An Odd Duck: My Stranger Health Habits
exercise fitness health nutrition wellness Workouts
- Cold showers: Twice a day, immediately upon waking and right before bed, I stand under the coldest water I can bear for as long as I can. As a result, I am never groggy anymore in the mornings or later in the day, and I sleep like a baby at night. The first two days were a pain, but now I enjoy the showers, and I can't reliably fall asleep without them. Considering I used to have persistent insomnia, being able to reliably fall asleep under any circumstances is nice.
- Fish Oil: This is become more common, but there aren't as many people who still take the classic cod liver oil in liquid form. Every morning and just before beg I take a swig of cod liver oil straight from the bottle. It helps me recover from intense workouts, gives me Vitamin D, A, and Omega-3s, and makes me feel manly and hardcore (though not as much as the showers do).
- High fat diet: Based on extensive research and personal experience and experimentation, I've come to the conclusion that using fat as my main source of calories does me much more good than using carbs. So I drown everything in grassfed Irish butter, coconut oil, olive oil, and bacon grease. On the upside, I'm full faster and more consistently, have much more stable energy level (no afternoon slumps), and get to move around to my heart's content. I'm still a little underweight for my height, but I keep trying (actually, fat intake has no correlation with body fat, so that statement was a joke).
- Binging: My diet isn't consistently high fat. On Sundays, it's high fat and high sugar! Once a week, I go nuts and let myself eat whatever I want (as long as its is completely free of preservatives, colors and chemicals, and is a whole food). For most people this is still pretty strict, but for me whole wheat, homemade waffles with local honey and grassfed butter is an indulgence. Planning to binge keeps me on track the rest of the time.
- Distrust of Packages and Processing: I won't eat anything that comes in a box. The closest I come is canned fish. I also won't put any weird chemicals on or in my body. This rule extends to soaps and shampoos. I shave with natural shaving cream and a boar's hair brush, bathe with Dr. Bronners Organic Fair Trade Hemp Oil Soap, and brush my teeth with fluoride-free toothpaste made from plants. I figure that humans did well enough without chemicals for most of our history, and my experience suggests that chemicals are never necessary for any product to perform its intended function. They just exist to help someone make money by cutting out the essential ingredients on prolonging shelf-life past a year.
- No Arch Support: I avoid shoes with heels or arch support, so that my arches learn to take care of themselves. By going barefoot or minimalist, my foot-muscles have gotten stronger, resulting in my better posture and noticeably improved balance. Plus, I can pick things up with my toes.
- Exercise Less: Instead of spending hours at the gym, I prefer to keep my workouts short and intense. 22:12 minutes was an unusually long workout yesterday. Strength training is usually about 15 minutes, because when you're working with your 1 rep max, you can't do it more than...once. Go short and go hard, then go home. I don't count calories, I don't count minutes (except to see how few of them I need to finish), I just give it my all and call it a day. Then I gorge myself on butter :).
- Simple Movement: I am a bit of a fitness fanatic I suppose. But to build muscle, I don't waste time with fifty different machines. It's a lie that you need to focus on every muscle to get everything stronger. Pick two or three core movements, make them full body movements (like the squat), and master them. The body works as an integrated whole in real life, so that's how it should be trained.
- Know how to Fight: I practice martial arts for my health because being able to prevent somebody else from harming or killing me is healthy. This is not a hobby for me. It is an essential part of being a health-conscious human being.