Six months ago, I received an email from a reader named Stephen who told me that he had a wedding coming up in May 2012, and that he hoped to get in shape for it.  After managing to go in the opposite direction through most of the Holidays, Stephen finally woke up in early January and said “enough is enough.”

Since then, he’s become an absolute machine, day in day out, dominating his workouts and putting a huge focus on eating right.

Yesterday, he got married weighing in at 213, a full 57 POUNDS lost since January.

This is his story. (cue the Law and Order theme!)

Emails from Stephen

This is the first email I got from Stephen back in November, 2011:

Just wanted to say thanks for the video.  I am 42, 6’1″ and 254. I am way out of shape. I am getting married next spring and I would like to be 220 by then. Did the first workout today and made it through but I had to do modified push-ups.

Hopefully I can make it to real push-ups soon.

Thanks again!

Now, I get emails like this all the time from people who declare that they’re going to get in shape, and I then I never hear from them again.  After six months, I had forgotten about Stephen, assuming he was one of those folks who just ran out of steam and wasn’t yet ready to get in shape.

And then he emailed me on March 5th!

Hey Steve,

I just wanted to touch base. I spoke with you probably back in November asking you about losing weight for my wedding. I was 257 I think and I wanted to get down to 220. You said you thought it was possible but that it was 80% diet. Unfortunately over the holidays I went the wrong way and my weight went up to 270.

On January 1st I joined the NF message boards and I signed up for the first challenge. I just hit 30lbs lost and I am getting ready for my second NF challenge. I have really cleaned up my diet by going paleo with a half and half exception for coffee. For this challenge I am 100% paleo. I have also been doing the Body Weight workout 3X a week and walking on some of the other days here and there. I know it’s going to be tough to hit 220 with barely more than 2 months left but I am giving it my all. Thanks for the motivation even though it took my longer than I thought to get moving.

Stephen

And then again at the end of the month:

Steve,

Just a quick update. I am now in the 220s!! I hit 229 this morning. 

I have lost 12lbs this month since going full on strict paleo. My 220 goal for the May wedding is just around the bend. WOOT!!

And then at the end of April:

Hey Steve!

I hit 219 this morning! I am totally geeked up.  Thanks again for everything. I will send you some before and after shots soon with some progress shot too. 51 lbs. I can’t believe it.

When I first started I am not really sure I believed I could do it. Going Paleo made it much easier. I recently had a check up and my doctor was astonished. My total cholesterol is down to 129! It wasn’t very high anyway but still he thought that was amazing.

I went shopping for the honeymoon last night.  It was weird going from size XXL shirts to a Med.  I have gone from a size 44 or 42 pant to a 36. My neck used to be 17 now it’s 15. Someone the other day in the kitchen at work was offered cookies. He said, “No thanks, I want to look like Stephen!” That was probably one of the best compliments I could get. I can’t remember the last time I weighed this “little”. 

I still have a long road to go to get to my 2012 goal of 200 but I must admit I am feeling accomplished this morning.

And finally yesterday:

Hey Steve,

The wedding went off without a hitch.

My final weight was 213.

57lbs lost.

Wow.

Thanks again!

-Stephen

How it Happened

Steve: You emailed me back in November asking me how to get in shape for your wedding coming up in May…How did that first attempt go?

Stephen: The first attempt was a complete failure. I tried watching what I ate and counting calories using Weight Watchers. I had no real plan though. I think I got down to about 251, then Thanksgiving and Christmas rolled around and I just blew up. I’ve always had a tough time controlling my eating around the holidays. My wife is an amazing baker and cook. It’s not her fault though; I could have put the fork down.

The end result: instead of getting closer to my goal, I ballooned up to 270 pounds by January 1st!

Steve:  What was different this time? Why do you think you finally succeeded in January compared to what had happened in the past?

Stephen: I was reading Nerd Fitness more and more and all of your posts. I kept reading your post about the Paleo Diet. I remember you telling me that diet was 80% of it. I also read Saint’s story like 10 times. Now, I’ve read it at least 25 times. I figured the wedding is five months away I need to do something now. I felt like I could do the Paleo Diet thing. I also read an article on Zen Habits about changing just one thing to make a new habit. I was worried I would fail if I jumped all the way in. So, I only gave up bread and grains at first. I also joined the Nerd Fitness community on Jan 4th and jumped into my first challenge. At the end of January I was back down to 250 and I was feeling like I might be able to do it.

The more success I had, the more I wanted to do it and the stricter I got with my diet.

In the beginning I didn’t tell anyone, except my fiancée. I just felt like I’d tried to lose weight so many times before and I didn’t want people to be like, “yeah right, good luck with that, fat guy.”  I also didn’t feel like explaining that “crazy” paleo diet.

The other big thing is my fiancée was totally on board. At first she was a little dubious that I would get big results from the paleo diet. She was concerned I was setting my weight-loss goal too high, and didn’t want my hopes to be dashed and give up if I didn’t meet my goal weight in time for the wedding. But, she just wanted me to be healthy, so she supported my new way of eating and put away her cookbooks and cookie recipes. As time went by, and she saw my results, she became even more supportive.

I would say she eats mostly primal now, except she still eats yogurt (homemade now).

Also, I stopped eating just because it was breakfast-time or lunch-time or dinner-time. Now, if I don’t feel hungry- I don’t eat. I read an article on MarksDailyApple about being mindful of your eating. He touched on that if your stomach isn’t growling, you probably aren’t really hungry, just bored. So, I have really focused on trying to be in-tune with my body and recognize if I am actually hungry, or just bored. Some mornings I eat a huge breakfast, and sometimes I don’t eat until dinner.

Steve: What was a typical day like for you before January? And what’s a typical day like now?

Stephen: Before: I would wake up around 6:00. Eat cereal and check the Internet until I head to my desk job about 7:30. Go out to lunch with the guys, eat Chinese buffet or Five Guys something like that. Sometimes I brought lunch from home, but not often. At 5:00 I would head home and eat dinner, watch TV for a few hours while I surfed. I would read about getting in shape instead of doing it. I would snack on some kind of dessert throughout the evening, as well.

Now: I wake up at 5:00 three times a week to workout. My fiancée and I walk around our neighborhood before work or in the evening 3-5 times a week. Sometimes we walk twice a day. I brown bag my lunch, which is usually a salad with some kind of protein. We eat meat and veggie dinners or homemade soups every night. I also have more energy now so I am getting a lot more projects done around the house.

Steve: How did you get in shape?

Stephen: I do the Nerd Fitness Beginners Body Weight Workout three times a week. In the beginning, I was barely able to make it through the workout. I was lucky if I could do a total of 10 pushups in three sets. Now I can do 100 pushups in five sets. My fiancée and I walk one to two miles almost every day. I found I need to walk to keep losing fat. My cleaned-up diet was the big part. I cut out beer, but I still allow myself red wine in moderation. I do not allow myself “cheat” days, but I have indulged a little at a special occasions- a small slice of cake or cream in my coffee, but those indulgences are rare.

I am really into body weight workouts now and I am impressed by what some people can do. Guys like the Kavadlos, Jim from BeastSkills.com are really impressive.

Steve: This past six weeks, you went for a full Paleo diet – how was it different than what you had done in the past, and how successful was it for you?

Stephen: Between January and this six week challenge, I was still adding cream to my coffee and occasionally eating cheese. I used artificial sweetener and ate and drank other things that were somewhat processed too. When I went full Paleo, my rule was: if it comes from a package I don’t eat it. I gave up all dairy. I gave up all alcohol except when I took my Mom out to dinner for her birthday. Even that night I ate paleo, except one glass of wine and a little dessert.

I lost 16 pounds during that six week challenge. This was when people really started noticing and commenting on my weight loss because I dropped it so rapidly. Honestly, I never found the diet that tough to follow. Sometimes I still crave pastry or a dessert, but those things are just not part of my lifestyle anymore.

Steve: You just got married – how important was having the wedding as your goal for getting in shape you think?

Stephen: I think the wedding was very important. I had a hard target date and I had an actual weight goal. It wasn’t a vague, “I want to lose weight” effort.

Steve: What was the toughest change for you to make?

Stephen: Giving up breads, pastries and desserts. It was also tough giving up my wife’s baking. As I’ve said, she is a mean baker!

Steve:  What was the most important change you made that helped you succeed?

Stephen: Going paleo. I think the body weight workout also helped. I don’t need to go to the gym, so that excuse is out the door. If I miss my workout at home, I know I can go in my office, close the door and bang out 60 pushups. I also try to be active in some way at least five times a week.

Steve: What would you tell somebody in your situation right now to help them? Somebody who’s tried and failed but ready to try again?

Stephen: Try making only one change to start. Do something. Do anything. Not next week. Not Monday. Not tomorrow. Today. You don’t have to go all in but make at least one change and be sincere about it. If you want to lose weight don’t buy snacks when you do your grocery shopping. I would recommend Paleo to anyone but if they don’t want to go all in do like I did and try giving up just bread.  I am proof that you cannot use the no gym excuse.

Steve: At the beginning of the year, you set your 2012 goal at 200 pounds – 70 pounds lost. You’re already down to 234…are you surprised how quickly you’ve been able to lose the weight?

Stephen: Yes, I am really surprised. I’ve lost weight and gotten into the 230s three times over the last 10 years. The other diets I’ve tried were extremely strict, I was always hungry, and if I saw a little rebound in my weight after all that sacrifice, I’d get discouraged and give up. Complete commitment to the Paleo Diet and my exercise routine has made all the difference. I am still just amazed at how quickly the pounds have come off.

Steve: What’s next? What’s your motivation after your honeymoon to stay in shape?

Stephen: Since I have gone paleo, my fiancée has gone primal by default. Since January, she has dropped from size 10 to size two/four.

In fact, she had to have her wedding gown taken in three times!!

Since we have both have been successful and both feel so much healthier, we plan to stick to our commitment to the paleo/primal lifestyle. We plan to enjoy ourselves on the honeymoon (fruity drinks with umbrellas come with the package) but we’ve come so far, we don’t want to throw away our pre-wedding efforts. We expect a little weight gain on the honeymoon, but we promised to be active every day we are there and our goal is to keep the weight gain five pounds or less. Your exercising around the world video was very timely. Again, the body weight workout will be a big help. I won’t have the “no gym” excuse even if there wasn’t a gym at the resort.

I still have lots of other goals: I want to have a six pack stomach. I want to be able to do 20 pull ups in a row. I want to do a muscle up. I want to do a human flag. These all seem like lofty goals, but so did losing 56 lbs. – but I did it. If I can lose that amount of weight in a few months- there’s no reason I can’t realize my new goals, too.

Falling off the wagon is always in the back of my mind, as I’ve done it so many times before.  However, I’ve come so far now and how I eat is just what I do now. I think I will be okay. I also can’t remember the last time the scale said 214 and I am NOT going back.

Steve: What are you excited to do now that you weren’t physically able to do before? any activities in particular?

Stephen: Push ups! Lots of them. I can also do a chin up now!  I’ve never been able to do a chin up in my whole life.

Last year I built a raised bed garden for my fiancée. My pickup was filled with dirt and I was dying shoveling the dirt into the garden bed. It took me most of the afternoon to get all of the dirt out of the truck. This year, I built her a second raised bed garden and I emptied the truck in 15 minutes – barely breaking a sweat. That was pretty cool.

I am also looking forward to skiing this year since I will be in so much better shape.

Steve: Your physical appearance has changed…what else has changed about you?

Stephen: My fiancée says I act much more confident and social. She says I chat with people more easily than when I was heavier.

Steve: Star Wars or Lord of the Rings?

Stephen: I acknowledge LOTR is the better directed trilogy and great movies but I love Star Wars. I grew up with Star Wars. I mean when Luke finds out Vader is his father?! That was the most mind blowing thing ever when I was 11!

Steve: Favorite video game of all time?

Stephen:  I am going to have to go with Rally Sport Challenge 2 on original Xbox. A close second is NHL 93 on original Sega Genisis!

Steve: If you could have any superpower in the world, what would it be, and why?

Stephen: Spiderman’s super strength and agility. It would rock to do what he can do.

