Tag Archives: lifestyle

Norwegian Protocol

I’m procrastinating. I should have got on the treadmill a couple hours ago, but I’m wasting time and avoiding it. Sundays have become my Norwegian Protocol days: 4-minutes running at the maximum speed that I can maintain for the full 4-minutes, followed by 3 minutes at a very slow walk to recover. It takes me 32 minutes because I start with a 4-minute warm up.

This is one of the best ways to improve Max VO₂, which is the maximum amount of oxygen that your body can absorb during exercise. This is a measure of aerobic fitness and has one of the highest correlations with health-span, meaning maintaining good health at an order age.

This is my tenth Sunday in a row that I am doing this. And today it’s messing with my mind. I know it’s only 16 minutes at my maximum speed. I know I’ll feel great when I’ve finished. But the idea right now of willingly stepping on that treadmill knowing that I’m gonna put myself through this is something I’m suffering with right now.

I need to get past this mind game I’m playing with myself. The reality is that when I played water polo almost every workout was harder than this. I am a crappy, inefficient swimmer, and I trained at a pretty high-level. What that means is every workout I was the last person in my lane; the last person to finish a swim set; and, I worked as hard or harder than anyone else in the pool. I know how to push my body hard… that’s what I have to remind myself as I get older.

Because I’m not on a team anymore, I’m not training with a group of people who I don’t want to let down. It’s just me. Me and this once a week push for a measly 16 minutes broken into 4 sets. This is my reminder that I know how to push, how to mentally psych myself up to do something hard.

However, right now I’m kicking myself for doing a quad and glute workout yesterday. My hip flexors are sore and I don’t want to get on that treadmill… and yet I will, so this procrastination delay is just torturing myself for no reason. It’s time to rip the metaphorical bandaid off and get my butt on the treadmill.

Norwegian Protocol, here I come!

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*Update* – Protocol completed. First time that I’ve done all four sprints at 8.2MPH (7.31 Minute mile or 13.2KMH). But I’m not writing this update just to share that I pushed myself, I’m also sharing to make a point: I feel great now and the pain of procrastination wasn’t worth it! I gained nothing but mental anguish by delaying my workout.

Breaking Bland

I don’t know what I’ll be doing today after work, but it won’t be what I’ve done the past couple days. For two days now I’ve come home, sat on the couch, and only really got up to eat leftovers and go back to the couch… and then to bed.

It’s easy. It’s lazy. It’s unproductive. And ultimately it’s unsatisfying.

It’s ok to do for a couple days, but I can’t let myself just default to this daily. Sometimes it takes intention to change. It takes awareness and also effort. A plan helps too, but honestly I don’t have one right now. That will have to change before I get home. If it doesn’t change I’ll probably choose the bland option of doing nothing much again.

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Breaking Bland

Breaking a bland routine is to thrive, to feel alive, rather than satisfactorily survive.

It doesn’t need to be profound, exciting, or fun. It just needs to be an evening where I don’t get home from work and think, “I’m done!”

A walk, a talk, a task with a goal will do. A chore or ‘to do’ list item will suffice too. Perhaps a recipe with flavours that are new. A book, a podcast, a meditation, a conversation with you.

The experience need not be perfect, this I understand. I just want to choose something that is more than bland.

Biography and Biology

I’ve found conflicting information about who said this first, but I love the quote, “Your biography becomes your biology.” It also works the other way, “Your biology becomes your biography.”

Our habits and routines, whether good or bad, affect our biology. Our overall energy levels and health affect what we do with our lives. We tend to place blame on one or the other of these, but it’s a symbiotic relationship between our physical makeup and the physical environment that we consistently expose our bodies to.

Eat foods that are not nutritious or create imbalances in our sugar or energy levels, and we end up exercising less, and being more lethargic. Work out regularly and start noticing positive results, and we start thinking more about how to fuel or bodies well.

Sometimes we are dealt bad biology, and we have less to work with… allergies, a bad back, a chronic illness… sometimes we are dealt a bad biography, and it’s harder to change… a life altering accident, a tough or traumatic childhood, and it’s harder to change. But more often or not there are windows of opportunity to deal with these factors in some way, to better ourselves and the circumstances we face.

