.

Not to talk down the accomplishments he made before he was imprisoned, but he’s been absolutely kicking ass since he got out.

You might think it’s too late to get in shape.

You might believe that, since you haven’t started long ago, then it’s a lost cause.

Nonsense.

Everyone can soon reap the benefits when they start to eat better, move smarter, and relax harder.

Don’t let this obstacle get in your way. In your life, the best may still be around the corner. And you’ll be able to make the most of it if you are in good health.

Don’t Take ANYTHING Personally

Rarely in history does a transfer of power happen without a brutal civil war.

That didn’t happen with the end of apartheid.

One of Mandela’s greatest accomplishments was uniting the country at a time when it should have been divided. Rather than harboring a grudge after hundreds of years of injustice, he made it a priority for all South Africans to know that they were equal members of the society, regardless of their color or race.

Perhaps the most iconic moment of Mandela’s presidency comes from the 1995 World Cup of Rugby. Although South Africa was hosting the games, their team–The Springboks–were underdogs at best.

Even worse, rugby was considered the white man’s game, and this only helped to further create a racial divide in most people’s minds.

But Mandela made the audacious goal of a Springbok championship a personal one. He got to know all the team members–especially captain Francois Pienaar–and helped to give them the motivation they needed to pull off a stunning upset and win the World Cup.

If you’ve ever failed at learning how to cook, lift weights, or achieve your goal weight, it’s easy to get angry.

Maybe you just have a thrifty gene? Or you’re all thumbs in the kitchen? Or you’ll never be able to bench press as much as your friends?

So what?

Learn to forget about the past and start each day with a blank slate.

Every time you try to master the art of the pot roast is a new chance to succeed. Every time you try to learn to deadlift a new beginning.

Don’t let your gut get in the way of what your heart wants.

Make Freedom a Personal Mission

Mandela spent his entire life fighting for freedom.

Whether it was representing non-whites that no one else would in court, or organizing protests from within the confines of solitary confinement, he never stopped at “good enough.”

He fought, and fought, and fought some more. He never gave up on his quest for freedom.

What does freedom mean to you?

Perhaps it’s freedom from debt. Or freedom from your boss telling you what to do. Freedom to spend quality time with friends and family. To learn new things and make a difference in the world.

Or maybe it’s freedom from injury and illness. It’s living a long life filled with energy to do whatever you want to do.

No matter what, it’s living life on your own terms. It’s not settling. It’s unapologetically going for what you want.

And that’s one thing that we can all learn from Nelson Mandela.

Do you think you need spend six hours in the gym every week to get the results you want?

Or that you need to work every muscle group in isolation to failure once or twice a week?

Or maybe you think you need fancy equipment, expensive classes, and complex supplements to lose fat and build muscle?

If the answer to any of these questions is “yes,” then you probably have a case of exercisitis, a terrible affliction that has been spreading around the globe for decades.

Exercisitis is a disease that causes its sufferers to spend too much time exercising, to the point that it starts to affect the rest of their lives negatively.

And there is only one known cure: to renounce their former ways and embrace a new path.

The path of minimalism.

The Zen of Exercise

Over the past few years, I’ve become more and more interested in the concept of minimalism.

Instead of constantly striving to increase the complexity in your life, you instead focus on eliminating distraction and focusing instead on what really matters.

Instead of quantity, you focus on quality.

While I’m by no means an expert in this area, I have found that it has improved my life, and one example is in the way I approach exercise.

Gone are the days of spending endless hours a week in the gym; doing a million variations of crunches, curls, and chest presses.

Instead, my routine is centered on compound movements, full-body workouts, and high-intensity exercises.

Here’s a primer to start you on your own minimalist fitness path.

Quality, Not Quantity of Movement

The second pillar of our philosophy is “Move Smarter,” which can be broken into three chunks:

1. Move Your Body– No matter what you are doing, moving more is better than sitting still. But moving your body the way it was meant to is at all times more efficient than most of the insignificant, unproductive, and just plain bizarre fitness routines most people follow.
2. Don’t Overdo It– Most people with an interest in fitness are frankly overdoing it, if for no other reason than it is getting in the way of things in their lives that are more important. But it doesn’t stop there. The obsession with increasing weight, reps, and sets often comes at the expense of form, which leads to injury.
3. Have Fun– Conventional wisdom states that exercise is man’s punishment for having a body that wants to gain weight regardless of context. Nonsense! You should be doing physical activities that are fun if you are ever going to stick with it.