How to be like Stephen

Have a goal, and be specific! Don’t suck at goal setting.  You might not be getting married, but that doesn’t mean you can’t pick a specific goal in the future.  Do your first pull up by the end of the summer.  Lose 10% of your body fat by December 31st.  The more specific you are, the easier it will be to put steps in place and track your progress to make sure you’re going down the right path.  If not, it’s easy to spot and you can make adjustments.

Take pictures.  I honestly can’t stress this one enough – The scale is only one method of tracking.  Because you live with yourself every day, it’s tough to see day-to-day change.  If you are taking a monthly picture (just like Joe did), you can look back and see that you ARE changing.  If you don’t see any changes, then it’s time to alter your plan of attack.

Try new things!  Stephen tried and failed to get in shape dozens of times in the past by counting calories.  He would do well, and then fall off the wagon for a few days, get discouraged, and go back to square one.  This time, he knew that trying to do things the SAME way would result in the SAME failures, so he tried something different – a clean diet and strength training.  Maybe calorie counting works for you; if it doesn’t, stop trying to do things the same way and expect different results!

Remove emotion from the equation.  This is the biggie.  Getting in shape and losing weight is 80% diet, and we all struggle with emotional eating.  ”Just one” becomes ten, and “one day off” quickly becomes a week.  Because Stephen followed the Paleo Diet strictly, he removed emotion from the equation.  He couldn’t eat just one, and he couldn’t take days off, because these things aren’t paleo – he wasn’t refusing himself certain foods, they just weren’t part of his life anymore.  After a few weeks of this, combined with visible progress in his pictures, Stephen built up some momentum that couldn’t be stopped.  Stop sucking at getting healthy!

Keep it simple.  Trying to change EVERYTHING at once is incredibly difficult for anybody.  Be like Stephen and make small changes that you know you can live with.  First he cut out bread, and then he cut out grains, and then he made smaller changes…a few weeks at a time.  Had he gone from a typical American diet to a strict Paleo diet overnight, he might have fallen apart within a matter of days.  One small change, every few weeks, that you can live with.

Build your support team.  Stephen was lucky that his now-wife supported his decision to live a healthier life, and as a result got inspired herself (going from a size 10 down to a size 2!).  He also signed up for the Nerd Fitness community where he had 24-7 support from people just like him working hard to live better lives.  You don’t need to be an army of one.  Build that support team!

Shut up and get started.  He had told his friends in the past dozens of times that he was going to get in shape, and each time he had failed.  Rather than repeating himself (like the boy who cried “wolf!”, he stayed quiet, only telling his wife.  He then put on his “hard hat,” and quietly got to work transforming his life.  Every day, he got a little bit better.  A few months later, people started to notice, and all he had to do was smile

Look for another dragon to slay.  Like Saint, Stephen got in shape for his wedding.  Rather than being content with his success thus far, he set his sights on another Dragon to slay - muscle ups, human flags, and more crazy body weight exercises.  From him: “These all seem like lofty goals, but so did losing 56lbs- but I did it. If I can lose that amount of weight in a few months- there’s no reason I can’t realize my new goals, too.”  Constantly add new goals and continue to push yourself to greater heights.

Be the next NF Success Story

These are my favorite articles to write.

Whether it’s hearing about Saint going from 60 pounds overweight to six-pack abs,  Tony dropping almost 50 pounds in four months, Staci going from overweight and unhappy to incredibly fit and strong, or Joe dropping 128 pounds in 10 months, these stories make me smile for days on end.  Some of them, like Joe’s story, even bring me to tears.

I want you to inspire the thousands of Nerd Fitness rebels out there.  Quietly make a promise to yourself to change, or shout it from the rooftops and put your money where your mouth is.  I don’t care how you get started, as long as you get started (just don’t forget the before photos!)  Build your support team, make changes you can live with, and build healthy habits.

Be better today than you were yesterday.

You might not realize it yet, but you have THOUSANDS of people waiting to cheer you on.  (I’m lookin at you Jess Perreca!)

I can’t wait to hear your story – and neither can your the rest of the Rebellion.  

-Steve

PS - Stephen’s on his honeymoon right now, but I bet he’d love to come back to an article FULL of comments of congratulations on his weight loss success and wedding.  Thanks for leaving one

PPS – Speaking of Staci (Spezzy)…she absolutely DOMINATED a powerlifting meet this weekend, winning for the women’s division with a total of 725 (225 lb. squat, 145 lb. bench, 355 lb. deadlift).  She even won a sword as a trophy, which will come in handy in the case of home intruders, leading the rebellion as they fight back the inevitable zombe horde, and slicing watermelon this summer.  Congrats Spezz!

Oftentimes, when I’m at a Nerd Fitness meetup, a rebel will ask me, “Do you mind if I have a beer?”

I usually laugh and say, “Nope! Will you get me one too?”

Yeah, I run a fitness website, but as you’ve hopefully been able to tell up to this point, it’s not normal.  I write about Optimus Prime, Office Space, and the Legend of Zelda.  I generally do my workouts on a playground and run around the world for fun.

I happen to also enjoy the occasional adult beverage.

I’ve been getting a lot of emails lately from people with questions like, “I want to try the Paleo diet, but I love beer. What can I do?”

I hear ya, friend.

Let’s take a look at alcohol, its effect on the body, and see if it can be consumed while still living a healthy life.

[side note: if you aren't 21 or of legal drinking age in your particular country, this article isn't for you.  Instead, look at these baby sloths getting a bath!

Also, I'm not a dietitian, doctor, or anybody with any sort of important sounding credentials.  I'm not an expert of any kind.  I'm probably not even wearing pants right now.  I'm merely a nerd who likes to dig into these things and present my results.]  

How does Alcohol Work?

I could dig REALLY deep into the science of how alcohol works, but that sounds more like a boring term paper and less like a fun Nerd Fitness article, so I’ll keep this section brief.  

When you consume an alcoholic beverage, the alcohol (ethanol) makes its way to your stomach where around 20-25% of it gets absorbed into your blood stream immediately. The rest of it continues to your small intestine where it is absorbed by the blood stream. Once it’s in your blood stream, the alcohol slowly heads toward to your liver where it is metabolized (broken down).

As the all-powerful Wikipedia tells us, “Alcohol is metabolized by a normal liver at the rate of about one ounce (one shot, a normal beer, a regular sized glass of wine) every 90 minutes.”  Many different factors affect this rate – like body fat percentage (lower the body fat, lower the blood alcohol level) and gender (women typically process alcohol slower than men).

Any amount consumed over that doesn’t get processed immediately, and instead saturates your blood until your liver can process the excess alcohol.

Think of it like a trip to the DMV or Post Office.  There are 47 of you in line, but only two people working the counter, which means you’re going to be waiting for hours until you can finally get outta there.

Because alcohol is a central nervous system depressant, the first drink or two can help loosen you up or relax.  As the amount of alcohol in your blood increases, the effects become more and more pronounced.

We call this “drunk.”

The Effects of Alcohol

“Steve, I know what drunk is.  Just tell me if I should drink or not!”

All right, all right!  Let’s get to the good stuff! 

…Actually, let’s get all of the BAD stuff out of the way first, and then move onto the good stuff.

First and foremost: Beer is not paleo. Sorry.  Neither is liquor.  Some consider wine paleo as it’s made out of grapes, and Tequila because it’s made from agave, but technically speaking…none of it is considered paleo.

Alcohol is pretty much void of any nutrients – its calories, although plentiful, are empty.

It’s the first fuel to be burned as energy in your system, which will lead the rest of the calories in your system (mostly the carbs) to get stored as fat as they’re going unused rather than being burned as fuel.

Alcohol stimulates insulin production when consumed.  Just like with grains and other sugars, this can lead to increased fat storage.

It has a dehydrating effect on your body, which can cause all sorts of health issues if you don’t keep an eye on it.  Essentially, it makes you urinate out way more fluid than you’re taking in, which leads to dehydration. If you have ever gone out drinking one night and woken up a few pounds lighter than you were the day before – this is why.

Alcohol impairs your body’s hormone regulation, which is a big factor when it comes to building muscle or losing weight.

There are also studies that show that the congeners (byproducts of fermentation) in alcoholic beverages have an estrogenic effect.

It can wreak havoc on your sleep patterns.  When you drink 30-60 minutes before bedtime, you’re probably going to screw up your sleep schedule, whether you realize it or not.  The effects kick in once all of the alcohol has been metabolized, so although you might fall asleep (pass out) right away thanks to consumption of alcohol before bed, it’s going to cause issues with your body and your sleep patterns throughout the night.

Beyond that, alcohol generally contains a lot of liquid calories that can be consumed in large quantities without realizing it.  If you’re a bigger dude, it make take you 6, 10, 12+ beers to get drunk… which you’ll do and combine with your normal dinner.  With each beer being 100+ calories, that’s 1200+ calories consumed not including food.  This doesn’t even included mixed drinks (which I’ll get to below) that bring in tons of calories and sugar on top of the alcohol – double whammy.

The real issue I’ve found with drinking is the lack of rational decision making after too many beverages.  All of a sudden, every possible terrible food sounds like a great idea – 4AM Taco Bell, six slices of pizza, a mountain of Chinese food, and everything in between.  Even if you’re consuming alcohol responsibly, it’s oftentimes served with smothered wings, chips, pizza, piles of french fries, and more.  It’s easy to get sucked into a night full of calorie consumption that would make Kobayashi blush.

But it’s not ALL bad!

There are SOME beneficial effects of MODERATE alcohol consumption.  

First and foremost, alcohol consumed in moderation can make you feel good.  Stress is a huge factor when it comes to weight gain and health issues – if a beer at the end of the day helps you relax and unwind, I’d say its positive effects outweigh its negatives.  Notice I said A beer…if you’re pounding beers every weekend to forget how miserable your week was, it’s time to reevaluate.

Every health-conscious drinker will tell you this one – red wine actually has quite a few healthy antioxidants in it, and can be healthy for a number of reasons  (like these 8 reasons, for example).

And from my favorite healthy living site on the net:

“Alcohol as a blood thinner enhances vascular health, and the phenolic content (potent antioxidants) can pack a healthy punch. Research has compared alcohol abstention with moderate and “heavy” drinking. Moderate alcohol consumption appears to lower the incidence of coronary heart disease, type 2 diabetes, total and ischaemic stroke, as well as result in an overall reduction in mortality…Moderate drinking in those over 65 with superior cognitive and memory function. It has also been linked to higher bone density in postmenopausal women.”

The Nerd Fitness Philosophy on Drinking

Here’s the Nerd Fitness philosophy on drinking in one sentence:

Do the best you can, be smart, and have some fun.

Long story short, drinking isn’t healthy for you… but neither is staying up too late, spending too much time on a computer, not spending enough time in the sunlight, spending too much time in the sunlight, playing videogames for too long, etc.

And yet we all do lots of these things, either because we have to or because we want to.  My goal with this site isn’t to make you into the perfect model human being (which is impossible), but rather removing any barriers you have toward living a healthy lifestyle while still letting you live the life you want.

As stated in the Rules of the Rebellion:  Your exercise and diet can become part of what you are, but not at the expense of who you are.

I believe drinking can be done occasionally, in moderation, and a desirable healthy lifestyle can still be achieved.  

If you decide that you want to drink, good for you.  If you decide that you don’t want to drink, that’s fine too.  I won’t make you do anything you don’t want to do, and vice versa.  You know yourself best; you know what you can handle and what you can’t; you know what your goals are and how your body reacts to certain things.  Be smart.

So, rather than tell you to give up drinking, let’s find a way to fit in into your schedule so that it allows you to be happy WITHOUT derailing your  efforts toward weight loss, muscle gain, and a healthier life.

Determine your goals

If you’re trying to figure out if you can drink or not, start by determining your goals:

• Do you want to build lots of muscle quickly?
• Do you need to lose a lot of weight quickly?
• Are you trying to get to a sub 10% body fat percentage?
• Or are you just trying to lose weight and feel better about yourself?
• Can you ONLY drink one or two?  Or does one or two always lead to six or seven or fifteen?

My advice to you on drinking will be very different depending on what you’re trying to accomplish.

If your goal is elite performance, rapid weight loss, or rapid muscle gain:  abstain from drinking as much as possible.  If you need to lose a lot of weight very quickly (maybe you have a wedding coming up, a weight loss competition at work, or a vacation and you want to get a slim as possible), cut out the drinking completely.  It messes with your sleep and your hormones, two crucial aspects of weight loss and muscle building.  ”But, Steve, I want to still drink!” Okay then! Readjust your goals and don’t expect elite results.

