The oft-repeated analogy about putting food in the body being like putting fuel in your car’s gas tank is completely wrong.

Your car can’t run on empty.

But, your body can.

Tired and fatigued, your body can press on to accomplish feats of endurance that so-called modern man can’t conceive of.

Take any story from the early settlers in the West. Or, take this story from Bernard Shank’s Wilderness Survival:

A man was mauled by a bear and his hunting companions took his gun and left him for dead. Enraged, he crawled across half the state of South Dakota so he could find his hunting companions and kill them for deserting him.

The car stalls when it’s out of fuel. The body is different, it’s subservient to the mind. We really don’t know what limitations there are with the mind, but the amazing feats of endurance have roots in the mind’s power to will survival, and they offer us a glimpse of what is possible given the right motivation.

I did Chris Caracci’s Navy Seal Burnout PT tonight. It’s been a long time since I’ve eaten, and I daresay that I didn’t eat the best food today. But I nailed that workout because my mind willed my body to endure. And I was afraid of incurring the ex-Navy Seal’s wrath.

If I’m skating by in my training and exercise, I sometimes find that I’m skating by in life, too—that I’m not pushing myself as much as I could. Maybe you’re like me. Maybe avenues just open up for you when you use physical training to destroy conservatively set mental barriers.

Even if avenues don’t open up, you’ll feel and look a helluva lot better.

Form is usually a missing component in the beginner’s exercise program. A lot of people have a hard time coordinating the muscles they haven’t used. It makes sense. Sitting at a desk isn’t the most demanding activity.

That’s why a simplistic approach works well. Get good at a few different exercises and then develop that exercise to a deep level. You can increase the benefit of an exercise over time by making it into a meditative, deepening experience.

Experiment with body position, where you focus your eyes, and with what your intention is. (The deadlift, for example, goes better for me if I imagine pushing the floor away from myself—that’s my intention.)

Learn how to use your entire body to perform an exercise, even if it’s a supposed upper body or lower body exercise. Put your mind into your entire body and try to interpret exactly where every part of your body is.

What many people attempt to do now is to separate something which can’t be separated: the body and the mind. The mind is off reading the news, watching the television, reading a book, or thinking about the day’s events while the body is moving around stupidly, devoid of its master.

Learn to shut all that down and devote a short amount of time to being strictly with your mind and body as you coordinate it in movement.

This isn’t your obligatory 30 minutes of mind-numbing cardio. This is a combination of mental and physical exercise. It’s about using your mind to improve your exercise to get better results in less time. It’s not a quick fix. Exercise is something you have to do for the rest of your life.

Might as well get good at it.

Start by checking out the descriptions and videos on the exercise page.

I really hope that a sense of realism comes out of this recession. If the Joe and Sally’s didn’t get sucked into buying that huge house that appeared so attractive, maybe we would be faring better now.

Getting attached to maintaining appearances is sure-fire recipe for failure. How good does that big house look now that you can’t afford it?

We do the same things with our bodies. Do you really want to go down the “I’m attracted to appearance more than substance” route and try to mold your unique body into the culturally ideal body?

Sure, you could do a lot of little “sculpting” exercises for your body like so many people do, fervently hoping for the ideal level of muscle tone.

But, doing so will guarantee you extra time in the gym, extra time in front of the mirror worrying about the long head on your tricep, and all the while still being as weak as a kitten.

And you’ll probably stop making payments—exercising—because you’re not getting results and the training is boring. Worrying about appearance is a short-term approach.

Tricep kickbacks, concentration curls, leg curls, leg extensions, shoulder raises fall in to the category of namby-pamby exercises. In fact, any time you’re worried about one specific muscle on your body when you’re doing an exercise, you are running the risk of elevating your estrogen levels.

Here are some of Qualler’s A-list exercises:

• Pull-ups
• Push-ups

Man, you can do these exercises virtually anywhere. These exercises work every muscle in your upper body. And unlike with some of the estrogen-producing exercises I mentioned earlier–these exercises will also give you a firm handshake. Pull-ups are great for the grip.

