_ Over the past few months I have become aware of something that really bother me.   People have no idea what it means to be an “active person”!  I have mostly seen it in younger people (ages 9-18), where, IF they get activity in during the day, it’s either a practice or game with their sports team, or a little 15 minute stint outside that usually consists of hanging around and texting, or kicking a ball around in a generally stationary position.  I have talked with a good deal of these kids recently to fond out what their activity level is like at school, and have been even more shocked at how little people these days run around!  Most breaks are spent hanging out, talking, eating, texting, playing games on their phones or catching up on work that they are slammed with.  But it’s not just the kids, and in fact, arguably a huge reason the kids are so inactive is because their parents are even more inactive.  There’s work, errands, social lives, taking care of kids, and on and on; so many excuses to not be active.  I was shown a really funny TV ad that shows people excuses for not being active; and, as funny as it is, it is so completely true!

So, over the years people begin to form the idea that to stay healthy, they need to get out and be active for 15-30 minutes a day. They need to make sure this activity is scheduled into their busy lives and for the most part, it becomes one of those things that is the first to drop off the schedule the second the day gets out of hand.  Well, I’m sorry, but a 15-minute walk around the block is NOT activity.  Taking your kids to their soccer practice and pacing the sidelines is NOT activity.  Getting outside after school and throwing a football back and forth between text messages is NOT activity.  And the fact that our society is so lost in inactivity that these things can be considered activity is really, really sad. 

I have to agree, if you are obese, completely inactive, really, really old, or horribly injured or sick because of a serious lack of health, a 15-30 minute stroll is extremely important.  And this is the case especially if you have kids and can take them with you.  But I feel like there needs to be a HUGE shift over the coming years to a point where we can all agree that a 15-30 minute walk is something we do after dinner to enjoy each others company and enjoy the evening air.  And activity should be defined as getting to the gym, working out with friends, playing sports, running and playing outside; not because we have to, but because we don’t know any other way.  Imagine if your go-to thing to do when you had a few hours to kill was to go explore the woods, climb a tree, hit a workout, go for a run, etc.?  But, unfortunately, most people flop down on the couch, turn the TV on with a drink or snack and slowly destroy their bodies and minds.

So parents don’t tell your kids to go run around; don’t buy them video games and don’t keep crappy food in the house.  Take your kids outside and play games with them.  Motivate them to sign up for teams and leagues, and camps and so on.  Oh, and do all this stuff yourself as well!  Make being active a natural part of your life so that forcing yourself to get outside for a short walk isn’t what the world calls “activity” anymore.  It’s up to all of us to change the definitions of things rather than accepting what we’ve become. 

An active person is one who loves and craves activity; one who actually lives actively.  If you have to schedule activity into your or your family’s lives, you all are not active people.  You are merely attempting to mask the lazy, unhealthy, unhappy people you are.  Yep, I went there, and I defend that statement to the death.  We as human beings are meant to be highly active.  We are built for it.  Don’t let our bodies and minds evolve into weak mush like so many of us people are.  Go a month without watching TV.  Cut your time in the car (unless it’s going to be active) in half.  Doing even one of those things will all of a sudden make your realize just how much time you really do have on your hands.  And the more time you spend being active, the better your life will become.  Just give it a try and see what happens. 

Never Stop, GET FIT.

Josh Courage 

_ Couple things before I get started:  Outlaw Training Camp is not a weekend filled with “how to rope a convenience store and get away with it”, or, “lets all learn to ride horses and hijack moving trains to steel a couple hundred in gold”.  Nope, Outlaw Training Camp is where the folks who have been following elite exerciser programming genius Rudy Nielson’s program can gather for a weekend and torture themselves with barbells and kettlebells.  The second camp he hosted took place at his home gym, Outlaw CrossFit, and I was super stoked to able to join the other 18 or so exercises specialists and throwdown and learn.  That is exactly what we did: we learned a shit-ton, and threw down like there was no tomorrow.  Also, I didn't take any pictures or video, so, to anyone who was part of this past weekend, please send anything you might have my way and I can post them up!