The Three-Hour Rule

If you’re struggling to get the results you want from working out, you should focus less on what you should start adding and more on what you should start taking away.

Hammer curls? Bent-over rows? Wrist curls? Waste of time. Get in some pull-ups and get out.

Cable crossovers? Triceps kickbacks? Dumbbell lateral raises? Fuhgeddaboudit! Get in some push ups and get out.

Leg extensions? Hip abductions? Calf raises? Don’t bother! Get in some squats and get out.

It’s crazy how many exercise routines out there are focusing on minutiae at the expense of the big picture.

All that advice out there to isolate every muscle group in isolation and exhaust once or twice a week? It gives great results… If you are a bodybuilder and need to work out a few hours every day in order to see very small changes.

But if you are that person, you are reading the WRONG website.

If you’ve got a job to deal with, or school, you’re going to need more bang for your buck. If you like to spend time with friends and family, you’re going to need to find something better. And if you frankly have bigger things going on in your life than reaching 3% body fat, you need a new set of rules.

Unless you are someone whose livelihood is dependent on your appearance or fitness level, you should not spend more than three hours each week working out.

Three hours is the absolute ceiling. Two hours will work for most people, and the super-dedicated will be able to squeak by in an hour.

The “catch” here is that the foundation of your exercise routine should lie outside the gym, and it doesn’t count towards your three hours.

You need to become more physical in your everyday life. Start walking places instead of driving. Take the stairs rather than the elevator, and find some fun physical activity to do at least once a week.

You can get into very good shape without ever having to count a rep or set, and you should try to make this your goal as much as possible.

Think of “working out” instead as the brief amount of time you spend each week doing the kinds of intense movements that you won’t otherwise do, exercises that will give you the most bang for your buck and leave you in great shape as a result.

Minimalist Equipment–The Gym vs the Basement

This is the exact opposite of minimalist fitness:

…yet it is what most of us think is necessary in a gym.

If your goal is to use the absolute minimum of equipment, you can often get away with having a small home gym with just a few pieces of gear. Here are some that I’d recommend:

• A barbell set (if you have the room) or a kettlebell
• A pull-up bar
• A jump rope
• A good pair of running shoes

Seem like it’s not enough?

Most people could get by with that and never have to worry about getting a gym membership ever again.

At the same time, gyms can offer you one of the biggest wins of all: you don’t have to own any exercise equipment of your own. You can just pay to use someone else’s.

Just make sure you ignore all the machines that look like something Drago from Rocky IV would have used.

Both of these ways are minimalist. Just don’t get too carried away.

The Illusion of Muscle Failure

So exactly how should you train?

Conventional wisdom would have you push yourself to complete failure on every set. And conventional wisdom is wrong here.

This might be decent advice if you are safe and sound on a piece of equipment that simulates bicep curls, but what if you’ve got a lot of weight in your hands while you’re doing squats, cleans, or bench presses?

In that case, “working to exhaustion” is rolling the dice. You’ll eventually end up injuring yourself. And you’ll be in no better shape than if you had stopped one or two reps earlier.

Instead of focusing on how many reps at how much weight you can crank out, instead focus on pushing yourself as hard as you can, until your form is no longer perfect.

People get injured when they try to move too much weight with shitty form. By starting with low weights and perfecting your form, you can gain strength and muscle without having to worry about tweaking your back (or anything else).

Besides, the concept of “muscle failure” is slowly being exposed as less of a physical limitation and more of a psychological one. Interesting stuff.

The Distraction of Supplements

Supplements are 99% scam.

We’re told that they are necessary to get into great shape. But again, unless you are a bodybuilder, powerlifter, or competitive athlete, you will not get your money’s worth out of them.

