Sunday Story…Fitness Challenge 5

Sleep. Snooze. Nap. Shuteye. Sawing logs. Call it what you will but the most overlooked part of your fitness is sleep. It doesn’t show up on the pyramid (unless I “sharpie” it in) but it should and we don’t spend as much time on it as the rest of this stuff…food and workouts.

As a matter of fact, we usually assume sleep is something that just happens. I mean we’ve been doing it our whole lives; we should be pretty good at it by now. But we aren’t being intentional with our sleep. We haven’t analyzed it the way we analyze our workouts or our food. But since you spend about one-third of your life sleeping (as opposed to about an hour a day working out) maybe you should take a deeper dive into your sleep habits.

Here are some basic tips:

Go to bed and get up at the same time every day.
Stop your screen time at least an hour before getting into bed.
Sleep in a completely darkened room.
Keep the room cool.
When you go to bed you go to bed. You don’t watch TV, work, talk on the phone or play games. You sleep.
No caffeine after 2pm.
Use a sleep app like “sleep cycle” to start tracking both your time and quality of sleep. You will be surprised by what affects your sleep.
Read “Lights Out: Sleep, Sugar and Survival” by T.S.Wiley

If you want to be more fit, sleep more!

John Mariotti
www.crossfitodyssey.com
www.sunday-stories.blogspot.com
775-338-2412

Sunday Story…Fitness Challenge 4

Years ago someone asked me, “What are you training for?” My answer was a simple, “life. I’m training for my life.” The other day someone said something along the lines of, “Is this how we exercise in this day and age?” and the corollary question was: “do we really need this level of conditioning?” If exercise is defined as mental or bodily exertion then yes it is and the answer to part 2 is it depends on what you want. If you want to be operating at an optimum level of health and fitness then yes, this is the level of conditioning you need. It is my position that your level of physical conditioning has everything to do with your level of mental health and happiness.

Look, the base, the starting point is nutrition. You cannot out-exercise a bad diet. If you eat crap your results will be crap. Garbage in garbage out. This gets more and more important as you get older. The effects of poor nutrition get magnified as our bodies struggle to keep up with the effects of aging.

Part 2 is your metabolic conditioning. This is the work we do intending to increase and improve the storage and delivery of energy for any activity. This is why we work in various time domains with an infinite variety of movement patterns. Each workout will challenge and improve your (among other things) your muscular stamina, cardiovascular endurance, resistance to fatigue, and mental strength.

Why do I train? Why is fitness important? The answer to this lies inside each of you. My answer (for me) is simple: for life! My job is to be the best I can possibly be at any point in my life. What’s yours?

John Mariotti
www.crossfitodyssey.com
www.sunday-stories.blogspot.com
775-338-2412

Sunday Story…Fitness Challenge 3

Every meal is NOT a banquet! Every time you eat it does not need to be a full-on celebration. Just because you worked out or had a hard day doesn’t give you automatic permission to eat like a fool.

Think about this…if you have 1 glass of wine every day (because after all you had a rough day and you deserve it!) at the end of the year you will have consumed 22 gallons of wine! Whaaaat!!! I’m pretty sure you don’t need or want to consume that much alcohol.

Look life can be rough. You will have some tough times, some days that are hard. It’s supposed to be that way. If you want easy you might need to look elsewhere. Find a different way to decompress…read, converse, listen to music, dance or any number of things that don’t include health-compromising activities.

Food is fuel. You should eat enough to support your activity but not so much as to store body fat. Eating is a necessity, not a party. That being said, when it is a party give yourself permission to indulge and enjoy every morsel. Don’t be that guy or girl eating 7 almonds in the corner like a mouse.

Stop before you start. You know what foods you can’t resist. If you eat just one you will eat a hundred. Your will power is non-existent around those foods. So NEVER let those cross your lips at any time. You know what foods you enjoy and have a hard time stopping but you can stop if you are paying attention. Then there are the foods you can eat and stop at any time, no problem.

There you have it…3 ways to keep your food consumption under control…plan ahead, eat slowly and mindfully, give up the “celebration” mindset. Pick the easiest one and start there. Add the next one when you got the first one nailed down!

John Mariotti
www.crossfitodyssey.com
www.sunday-stories.blogspot.com
775-338-2412

Sunday Story…Fitness Challenge Redux

Last week we talked about planning ahead. Hopefully, you are doing some meal prep before your week starts. Or at least you are thinking about what your week’s schedule looks like in relation to the food you may have available.