The weekend began Friday night.  We all gathered in the grungy gym and got a couple hours of snatch and clean and jerk practice in.  Being around so many beasts, and having not only Rudy, but so many other experienced and knowledgeable eyes on all of us was the perfect setting for a few PRs.  I was able to snatch a very clean 205 (5# PR), then a pretty messy 215# (Rudy’s words: “I’m happy I didn’t get that on camera, that was ugly!”).  I met everyone, chatted it up, joked around and just about got insanely pumped to see how the rest of the weekend would unfold.

Saturday had us meeting up to get things rolling around 9am.  We chatted about the Outlaw Way, and different approaches to CrossFitting, then hit the first workout:

8 min. AMRAP of:
8 push jerks 155#
8 ring dips
8 KB snatches each arm
Immediately following, do a 2 min. AMRAP of Double Unders
 
The idea was to get as close to a competition setting as possible.  We judged each other and stayed as strict as we possibly could.  Being around this group lit that fire that I’ve been trying to become closer friends with recently and I was feeling really good.  I got 4 rounds, plus 16 total reps on the first part, then got 140 double unders (I tried to move slowly and not mess up at all.  In hindsight I should have just done what I always do and go all out with those).  This was enough for the top score of the day and we were all ready for more!

Workout two was:
10 rounds of “Cindy” (5 pull ups, 10 hand release push ups, 15 air squats), then 8 min. to establish a 1RM deadlifts, then 5 rounds of “Cindy”.  This was a double workout where we were scored on our overall Cindy time (our overall time, minus the 8 minutes of deadlifting) and out deadlift number.

I am not historically good with body-weight stuff, seeing how I am a snugly 220# of rippling chest hair.  So, I focused on the Cindy portion and chose to conserve my energy on the deads.  In the end, I was able to get 10:31 on Cindy (the 3rd best time!) and a measly 475# on the deadlift (that is 65# off my PR from only a couple months ago…).

We then went through a squat clinic that led to some really good reminders on the proper way to squat.  I am really excited to put my new cues to practice in the coming weeks, and I have very high expectations for my gains!  That all came after lunch, and then we warmed up our aching bodies for the final workout of the day:

“Amanda”
21-15-9 of:
Muscle ups
Snatch 135#

Ok, so, this workout is Rudy’s “greatest test of a beast CrossFitter”, and annoyingly enough, one that I have always been certain would destroy me.  Not only that, but with the barbell work the night before, and the insanely shoulder dominant workouts leading up to this, we were all wondering if anyone would even finish the damn thing!  My goal going into this was to get 9 muscle ups.  That’s all I cared about.  But, when I began, I popped right up so easily I was able to get all 9 in just barely over a minute (that is damn good for me by the way).  I then proceeded to bang out the 9 snatches in two sets (after missing the first two reps) and was back on the rings.  I stayed at this easy pace throughout and was able to finish it in 8:40 (I think), good enough for 2nd (I think only 4 people finished this out of the whole group!).  I was so fired up to have been able to “blast” through that one.  At this point I have a ton of thanks to give my “judge” for the weekend, Erik, he was awesome support on each and every workout (oh, and if you want to pass out laughing, and are ok with some pretty harsh language and opinions, check out his awesome blog at Beastmodaldomains.com).

Rolling into day three found us meeting up at T.C. Williams High School (remember the Titans…?) in the morning.  To put it lightly, our bodies were crushed!  So we were all REALLY looking forward to what Rudy had thought up for us today. 