For the rest of us, there’s no need to drink awful shakes or try to remember to take pills every day. Eating real food is enough.

Save your money for food, not pills.

I’ve filled this site up with practical info on how to eat better and controversial theory on why it is so much more important, so I’ll leave it at that here, but feel free to go searching around the site if you’d like to learn more.

The Minimalist Path

It’s easy to think you need to become a gym rat in order to lose fat and build muscle. After all, it’s what we’ve always been told.

Unfortunately, we’ve been told this by people whose livelihoods depend on how much weight they can lift, how little body fat they have, and how good they look nekkid.

You are not this person.

You’ve got bigger dragons to slay. And looking and feeling good is merely a means to that end.

It’s a great idea to dedicating yourself to looking and feeling great, but you need not go to the extremes that the pros do. Doing so would just lead to a bad case of exercisitis.

By stripping away the noise and focusing on the big wins, you can reap 80% of the reward with only 20% of the effort.

This is the Zen of minimalist exercise. And it is by far the sanest and healthiest way to incorporate physical activity into your life.

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“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist. That is all.”
-Oscar Wilde

It’s that time of year again. People are dressing in green. They’re speaking in faux-foreign accents. They’re drinking green beer.

For a non-official holiday, St. Patrick’s day is surprisingly well-observed here in the States. And it is by no means isolated to those with Irish ancestry.

And what better way to celebrate than with a bowl of Irish stew?

It’s the type of meal that Irishman Oscar Wilde (who was so kind as to provide the quote at the top) would have enjoyed frequently.

It’s quite healthy and, as I will show you, very easy to prepare.

The Irish Stew Controversy

For such a rustic dish, Irish stew is surprisingly controversial.

The purists will tell you that true Irish stew contains only mutton, potatoes, onions, and water.

Although that might make the sticklers happy, for most of us this results in a bland and dull meal.

And so, in the past few centuries, people have started adding more and more to it.

If mutton cannot be found (and it rarely can), plain lamb is used instead. Carrots and celery are added to make a mirepoix with the onions. Spices and herbs are added and the water is replaced with stock for extra flavor.

Traditional Irish foods, such as Guinness stout and pearl barley are added. And corn starch and flour are added to make it thicker.

I’m not Irish (although my first name is), so I’m more than happy to buck tradition a bit and end up with a tastier meal. But do what is right for you. Take this recipe as a blueprint and add or subtract to suit your taste, as always.

From Pot Roast to Stew

One of the cornerstones of kitchen hacking is that, instead of relying on thick cookbooks of unrelated recipes, you instead focus on the basics.

After you have a handful of these “blueprints” memorized, you can prepare countless variations based on what you have available and what you’re in the mood for.

In the Kitchen Hacking 101 course, I showed you in great detail how to prepare a pot roast from scratch. (If you haven’t signed up for this free course yet, you’ll want to do so here.)

Stew is basically a more “dilute” form of pot roast, with more liquid and the meat cut up before cooking. This results in a thick dish that is ready to eat immediately after cooking is complete.

And so, by using more stock than a pot roast, and substituting diced lamb for a whole beef roast, you have essentially made Irish stew!

Here’s an idea of the time, money, and energy I put into this (and what I got out of it):

• Total Calories: 5882
• Total Money: $28.52
• Total Time: 46 minutes (plus 8 hours unattended cooking)

The Ingredients

As I mentioned, this is very similar to a beef pot roast, and the ingredients should be pretty cheap and easy to track down.

The only exception is the lamb. You might want to call ahead to your local supermarket to make sure they have lamb shoulder available. If you can’t find any, feel free to use a beef chuck roast instead.

Here’s what you’ll want to pick up:

• 3 lb lamb shoulder
• 3 lb potatoes
• 1/2 lb celery
• 1/2 lb carrots
• 1/2 large (or 1 small) onion
• thyme (5 sprigs fresh, or 1 tablespoon dried)
• parsley (5 sprigs fresh, or 1 tablespoon dried)
• bay leaves (2 dried, or 2 fresh)
• 6 cups beef stock
• 1 bottle stout beer (like Guinness)
• salt and pepper

The Recipe

Once you’ve got all the ingredients together, you’re ready to go.