• Squats — Most men avoid the squat because it is hard. I saw a flyer the other day at the Fitness Cafe that said, “Ironically, what you need is more weight on your shoulders.” They must be referring to the squat. The squat builds your whole body and prevents you from developing a “bar body”—a pitifully atrophied lower body with 18 inch biceps, typified by young males who want to impress ladies at the bar.
• Deadlifts — I think the deadlift is one of the best exercises. It develops the entire backside of your body. Most people complain of bad backs. Deadlifters laugh at the notion of the human spine becoming weak. Ironically, what you need is to pick up heavy stuff for your back.

Notice these exercises work pushing and pulling, legs, and grip. Throw in something for your stomach like planks, medicine ball twists, or that fancy apparatus I saw on TV that shocks you and makes you flex your abs. (Just kidding.)

Sure, there are a few exercises you can add. Hanging leg raises are great. So are military presses. But these four basic exercises train the entire body and get you concentrating on you feel, as opposed to how you look.

P.S. These exercises require proper form. I’ll talk a bit more about that tomorrow.

A friend at work wanted to go to lift weights but he didn’t know what to do.

Who can blame him? Most gyms are so full of different machines and weights that someone needs to give you a tour just to show you where they are.

If you’re just a beginner, walking into the gym world is daunting, to say the least. You must feel a tremendous sense of lack, or guilt—look at all the things you’ve been neglecting to do!

I told him to do three to five different exercises, three to five sets of each, and 3-5 reps in each set. Then, I gave one more piece of instruction: work pushing and pulling, and legs, abs, and grip.

If you’re an elite athlete, this simplistic approach will not address your needs. Elite athletes are trying to maximize their genetic potential and apply it to their sport.

But, if you’re an office worker who hasn’t been exercising, this approach is a great way to start.

Check back tomorrow for some ideas about how you can apply this concept and which exercises you should select.

I like to either begin or end my workouts with jumping rope.

The other day, after about one minute in, I wanted to quit. I almost did. Then I on went on for about two minutes.

It’s not an impressive amount of time, but the lesson is clear: Go past the first I quit. You have more in you.

P.S. Jumping rope has a lot of benefits. It gets your heart going, works your lungs, develops coordination, strengthens the legs and wrists, makes you lighter on your feet, and makes me think I’m Rocky.

P.P.S. Check out Ross Enamait’s article on jumping rope.

People gain weight primarily because they don’t exercise, eat too much, or both. Rather than aging, people slowly lose their physical capacity because they are less physically active.

Those are immutable Qualler Laws. The sooner you accept them, the better off you’ll be.

I’ve already written about our incorrect definition of diet. Now, I want to address our lamentable physical capacity.

• We don’t need to be rail-thin
• We don’t need to have six-pack abs and chiseled chests
• We do need to be able ascend a set of stairs without huffing and puffing
• We do need to be able to fit comfortably in an airline seat (and pay for two if we can’t)

Have you noticed? We’ve lost our physical capacity to the screen. It might be a TV, it might be a computer, a laptop, or a smart phone. (Interestingly, the smaller the screen, the worse the device-induced posture gets.)

As you might suspect, I have some theories for why we are physically pathetic:

1. For the majority, there is no immediate need for any type of physical superiority whatsoever.
2. The fitness industry is a convoluted mess.
3. Medicine masks our mistakes.

No Need for Physical Superiority

It’s not a jungle out there anymore. I’ve never had to run for my life or defend myself. You probably haven’t either.

Generally speaking, we don’t beat people up because we don’t like them.

Life in first world countries is physically mundane.

The Fitness Industry is a Convoluted Mess

The fact that we pay money to exercise on a treadmill inside when we can run for free outside should be enough to prove that the fitness industry is a convoluted mess.

If that’s not enough, then consider the ThighMaster.

What happened to push ups and sit ups? I’ll tell you what happened—you can’t charge money for them. (Actually, you can—but you have to call it a Bootcamp.)

Medicine Masks Our Mistakes

High cholesterol? There’s a pill for that. High blood pressure. Yep—we got one for that, too.

It’s not a bad thing.

But reaching for a pill should be a last resort—not a first choice. That’s not how we operate in this instant-gratification country where we say, “Just make it go away!”