3 rounds of:
1 width field burpee broad jump
1 width field buddy carry
400 meter run

This was straight tiring!  Luckily I had a damn good runner to chance in Tony Mayo and just tried to stick with him the whole time.  He got the best score of the day, and I rolled in about 70 meters behind at 9:50.  After about an hour of goofing off, holding a punting contest (eat your heart out fellow 2XU ambassador Steve Weatherford!), and just joking around, we headed back to Outlaw to finish the weekend off:

For time do:
10 cleans 225#
40 wall ball
10 front squats 185#
40 toes to bar
10 thrusters 155#
40 KB swings 70#
400 meter plate pinch carry

Good times on this one.  After hearing Rudy preach to us about how we had to be strong.  And how we had to be SO efficient like Brandon Phillips is with every god damn thing he does…. I was determined to tear the head off this workout with everything I had.  I got the cleans one at a time, but without stepping away from the bar at all.  Got the wall balls unbroken (because I bounced out of the bottom and was generally just bad ass, so there!), got the front squats unbroken, then hit a freaking brick wall on toes to bar.  I battled through, then got the thrusters in two sets and the KB swings in 4 sets of 10 (these were INSANELY strict standards, so I stayed as deliberate as possible).  I was out the door just over 11 minutes, and about 30 seconds in front ofGames competitor Elisabeth Akinwale.  We played a fun game of leap-frog for about 300 meters before she just took off to finish.  We ended up being the only two to complete to whole thing, and she got a minute on me (I finished in like 19:10 or something like that).

We finished up the weekend with a GREAT deadlift clinic, then brunch.

All I can say is that yes, Rudy knows his shit.  Yes, training with other people (other beast people to be precise) helps more than anything in the world.  And yes, making fun of the ridiculousness that CrossFit truly is, is one of the most enjoyable things to do in the world!  To sum up the weekend in a sentence: (said while at the football field)

“Most people come here to play football.  We actually DID something.” (if you don't get this joke, your not an obsessive CrossFitter who trolls the internet every second that you not "wod-ing".  And )

You better believe the sport of fitness has arrived! Ha, hell yes!

This was an awesome weekend all around.  I am taking this week off for total recovery.  I cannot wait until the next training camp!  Thanks Outlaws!

Never Stop, GET FIT.

Josh Courage

_ As my girlfriend can attest to, I have so many ideas it sometimes gets annoying.  And as my dad told me long ago, write everything down!  So, the other day when I went through some of my old notes and ideas, I found a collection of them that I thought were pretty interesting.  First and foremost, if I actually had the ability and now-how to put my ideas to action, I would be the most famous, celebrated, wealthy person on the face of the planet.  And not because I would have invented some teleportation device that would also take 30 years off any person; my ideas are very, very tangible ones, ones that SHOULD be very easy to get rolling.

Below you’ll find a “letter to anyone” that I wrote in the early 2000’s.  I distinctly remember feeling very strongly about how people should train, and, having not been able to fond anything that resembled my idea; I decided to let people know about it.  What would have happened if I had sent this thing out…?

(Everything below I created out of my own brain.  I did not know who Greg Glassman was, I had yet find Facebook, and I longed for anything resembling a “fitness community”)


My Fellow Athletes and soon to be Athletes –

Welcome to Athletic Fitness! 

This site is dedicated to giving all athletes around the world, the information and tools to continue moving up in the competitive world of sports and fitness.  The material that you will find inside is all here to help entertain, educate and evaluate you, while also giving you the ability to connect to the largest network of athletes around the globe.

The minute you enter into the Athletic Fitness world you become an elite member of the “Fit Athlete” club.  With all the information, advice, exercises etc. that you work through, you will be giving yourself the ability to become a great all around Fit Athlete.

What does it mean to be a Fit Athlete?  A Fit Athlete has the ability to perform the Ten Points Of Athleticism and apply them to any movement in any sport with above average skill level.  There are many athletes out there who are extremely successful at what they do:  Dean Karnazas, the “Ultra marathoner”, can run a marathon every day for 50 days in 50 states, and then run from NYC to San Francisco; he is without a doubt the greatest endurance athlete that we know of today.  But can he shoot 75% from the free throw line, or paint the black with a 2-seam fastball?  David Wells is one of the most successful pitchers in Major League Baseball, with a perfect game under his belt and countless victories; but could he swim a mile, or rock climb a cliff and repel down?