If you are trying to just look better and feel better: make yourself into an experiment.  Drink your glass of red wine or have your after-work beer along with healthy eating and healthy living, and see if your body is progressing in the right way.  As long as you are feeling better and looking better, keep doing what you’re doing.  If you are stalling or plateauing, consider not drinking for a while and see if it makes a difference.

If you know one or two usually turns into six or seven: it’s probably best if you stay away from drinking, especially if there’s any sort of alcohol abuse in your family.  You can also volunteer to be the designated driver, provided you take that responsibility of safely getting your friends home safe VERY SERIOUSLY.  You have to stop after one or two drinks for the night to keep everybody safe – it takes the pressure off of you to make that decision to drink more.

Best to Worst Options

Before I tell you WHAT to drink, let’s give a quick education on what is considered a “drink” and how the liquor measurement system works.

• 100 proof liquor contains 50% alcohol
• 80 proof liquor contains 40% alcohol
• 40 proof liquor contains 20% alcohol

Traditional wine has approximately 8-14% alcohol, while regular beer has 4-6% alcohol.  Generally this means that you’ll need a lot more beers to reach your desired level of inebriation compared to a liquor drink or wine.  More beers = more carbs and more calories = worse off for you.

The goal when drinking is to consume as few calories and carbs as possible while still providing you with the “benefits” (I’ll leave how much you’re looking for up to you) of that alcoholic beverage.

In this Nerd’s humble opinion (with an assist from MDA, here’s how it all breaks down.   Your mileage may vary.  Just because something is in the FAIL category doesn’t mean you can’t ever have one again, just save them for special occasions, or drink in extreme moderation.  

Epic Win

• Red Wine  (organic if possible) - ~130 calories and ~5-6g carbs.  Full of the healthy stuff previously listed.
• NorCal Margarita - (Robb Wolfe’s drink of choice) tequila, club soda, and lime juice – ~150 calories and ~5g carbs
• Whiskey/Brandy/Scotch/Cognac  - Full of healthy antioxidants as well. 64 calories and zero carbs.
• Vodka/soda or Vodka/rocks with lime (my drink of choice) – >2g carbs, 66 calories + lime juice (>10 calories)
• Bacardi and Diet - (Staci‘s drink of choice). 2g carbs, 66 calories. I know, I know, fake sugar and chemicals, but we’re already drinking, right?

Meh

• White wine - ~130 calories and ~5-6g carbs. Not a terrible option, but not nearly as many of the healthy benefits you get with red.
• Light beer -  ~100 calories and ~3-5g carbs.  This varies on the type and brand of beer.  Yes, lower in calories and lower in carbs, but beer is created from a grain and it’s easy to consume LOTS of these very quickly.

Fail

• Regular beer – ~150 calories and 10-14g of carbs.  Made of grain, easy to consume half a dozen of them without batting an eye, and full of calories and carbs.  If you’re a real beer drinker (I am), do so in moderation.  I’ll refer you back to the “what are your goals” section to determine what “moderation” is for you.
• ___________ and coke/sprite/orange juice/cranberry juice.  Sugar, sugar, sugar, sugar, calories, sugar.  The innocent cranberry juice you added to your vodka? 120 calories and 30 grams of sugar.
• ___________ and Red Bull – Although I love Red Bull’s marketing, I hate their drink.  Both alcohol and caffeine are diuretics which will dehydrate you very quickly.  On top of that, the alcohol tries to slow you down, the caffeine tries to speed you up – your body has no effing clue what to do.
• Pretty much anything frozen –  Sugary margaritas, daiquiris, pina coladas, hurricanes, vodka Red Bull slushies (yes these exist, stay far far away).  There’s enough sugar in these drinks to make Def Leppard think ‘that’s a bit much’.
• Sangria –  Think of it like wine but with 20 packets of sugar added in.

Tips and Tricks for “Healthy” Drinking

Okay, so you’ve decided that you’re okay with drinking. How do you put it into practice?

Identify the days you’ll be drinking.  My guess is that it will be Friday and Saturday.  During the Summer, it might be Sunday afternoons.  Whatever your decision is, decide which days you’ll be drinking and how much you’re like to be drinking.  That’s up to you – if you can manage with just one drink to nurse throughout the night, good for you.  If you need more than that, I’d make sure those dates are spread further apart.

If you have a party to go to next weekend, for example, spend your entire week being incredibly diligent with your diet and choices.  Be more strict on your meals, stick to only water, and work from there.

Make sure you eat BEFORE you go out – you need that food in your system before the alcohol if it’s going to help you at all later on.

When you get to the party or wherever you’re going, alternate alcohol with ice/soda water.  Now, if your goal is to get as intoxicated as possible, there’s not much I can do for you other than feel sorry for your body and brain the next morning.  But, that is your decision to make, and I won’t hold it against you – we’ve all been there In fact, I’ll even tell you what to do in the next section for the day after.

Don’t mix and match.  Don’t switch from beers, to shots, to liquor, to margaritas, to jagerbombs, to whatever.  Bad idea.  Don’t start with beer and then switch to hard liquor either.  You’re already drunk so you won’t be able to tell how much liquor you’re consuming, which is when things go downhill quickly.  Pick something and stick with it.

Stop drinking at least an hour before you’re going to go to bed.  If you’ve been drinking a lot, CHUG WATER LIKE A MOFO.  Yup, it’s going to make you want to pee.  Yes, you’ll have to get up to pee during the night.  Yes, you’ll wake up feeling like an overfilled water balloon.  Because you’re dehydrated and your body can only retain so much water, you’ll require a lot of it to get back to level.

Avoid mixers that are high in sugar like a stage-5 clinger - vodka and cranberry, rum and coke, Red Bull and vodka, pretty much any________ and _________ is probably loaded with calories and sugar.  A Long Island Ice tea has 700+ calories.  A pina colada has 600+ calories.  Same goes for a margarita.  Drink it on the rocks with a bunch of fruit.

Scared about not being able to restrain yourself?  Worried about your friends poking fun at your slow drinking?  Volunteer to be the designated driver.  That way, your friends will love you and OWE you as they don’t need to pay for a cab, and you have a built in excuse why you’re not drinking.  I didn’t drink through most of college, so I was the DD a lot – it was kind of nice having everybody owing me favors all of the time!

Um, I was overserved and now I’m hungover. Help?

We’ve all been there.

Some of us more than others…

Your best friends are in town for one night, or your out at a bachelor party/friend’s wedding/watching a big sporting event…or it was Tuesday and you had nothing better to do. You were accidentally overserved, clearly through no fault of your own, and now it’s the next morning and you feel like Stu in the Hangover.

On to the hangover cures!

In case you’re curious WHY your body hates you right now, read this.

You are SEVERELY dehydrated, so it’s important to get fluids back in your system - you’ve lost a lot of essential electrolytes and water from the night before, so get it back into your system.  Funnily enough, this is the only time I’ll recommend drinking a sports drink like Gatorade - because you’re dehydrated, the Gatorade can help you get re-hydrated more quickly than just water.  Juice is another good option to get you started.  Just remember that you’re pumping your body full of sugary liquid calories, so make your adjustments later on.

No Gatorade?  Eat a banana!  Your body is potassium deficient.  Feel free to throw banana peel in the street and watch hilarious go-kart spin outs.

Take a shower.  Drag your butt off the couch/bed/park bench that you woke up on, stumble to the shower, and take a nice, long hot shower.  Or, if you need a slap in the face, try cold showers! Alternatively, you could ask your friend to slap you in the face (not recommended).

Pounding headache?   You’re severely dehydrated so lots of strenuous activity is NOT a great idea…but some quick light activity could wake you up!  Try doing some push ups or jumping jacks and get the blood flowing out of your brain and into the rest of your body.

Don’t take acetaminophen (Tylenol).  From Ask Men –  ”The reason is that when your liver is busy metabolizing alcohol, it processes the painkiller differently than it otherwise would, resulting in toxic compounds that can cause liver inflammation and even permanent damage.”

If you NEED to, take Ibuprofen.  If you can tough it out without the drugs, do so…but take ibuprofen if you have to.

What say you?

Hopefully that was everything you wanted to know, and a lot of what you didn’t, about drinking.

Have you been able to lose weight and maintain a healthy social life with/without drinking?

Do you have any healthy hangover cures to pass along?

Anything I didn’t address that you’d like me to add?

So, if you meet up with me at a bar, yes I’d love a beer.  

Just one though.

-Steve

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photo sources: lego beers, german lego beer, clones and beercaps, businessman lego, becks and stormtroopers, scubadiver lego, astronaut_beer_lego, darth vader lego, clones and booze, vader and cork, jester lego

I time-traveled yesterday.

Over the weekend, my friend/design Yoda Mike Bridgman wanted to give Nerd Fitness headquarters a more nerdy, retro look that screamed “NERD FITNESS!” Boom – I honestly get giddy just looking at it.

Seriously, if you’re reading this in an email or RSS reader, come check out the site

Anyways, during the weekend we also updated a whole bunch of other stuff and plugins on the site; one of those new services managed to revert EVERYTHING back to November 2011 yesterday. Things SHOULD be back to normal now, but for a few hours there I felt like I was trapped back in time, six months ago.

It was a rare (though forced) opportunity for me to see what the site looked like, what the message boards looked like, and how many members we had.

It taught me patience as well, as we’ve run into all sorts of snags, problems, glitches, and so on over the past two weeks getting this read…and then the site just didn’t work yesterday!

Last but not least, it also had me thinking of what my life was like six months ago (thanks to Mama T for the inspiration), and what life will be like six months from now.

Shall we go back in time?

Back to the Future

I want you to hop in your imaginary DeLorean and set the date for November 7th, 2011.

[If you actually have a DeLorean, get it up to 88mph and let us know how things go.]

Read some of your old work emails, IM conversations, and/or message board posts and see what your goals and missions were. At the very least, try to put yourself back in your 2011 shoes (which shouldn’t be too tough as they’re the same size as your 2012 shoes) and think about all of the life decisions (or lack thereof) you’ve made in the past six months.

Looking back, you’ll have different feelings: 

1. Elation about the decisions made that worked out in your favor.  Maybe you changed your diet and workout strategy and lost a bunch of weight, or switched jobs and paid off a bunch of debt, etc.
2. Sadness that something you tried didn’t work out or made things worse.  You agreed to go on a date with a total jerk, or you took a job that you ended up hating two weeks later.
3. Regret that you had an opportunity to make a change or try something new but didn’t. You could have asked that person out but didn’t bother, or you could have taken a _________ class but passed on the chance.

Now, if we actually had a time machine, we could go back to make sure we did the stuff that made us happy, stop ourselves from trying the things that didn’t work out, and force ourselves to try the things that we failed to attempt.

Unfortunately, our flux capacitors are broken, which means we don’t have that luxury…yet.

Although we all want to have elation, we spend so much time worrying about the potential for sadness that we end up giving up the possibility of both, which results in a giant pile of regret.

I say no more!

Fortune favors the bold nerd

Every day is an opportunity to learn.

Right now, I’m can’t help but think about two lessons I learned on my recent trip to Ecuador:

1) I’m proud of myself for trying sushi. I don’t even like cooked fish, but I tried sushi and discovered that – although I didn’t particularly care for it and probably won’t be adding it to my normal menu – it actually wasn’t as abysmal as I had expected! I can now say “yes I’ve had it, and it’s not for me.”

2) I’m kicking myself for not trying kiteboarding. Ecuador has great, reasonably-priced kite boarding lessons. And yet, I spent too much of my time behind a computer telling myself I was too busy; in reality, I had the time, I just chose not to make the effort.  Now that I’m back in the states, there’s nothing I can do about it!

Both lessons are valuable.  I’m glad I learned the first one, and I’m absolutely pissed at myself for the second!  Yeah, I could have broken my leg or hated it or really had a miserable time, but at least I would have been able to say “I tried it.”

Try more

If you thinking “sorry Steve, but I’m not as adventurous as you and I don’t like to try new things,” stop it.