1. Cut the lamb into 1-inch cubes. Use a chef’s knife and start cutting up the lamb. Don’t get too worried about the exact size. Just make them small enough to fit in a spoon.

2. Peel the potatoes and cut into 1-inch cubes. Same thing as the lamb, but with the spuds instead. Just make sure to run them under water first and give a quick scrub with a washcloth to clean off any dirt.

3. Peel and mince the garlic. Peel the garlic and cut up into as small pieces as you can.

4. Slice the celery, peel and slice the carrots, and peel and dice the onion. I went over all this in Kitchen Hacking 101. Be sure to subscribe here if you’d like to see how to do this in detail.
5. Put everything in a slow cooker, stir, and cook low for at least 8 hours. Don’t have a slow cooker, you say? Read this and try to justify yourself! In all seriousness, you can prepare this in a plain ol’ pot as well. Just get it boiling, turn the heat down to simmer for at least 2 hours, and stir occasionally. (But the slow cooker is so tasty and much easier. Get yourself one. Do it!)

Variations and the Wrap-Up

As I mentioned earlier, you can make this with just lamb (specifically mutton neck), potatoes, onions, and water. A lot of the other stuff in here might make a true Irishman weep, but I’ve added them for the sake of taste.

Likewise, you can add pearl barley or flour to thicken it up a bit. I tend to steer clear of grains, and particularly flour, so I’ve not included them here.

And there you have it!

Ladle some into a bowl, crack open another bottle of Guinness, and celebrate St. Patrick’s Day in style!

“I’d go to a banquet in honor of those Somali pirates if they served bacon-wrapped shrimp.”
-Ron Swanson

I’m not a big TV person, but I usually have one or two pop culture guilty pleasures going on at any one time.

Recently, it’s been Parks and Recreation.

One of the standout characters from this show is none other than Ron Swanson, the poker-faced, libertarian, and all-around manly dude who runs the Parks Department of Pawnee, Indiana.

After watching some of the hilarious things that come out of this guy’s mouth, I’ve come to realize something: he’s on to a few things that most others aren’t when it comes to health.

And so, without further ado, I present to you five nuggets of Ron Swanson’s wisdom:

1. Eat Real Food

Supermarket Employee: “Sir, would you like to sample our vegan bacon? 100% meatless.”
Ron Swanson: “Yes, please.”
(Ron throws vegan bacon in the trash.)
Supermarket Employee: “Sir, is there a problem?”
Ron Swanson: “I’m just making sure no one ever has to eat this.”

Ron would never eat vegan bacon. Nor would he eat sugar-free cookies, fat-free yogurt, or any other monstrosity created in a laboratory.

No, Ron’s a real food guy all the way (even if he doesn’t stray too far from meat and eggs).

I’ve said it a million times: eating real food is the single most important step you can take in getting healthy and fit.

All too often people obsess over expensive supplements, disgusting low-fat microwave dinners, and even (gasp!) vegan bacon instead of honing in on this strategy.

The long-lived Okinawans don’t eat vegan bacon, they eat minimally-processed rice and vegetables.

The strong and healthy Maasai don’t eat vegan bacon, they eat red meat and high-fat dairy.

Focus on the big wins before you focus on the minutiae and you’ll be surprised how much quicker you attain your goals.

2. Don’t Shell Out Big Money on Food

“I love Food ‘n Stuff. It’s where I buy all my food. And most of my stuff.”
-Ron Swanson

Ron doesn’t get his food from Whole Paycheck, he gets it from a tiny supermarket.

One thing people tend to get hung up on when they start to eat real food is the degree of quality.

Does it need to be organic? Does it need to be free-range? Do I need to meet the chicken I plan on eating in person first?

Again, this is focusing in too much on minutiae. Even in this world of cheap convenience food, you can still find good real food (think meat, veggies, fruit, etc.) at every grocery store.

I don’t mean to rag on this movement too much. I truly think what they are doing is great.

This sustainable agriculture movement has some very positive outcomes.