There are endless examples of successful athletes who excel at something very specific, either with god-given talent, or because that is the only thing they ever work on.  But what happens when you change your philosophy of training?  What happens when you take the specific skills you are working on and incorporate them into a much larger scale and understanding of training?

A Fit Athlete will train for Speed, Strength, Power Agility, Quickness, Reaction, Flexibility, Endurance, Balance and Body Control.  Having a strong base with these Ten Points Of Athleticism and then applying them to your specific sport and even your specific position within the sport will take your level of play to a whole new level.  And it will begin the new generation of extremely athletic players in sports around the world.

Athletic Fitness is also here to promote the athletic lifestyle to anyone and everyone, from pro athletes, to little leaguers, to mothers and fathers to beginners wanting to have a little fun in life.  Anyone can become a Fit Athlete as long as they have the desire and dedication to commit to an athletic lifestyle.  We are here to help, inform, advise, entertain, challenge and change you while giving you the platform to communicate and connect to the world of athleticism.

Today you have the ability to experience what is coming.  Read the articles and the interviews, take the challenge, try the exercises and respond to the first questions and polls.  We gladly welcome any questions and/or comments you might have and look forward to building Athletic Fitness around the world.

Josh Courage
President, Athletic Fitness

Pretty crazy, huh?  The morel of the story here is to act on your passions.  Anyone can come up with a great idea, but it’s the people who practice those ideas that become great.   Yes, I trained in this manner from a very early standpoint (when I found CrossFit, it totally floored me because it felt like I all of a sudden found an entire community that already existed that did almost exactly what I did!), but I never pushed my ideas any farther than my own little space.  This is one of a handful of things I came up with that have since become wildly successful businesses.  And I KNOW that many of you out there have had the same thing happen to you.  Make your ideas come to life people!

Never Stop, GET FIT.

Josh Courage

_ I don’t mean you should become some obsessed fitness junkie like me who can do nothing but think about all things health and fitness.  Quick tangent on how bad I can be sometimes: I even thought a large steel frame holding contraption at the damn Holocaust Museum would be the perfect addition to my gym… yeah…

Anyway, back to the point.  I find it increasingly frustrating to see how many people either don’t exercise on any sort of regular basis, or, make it a very low priority in their life.  Ironically enough, most people out there have some pretty serious issues, like stress, high blood pressure, hypertension, sleep issues, anxiety, depression and then a whole slew of other serious medical conditions.  And these same people will sit all day and bitch and moan about how crappy they feel, yet instead of taking the greatest dose of anything they could have (um, exercise), they opt for helpful little drugs.  Caffeine to wake up, sleeping pills to go to sleep, aspirin to make their twinging knee pain go away while walking around in horribly designed shoes and sitting at a desk all day. 

If you want to see one of the coolest videos I have ever seen on the best drug you could ever take for pretty much any ailment, click on this sentence NOW.

Besides that, just take a minute or two and think about your priorities.  You must work, you must be social, you must watch your TV shows, you must take your kids here and there, you must eat certain foods, you must drive a fancier car, you must wear specific clothes; the list goes on and on.  And to make sure those things are taken care of you just don’t have time for regular exercise.  

Simply put people: regular exercise will make the good priorities in your life better, and the bad priorities in your life seem less important. 

I had a guy tell me yesterday that he knew he wanted to workout more but just lacked the motivation.  He came and worked out with me today and told me, while beaming from endorphins after an awesome session of flipping tires and hitting things with sledge hammers: “that was fun!”  You see, fitness to so many people means a slow trudge through an impersonal gym, hitting a set here and there and then heading home.  But there is more out there people!  Fitness can be something you crave, something you look forward to every day.  Health and fitness can be something that wakes you up in the morning bubbling with energy and excitement for what you are able to do that day.  Fitness can be a driving life force in anyone and everyone’s life.

But you must want it.  It’s out there, always, without fail and without judgment.  All you have to do is take a step or two in the right direction and your life will forever be changed.

Never Stop, GET FIT.