I’m extremely risk averse, I’m a a picky eater, I have self-confidence issues, I get terrified when walking into a party of people I don’t know, I’m afraid of public speaking (this was the scariest moment of my life), and if I didn’t force myself to try new things, I might never leave my apartment – hell, 3/4ths of the items on the Epic Quest of Awesome exists because they scare me.

Why do I do it?

For three very important reasons:

1. Because I’ve learned that new stuff can be freaking awesome!  Oftentimes, the new thing is even better than imagined.
2. Because more often than not, the “bad” decisions aren’t nearly as life-ending as I expected them to be.  After a brief moment of disappointment, I get to say “welp, that didn’t work out! moving on!”
3. Because regret is the toughest lesson of all to learn, especially when it’s too late to do anything about it.  ”What if” drives me absolutely BONKERS.

I vow that I will continue to try new things and report back here with my findings. After all, I can’t be preaching this stuff without practicing it myself, right?  Without change, there can be no progress, and that progress is key to my happiness.

So, I apologize in advance if Nerd Fitness breaks again for most of the day (the past three days have been incredibly frustrating for me, but I know it’ll be worth it), or something doesn’t work right, or if I launch a new project and it completely bombs.  I’m sorry if I miss an article because I was out learning how to __________, or I make a declaration and then change paths two months later. I want to continue to innovate and grow and explore opportunities and possibilities and chances. I’d like to think that most of them will work, but quite a few will probably blow up in my face, injure or humiliate me, and/or cost me a bunch of money.

That’s learning and I look forward to the ass-kicking life will deliver.  

We can’t predict the future, but we can look back on our past and remember the things that made us feel the way we do:

• Six months ago, you might have been in a dead-end job that made you miserable. Do you still complain every day about it without actually taking action? Or are you taking daily steps to improve your situation?
• Six months ago, you saw that cute girl/guy in the coffee shop but didn’t say anything because you were scared. Do you still admire from afar and regret each missed opportunity?  OR do you now approach and say something like “hey, I think you’re really cute and wanted to introduce myself, I’m [name].”
• Sixth months ago, you said you wanted to take Karate/cooking/dance classes but never got around to it because you were too busy. Are you still busy, or has the realization finally hit that you’re not too busy and you DO have time?

Regret less

There will be moments when you attempt something or say YES to something that you shouldn’t have.

And there will be moments when you try something new that breaks your website for an entire day and makes you want to punch a hole in the drywall

As long as you look at those opportunities as learning experiences (“trying to eat the Heart Attack burger was a bad idea,” “I now know that I can’t fly by jumping off my roof with cardboard wings”, and so on), then you will be able to avoid making similar mistakes in the future.

Look back on your past 6 months, and think about the moments where you wished you had done something but didn’t. Figure out WHY you didn’t do it – was it fear? Lack of time? Lack of resources?

It’s time to put systems in place to remove those road blocks so you can take action without regret:

1. Lack of confidence? start here.
2. Lack of money? read this.
3. Lack of time? practice better time management, and make time – I’m going to write a post on this very soon.
4. Too scared? Here’s why you need to do more sh** that scares you. every day.
5. Afraid to fail? Failure is awesome.

Its far more desirable to look back and say “that wasn’t for me” or “too bad that didn’t work out” instead of “I wonder what if?”

And who knows…the damn thing might work out and actually change your life

We can’t be like Marty McFly and go back to change what’s happened.  We can only learn from those experiences and apply them moving forward.

I’d love to hear from you today with THREE things:

• One change or something you’ve made in the past six months that HAS worked out for you – take a sentence to celebrate your success.
• One opportunity you passed up on in the past six months and are still kicking yourself for.
• One new decision you’re going make or new thing you’re going to try as a result of that experience you missed out on.

-Steve

MEGA SALE PS:  NF Team member Staci handles the merch around here – When you order a shirt or a hoodie, she’s the one who packs it up and ships it out.  She also stores all of apparel, which means her apartment looks like a full blown Nerd Fitness store.

Well, she’s moving in a month, and she’s got a closet full of ridiculously comfortable Nerd Fitness hoodies.  On top of that, we’re about to enter into a new partnership for merch that will allow us to offer way more options for Rebels (performance shirts, anyone?) Rather than make her move all of these hoodies to her new place, I figure why not just sell them in an epic sale so they don’t need to be moved again!

It’s late Spring, which also happens to be perfect Nerd Fitness hoodie weather. Funny coincidence, eh?

Here’s my latest attempt at trying something new. First and foremost, we’re dropping the price on hoodies:

• $40 for the pullover hoodie with free shipping
• $45 for the zip up hoodie with free shipping

Add $3 for 2XL sizes, and add $5 for international shipping.

On top of that, in honor of this new site launching, we’re gonna sweeten the deal.

From now until Friday night at midnight, buy a hoodie and get any Nerd Fitness ebook 50% off! Or, I guess you could look at it like “buy an ebook and get a kickass NF hoodie ridiculously cheap.”

Whichever method works best in your brain.

Here’s how it works:

• select a zip up or pullover hoodie.
• select the Rebel Fitness Guide, Rebel Strength Guide, or Rebel Running Guide, either deluxe or regular version.

Then, on the payment page, put the code “TALIM” and it should apply the discount!

Offer valid for one hoodie and one ebook.  No returns or refunds on this (if you order the wrong size, email us and we can try to figure out a solution).

One more thing.  We also send out kick-ass Nerd Fitness decals (one red, one white) in each package when you buy a hoodie or t-shirt.  If you don’t want hoodies or shirts but just want the decals, $5 bucks will get you one red and one white.  You can add a set of decals to your shopping cart here.

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photo sources: dolorean and storm troopers, lego time machine, clocks, eye clock, alarm clock

Mega Man is going to blow your mind today.  

Well, him and dozens of his side-scrolling friends.

Last week, a friend of mine emailed me a link to a video that instantly made my day and almost brought me to tears (seriously).  If you’ve ever played an old school NES game, or grew up with a Sega or Super Nintendo, this video will take you on a nostalgic adventure down memory lane.

On top of that, if you’re anything like me, it’ll inspire the HELL out of ya.  

Now, if you’ve been reading Nerd Fitness for a while, you’ll understand my obsession with drawing thought-provoking life lessons from the most random of places (Underpants Gnomes, Shawshank Redemption, and Mike Tyson’s Punchout!! to name a few).

Today, we’re going to learn how to level up our lives from 8-bit video game characters.

GO RIGHT

Go Right Video

If this isn’t the best 2.5 minutes of your day, email me and I’ll send you a free NF t-shirt.  Just kidding, we’re almost completely out of stock (though more are coming in the next week).  And if they WERE in stock, you’d have to do something way cooler than just complain to get one

Enough about shirts though, let’s get back to the epic awesomeness that is “Go Right.”  Make sure you watch it at least once, but preferably 10-250 times.

I’ll wait.

Done?  

Great! Time to get educated by Mario and company.

Simplify

Old school games ruled because they were deceptively simple.

A directional pad and two buttons.  Only one direction to run – right!

Take somebody with ZERO videogame experience, give him an NES controller, and put him on Level 1-1 in Super Mario Bros. – within a nanosecond he’ll start walking right, jump on a Goomba, pound the ? block, etc.

Now, hand that same person an Xbox controller and drop him in the middle of a Halo:Reach 16-player battle without any explanation, and they’ll probably tell you “this is stupid, I have no clue what I’m doing, I don’t want to play.”

I realize this makes me sound like a crotchety old grampa, but games will simpler back then!  Two buttons.  Two dimensions.  One direction to walk.  Up hill, in the snow, both ways, buck naked.

Wait, what?

Anyways, anybody with half a brain can figure out how to play a side-scrolling game very quickly.  No instruction necessary – just figure it out as you go along!

What does this have to do with real life?

Have you ever been had so many options that you instead decided to do absolutely nothing?  We call this “paralysis by analysis,” and it happens to the best of us.  Yeah, even Chuck Norris.  (Kidding, Chuck…please don’t hurt me!)

I can’t tell you how many emails I get from terrified people who ask “should I do 3 sets of 8 or 4 sets of 7 or 5 sets of 5?” or “is 2200 calories too many or should it be 2100?” or “if I do these 7 ab exercises will I get abs?” or “I eat 185 grams of protein but should it be 180 and how many ounces of water specifically and is four slices of apple enough or should it be five?”

These people drive themselves absolutely insane by wondering about every tiny little detail; they fail to see the importance of just simplifying everything and getting started!  They want to collect piles and piles of underpants because Phase 2 scares the crap out of them (inappropriate pun definitely intended, unfortunately).

Make your life 8-bit.  Stop playing Halo and start playing Mario - simplify!  Stop worrying about the small stuff, stop adding confusing plans and complex workouts and convoluted diet solutions to your problems.  KEEP IT FREAKING SIMPLE:

• You don’t need a gym and a trainer and fancy equipment.  A simple playground will do.
• Want to strength train?  Squats, Deadlifts, Overhead Presses, Push ups, Pull Ups, and Dips. That’s it.  No tricep extensions, no cable bicep curls, no calf raises, no ab-rollers.  Build an entire routine out of these few exercises, combine it with proper eating, and get ridiculous results – it’s how the Barbell Battalion operates in the Rebel Strength Guide.  Just because it’s simple doesn’t mean it’s not effective or fun – ask Mario.
• Want to lose weight?  Start eating right!  Don’t worry about diet pills, protein shakes, timed meals, exact portions, or any of that nonsense.  Learn to start eating real food!  The less steps your food had to go through to get from nature to your stomach, the healthier it probably is for you.
• Want to change your job/start a business/get out of debt?  Think in two dimensions!  Decide how you can simplify the process down into just the key steps.  Forget everything else, and get started on the simple stuff that will produce the greatest results.

One step at a time

When you play through Super Mario Bros the very first time, are you expected to beat Bowser right away?

Eff no, you’d get your butt kicked!

When you play Legend of Zelda, you’re handed a wooden sword and shield – are you supposed to march straight into Death Mountain and defeat Gannon?

Of course not, little Link would pee his pants if he had to do that!

Fortunately for these characters (and those of us that control said characters), video games are broken into different levels that increase in difficulty as you progress.

• You don’t need to worry about the final level or last boss, all you have to focus on is the NEXT level and the NEXT boss.
• You don’t need to worry about the massive gap at the end of the level you’re supposed to clear, just the NEXT gap.
• You don’t need to worry about Dr. Wily yet, just get through BubbleMan, and then Air Man, and so on…

One level at a time, one step at a time.

Make your life 8-bit - If you’re trying to lose 200 pounds, your goal probably seems impossible.  So how do you do it?  One pound at a time.  One meal at a time.  One workout at a time.  One step at a time.  One day at a time.  Just focus on being better today than you were yesterday.

Stop worrying about the grand picture if that scares the crap out of you, and just focus on what you can change today.  As we’ve learned from Optimus Prime, a bunch of tiny changes, when combined in the proper order, can result in big transformations (see what I did there?).

Take it easy!  Focus on moving towards the flag/goal/end.  Focus on the next jump.  Focus on the next obstacle.  Hell focus on just putting one foot in front of the other.  Do this repeatedly and eventually you find yourself, completely leveled up, ready for a boss battle of epic proportions.

Suck less each time.

You know what I loved about old school video games?

They were mercilessly difficult.

Dying a ridiculous number of times trying to clear a level, cross a particularly huge gap, and/or defeat a boss happened dozens of times in most games.   However, they were as well designed as they were difficult (the good ones, anyway): if you died, it was because your hand slipped, or you jumped half a second early or late, or you timed running past the lasers incorrectly.

You could scream and yell, blame the controller, blame the pizza grease on your finger that slipped on the A button, or blame the bad guy who inexplicably changed his pattern (he didn’t, by the way), knowing full well that when you died it was because you sucked.

When the screen says “CONTINUE?” you jump right back into the fray and try to suck a little bit less than before.

Life is no different.

When trying to acquire a new skill, you are going to suck…and you are going to suck a lot.  You are going to fail, and you are going to fail a lot.  Fortunately for you, the only thing that’s separating you and total victory is YOU.  Unfortunately this means that blaming outside sources for what’s gone wrong is a tremendous waste of time, energy, and resources.

If you’ve tried to lose weight in the past and failed, does this sound familiar?