The greatest opportunity we have is to alter our biography. The past influences the future, but it doesn’t write it. We can be authors of our own biography… and ultimately change our biology too (to varying degrees). What’s essential is that we act, that we make intentional decisions about who we are and who we want to become.

Positive Peer Pressure

I think part of growing up involves being peer pressured into doing something stupid. It doesn’t have to be big and life-altering. It can be as simple as being pressured by friends to ask someone you like out, but you knew all along you were going to face rejection. Or you were pressured to go first off of a giant toboggan ramp you and your friends built on an icy day. The dumbest things I was peer pressured into are not going to make it into a list of things I plan on sharing, so the above examples are going to have to do.

When you get into adulthood peer pressure doesn’t have as strong a hold on you, and so in most cases you really aren’t going to be pressured into doing something stupid, or something you really don’t want to do. But what about things you do want to do? I think here we have amazing opportunities to use peer pressure to our advantage.

A perfect example is that I never would have done 2,000 pushups in February without my buddy Dave challenging me. And we held each other accountable, checking in with progress and reminders. Another great example is a spotter in the gym. Done well, spotting isn’t just about safety, it’s also about encouragement and motivation. I know that I push myself much harder when I’ve got a workout buddy telling me to push one more rep out when I want to just give up and end the set.

We can really use positive peer pressure to our advantage. Want to build a powerful habit? Do it with a friend or have your friends hold you accountable. Want to try something for the first time? A friend or life partner’s encouragement is invaluable. Increase the pressure when things don’t go as well, or there is a slip, and praise the behavior when things are going well.

As a kid, peer pressure is usually something to avoid. But as an adult it’s something to seek out… as long as the outcome is positive.

Bad choices

We all make bad choices. The collective ‘we’ do so in so many categories: Food, exercise, sleep, relationships, procrastination, gaming, social media, alcohol & drugs, even hygiene… Did you know that flossing your teeth can increase life expectancy?

The operative word in ‘bad choice’ is choice. Choice suggests that we have power, we have control, and we can make other choices. That’s easier said than done. It’s easy to skip a workout, to buy a fast food meal, to distract yourself with attention seeking media, and avoid doing something harder, even if it’s better for you.

For me, that’s where my healthy living calendar comes in handy. I can see my progress, and I can see when I’ve made a mistake. I can see the bad habit repeating itself… and I can actually stop it. I’ve missed two daily mediations so far this year. I’ve chosen to take just 2 days off from working out so far (which is still an average of more than 6 days a week). I’ve written every day. I don’t lie to my calendar, and my calendar doesn’t lie to me.

But I have other goals, other good habits that I want to implement, and a few bad habits I want to reduce. I’ve put the dental floss in front of my toothbrush, so I actually have to move it to brush my teeth, but I still don’t floss regularly. I’ve put a mid-week 30 minute time limit on TikTok… my version of watching TV, but I’ll often end up distracted watching similar videos on other platforms. Easy entertainment and also an easy distraction from some of the other things I want to do.

I still make some bad choices. I still distract myself with everything from watching videos to work emails. I still stay up way too late and still get up early to start my routine. I’m writing this late at night, past my bedtime goal. Like I wrote yesterday, the impediment becomes the way. But when I wrote that I made it sound like I had my shit together… I really got the point of the book, and I was living by the quote, “It’s easier to act your way into a new way of thinking, than think your way into a new way of acting.”

However, while it’s easier to act your way, rather than think your way, into doing better things, it’s also easier to embrace the impediment: To live in the status quo and continue to make bad choices. I’m not beating myself up about it, I’m just admitting that it’s hard to change, it’s hard to make good choices when the bad ones are so easy and even attractive. Still, I’m winning a lot of battles. I write every day. I exercise and meditate almost every day. I feel fit, healthy, and even happy. Yeah, I’m still going to make some bad choices, I’m just not going to make really bad choices, and I’m not going to let the bad choices define me. The good things I’m doing are pretty good, and pretty good is a pretty good place to be.