Josh Courage

You know how sometimes a really simple statement hits you so hard that it seems like your world is turned upside down for a moment?  It’s statements, or stories, or even visuals that “blow you away” and make you see things completely differently.  Well, this happened to me the other day and it made me view a problem I have had for my entire life in a whole new light.  The crazy thing is that I have no idea where I read this, but it was only a few days ago (yeah, I’ve been reading a real lot of articles lately) and it hit me hard enough to put the article down, mouth open, and my brain going: “yeah, totally!”

It basically said that when you are down with your day, sitting on your couch at night, watching TV and letting the old habits creep in like, “I need some snacks to go along with my late night TV watching”.  If you see yourself as a helpless, out of shape, sad, stupid, and whatever other negative view one could have type of person, you’ll probably head to the kitchen and scoop a bowl of ice cream.  Or, in my case, run down to whole foods for a bag of chocolate covered almonds!  But, if you see yourself as a fit, healthy, happy, good person, you’ll turn the TV off and go to bed a little early knowing that the extra sleep and avoiding a late night insulin spike will get you even better.

I realize this isn’t some new concept, I have written over and over again tat if you want change in your life, you have to change from the inside.  You can’t just force yourself to all of a sudden be a healthy, happy, fit person.  You have to become a different person, with different views of yourself and life so that those changes can become a PART of your life rather than a part of your life's’ schedule.  Perhaps this hit home foe me the hardest because it touched on the aspect that I personally struggle with the most.  When I am roughing through things, I tend to stay up later and later at night, watching TV.  I do this because I feel like it’s a distraction from all the crap I don’t want to deal with.  If I can watch an episode (or 4…) of Family Guy I convince myself that it’s healthy for me because I can escape a little into the show and just let my mind go free.  

But that is not happening.  That would happen if I got into bed, maybe wrote a little on a pad of paper and tried closing my eyes.  Then I wouldn’t be straining every system in my body.  Then I wouldn’t allow my problems to sneak up on me while I was distracted by the TV and all of a sudden I start to feel sorry for myself and justify eating something I know I don’t need or want.  I know all of this to be so strong because when I am on top of the world, I am in bed at 10pm, the TV is rarely on and thoughts of self-pity never go through my head.

And what I also know to be true:  if I want to overcome all this, if I want to get better sleep, eat better, become happier, become healthier and let those healthy habits positively effect the rest of my life, I need to change the way I view myself and my life.  I can’t just sit back and hope it goes away.  I can’t just put a Band-Aid over the problems and issues and then claim myself healed.  No, rather than becoming really good at suppressing my issues under false strength, I need to become good at overcoming my issues.  When I look at myself in the mirror, I don’t want to see something I am dissatisfied in, something I am ashamed of and angry with.  When I look in the mirror I want to feel GOOD.  I want to feel confident that the person looking back at me is understanding first, strong second.  The order of this is key because if you are strong without understanding, you have no control over yourself.  This is mentally AND physically.  I must understand why I am deadlifting and how to deadlift perfectly if I ever expect to become great at deadlifts.  And I must understand why I feel something and how those feeling work if I ever want to have any control of my emotions.

When I look in the mirror today, I am not happy with what I see.  So do I avoid the mirror, distract myself with things like negativity, TV, food, pity and so on?  Do I pretend it’s all OK and try to force myself to be what I think I should, be?  I mean come on, I’ve been there before so it should be that easy, right?  Hell no.  It’s time for a perspective change, a self-induced paradigm shift, a deep look within.

Go look at yourself in the mirror.  Really, really look; soak it all in.  What do you see?

Forgive the depressing aspect of this post.  I know that I can sometimes be a little too open here, but I find it extremely helpful for my process.  Interestingly enough, after writing this, I feel so much better.  I feel like I have taken a HUGE step forward!  I hope, if you are feeling in any way off or down, that this might be a little inspiration towards the right.

Never Stop, GET FIT.