• “I was doing well until the holidays came around!”
• “I lost a bunch of weight, but then got sick and couldn’t exercise and now I’m back at square one.”
• “I was kicking but until work got busy and I had to stop.  When things slow down…”

As my buddy Tyler will tell you, “nobody believes your excuses except for you.”

STOP “BLAMING THE CONTROLLER!”

This game of Life is freaking hard – nobody gets out alive.

Make your life 8-bit:   You might try and get in shape and fail a few (dozen) times before you succeed – you might have some success losing weight before putting it all back on!  That’s life, and it doesn’t make you a failure, or a bad person, or a lazy bum.

Those things are only true if you continue to “blame the controller” or keep trying to beat the same level in the exact same way that resulted in your “death” on the last time through.  

Your goal is to suck less each time.

We play videogames because of the tremendous amount of satisfaction we get from sucking a little bit less each time and getting a little bit further.  It’s fun to fail in different ways, trying different paths and strategies and tactics until we finally discover the perfect combination of buttons that allow us to cross the finish line.

Getting in shape is NO DIFFERENT – if you sucked at getting healthy last time, learn from it and TRY SOMETHING DIFFERENT.  If you tried to count calories and starve yourself while running on a treadmill to get in shape and failed miserably, then attempting to get in shape the same way this time is the video game equivalent of running into that first Goomba in Mario and expecting the result to somehow be different.

Write down what you did last time and identify why it didn’t work for you. And then move onto the next option and track that one too.  Repeat as necessary.

Go right

Videogames can be brutally tough, but damn they’re fun.  

They test you, challenge you, frustrate you, and then have the audacity to dare you to try again.

And you do.

Every time you miss a gap, get clipped by a bullet, or accidentally jump half a nanosecond too soon, you scream every four-letter expletive you can think of before picking up the control and saying “THIS is the time.”

Start looking at your life in two dimensions.  You’ll face challenges that you probably don’t have a solution for quite yet.  You will get stuck on the same part of a “level” for days and weeks at a time.  You will set goals that make you think “I’m being incredibly unrealistic with this.”

Stop worrying about the next level.  Don’t worry about that final jump.  Who cares if you’ve “died” a million times?  Try again.  Try differently.  Try smarter.

Hit continue.  

Go right.

-Steve

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PS - Yeah,  after seeing “Go Right” I realized that I DEFINITELY ran the wrong way in my video.  Sigh.

What did you accomplish in the past 6 weeks?

• Did you quit smoking like Spauracchio and Oystergirl?
• Did you run a half marathon like ImUnaware?
• Did you lose 26 pounds like BGvanbur?

Every six weeks here at Nerd Fitness, we house a completely free 6-week challenge over on the Nerd Fitness Message Boards…and we’ve seen hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people make drastic life changes in just six-weeks.  Our goal with these 6-week challenges is to push you outside of your comfort zone, help you build new habits, and support you to make positive changes that influence every aspect of your life.

Today is your lucky day, for a new challenge begins…NOW!

Make sure you get signed up before Wednesday at 11:59pm est to be eligible to win!

To join: pick three diet and fitness goals and one life goal, and write about your struggles and victories along the way.  Make new friends, accomplish some goals, and who knows…you might even win a place in the NF Hall of Heroes!

NERD ALERT!

This time we’re making things a bit Nerdier by introducing RPG-style character classes that match our NEW Class Guilds on the forums and some basic attribute points to make the scoring at the end fair.

["But Steve and Staci, I'm not a gamer and I have no clue what RPG stands for!"   That's okay - we still want you and you can still win! ]

A breakdown of how it all works can be found here.

We’d love to have you – the Nerd Fitness community is freaking awesome – 5700+ rebels all over the world who want nothing more than to help you succeed.  If you’re ever in need of motivation or support, look no further than this community.  On top of that, joining this challenge might net you some new friends and kick-ass Nerd Fitness shirt and stickers.  Who doesn’t love stickers!?

(speaking of shirts, we blew through our last order and have placed an order for more – sizes will be back in stock in a week or two! sorry for the delay)

Last 6 Week Challenge Winners

I’ve spent the last five hours reading over almost 300 reports from Rebels on the last challenge; I’m feeling two things: one, inspired, and two, frustrated.  Inspired because everyone achieved so many awesome things and frustrated because I can’t pick everyone as a winner!

Winner: bgvanbur

See that picture above?  That’s of bgvanbur’s belt.  Yup, that’s right: in the last SIX WEEK challenge, bgvanbur lost 26lbs. Not only did he do that, but he ran a 5k in 32:33 (down from 41:09), a mile in under 9 minutes (8:39, down from 10:17), and rocked all of his life goals (among other things).  Simply amazing. You can read more about it here.  Bgvanbur, I will be in touch on where to send your t-shirt!

Runner up: msuroo

Msuroo rocked his last challenge, bringing his squat up 60lbs and his deadlift up 50lbs, reduced his mile run time 40 seconds (from 7:30 to 6:49) along with various other goals.  You can read more about his progress (full of pictures!) here.

A few other awesome things that happened in the last challenge?

• empeg9000 lost 16lbs, So Late So Soon lost 15, and mandy75 lost 5 (and an inch off her waist!)
• Kelly made an extra house payment in April
• Shiggles squatted other people
• Elastigirl did all three bodyweight circuits with only a 30 second break in between

(Have I convinced you to join the next challenge yet?)

New moderators and a chat room!

(BarefootDawsy, Bigm141414, JBarduhn, Matilda117, and Knightwatch)

I’m super ridiculously excited to announce that we’ve added a whole bunch of new moderators to the Nerd Fitness Message Boards!

As the community continues to grow, we’ve identified people that have gone above and beyond the call of duty to help, inspire, and engage other rebels.  For starters, BarefootDawsy, Bigm141414, Knightwatch, and Matilda117 have been added to the team to help out 67Alecto and Capn_Tommy_Sunshine keep an eye on the boards!

We have also created something new – Guild Leaders!

If you’ve been to the Nerd Fitness Community Forums lately, you’ll have noticed that we have created guilds for each type of training based on RPG Style Classes.

With those Guilds, we have introduced Guild Leaders.  These Rebels are not only incredibly good looking, but also incredibly knowledgeable in their specific field.  They will act as moderators for their respective guilds, and help keep things organized, make sure the information posted isn’t completely wrong, and help run guild challenges (like the Spring Strength Showdown and the Race Across the Sahara).

Ryan Sannar has even made Guild Logos that I am absolutely in love with.

Warriors (our Strength Training Guild):
Bigm141414, CoreyD, Pat G

Rangers (Multi-Class, CrossFit Guild)
KnightWatch, Nightlight, Crooked

Scout (Running, Biking, Swimming)
BarefootDawsy, Josh_C, So Late So Soon

Monk (Martial arts)
Spauracchio

Assassin (Parkour, Gymnastics)
Ryan Sannar, NukeTheUnicorns

Adventurer (Undecided, all around fitness)
Chammy, Matilda117, JBarduhn

*We are still looking for a Druid (Yoga) guild leader, so for now, I’ll be leading them…which is slightly hilarious considering the fact that I got myself stuck in a Yoga pose at the gym today and actually had to call for help to get me out of it. (Seriously).

And just in case you’re bored at work or feel the need to connect with your fellow rebels all over the world in REAL time, we’ve installed state of the art, futuristic technology called “chat rooms” to make that happen.   All the info you need is right here.

Join us!

Come on in, the water’s warm!

Most people don’t realize how important a really good support team can be to leveling up your life.  They will pick you up when you’re down, encourage you when you need encouragement, give you tough love when it’s what you need to hear, and push you to be a better person.  Most of us who are trying to get in shape tend to be the only person in our real-life group of friends who’s interested in making drastic life changes…if you dont’ have a support group in person, join ours online.

Good luck, adventurer!

-Staci

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photo source: D&D dice, d&d legos

This is a guest post from Mike Inscho of AlphaMaleFTS.

Growing up, I lived next to the local airport.

The “Most Interesting Man in the World” is my hero.

You know, the guy from the Dos Equis commercials who “can speak French, in Russian” and “once had an awkward moment, just to see how it felt.”  You hear about all of the stuff he’s done and you can’t help but laugh while saying, “damn, that’s awesome.”

Now, obviously the Dos Equis Man is a fictional character (unfortunately), but he’s actually helped me come to a few realizations lately about behavior, habits, mentality, and success when it comes to leveling up your life.

Let’s see, last week it was underpants gnomes…this week it’s a fictional beer character….

What the hell am I talking about?

There’s one particular “Dos Equis Man” phrase that I want to draw your attention to today:

“He lives vicariously through himself.”

Whether you want to travel the world, become a parkour phenom, run a marathon, or start your own business, it’s time to start living vicariously through yourself.

Man, I wish I could do that!

We all do it.

We’ll hop on YouTube and see a guy breakdance like a maniac, attempt things only thought possible in the matrix, or even showcase ridiculous body weight exercises.  We read a feel-good story about somebody doing something awesome, or going somewhere awesome, or being something awesome, and we all say:

“Man, I wish I could do that!”

And then immediately we go back to whatever it is we were doing/eating/thinking without making a SINGLE change that would get us closer to doing it.  

Since putting out my exercise video on Monday (if you’re reading this on an iPhone, view here), I’ve heard “I wish I could do that” about a million times.  A quick visit to the YouTube comments reveals a few things – a lot of Canadians are pissed that I didn’t go north of the border, I’m huge in Romania, and everybody assumes I’m rich and “wishes [they] could do that.”

I guarantee that 99.5% of the people who say “man I wish I could do that” won’t spend five minutes actually figuring out what it would take and if it’s possible.  

I’m not rich.  Yes, Nerd Fitness is doing well, but I’m not breaking the bank, and money was incredibly tight during a majority of my trip.  I’m a normal dude – I’m shy (believe it or not), I’m a picky eater, and I’m pretty risk averse.  So how the Hell was I able to put a trip together like this?

Because I saw Matt do it 5 years ago; I watched that video and said “man, I wish I could that.”

And then I started putting systems and plans in place so that I COULD eventually do that!  Over the course of five years, I took tiny step after tiny step to take me closer to my goal.

And then one day, I did it.

Here’s how to start living vicariously through yourself.

It’s good to have heroes…

 We all have people we look up to.

It can be one person for a lot of things, or lots of people, each for a particular thing.  I have many friends that are my heroes for certain reasons, and bloggers, athletes that are my heroes for different reasons, and business owners who are my heroes for others.  I know some of my heroes; others I only know through their work or website.

Here are some of my heroes:

• Strength and Fitness – Beastskills.com and Vic Magary
• Diet/blogging – Mark from marksdailyapple.com
• Blogging – Glen from Viperchill and Corbett Barr
• Business – Richard Branson and Steve Jobs 
• Community Building – Brett from Art of Manliness and ManVsDebt
• Lifestyle design – Tim Ferriss
• Personal finance/business – Ramit Sethi
• Writing/travel – Chris Guillebeau
• Travel/video – Matt

Everybody from the list above is way better than me at their particular craft, and I can only hope some day to reach their level.  These are folks who usually make me say something like “damn that’s clever” or “wow I wish I could do that.”

But it’s important to be your own hero

With that being said…I think it’s important to remember that you can be your OWN hero too.

In other words, live vicariously through yourself!

[Note: this is really boring if you spend all of your time sitting on your butt doing nothing.]

So, in order to live vicariously through yourself, you need to start putting steps in place to eventually do stuff that makes you feel alive.

A lot of folks tell me they’re living vicariously through me and my adventures.  Although it’s kind of cool to hear that, it’s even better to hear from folks that say “Steve, you’ve inspired me to FINALLY go visit ________________ or do ______________, which I’ve been putting off for years.”

By putting yourself out there, allowing yourself to live these memories and experiences on your own, you get a lifetime to look back upon those days and say “Holy crap, I can’t believe I did that!”

So how does one go about living vicariously through oneself?

Step 1 – Determine the heroic action

First and foremost you need to decide if the “I wish I could do that” is something you REALLY want to do.

Although I would like to say that nothing is impossible, some things just aren’t in the cards.  The way I look at it is like this:

If I dedicate enough time, effort, and/or money to this goal, is this something I can eventually achieve?

