Minneapolis, Minnesota

What a bummer that so many amazing athletic feats are beclouded by steroid accusations.

What’s the point of setting a record if it’s followed by an asterisk?

What honor can there be in a victory you didn’t earn?

But you don’t need to juice to be a cheater.

Cheating comes in many forms.

Like say, shorting range-of-motion.

If you want to live in a world where the rules don’t apply to you then you really live in a world without rules.

So you can’t complain when a more adept cheater  eats your lunch.

Very few people would ever admit to being prejudiced.

We recoil at the thought because our history has demonstrated in the most painful terms that prejudice is toxic to our souls.

Prejudice puts people in a box. It’s a form of slavery. Nobody wants to be a party to that.

The question is, are you prejudiced toward yourself?

I can’t lift that. That box is too high for me. I’m fat. I’m stupid. I’m not worth it.

You would never say these things about others but you say them to yourself.

Your thoughts about yourself can be shackles or wings.

Choose.

I was watching an infomercial for Yoga Booty Ballet when the following portmanteau jumped out at me:

Exercise + Entertainment = Exertainment.

Exertainment is the perfect commodity product for our culture. We’re like the Roman masses, herded together into the coliseum to gape at the daily spectacle. It almost doesn’t matter what the spectacle is. Why not a fitness model writhing in a leotard? If that’s what constitutes “hot product”.

And exertainment is everywhere:

• Mainstream fitness centers all have cable televisions hanging from the ceiling, and most have WIFI.

• Popular shows like The Biggest Loser, Too Fat for 15, etc.

• The WII and XBox

The common denominator in all of these different forms of exertainment is a video screen,which means a successful exertainment product has to have top-notch production value, on par with the very best that Sony studios can produce. If your only way to interface with a customer is through a display your product better look awesome or you’re not even in the game.

With so much emphasis on visual wow-factor is it possible to develop an exertainment product that actually advances human health in a consequential way? I don’t think so. The entertainment industry is all about eyeballs. The more the better. Asking for fitness from the entertainment industry is like asking Starbucks to make pizza. They could certainly do it, but you won’t want to eat it.

This is how the food chain worked pre-agriculture:

grass grows -> animal eats grass -> human eats animal -> human is healthy

Post-agriculture the food chain looks like so:

human cultivates grain -> human feeds grain to barn animal -> human eats animal -> human gets fat and sick

Most people can accept that human evolution is inextricable from the food chain. The leap we need to make is to accept that human health is enmeshed with our place in the food chain.

This is hard to do because certain reductive thinkers have turned the paleolithic nutrition plan into a “meat” diet, or a “caveman” diet. Paleo is bigger than that. We don’t want to replicate the lifestyle of cavemen. We want to be healthy and we know we can’t be outside of an ordered and natural food chain.

This is the new "old"

I’m so old that when I compete in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu tournaments I can’t even register as a “Master” anymore. I am in the “Senior 1″ age classification. For a long time I competed out of category, because I didn’t want to beat up on a bunch of crotchety old farts with brittle bones and hairy ears.

A few years ago I accidentally registered in my age category and ended up on the mat with some other old dudes. I’ve never worked so hard or been so scared in my life. It turns out that certain 40-somethings are stronger, faster, smarter, and meaner than most 20 year olds. Who knew?

There’s a difference between chronological age and physical age. The former is just a number. The latter expresses how you feel. The two rarely match. In fact, I would argue that most Americans feel older than they are. Raise your hand if you can’t touch your toes.

Sadly, premature decrepitude has become a cultural norm because in Western society, most people sit and eat all day. Hence, as a matter of sheer statistical necessity, most people are going to look and feel older than they are. But this cultural norm conflicts with a biological norm. If it were biologically optimal to take NSAID medication at forty years of age our species would have fizzled out millennia ago.

So what’s the secret to feeling and looking young? How do those old jiu-jitseros manage their physical age while most of the population creak and groan when they get out of bed? The answer is deceptively simple. Three days a week move around at a vigorous clip for no more than hour. That’s it.

You don’t need to find a BJJ Academy if ballroom dancing is more to your taste. The secret is to move. Period. Get off the couch. Get out from behind the steering wheel. Pry yourself away from the desk. Push yourself away from the table. Do it. Start today.

Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude. ~Thomas Jefferson

Will your 2012 kick ass or come back to haunt you like a 7-layer burrito? I think it will kick ass. But only if you attend our goal design workshop on 12/31 at 10AM. Join coach Laura Harley as she guides you through the thicket of goal setting and helps you avoid common New Years resolution mistakes.