Josh Courage

All right, right off the bat I need to admit the sad truth, I have no idea how to be cool.  For some reason or another, this is something that’s passed through my head a bit over the summer.  I think it has a lot to do with being around a ton of teenagers (what with coaching baseball and the majority of my athletes are in their teenage years) and this age group tends to have “coolness” as a primary concern on their minds.  For me, the idea of coolness is a really great topic.  Take the unprofessional word out and keep the context, and this is something we all think about at some point in our lives a good deal.  We want to fit in, we want to stand out, we want to be impressive, we want to represent something, we want respect, call it want you like, but in the end, we just want to be cool!

This is why we do certain things in our life.  Think about it, for us CrossFitters, it’s so damn cool to lock a heavy weight out over our heads.  It’s cool to string together a bunch of kipping pull ups (it sure as hell isn’t healthy, so why else would we do it?!), it’s cool to collapse on the floor after giving our all on a workout.  We embrace these aspects of our life just like the rapper embraces his “bling”, a hipster his/her vintage t-shirt, the Yogi his/her lululemon outfit.  We have an idea of what gives us a bunch of confidence, and those things are cool to us.  But how is it that some people can be all decked out in perfect gear, drive a sweet car, live in an awesome house, have a great partner and still somehow just not be cool?  Well, it’s a matter of feeling comfortable. 

I think that most people would say that confidence equals cool, but I disagree.  I actually know a good deal of people who are pretty confident, who just aren’t all that cool.  What I think is that it has more to do with just being comfortable in your own skin.  That’s how people can seem so damn cool yet when you break down their life, it just doesn’t seem to add up.  You see, so many of us get caught up in the idea of materiel things being the “cool-maker”, but in the end, it’s really just our ability to be comfortable with who we are and what we have.  So this begs the question of course, how do we do that?

Well, again, I am sure as hell not an expert at cool, but I do know that being comfortable comes with understanding who you are and what you represent.  If you are passionately pursuing the things you love in life, and if you are not wasting your time attempting to be a part of things that don’t fulfill you, you’re probably a pretty comfortable person.  And if you’re comfortable, well, you’re probably pretty cool.  Are you doing what you do because you love it, or because you think it’s what you should be doing?  This is the simple question I recommend asking whenever you do anything in your life.  If you are wearing something, or going places, or doing things for any reason besides loving it like crazy, you just might be involved for the wrong reasons and “forcing it”.  And it’s pretty obvious all around that people who force things in life are totally not cool!

I need to point out something here, this does not mean that I’m opposed to enjoying materiel things!  And in line with my wonderfully brutal honestly from time to time on this blog, I have decided to make a couple lists here: first, what I think is cool!

Locking out a heavy weight overhead alone in a dark gym
Running barefoot in the woods
Three-piece suits
Bracelets
Unkempt facial hair
Single speed bikes
1960’s and 70’s muscle cars
Holding a baseball bat
Sprinting
Plating a finished meal
Fedoras
Anything and everything Batman
Bandanas
Hanging out in outdoor stores (like REI and such)

Ha, well, as I write the list I realize that I could go on forever with that because it’s fun thinking about things that I like and think are cool.  In fact, I throw out to all of you that you should make a list of what YOU think is cool.  I’m reminded of the great monologue by Crash Davis in Bull Durham where he lists off all the things he believes in (if you haven’t seen the scene or the movie, get with the program and go watch it!).  There’s something very freeing about announcing the things you like/love/believe in.  And if it occurs on a whim, the truth comes out!  Sometimes you might even begin your list, and all of a sudden realize that you are listing things off that don’t mean anything to you.  And the second you do this, you can become aware that you are forcing things.  Cool comes from deep within, what your true, inner personality honestly loves.  Find out what’s deep down there and you’ll become the most comfortable, cool person in the world!

Thanks for letting me ramble!  No go find yourself an be YOU!

Never Stop, GET FIT.

Josh Courage

So far this week has been way easier than I expected.  I don't mean that I had easy workouts.  On the contrary, as I write this I am just wonderfully sore from head to toe!  What I mean is that I was surprised at how seamlessly I feel back into a pattern of being very strict with workout times and nutrition.  I thought I would have a much harder time getting back into the diet plan that allowed me so much positive change a month or so back.  But, I guess I was able to form a pretty good habit when I did that whole program.  And, inspired by a couple conversations today, and thinking about the whole process, I totally understand why. 