• If it’s not, I shut my face and admire the talent for what it is.  I can admire gold medal Olympic gymnasts, but I know I’ll never step up on that podium so I don’t beat myself up for not spending 16 hours in a gym every day.
• If it IS something I can do and WANT to do, then I start telling myself that it’s possible and get to work.

Note: you’d be surprised what people will tell themselves is impossible – “I don’t have time, I don’t have the money, I don’t have __________.”  Well, if this is something you REALLY REALLY WANT, it’s amazing how those excuses start to disappear.  As my buddy Tyler will tell you, “nobody believes your excuses except for you.”

If you’re wondering if it’s is possible, it most likely is.

It might take five years; a decade; twenty years, and a lot of your money or time…but it is possible.  Start believing so.

Stage 2 – Turn the vague and distant into concrete and real

“I wish I could do that” is a nice, safe sentence.

There’s nothing concrete about it, there’s no time commitment, or financial amount tied to it.  It’s a vague statement you can say while watching YouTube, reading an article on Yahoo, or while changing TV.  It allows you to say “that’s awesome and impossible.  Okay back to normalcy!”

After step one, you’ve already told yourself that you believe you can actually do it…but as we’ve learned from my favorite movie, without action, hope is useless.  So it’s time to take that nebulous goal and turn it into something incredibly specific.  Every freaking detail.  Change it from “big and scary” into “well researched and demystified!”

• Want to do something epic like compete on Ninja Warrior or climb Mt Kilimanjaro?  Email somebody who’s DONE it and talk to them!  My friend Jim’s a normal dude and he did Kilimanjaro  Find out their level of fitness, how long they’ve been training, what they did to prepare, and so on.
• Want to run a marathon or triathlon?  Although I’m not a fan of long distance endurance, I know these are goals lots of people have but never actually get around to do it “because you’re busy.”  Pick one six months from now, and pay for it in advance.  All of a sudden “running a marathon” becomes “the marathon on October 16th.” Or, you can be like Mike and just say “I’m going to run one today.”
• Want to roadtrip cross country?  Google your route, pick out your cities, and calculate how much you’d be spending on gas.  Figure out the details!
• Want to go on a trip? Maybe it’s just a SINGLE country for a SPECIFIC event.  Visit the ruins of Machu Picchu; eat Pizza in Italy, practice Muay Thai in Thailand, surf in Hawaii, visit the world’s biggest ball of twine. Whatever.  Pick places, amounts, numbers, and dates to figure out what it would take to actually happen.
• Want to travel extensively?  Start reading books like Vagabonding, the travel section of  Four Hour Workweek and travel bloggers like Nomadic Matt and Gary Arndt. Determine EXACTLY which countries you want to go to, do the research on cost of living, and determine how much money you’ll need saved up or if you can work along the way.  Calculate plane ticket costs, costs of insurance, average cost of meals in those countries, etc.  Figure out how much you’ll need each month to survive!

Step 3 – break down your goal into steps

Once you have your specific goal laid out, it’s time to break that goal into bite-sized pieces.

If you want to learn a skill that will make you say, “Holy crap I did it!” what can you get started with?  First steps might include finding people who can already do it and interviewing them, or signing up for a class, or buying a beginner’s DVD.  Ask people who are have had success how long it took them to “get there” and compare your starting point to theirs.  Set your expectations appropriately, but be aggressive with what you’re capable of!

If you want to take a trip, how can you start planning?  After you’ve figured out how much it will cost to fund the trip, determine how long it will take you to save up that money – it might be a few months or a few years.  How can you save more money and how can you earn more money?  Sign up for a free savings account with ING.com or another online bank and create a special savings account for JUST that trip that auto-debits from your checking account the day you get paid.  I use ING and have 6 different “buckets” for various things I’m saving for that auto-pull from my checking account each month.

If you want to book an expensive trip, can you travel hack your way through it?  I travel hacked my way into the Monte Carlo and around the world - you’d be surprised what you can accomplish if you take the time to learn the system.  Start reading ThePointsGuy and One Mile at a Time religiously, and become a regular on Flyer Talk.  If you’re looking for a paid program that packages the basics neatly, check out Chris Guillebeau’s Frequent Flyer Master (it’s how I got started), but if you want to put the time in, you can certainly learn how to get started for free.

Like with any skill acquisition, it’s possible to reach your goals by doing a tiny bit of it and getting a little bit better.

Essentially leveling up your life, one decision at a time.

Step 4 – Put on your hard hat and go to work

An expression I love to use whenever working towards a goal, is “Puttin’ on my hard hat!”

[Coincidentally, this is the same expression I use when getting ready to roll at a craps table in Vegas.]

Saying this out loud puts me in the mentality that I’m “going to work” on something epic that will require hard work, persistence, and some luck.

If your goal is something epic, it will most likely take months/years of planning to make it happen.  What’s important is to realize that by doing one thing every day, no matter how small, it puts you ONE step closer towards your goal.

One thing.

Start today by doing one thing.  And then when you wake up tomorrow, do one more thing.  Repeat this process until you achieve your desired result/action/location/goal.

Live vicariously through yourself

When was the last time you said  ”I wish I could do that?”…and what did you do about it?

I want to help you live vicariously through yourself.

A new skill, a new trip, a new adventure, whatever it takes to help you feel ALIVE.

What something you’ve always wanted to do, and what’s one step you’re going to take TODAY to make it happen?

How can I help?

-Steve

Today’s Rebel Hero: Alastair from Melbourne! 

Alastair started climbing in his NF t-shirt, and accidentally pulled down the ENTIRE wall due to his freakish strength  Fortunately, he was strong enough to hold the wall up long enough for everybody to get out of the way – what a nice guy.  After that he saved a litter of orphaned puppies from a burning building while also solving the US’s budget crisis.  Now, I’m not saying that this shirt will make you way stronger and smarter, but it will.

Have a cool photo of you in a NF hoodies, t-shirts, or tank top?  Please send it in to contact@nerdfitness.com so we can get you up here on the blog!

PS - By the time you read this, I’ll most likely be on a bus to Guayaquil, where I’ll catch a flight tonight to Miami and then onward to Atlanta for my talk at TEDxEmory this weekend.  I lead off the early afternoon session, and will probably hang around for a few hours after.  Make sure you come say hey after the talk…love meeting up with rebels!

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photo source: lego superheroes, one-handed handstand, super hero kids, easter island photos, lego hard hat, staircase, beer

My dear Rebel friend, I’m excited to share something with you I’ve been working on for a LONG time.  

Eighteen months ago, I took my first trip outside of North America, visiting the ancient ruins of Machu Picchu in Peru.  Energized by the adventures I had there, I decided that I needed to see the rest of the world too.  So, I took an even CRAZIER trip , spanning 15 countries and over 120,000 miles.  Because my decision to travel the world was heavily inspired by Where The Hell is Matt, I wanted to pay homage to his video by exercising along the way and eventually turn it into a cool video.

That day is today.  

18 months and 120,000+ miles of travel later, I present to you, “Exercising Around the World.”

(note: reading this on a MOBILE DEVICE?  Watch the video at this link instead!)

Exercising Around the World Video

Exercising Around the World (MOBILE DEVICES VIEW HERE)

I need your help!

I was ready to publish this video a while ago.  However, I wanted to wait to get to Ecuador to tack on one last country, so I held off on posting it until today.  Coincidentally, one week before I was set to hit “publish,” Nike put out their own video of a professional video maker dude they hired to travel around the world and exercise too!

I’m not gonna lie – when a buddy sent me their video the other day, I was furious!  I’m super competitive, so to have something like that come out a week before my own video made me freak out slightly; I knew the comparisons would be drawn even though I had started working on mine eighteen months ago… because I managed to wait eight days too long to release mine.  ”Dude you copied the Nike video” I’m sure will be the #1 comment on YouTube over the next few weeks/months, followed by things like “dumb” and “you suck at skimboarding”

But then I looked at it like a challenge: David vs Goliath.  The underdog vs. the clear favorite.  Self-funded vs. commercial sponsorship.  Complete amateur vs. professional crew.  Rebellion vs. the Empire.

Nerd Fitness vs. Nike.

It’s on!

Yeah, I’m going to try to out-market Nike.

(seriously, stop laughing)

I might not have a kickass camera (most of the videos were shot with my iPhone), I didn’t have a camera man (I traveled by myself and recruited folks along the way to hold the camera), my editing skills are substandard (edited by myself in iMovie), and I’ve already given them a one week (and 3 million+ views on YouTube ) headstart, but damnit we have a phenomenal community here…with members all over the world…who can hopefully help make this thing take off!

So, I ask for one small favor:

• If you happened to enjoy the video, share it with people you think would also enjoy it!
• If you’re a travel or fitness or any other kind of blogger and deem this video worthy, I’d love it if you shared it with your community (if it’s something you think they’d like)!  It’s embeddable, sharable, and whatever else you need.

Nike’s goin down!

Okay probably not, and I actually love Nike’s commercials (including this one – well done sir!), but I’d love to try.

It’s a long shot, sure. But stranger things have happened…

Questions you might have about the adventure

How far did you travel?

Yeah, that map above represents my flight schedule over the past 18 months. According to that map, I flew 123,435 miles.

Here’s what the airport code sequence looks like:

atl-lim-spnp-cuz-spnp-lim-atl-tpa-czm-tpa-atl-bos-lax-san-lax-syd-akl-zqn-akl-bne-cns-bne-asp-per-sin-bkk-hkg-pvg-pek-pvg-hnd-sfo-pdx-phx-bos-dca-ord-dub-mad-par-nce-bcn-mad-bos-dca-atl-tpa-czm-tpa-dca-phx-anc-phx-atl-bhm-atl-san-lax-phx-nyc-dca-atl-sju-atl-dca-ams-cpt-jnb-cpt-ams-msp-dca-bos-dca-msy-dca-san-dca-sfo-dca-bos-dca-las-dca-iah-bna-bos-mia-uio-mec

How did you pick that song?

About a year ago, I stumbled across Young the Giant’s “My Body” and instantly fell in love with the song.  As I was putting this video together, I tried about a million songs to see which fit the best, and I kept coming back to this one.  The chorus is particularly appropriate: “My body tells me no, but I won’t quit, because I want more” – that’s how I felt while on my trip.  Endless bus rides, dozens of plane rides, hundreds of hours spent in transit….part of me missed the days where I knew where I’d be sleeping and had a closet to hang my clothes in, but the rest of me knew there was a whole world to explore and that each new location would bring more adventure, more friends, and more memories.

How did you afford all of this?

I’ve been running Nerd Fitness for almost three and a half years now, and the site has been my full time job for the last twenty-two months.  Because I can work from anywhere, I was able to travel and explore and exercise while still building a business.  Yes, it was (and still is) fun to be able to both, but also quite hectic and chaotic at times.  I booked the majority of adventure with one around the world ticket for $418.  My trip to Peru was also booked using points, and almost all of my trips around the United States were paid for with cash.

Along the way, I stayed in hostels, on couches, and in the occasional hotel while traveling.  All told, I spend on average around $2,000 per month for the time I was traveling outside of the United States.  Because I had no expenses other than student loans and insurance tied up back home (no house, no mortgage, no rent, no car), it was actually cheaper for me to travel than it was to “play it safe” in the States!

How the heck did you do the “James Bond” in Monte Carlo thing?

I cover that particular adventure pretty extensively in this article, but here’s the abridged version: I spent one night in Monaco, convinced a local girl to help me rent a cheap tuxedo, gambled for 6 hours in the Monte Carlo, and convinced the Irish folks at my blackjack table to film me in front of the Casino at 3AM when the rest of the country was asleep.

Whose hat did you steal in Paris?

That was Nerd Fitness reader Alexandre who runs Wellicient.com!  Alex and his buddy Morgan were nice enough to show me around Paris for a few days while I was in town, and he volunteered to be in the video.  Thanks guys!

Where did you film the Parkour scene in Los Angeles?

Tempest Freerunning Academy!  Yeah, THAT ONE.   After watching that video I knew I had to somehow film part of my video in there.  I swung in for an open gym session, spent a few hours learning some moves with the members, and then asked for their help to make that scene special.

What’s next?