What Can We Do?

We have to change our minds. Invent your own need for exercise and stick to it.

Fitness isn’t complicated. Push ups and sit ups and an active lifestyle are good enough.

Park your car far away. Take stairs instead of escalators and elevators. Get an outdoor hobby like biking. Associate with people who value health.

Be stubborn about not taking pills until you have tried alternative options. Don’t neglect your body just because you can.

P.S. We’ve come to the time when we have to learn to use our mind and consciousness, rather than bestial physical need, to make choices about our day-to-day actions. It’s a monumental struggle to go from doing something because we can to doing something else because we know we should.

Proper kettlebell exercise burns calories so fast that you can’t eat enough to keep weight on. Well, you could—but you shouldn’t. And anyway, that’s what the recession is for. Who’s going to spend all their money on food when we can’t afford gas? That’s right, the system is self-correcting.

Here’s why the kettlebell is better than anything else you’re doing for fitness:

• It exercises almost all your muscles at the same time.
• It coordinates your muscles to work together as a unit.
• You learn how to use your body better.
• You get more strength, more endurance, more muscle tone, less fat, and more free.

More free? Yeah. You’re not tied down to a gym. You have this cast iron ball with a handle that is a great, portable workout tool—and when you’re not using it, it’s a great conversation piece.

“Hey, what’s that thing for?”

“That, my friend, is a kettlebell. I use it to stay in shape and avoid paying gym fees. Studies show, you know, that most people who pay gym fees don’t actually go to the gym.”

Alright, so maybe I exaggerated when I said the kettlebell is present-day culture’s saving grace. But, just think about this: We’ve only gone a few decades with our new, incredibly sedentary lifestyle. We’ve gone hundreds of thousands of years with a physically active one. Sure, we’ll probably adapt a bit. But, the rewards of physical capacity far outweigh the costs of inactivity.

Word on the street is that you don’t burn many calories when you sit down all day long. As we get older, we trend towards less exercise and more sitting. Unsurprisingly, our body starts growing like it did during adolescence—but wider instead of taller. Combine that with all the food we eat and the obesity we see is no mystery at all.

We’re lazy and we eat a lot.

Rather than simply eating in accordance with what we expend, we’ve decided to periodically modify the amount of food and drink we consume. Most people refer to this as dieting.

But what is a diet anyway? Isn’t it what we do all the time? As a matter of fact, it is. A diet is the food and drink we habitually consume.

So, if you go on a diet, what were you doing before? Not eating? Hardly. Let’s get the facts straight: the diet definition we use today is a made up creature, designed to make you feel guilty for gaining weight and not being on a diet. But you are on a diet! Oh, it’s so confusing.

Don’t worry, Qualler will clear up this mess we’re in. Do you eat food? Check. Great-you’re on a diet.

Don’t worry about Jenny Craig, Slim Fast, South Beach, Atkins, or eating salads for lunch. Who invented that strategy anyway? Salads for lunch?!

Just start eating less food. Oh, and it wouldn’t hurt to walk a few miles every day, either–at the very least. (Not exercising your body is like buying a car but only driving it in first gear.)

Now that we have this diet thing cleared up, the only thing left to worry about is whether or not you have a kettlebell. Do you?

Many people watch their body deteriorate over time, lamenting the good old days and casting aside the changes as a simple aging process, forgetting to take ownership and accountability for their actions and inactions towards their body.

Some of us don’t even take the time to really explore our body. Some of us don’t even run, ever. We may not ever reach above our head, some of us avoid stairs, and we search the parking lot for the closest spot when we’re perfectly capable of walking.

We’re wired for incredible things but we use a fraction of it. Sit and stand, walk, and sit again. Some people’s greatest bodily strain happens when they throw an ‘h’ into one of their sits.

When our strenuous lifestyle prompts pangs of hunger, we reach for whatever is easiest and most convenient. When our cholesterol or blood pressure gets out of whack, we find a pill to address the issue, trying to cover up decades of poor food choices and lack of exercise.

We think of ourselves as an advanced culture, yet we allow our food system to be run by large corporations that have no concern for our health. Their concern is profit margin and doing whatever they can to increase it—and that means fucking with your food with whatever means possible.