Establish What Works For You:
When I was challenged about 3.5 months ago to follow a super strict nutrition plan, it clicked instantly with me.  After a few weeks of following what was given to me, I made a couple modifications, and ultimately found a nutrition plan that just straight up worked.  For me.  And because it worked so well, my body responded accordingly.  I lost fat, gained muscle, decreased my stress, had more energy and slept better.  And because of all these positive changes, I psychologically became "hooked" on this lifestyle.  My desire to stay up super late, to watch TV, to eat cookies, to skip workouts, all those things that I tended to do before, they all just went away.  I learned first-hand that the body really, truly wants to be fit and healthy; and if you take the time and effort to allow it to be, it will crave those GOOD things instead of the bad.  Now what works for me may not work for you.  But the idea of cleaning everything out completely allows for your body and mind to have a cleaner slate so that you can honestly look at what works.  For me, eating every 3 hours works wonders.  Consuming the proper amounts of foods during those meals helps even more.  I don't know what works for you, and a believe me, sometimes this can be really freaking hard.  It took me about four years to find out how to literally melt body fat off me.  And I am a fitness expert who has the time and wherewithal to try many different things.  S be patient.  There IS a process that works for you if you are willing to search for it.  This brings me to my next point:

Don't Be A Wimp:
Yeah, I said it, you're going to have to be tough.  One of my conversations today was with a lady who was feeling really lethargic, gaining weight, having skin issues, and struggling with sleep.  I asked her about her eating habits and simply suggested she keep a food journal.  A month later (today) I asked her how it was going and she said she only kept the journal for about a week and then just forgot about it.  Interestingly enough though, upon my bringing it up she realized that the week she kept the journal was the most energetic and stress-free week in a long, long while. This made me think; not about the obvious, that having more control of your food makes you eat better, but of the effort she, and so many others put into change.  Here's what I mean.  It's crazy daunting to think that the way you live and eat is flat out hurting you, and that it is actually possible to change.  this is the part that is NOT easy in any way.  You have to change a habit.  And usually, this is a habit that's been engrained in your brain and body for years and years.    

So think logically through this one with me.  If you've taken years to create a way of living/eating, do you really, honestly expect to change that habit in a week?  Thinking of it this way, it should actually be a breath of fresh air to know that you can mostly change habits over the course of a short month!  Either way, it's tough as hell to change like this (a "how to" on this is clearly a great topic); but, suffice to say that if you can find a way to dedicate a month to your program, things will inevitably become a LOT easier.   Again, the body wants to be healthy, give it time to recognize the healthy things you are doing and it will react positively.

A concept that is really well described by Robb Wolf in his awesome book The Paleo Solution is that you can eat as much as you want.  Totally, go to town!  It’s just that when you are eating clean and living well, “as much as you want” tends to be healthy doses.  This occurs because your mind and body are more closely connected.  You finally stop eating emotionally and you eat to live. 

Finally, Your Flow:
I think I’ve found my flow.  I think this because even when I fall off for a month, it’s so much better than I’ve ever been my whole life.  Sure, when things are down and I am more emotionally unstable I may have a cookie or ton; but I have formed the habit of eating regularly. 

So the point to all this, the only way to really find that flow enough that it is engrained in you as a genuine part of you life.  Give it all a fare shot.  Take your time, trial and error, add things, take things away, chart EVERYTHING, be patient and be tough.  You’ll have to go through hell before the simplicity of being healthy can actually occur.  So don’t lie to yourself in thinking that you can figure it all out in a couple days.  Trust me, it will not happen.  If you want to be healthy, fit and happy, you need to commit to following a program for at least a month (preferably 2 or 3).  And always remember: it took you years to become as unhealthy as you are now, you need to understand that true change may take a little time.

Never Stop, GET FIT.

Josh Courage