More than subsistence

We need food to survive. We must feed ourselves. But how we do so varies considerably.

Some people eat purely for subsistence. They know they need to eat so they do. It’s a chore. Maybe they don’t care for food, maybe they are on a specific diet for weight loss,,, or weight gain like a bodybuilder, and they eat what they must to stick to their diet or a timeline.

Some people get immense pleasure from eating. Every meal is an opportunity to celebrate the joy and taste of food. Every bite is a dopamine fix, and an opportunity for enjoyment.

Some people eat for comfort. Food is a non-judgmental friend that is always there for them. They don’t just eat food, they have a loving relationship with it. Food is an entity in their lives, not just objects to be put in their mouths.

Some people don’t get enough food. Food to them is a goal, it’s not just a desire, it’s a need. I think this is where humans and animals all start their food relationships. Babies cry when they are hungry. Caveman spent the majority of their lives hunting and foraging and making weapons, all for the purpose of getting that next necessary and life sustaining meal.

Now, for much of the world food is not just about the next opportunity for subsistence, it’s the quest for something enjoyable. It’s not just a human thing, my cat will wait for me to open a can of wet food, while an endless supply of hard food is available to him. It’s not just about getting energy into our bodies, it’s the desire for an enjoyable meal. Food is a journey and not just a destination.

For that reason, I think food addictions are as challenging as any drug addiction can be. Just as food can be a friend, it can be a foe. In fact it is a horrible foe because it masquerades as a dear friend. It feeds you the illusion of comfort while all the while undermining your health and wellbeing.

Sugar can be as addictive as other more illicit white powders. It can change your gut biome, which in turn can influence your thought processes. It triggers your dopamine to spike and brings pleasure. Studies have demonstrated that mice would rather choose a sugary snack than a dose of morphine. We can have food relationships like these mice, seeking out the dopamine hit of food over drugs. Food over everything else.

Our relationship with food has so many influences, from how prone we are to addiction, to the availability of food when we were young, to the balance or imbalance of nutrients versus junk food we consume, to our pleasure we get or don’t get preparing food.

I think when we live in a world of abundant food, where food is much more than just for subsistence, we need to be conscious of our relationship to food. We need to be intentional about what we need to eat, and we need to be disciplined to reduce the foods that do not serve us well. With too much choice comes too many bad choices, and so we must cultivate a healthy diet, and a healthy relationship with food.

The positive thing about this is that we need not sacrifice taste, there are many foods that are both good for us and tasty. What we must sacrifice are choice and time: Limit choices of bad foods at our disposal, and find the time to make healthier meals that are not as convenient as takeout or premade and prepackaged… All the while being tempted and triggered by our desires to eat sweet, fast, and easy to access calories that don’t add any value to our wellbeing.

We can enjoy food that is also good for us, and we can define our relationship to food around healthy options, but it takes effort, will power, and time. Bon appétit.

(Re)stacking habits

I used to wake up, write a blog post, meditate for 10 minutes, and work out, all before getting in the shower around 6:45-7am. I used the Atomic Habits strategy of stacking my habits one-after-the-other so that I reduced a lot of friction in my mornings. I’d start writing and the rest of the stacked habits just happened one after the other.

A couple things happened to change this. I have been spending more time writing, stopped meditating, and started spending more time stretching. However, it was the writing time that was the big change since both the meditation and stretching were both 10 minutes long. What I’ve noticed is that my workouts and stretching are getting shorter.

So, I need to unstack my current habits. I need to write most or all of my posts at night, then I can start my morning with meditation, cardio, stretch, then a strength routine dedicated to one or two muscles, which is my usual routine. Essentially I’m not really unstacking my habits, I’m re-stacking them in a way that they give me the outcomes I want without compromising any of them at the expense of others… I just changed the title of this post from ‘Unstacking habits’ to ‘(Re)stacking habits’… Because stacking works, but it needs to work for all the habits, not just some of them.

As a good friend said, I won’t know how well this works until I try it for at least a couple weeks, because a few days aren’t long enough for a pattern to be formed, for a habit to truly become a habit. Let’s see how this goes. If I remember, I’ll give a progress report some time later this month.