Honestly, I don’t know!  I didn’t do this video to get sponsored or discovered or get advertisers or anything like that – I have so much fun writing and running Nerd Fitness that I don’t see that changing any time soon.  I really just wanted to come up with a cool way to document my adventure.  I still plan on crossing things off my Epic Quest of Awesome, but I don’t know if I’ll take another crazy epic around-the-world trip like I did to shoot this video.  I still have around 750,000 airline and hotel miles sitting around however, so the travel definitely won’t stop!

Favorite place in the film?

Monaco.  That entire country is ludicrous in its weath, so to be able to live like that for even a night was something I never thought would happen.   Plus, it’s impossible not to feel like a million bucks while wearing a tux, right?

Thanks

Thank you.

If you happen to have met up with me along the way and helped me film some of these sections, thank you!  I have to give a big shout out to my buddy Cash too, who came and met up with me in Peru, Thailand, and again in South Africa – thanks Cashy!

Big thanks to the dozen folks over the past few days to help me edit and proofread this sucker…I love you guys.

And if you watched the video, thanks

I feel very lucky to be able to do what I do for a living: help people live a better life.  The fact that I get to do that from some pretty cool places around the world still feels really surreal to me.

This community means the world to me, and I feel honored to be able to hopefully make you chuckle and smile with a video like this.  I hope you enjoy it, and I hope it inspires you to maybe start planning an adventure of your own (no matter how small).

If you happen to like it…thanks for sharing it!

…And hey Nike: Just do it. Already did it

-Steve

PS. It’s fun making up rivalries out of thin air, so why shouldn’t Nerd Fitness’s rival be Nike?  All in good fun!  Also, my buddy Saint and I have a rivalry for no reason with James Cameron.  Bet you thought I’d never get this video out, huh James?  Well take that!

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Who says playgrounds are for children?

Okay, well probably most people say that.

…because they are for children.

…but that doesn’t mean you can’t use them to get a great workout.

For the first 10 years of my training career, I was a gym rat who loved to pick heavy things up and put them down – after all, 200 pounds is 200 pounds.

However, over the past year and a half my perspective on training has changed DRAMATICALLY.

14 months of adventure travel and no gym access will do that to ya!

These days, I can’t get enough of body weight exercises. I packed on 10 pounds of muscle while exercising outdoors in parks around the world, so I know how powerful this type of training can be.  I loved being able to wander into any town, track down a swing set/monkey bar/roof overhang and MacGuyver a workout while passersby would give me that “are you crazy?” look

You know who else loves body weight training?  Olympic gymnasts and Ninja Warrior all-stars.  These dudes and chicks look like gods and godesses, and they’re built almost purely through body weight training.  If you can get creative, there’s no limit to how strong and agile you can become when using your body.  On top of that, because you’re manipulating yourself, you’re preparing your body for the real world…functional training FTW!

There’s another added benefit to this body weight only park training:

Most of us spend most of our day inside, trapped at desks in dark buildings where we’re shielded from the sun like vampires.  With us halfway through Spring and Summer right around the corner (unless you’re upside down in the Southern Hemisphere), why not get out of the shadows and enjoy the sunshine, breeze, and strange looks from snot-nosed kids as you do pull ups on their monkey bars while screaming “FOR THE REBELLION!!!”

[note: If you happen to be a vampire and have to train indoors, it sucks to be you.  Yup. That pun just happened.]

Getting started

Whenever I get to a new town, the FIRST thing I do after getting settled is find a park for my “gym.”

If I can find a park with a bench and a pull up bar, swingset, or monkey bars, I know I have everything I need to complete a full workout that builds muscle and burns calories.  Although I have yet to find a kid or parent that really minds when exercising at a park (I make sure I’m not using anything they want and I’m respectful – the park really is for them), you might feel odd working out in a busy children’s playground or run into parents who understandably don’t want you monopolizing little Junior’s swingset.  If that’s true, try to work out first thing in the morning (before the kids and parents are awake) or super late at night (after they’ve gone home).  If the only playground you can find is at a school, during the day it should be wide open (except for recess) or late after school when the kids have gone home.

Yes, you will get funny looks from people walking by.  Who cares?  You’re bettering your life and they’re not.  You win

This is a workout that you can do every other day. If you get bored, mix in different exercises, with different reps and levels, every other day to challenge your muscles in different ways, but this is a great way to get started!  On your off days, try interval training or yoga!

Okay, ready?  LET’S GOOOOOOOO!

The Nerd Fitness Playground Workout

The Nerd Fitness Playground Workout Video

Here is your workout for the park!  

As you know, warming up before a workout is incredibly important.  Depending on your level of fitness, you might need to scale your warm up to work for you. If you don’t have time to warm up, you don’t have time to work out!  Jumping right into a workout with getting your body primed is the best way to get yourself injured, which blows.  We try to avoid that.

Alright! So, you’re already warmed up – let’s do the workout!  The goal is to complete this circuit 3 times.  If you can complete the prescribed reps and exercises with perfect form, it’s time to level up to a more difficult exercise.

• If your primary goal is weight loss and conditioning: Complete the recommended reps for each exercise and then move immediately onto the next exercise.  You can break at the end of the circuit, but try to get through each full circuit without stopping!
• If your goal is strength gain and mass building:  Do all three sets of each exercise before moving onto the next one.  Wait 60 seconds or less before doing the next set.  It’s important to continuously increase the difficulty of the exercise, don’t just keep doing more and more reps (this becomes muscular endurance and not strength/muscle building).

READY? Okay let’s do this!

Exercise A: Explosive Leg Work – 10 Reps

• Level One: Alternating Step Ups (10 each leg) – Step with one leg, explode the other knee up towards the sky. Step back down, and switch legs.  If you can’t explode the other knee up yet, just come to a full standing position on the top of the bench – that’s more than okay!
• Level Two: Bench Jumps (10 reps) – Jump as high as possible, landing as softly as possible with a mid-foot strike.  DO NOT JUMP DOWN – that’s how people blow out their achilles’ tendons.  Step down.  You’re welcome!

Exercise B: Push Exercise: 10 Reps

• Level One: Elevated Push Ups – Use the back of a bench to do your push ups.  Keep your abs and butt tight and your elbows at your side.  If you need to do your push ups against a wall or a fence, that’s okay too.
• Level Two: Lower Incline Push Ups – use the seat part of a bench for your push ups.
• Level Three: Regular Push Ups – If you can complete 3 sets of 10, aim for 3 sets of 20.  If you can do that, make them harder by wearing a backpack or doing plyometric push ups (or any of these other variations).

Exercse C: Pull Exercise: 10 Reps

• Level One: Swing Rows – Grab the chains of a swing, lean back, make your body tight and straight, and use your back and arm muscles to pull yourself up.
• Level Two: Body Rows - Find a bar that’s low enough, the underside of a table, a set of ladder rungs, whatever!  Make your body into a tight plank, and use your arms to pull yourself up.  Your park might even have a bar at this perfect height.
• Level Three: Pull Ups – Grab the bar with palms AWAY from you (pull up) or FACING you (chin up).  Engage your shoulders (pull your shoulder blades back and downward), keep your core tight, and pull your chest up towards the bar.  If these are too tough, do NEGATIVES – jump above the bar, and lower yourself slowly.

Exercise D: Legs: 8 Reps Each Leg

• Level One: Assisted Lunges – Hold onto a sturdy support, like the back of a bench.  Take a very wide straddle stance so that when you bend your leg, your forward knee does not extend beyond your toes.  Drop your knee towards the ground, and then explode back up.  After doing all 8 reps, switch legs!
• Level Two: Lunges – With your hands on your hips, step out with your right leg, and drop your left knee towards the ground.  Make sure you step out far enough so that your right knee is not extending beyond your toes.

Exercise E: Core: 10 Reps

• Level One: Bent Leg Reverse Crunches – For ease of filming, I’m lying on a bench, but you can just as easily do these on the ground.  Life flat on your back with your hands at your sides and your legs bent at 90 degrees.  Flex your stomach and pull your legs up and your knees towards you.  Lower, and repeat.
• Level Two: Straight Leg Reverse Crunches* – Depending on your flexibility, this might be very tough, so feel free to move up to level 3 if those are easier and work on flexibility until you can do these.  Lie flat on your back with your legs straight; engage your core, and bring your legs up until they are straight above you.  Lower them back down, and repeat the process.
• Level Three: Hanging Knee Tucks – Hang from a bar, and flex your abs.  Use your core to pull your knees up into your chest.  Once you can do three sets of ten easily, it’s time to move onto more difficult exercises, like these shown here by Vic.

COOL DOWN AND STRETCH!

What I’m doing!

All is well down here in Ecuador.  I took this picture last night from my patio with my iPhone – no effects, no post work.  Stupidly beautiful, I know.

As far as my own personal training goes, I’m doing a lot of gymnastics work in a routine designed by my buddy Jim over at BeastSkills.com – I’m sore in places I didn’t know existed, and building muscles I didn’t know existed either!  Most of my work revolves around things like handstand balancing, ring dips and muscle up training, planche work, pistol squats, and front and back levers.

I brought a set of Olympic Rings down with me (purchased at Fringesport.com, a great equipment company run by Nerd Fitness Rebel Peter), and honestly I don’t see myself ever traveling without them now…they’re just too much damn fun! 

My goals while down here are to pack some weight and muscle on through gymnastics three times a week and to improve my (currently nonexistent) flexibility through Yoga three times a week.  The park is a 2-minute walk from my house and good food and whole milk are relatively cheap down here; we’ll see what I can get done in my time here!

How else can I help?

Any questions about today’s workout or exercising in a park?  Note that each exercise only has two or three levels.  If you are more advanced, there are easily 10 levels for many body weight exercises that can create quite the challenging workout!  I cover some of the more advanced routines with more variety in the deluxe edition of the Rebel Strength Guide, but there’s no limit to what you can create by yourself.  Give it a try!

Any questions on finding a park in your area?  Concerns about exercising in public?

What else can I help you with today?

-Steve

Today’s Rebel Hero: Seth H in Paradise, CA.  Seth is biking like a boss through California – wearing a helmet because he’s a smart nerd, wearing an epic beard because he’s an EPIC HERO.

While wearing his NF hoodie and biking, Seth unfortunately pedaled too quickly and got pulled over by a cop for speeding (95mph in a 20).  When the cop approached his bike, he noticed the NF insignia, replied “dude, you’re part of the Rebellion?”  They high fived, which caused a tectonic shift in the plates beneath California.  If there’s ever another earthquake in the Golden State, you’ll know it’s a result of Seth and his NF Hoodie.

Quick side note: okay, so this might not have happened, but Seth does look quite dapper, no?

So I haven’t done this in weeks, but I know there are like 500+ of you out there in NF hoodies, t-shirts, and tank tops!

Please send in your photos to contact@nerdfitness.com so we can get you up here on the blog!

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Photo source: Swingset

We’re in trouble.

WALL-E knows it too, which is why he looks so sad.

Poor WALL-E

We are spending more money on fitness quick-fixes, gym memberships, “health food”, personal trainers, and other ‘life improvement’ products than ever before. Thanks to the power of the Internet, we’re hit on a daily basis with “Top 10 healthy foods,” “foods to avoid for optimum health,” “6-pack abs in 15 minutes a day!,” and millions upon million fitness sites extolling expert advice.  Super markets like Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, and even healthy “fast food” places are popping up everywhere that make it incredibly simple to eat healthy foods.

Despite ALL of this, we continue to get bigger, slower, and lazier.

More than 2/3rds of America is overweight, over 33% of us are considered obese, and the numbers continue to grow with each passing year.  At this rate, we could be headed for an actual WALL-E type future within a few decades.

Ruh roh, Shaggy.

I’ve been running Nerd Fitness for over three years now, and I can say without a doubt that the question I get asked above ALL else goes something like this:

“I know what I should do, I just can’t motivate myself to do it. Can you help?”

My answer has always been “I can’t give you motivation, only the tools to use once you FIND your motivation.”

However, I’ve come to a realization over the past few weeks – although I cannot provide you with motivation, there is another way I can help.

Today, you’re gonna learn why most people suck at getting in shape, and how to avoid that trap.

Admiral Akbar would be proud.  

Be More Like Yoda

Personal finance blogger Ramit Sethi (one of my blogging/finance Yodas, whose book completely changed how I looked at finances) talks extensively about the concept of “motivation” and “should” when it comes to self improvement.