The first is that it is probably better for the environment. (The consensus on this varies depending on what food and method is being studied.)

Next is the improvement in flavor. This one is entirely subjective, but the best-tasting food I have ever had has invariably been from the farmers market or local co-op.

But the health benefits? That one’s sketchy. Despite what you may have heard, the sum total of all studies performed suggests that there are few health benefits from going organic, if any.

Bottom line is switching from mac and cheese to steak and potatoes will make a far bigger difference on your health and fitness than going from Ralph’s to Whole Foods.

3. There’s No Need to Fear Meat

Chris Traeger: “Red meat can cause sluggishness, heart disease, even impotence.”
Ron Swanson: “It has the opposite effect on me.”

This one just won’t die.

Despite the tides of public opinion slowly turning against the decades-old low-fat propaganda, most people still think that they must eat a “plant-based diet” to be healthy.

Red meat, eggs, and butter are all verboten.

This is utter nonsense.

Archaeological evidence and studies of modern hunter-gatherers has yielded this unanimous conclusion: humans evolved on a high-meat, high-starch diet.

If meat and animal products were 0.00001% as dangerous as we have been led to believe they are, humans would have gone extinct a long time ago. (That’s evolution, bitches!)

The verdict on meat is clear: it is very, very good for you.

I believe that the high failure rate of most diets can be traced to this irrational fear of meat. Meat is everywhere, and it is literally coded in our DNA to seek it out. The longer you try to deprive yourself, the more willpower you will burn.

Until one day you finally crash and burn.

4. Eat a Manly Breakfast

“Just give me all the bacon and eggs you have. Wait, I’m worried what you just heard was ‘give me a lot of bacon and eggs.’ What I said was ‘give me all the bacon and eggs you have.’ Do you understand?”
-Ron Swanson

Trix? Fruity Pebbles? Count Chocula?

You’d never find Ron with a box of these in the morning. Hell, I’d even be surprised if he keeps a box of Rice Krispies around.

Instead, Ron eats the kind of breakfast that most people were eating a couple hundred years ago: bacon and eggs.

It’s a more minimalist spin on the classic full English breakfast, but starting your day off with protein and animal fat beats the pants off sugar and flour any day.

5. Live the Dream

Like most of us, Ron isn’t exactly living the dream during his 9-to-5.

As an anti-government head of a government department, he’s probably even more unfulfilled than most.

But does he complain about how much his job sucks? Does he whine about the crap he has to put up with? Hell, no!

Unbeknownst to everyone else, Ron lives a second life as “Duke Silver,” the saxophonist and frontman of the Duke Silver Trio, a jazz band that plays gigs outside of Pawnee.

This may be the only piece of Ron’s wisdom that falls outside of the dietary realm, but it is perhaps the most important.

Doing what you want and following your passions is one of the most essential pieces of living a healthy and fulfilled life.

Selected Wisdom from Chris Traeger

“But Ron isn’t exactly going to be gracing the cover of Men’s Fitness anytime soon. How can you hold him up as a role model?”

Okay, you got me there. To get the full picture I think you should take a look at Chris Traeger, the character who is in many ways the exact opposite of Ron.

On the surface, he’s a much more appropriate guy to be getting health advice from. Here’s a few things he’s doing right that Ron isn’t:

1. He’s eating his veggies. Meat is great, but you shouldn’t avoid vegetables. The two together should represent the bulk of your calories.
2. He’s running. Cardio seems to be getting a bad rap these days, but humans were literally born to run. Best not to neglect this.
3. He has a positive attitude. Okay, that’s an understatement. But numerous studies have found that the happier you are, the healthier you become.

However…

He’s also overtraining the hell out of his body. Not only is this unhealthy, but it is a complete waste of time.

He also has no immune system and cannot be anywhere near a sick person. Not exactly the kind of robust human being you’d like to be.

Lastly, the man is on the kind of supplement regimen that would drive an Olympic athlete crazy. Best to stick to real food and let your body take care of itself.

So the next time someone rolls their eyes at you when you order steak and eggs for breakfast just imagine Ron Swanson looking down on you and smiling.

He’d be so proud.