4-day work weeks

An interesting article, ‘Employees are so sick of the five-day workweek that most would take a pay cut to make a four-day week happen‘, by Ryan Hogg, states: “In the battle for a four-day workweek employees seem ready to put their money where their mouth is—they’ll take a pay cut if it means having an extra day of free time.”

At a time when inflation and cost of living is extremely high, people would rather sacrifice money for time. This isn’t about a lack of ambition or drive, it’s about wanting balance. It’s about prioritizing wellbeing over profit.

The article continued: “Last year, the U.K. piloted the world’s biggest-ever four-day week trial, made up of more than 60 companies and nearly 3,000 employees. Most businesses maintained or improved their productivity, while the trial also revealed that quit rates among staff plummeted.

Of the businesses involved in the survey, the majority chose to continue with the scheme.“

It can work.

I read another article, which I can’t find to source right now, and it was mentioning how many big companies are struggling with high absenteeism, with employees taking more sick time than they ever have before. Employees are taking days off in far greater quantities than my generation and our parent’s generation ever did, and these absences are costing companies far more than expected. Apparently this isn’t just an issue if people being sicker, but rather employees taking more time for ‘mental health days’. Essentially just taking a break from the grind of a 5- day work week. A shorter week could work to reduce this.

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I think the 4-day week could work for schools too. Add one hour to each of the 4 remaining school days and you’ve got 2/3’s of the missing school day covered. Add 30 more daily minutes of collaborative/prep time and teachers would be working the same hours, and embedding some needed prep time to their schedules. Same hours of work, close to the same number of hours of class, and so not even a reason to reduce pay.

Doing this, students and teachers would have 4-day weeks and 3-day weekends. I wonder what that would do to student absenteeism? I wonder how well students would perform? This year our senior PE classes start an hour early, and we haven’t noticed an issue with students struggling through a longer school day.

It could be piloted in a high school, but probably not the younger grades because it would be challenging to arrange for child care/supervision on the weekday that students don’t have school. I’d be happy to volunteer my school to try it out… I wonder what teachers, students, and parents would think of this?

That’s a Nope for Me

I was at a dinner meeting and one of the group rode up in an electric unicycle, ‘a self-balancing personal transporter with a single wheel’. It looks like a lot of fun. A younger me would have loved to hop on it and give it a try… but that’s not me anymore.

I love adventure, I love trying new things, but I also like going to bed without being in agony. I enjoy when my back feels the same age as me and not like it’s 20 years older. And I know that one minor fall from an electric unicycle can launch me into a world of pain.

It’s not about lack of wanting to try, it’s self-preservation. I’ve learned (usually the hard way) that some activities have an expiry date on them. It’s not based on how old the activity is, it’s based on how old I am… And an electric unicycle’s expiry date went off about a decade ago. That’s a nope for me.

Profits and wages

It’s easy to see that capitalism is broken. Oil & gas, food, delivery, and online shopping companies have had record high profits shared with their shareholders in the past few years, while the workers in the same companies fight for a living wage. And the gaps get bigger. One thing not always recognized is that even when a ‘decent’ wage increase happens, it often benefits the wealthier employees more.

Here is a simple example of a company giving everyone a 7% wage increase. This is what it translates to:

  • A $25,000 a year employee gets an additional $1,750 before taxes.
  • A $40,000 a year employee gets an additional $2,800 before taxes.
  • A $75,000 a year employee gets an additional $5,250 before taxes.
  • A $150,000 a year employee gets an additional $10,500 before taxes.

The end result is that the gap gets bigger.

I believe that there is room in the world for social democracy. That we can lift the wages at the bottom without undermining a company. The only thing stopping this is the expectations of shareholders. Companies need to be beholden to their employees and customers first, and then shareholders.

I don’t see a workable way forward to fix the broken shareholder model, but it is undermining the balance between work and life in a free and democratic society. Surely the well-being of a company’s employees has to matter more than lining shareholder pockets… because it seems to be more and more of an either/or scenario, and the shareholders seem to be winning.