This week…Pay Attention!
Planning will make sure you are aware of WHAT you are eating but it may not solve the OVEReating problem. It is the OVEReating that will torpedo your nutrition and fitness progress. Awareness and mindfulness are the keys to success here. You must pay attention to how MUCH you are eating.

Here are some simple ways to increase your awareness when you are eating:

STOP multitasking. It's simple when you are eating you are eating…not surfing on your phone, not standing at the counter, not on the computer, not driving. You have 1 job…eat with attention and mindfulness.

SLOW down. You need to give your system a chance to “catch up” with your food. The mechanism that tells you when you are full is slower than your ability to put food in your mouth. Put your fork down between bites. Chew your food completely…chew it until it becomes liquid in your mouth then swallow. These 2 things alone will help you eat less than you have previously and will increase your sense of fullness and your enjoyment of your food.

Food is fun! Savor every bite!

John Mariotti
www.crossfitodyssey.com
www.sunday-stories.blogspot.com
775-338-2412

Sunday Story…Fitness Challenge

Hopefully, you are going to participate in the fitness challenge Ellie is kicking off on Monday (tomorrow). This first week is learning week…you won’t be perfect and that’s OK! But I wanted to give you 3 tips to help jump start your new food regimen!

#1 Plan ahead at the beginning of the week.
Look ahead at your week and decide how and where you will be eating your meals. Then do Food Prep on Sunday afternoon/evening. That’s right, cook up a bunch of food so it will be in the fridge and ready to go at any time during the week. Roast some veggies in the oven (potatoes, butternut squash, beets, and carrots….root vegetables!) use different spices on different things for different flavors. Fire up the grill and cook a bunch of animal protein…same thing with different spices. Find your crockpot (slow cooker) and throw a hunk of meat in with some more root veggies. Put things in some Tupperware and place it in the fridge. Oh, and eggs (especially the whites) are your friend!

#2 Prep the night before
If you can’t or didn’t do your Sunday food prep then the night before prepare double the food for dinner. Eat dinner and when you clean up put it in some Tupperware and take it for lunch the next day.

#3 the Morning Of
Sometimes life just doesn’t cooperate and your food prep just hasn’t happened. Don’t despair…you aren’t stuck with the vending machine at work or the week-old muffins someone left behind. Get up a little earlier and look at your schedule, find some pockets of time like on the way to work or lunch break (do not decide it’s easier to go to Fast Food!)…stop at whole foods or another market and grab a healthy snack or 2 or 3 to get thru the day with intention rather than submitting to the whims of whatever you can grab.

None of this stuff is rocket science hard. But it does require you to be intentional and do some pre-planning. Just like most of the things in life!

John Mariotti
www.crossfitodyssey.com
www.sunday-stories.blogspot.com
775-338-2412

Sunday Story…Oops

We all make mistakes. It is part of the human condition. Actually we don’t make enough NEW mistakes. A new mistake arises from trying new things, having original thoughts, daring to search for something better.

We need to stop making the same old mistakes over and over and over. It is insanity, after all. What is it about us humans that has us think that this time is going to be different? This time the thing is going to work even though it hasn’t worked the last 10 times we did it. Really? Why is that?

Doing something new is frightening. I get it. But is it so much more frightening than making the same mistake over and over and getting the same result? Are you so paralyzed by fear that you can’t get out of your comfort zone long enough to do something that might actually work? Choice A is something you know will fail. Choice B is something that might fail or might work. Looks like a 50/50 proposition to me.

As a fall back you can always go back and do the crazy thing…the thing you keep doing to no success.

Step up. Try something new. Be willing to fail. Be willing to learn from your mistakes. It is where wisdom lives.

John Mariotti
www.crossfitodyssey.com
www.sunday-stories.blogspot.com
775-338-2412

Sunday Story…Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

There’s an old joke that goes like this:
How many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb?
Only 1 but the light bulb has to really want to change!

In general, we only change when we want to. We have the ability to change or shift our attitude, our appearance, or our skills. But we have to want to change. We have to make a decision to change and then we need to take action to effect that change.

The changing isn’t the problem. In many ways, changing is the simple part. Decide to change. Make a plan. Do work. Pretty simple.

But the real challenge is the wanting to. You have to want to change…badly. Because it may be simple but it isn’t easy.

The desire to change is what makes change possible. You gotta want it.

John Mariotti
www.crossfitodyssey.com
www.sunday-story.blogspot.com
775-338-2412