Essentially, when you read an article about exercise and fitness and diet, if you say “man I really should do that,” you’ve already lost.

“Should” is a defeatist word.

And here’s why:

You are a smart person.

You know what needs to be done in order to get in shape.

You know that you should eat REAL food and stop eating junk food. You even know that a majority of “healthy” foods out there are crap. You know that your diet is 80% of your success or failure. You know HOW to build a workout, or you at least know that there are free workout resources available through the site. There are even products available through the Nerd Fitness Store that do everything short of holding your hand when getting started with exercise!

On top of all of that, we ALL know that eating better and exercising improves your life in about a MILLION ways, so I won’t even bother listing them.  

And yet, people come to me every day and say “I know I should exercise, and I know I should eat better, but I just don’t have the motivation and don’t know where to find it.”

My goal with Nerd Fitness is to remove every single barrier and excuse you might have to level up your life.  I try to write motivating articles that inspire action and give you the desire to change, but I know their influence can fade as soon as the laptop closes and the Xbox/Netflix/Hulu beckons.

Today’s article is for the people who know they SHOULD change but don’t.

Yoda said it best: 

“Do or do not.  There is no try.”

There is NO “should” either! 

It’s time to stop sucking, stop saying should, and start DOING it.

Start here: Every time you say “should,” drop and give me 10 push ups.  I don’t care where you are or what you’re doing.  Trust me, it’ll be funny.

Stop searching for motivation, start building systems

Do any of these situations sound familiar?

• “Just one peanut M&M” or “Just one piece of cake” becomes the entire bag/plate.
• “I skipped yesterday’s workout, why bother today? It’s useless.”
• “Meh, next month is better for me anyways.”

Most out of shape folks have said at one point or another, “I should get in shape but I __________.” Whatever your excuse may be, we BOTH know that you’re the only person who believes it.  We might tell ourselves that we don’t have time, or that we had a bad day at work, or that we just don’t feel like exercising or eating right for whatever reason.

It’s at this point we start to question our willpower, wondering how to get “motivation” or “inspiration.”

It’s not just a lack of willpower – it’s a lack of proper preparation and systems!

Although we can’t automate our workouts and our diets, we CAN automate our thinking to promote positive habit change.

As Leo will tell you, it takes around 30 days or so for a new habit to form.  By automating our thinking for the first few weeks, we can remove emotion from the equation until we start to see positive change and build momentum.

As we also know from Sir Isaac Newton (All praise his scientific name!), “an object at rest tends to stay at rest,” and “an object in motion tends to stay in motion.”

In our case “somebody who sucks at being in shape will continue to suck being in shape…” until he/she becomes somebody who “is good at getting in shape will stay in shape.”

By automating your thinking, you can power through the slow, momentum-less weeks until you hit your stride.  

[side note: I've already covered how to NOT suck at setting goals, so I'll assume you already have that squared away.  Today's focus is on actually accomplishing those goals.]

Fix your diet

Your diet is 80-90% of your success when it comes to getting healthy and looking better.

Seriously, it’s that important.  

We know from the Rules of the Rebellion that you can’t outrun your fork, and you can’t out train a poor diet.

And yet, we’ve all said at one point in our lives, “I should start eating better” while polishing off a bag of Doritos/popcorn/Skittles.

#Fail.

“I should (eat better)(eat less)(clean up my diet)” is a useless phrase that will result in no positive action.  So stop saying SHOULD.

Instead, put systems and practices in place that remove any thought or action from your decision-process until you’ve heard “hey, have you lost weight?” and “you look great.”  Once momentum is on your side, nothing can stop you.

If you are reading this right now and thinking “I should start eating better tomorrow,” I will slap you in the mouth.    

Not tomorrow.  Not tonight.  Now.  I can see that donut in your mouth, you know.

RIGHT NOW.

Build a system that removes emotion from the equation.  

Create a yes/no list

Create a list of foods right now that you have zero self control over and or foods that you know are bad for you.

If you know those foods are derailing your efforts, then remove temptation and emotion from the equation by making a rule that YOU CANNOT EAT THEM.  

Part of the reason the Paleo Diet is so successful for so many people is that it removes ALL of the guesswork!  ”No, I can’t eat that because it’s not paleo” makes everything incredibly simple!   People on the paleo diet know they can eat meat, fish, fowl, veggies, fruits, and nuts. That’s it. If it doesn’t fit into one of those categories, then they can’t eat it.

It’s no longer a question of willpower, it’s just what you are doing.

If you want to start eating better and you know certain foods are bad for you, build a list that says what you can and can’t eat. If you’re a person that struggles with self control when it comes to unhealthy food (and we all are, to an extent), then “just one” doesn’t work.

“But Steve, people will give me funny looks for not eating birthday cake at the office, and I’ll get made fun for not eating the bun on my burger and replacing french fries with a salad.” A strong majority of this country is overweight, out of shape, in debt, and unhappy…do you really care what they think about you?  Do what you need to do to only eat the foods on your approved list.  Staci told everyone at her office that she developed a food allergy to avoid all of the unhealthy temptations at work.  While lying sucks, they never asked again, and it made it super easy to bring in whatever she wanted without getting weird looks.

“But Steve, I eat out all the time, mostly at American style places with big portions. How am I supposed to eat healthy there?”   As soon as your food comes to you, set aside 1/2 or 1/3rd of it as “not touchable.” Ask for a to-go box right away and put that portion in there.  Don’t feel like taking it home but know you’ll nibble at it?  Dump a pound of salt on it after you’re done

“But Steve, people will think I’m weird!” EMBRACE THE WEIRD. Fitting in with everybody else got you where you are now. Maybe doing things that others think is weird is precisely what you need to get back on the right path.

“No thank you” is a freaking powerful combination of words – learn to use them.

Clean house

Now that you have your list of “yes” and “no” foods, it’s time to remove temptation from the equation.  

I know that if I’m in the same room as Goldfish crackers or Sourpatch Kids, I will not be able to focus on anything else until I have eaten every single one of them, so I make sure I’m not within a 500 foot radius of them. If you’re at your office and you can’t have just one peanut M&M, stop walking by the desk of the person who has a jumbo jar on their desk for the next two weeks!  It doesn’t make you a bad person or weak if you can’t have just one; it makes you smart to avoid them.

“Just one” is no longer an option.

The same goes for unhealthy food that you can’t help but snack on in between healthy meals.  So, go home today and throw out every single piece of unhealthy food from your house. If you can’t be in the same room as ice cream without eating an entire tub of it, DON’T be in the same room with ice cream!

I can already hear your excuses.  Seriously, my hearing is that good.  All the way from Ecuador.  What’s up.

“But Steve, I already paid for it, I need to eat it.” At this point, it’s a sunk cost.  Eating it because you already paid for it just compounds the unhealthy problem…if you’re truly serious about turning your life around, the few bucks you spent on this junk food is a small price to pay. Throw it away, give it to neighbors, donate it to a food shelter, whatever you need to do.  Get rid of it, and maybe only go out ONCE this week, or bring your lunch in twice to make up for the extra money spent.

“But Steve, I can’t afford healthy food.” Really? Or is it just easier to say “I can’t afford it” than it would be calculate how much money is wasted on soda, chips, candy, coffee, drive-through meals, vending machine stops, etc. each week? HMMMMM!?  Yes you can!

“But Steve, my family still eats these things, I can’t just throw them out.” Have you had a talk with your family about the NEW YOU yet? Have you proposed trying to get the whole family eating better yet? Maybe your family will be eating differently than you…work with them and have them help keep you accountable.

“But Steve, my roommates still eat these things!” Ask them to keep these foods in their rooms or in a cabinet that’s not yours. Create a rule that says “I will not eat anything that I did not pay for.”

Don’t leave exercise up to your brain

We nerds are smart, but we’re also quite imaginative – which means there’s no limit to the number of excuses we can create to justify not working out “just today.” 

First are foremost, let’s deal with the elephant in the room: Yes, you do have time to work out.

Anybody who says they cannot find 30-45 minutes a day is full of crap.  Your workout might have to be early in the morning, in the afternoon, during your lunch break, or at night after the kids have gone to bed, but I guarantee if you do a TRUE evaluation of where you’re spending your time, you can find 30-45 minutes.

That might mean one less episode of _______ each night on Netflix. Or, it might mean during every comercial break you have to do five pushup, three pullups, and ten squats.

Even if it’s spread out during the day, it is better than nothing!

Okay, so we know you HAVE time, but it’s still tough for you to get yourself off your butt and into workout mode, right?

Which means we need to remove the “yes/no” option from your brain.  Instead of focusing on the misery of the workout until you start to see progress, put your focus on building good habits, not accepting ANY excuse, and just doing it.  It’s what Joe did – 10 months and 128 pounds later, he’s a completely different person.

These are my suggestions:

Start small - Commit to five minutes of exercise a day. Five minutes of push ups, pull ups, and/or squats. That’s it! No matter what happens, every day, you need to do 5 minutes of exercise. You’ll quickly learn that getting started is the hardest part – once you finish your five minutes it’ll be easy to keep going.

Work out in the morning.  Sleep with your running shoes next to your bed, and in your workout clothes.  When you wake up, there is NO thought involved.  You are going for a run/yoga/to the gym and that’s that.  If you wait until the afternoon, life is bound to get in the way and excuses are easier to sink in.

Flip it. This is a trick I learned from Leo as well.  Right now, the pain associated with working out and the benefit of sitting on your couch is what keeps you sedentary.  Make a mental shift: focus on how GOOD a workout can make you feel, and how painful SKIPPING a workout can be.

“How can skipping a workout be painful?”  you’re wondering… 

Have an accountability system.  Tell your friends that you are going to get in shape, start a blog and publicly declare your intentions.  Send one of your friends $200 on PayPal. Every time you work out and check in with them, they will send you $10 back. Every time you skip a workout, he gets $10. Do you really want to fund your friend’s drinking money for the weekend? Do you want to see the smug “I told you so” look on his face a month from now when you’ve given up?  Hell no!

My friend Saint said he would pay his friends $500 if he didn’t get to a certain body fat percentage by June. After two years of struggle and lack of results, Saint…faced with the prospect of giving up $500 he didn’t have….realized that NOT working out was going to cost him a lot more than working out….so he sucked it up, started training with conviction, and hit his goals weeks ahead of schedule.  Now he’s a new man, in search of another dragon to slay.

Make it impossible to bail.  Sign up for a class with your friends and make sure they keep you accountable.  Sign up for personal trainer sessions and pay for them in advance.  Even if you have to scam and trick yourself into working out, get your butt off the couch and doing something productive.

Adjust your targets - “I want to lose weight” is useless…but “I want to lose 50 lbs” can be equally crushing. The scale lies, and it’s easy to freak out if the scale doesn’t change or (gasp!) moves in the wrong direction for a day or two. Rather than dealing with numbers that don’t tell the whole story, put your focus on healthy habit building then you will build momentum.

• I will work out 3 times a week and walk 3 times a week.”
• I will eat only foods on the YES list for every meal except two, every week.
• I will check in at the gym 3 times a week on four square. For every missed check in, I will donate $20 to a local charity.

Bring it all together, you will

To recap:

• Stop saying should.  Penalize yourself with push ups every time you do.
• Create rules for yourself about what you can eat and what you can’t eat.  Follow these rules without exception, and remove emotion from the equation.
• Get rid of the foods that are holding you back.  It’s really tough to eat something if it’s not in your cabinet.
• Build in fail-safes and accountability systems that make it impossible to skip a workout.  Make it suck more to skip than to not skip.

The first few weeks of getting in shape can be incredibly difficult.  By planning and building in proper systems to avoid the pitfalls that trip everybody up, you can power through the slow-roll stage until your momentum and positive behavior start to snowball into an avalanche of awesome.

Yes, you heard me. An avalanche of awesome.  Feel free to use it wherever

If you remember getting through the tough first few weeks, how did YOU succeed? What were your systems?

Help out your fellow rebels!

If you are stuck in the “I know what I should do, but I can’t do it” phase, what are you going to do RIGHT NOW to get started?

I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments!

-Steve

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photo sources – WALL-E, X-Tyler , Schtumple, Robbie_V, icedsoul photography,  nettsu, lucidtech, e.r.w.i.n.