We like to think we’re in control and these are choices we’re making. But we are really just moving in accordance to the habits we have set and the culture we have been indoctrinated into and the radio stations and news sources we have chosen to tune into.

Don’t forget the large advertising budgets corporations have. Maybe the reason we are all obsessed with the quick fix is because we’ve all been sold on the idea over the course of decades. Get rich quick! Lose fat fast! Take this pill and get an erection!

Think about it. We’re so evolved that we use a pill to procreate. Somewhere, you have to see a lot of humor in this.

Increasingly we look towards science to tell us what is right, but science has been infiltrated by the same forces that have corrupted our food supply. You only have to look at the wild claims that climate scientists recently made to understand that it’s not objectivity dictating results, but cash flow, political pressure, and number tricks.

We already had this stuff figured out, long ago. Guess what? People were strong and lean long before we had exercise machines. We understood how the food we put into our body affected us. But then, culturally speaking, we got lazy. We all wanted an easier way out, and—thank god!—there are plenty of things we can buy to give us an illusion of an easy way out. China sends its thanks.

How often we do this, as the ages pass, the knowledge unfolds and we forget it…only to rediscover it many centuries later. We have these little mini-cycles in our lives, too. We figure it out for awhile and then get complacent.

Getting back to the beginning: we have this body. A gift. The gift of life. If we don’t take care of it, it’s a liability. It’s something we have to drag around with us wherever we go. Or something that we have to have someone else help us to drag around.

Start making some real choices—not the ones you’re being told to make by the TV and the latest “scientific” study:

• Get rid of soda.
• Get rid of all the packaged crackers, chips, cookies, and whatever else has an ingredient list filled with things you can’t pronounce.
• Buy a few more vegetables when you go to grocery store—and eat them.
• Stop looking for instant progress.
• Make small choices that are better than the ones you made before.
• Get a little bit of exercise each day.
• Go for walks.
• Admire nature.
• Sit and do nothing every now and then.
• Cultivate good friendships.
• Remember that the stuff being peddled today as the latest and greatest will seem as ridiculous as the belief that the sun revolved around the earth does to us now.
• Don’t forget to laugh at our goofiness along the way.

It’s a known fact that humans are experts at inventing excuses to avoid something they don’t want to do. If your excuses are preventing you from attaining the body you want, try some of these strategies.

Excuse: I don’t feel like exercising

It may seem macho to continually push through your emotions and feelings and exercise regardless of them. There are times when this attitude is called for, but there are times when you should chill out and not worry about it.

Instead, do some relaxing stretching. Just pick whatever comes to mind that you want to stretch and focus on your breathing. Take each breath into the stomach, then the lungs, and finally the neck. Get full breaths as you stretch different parts of your body.

You can’t stretch all the time and expect to shed weight or increase muscle size. Don’t employ this strategy all the time.

Excuse: You have family in town over the holidays and don’t have time

Do some exercises in the few free moments that you have. It doesn’t take long to do some push ups. This can be the time you do a few really slow reps and discover exactly which muscles you are working out.

This is a great time to experiment with some different exercises. Since family is breaking your routine, you might as well break your exercise routine as well. Are you always doing regular push ups? Try some different varieties. Always doing the same stomach exercises? Try some different ones.

You can make exercise fun by learning different moves. It also makes your body more coordinated.

Excuse: You’re injured

Oops. Injury is a good time for reflection. If you’re really laid up, do some reading and reflection and forget about the exercise. Allow your body to recover. While you’re recovering, you should see a physical therapist. They can give you exercises to make you better than you were before.

If you still want to exercise, find exercises that don’t aggravate the part of your body that is injured. Most people spend too much time on their upper bodies. Hopefully, you’ve injured your upper body and can spend some time developing your legs!

Excuse: You’re lazy

Some people don’t like the regimented approach to exercise. If that’s you, find an activity you do enjoy and do that. Even if it’s just walking. Hopefully it’s a sport though—something that gets you moving a bit.

If you’re truly lazy and never intend to exercise, start eating less. You don’t need much food if all you do is move from sitting in one place to another.