Sunday Story…What (cont’d)

The second part of our physical puzzle is rest. Rest as in sleep. Rest as in no activity. Rest as in, well, rest. Unfortunately, we live in a time and place where we value activity over rest. How many times have we bragged about only sleeping 4 hours a night, or pulled an all-nighter to get a project done, or study for a test?

When we sleep we rejuvenate. When we sleep deeply our blood pressure drops, breathing slows, muscles relax, blood supply to muscles increases, tissue growth and repair takes place, energy is restored, and hormones are released, especially growth hormone which is essential for growth and development. A cat nap is not going to do all that. All of those things will happen when you sleep 7-9 hours a night. Sleeping also helps the quality of our lives by contributing to a healthy immune system, controlling our appetites through the proper levels of the hormones ghrelin and leptin. When we don’t sleep enough we may feel the need to eat more, which can lead to weight gain.

So let’s see…sleep more and get stronger, get sick less, control my appetite, achieve the proper hormonal response. Or we can sleep less and get sick, get fat, and die sooner. That’s correct studies show that people sleeping less than 6 hours a night have a death rate as much as 30% higher than people who sleep between 6 – 9 hours.

Sleeping well takes planning and sticking to that plan. You need to have an established routine that you perform every night before retiring to bed. Here are my top 5 tips for a great night’s sleep:
1. Go to bed at the same time every night (and get up at the same time every morning)
2. Sleep in a cool room (68 degrees)
3. Sleep in complete darkness
4. Turn off all electronic devices or keep them in a different room. The bedroom is for sleep and well, you know, not watching TV, doing computer work or anything else.
5. Keep it as quiet as possible.

It really is that simple but you must decide you are going to sleep well every night. Learn to quiet your mind, use deep breathing techniques, keep it quiet, dark, and cool, and wake up in the morning rested, stronger and healthier. You can do this.

Sleep…it’s what you need as much as food!

Next week…exercise!

Namaste

John Mariotti
www.crossfit-odyssey.com
www.martialartsnevada.com
www.sunday-stories.blogspot.com

Sunday Story…What

The why is simply this: to fulfill the mission of being as fit as humanly possible at whatever age I may be. But what does that really mean and what does it take to achieve that goal?

It means you must be aware of all aspects of your physical life. For our purposes today, that is what we are focused on. Should you be balanced and emotionally sound, intellectually stimulated, and relatively stress free? Of course you should. There are 3 parts of this physical puzzle that must fit together to fulfill the mission. Diet, Rest, Exercise…diet is first.

DIET aka Nutrition

“80% of your results in the gym are dictated by what you do in the kitchen.”

The food you eat is critical to being healthy. The food you eat is directly related to your ability to perform in the gym and perform throughout the day in your life. Your mental processes get inhibited when your brain isn’t fed right. Your physical abilities are diminished when your body isn’t fueled properly. We should all know this by now. You can figure it out for yourself if you don’t believe me…how well do you perform when you are hung-over? All that alcohol and the resultant sugars affect your brain and your body and not in a good way. So let’s extrapolate that data out a bit…other sugars may have a similar affect. Putting chemicals in your body (like alcohol) may have deleterious effects on your body. We just are not aware of all the other crap we are pouring into our bodies.

My stance on diet is simple: Eat Real Food. Food you can identify. Food that doesn’t require a label. Food that grew from the ground, food that was raised the way nature intended it to be raised. We have been fed (pun intended) a bunch of lies when it comes to food. Some of those lies were honest mistakes, made by people working off erroneous information. But many of those lies came from economic interests, and people who had a vested interest in making us consume a product.

One of the biggest lies is this: Eating Fat will make you fat. Eating a low fat diet will create a healthy body. Really? So in the last 40 years we have seen the American (and now the world) health picture improve? NOT! Diabetes and obesity are rampant and this is the first generation of children not expected to outlive their parents. You need fat, you need protein, and you need carbohydrates in your diet every day. How much of each should be determined by your activity level and other factors. Right now I eat a lot of natural carbohydrates…rice, potatoes (sweet and other), dates and other fruits. But right now my activity level is off the chart high.

Here is your Diet program (also known as the Stop Eating Crap Diet)…Eat meat and vegetables, healthy fats (olives, avocado, coconut), a little fruit, a little starch, some seeds and nuts in quantities to support activity but not to store fat. NO SUGAR. Avoid grains, dairy, and legumes. Grab your plate, put a portion of meat on it (about 4oz. or 30 grams of protein) and fill the rest of the plate with green stuff. Simple and easy. Repeat every time you eat. Some protein, some veggies do it for 30 days and call me. We will tweak it after that. Oh, and lay off the wine (or keep it to a glass a day and no, you don’t get to save them up for Saturday night!).

Next week…Rest!

Namaste

John Mariotti
www.crossfit-odyssey.com
www.martialartsnevada.com
www.sunday-stories.blogspot.com

Sunday Story…Happy Mother’s Day

It is that day of the year to pause and reflect on all of the women wore bore you, raised you, parented you or all three. That person may be your mother, grandmother, step-mother, teacher, mentor, or aunt. They weren’t perfect. Neither are you. They did the best they could in the situation they were in and the tools they had available and did it with your best interests in mind. We can’t know what was going on for them, only what our experience was.

When you are a parent you get to make your own rules. You also get to break them. You get to say (stupidly sometimes) things like…”my child will never eat sugar” or “we won’t have a television in my house” or “I will never raise my voice to my children.” Parenting is an ongoing process of trial and error. None of my children came with an owner’s manual. And every one of them was different. What was effective for one was worthless on the next child. You didn’t come with a manual either and your mother did what she did in the hopes that you would turn out OK. Most of us do turn OK, often ignoring the best laid plans of our mothers.

She did what she thought was right. She did what she did to get you to adulthood so you could do what you are doing. It worked…here you are today, all grown up and out in the world.

All the best things I am I credit my Mother (and Father). All the rest is my fault. It’s that simple.

So say thanks, give your Momma a hug and a kiss (or a virtual one) or a prayer and be grateful for all the things she did and the sacrifices that were made for you to be who you are!

Namaste

John Mariotti
www.crossfit-odyssey.com
www.martialartsnevada.com
www.sunday-stories.blogspot.com

Sunday Story…Why (part 2)

It is now official. My video was approved and I am registered and paid as a participant in the 2014 CrossFit Games. All that is left is to book some airline tickets and hotel reservations. So it is real…almost 3 years of work and the goal is within my grasp. The goal to go to the CrossFit Games.

Yet the question still remains…Why do you want to go to the games?

What Coach Fitzsimmons didn’t tell me that afternoon is what would happen when I took on this quest. You see, I took his advice and worked on the things he told me to work on. I got better, my skills improved, my strength improved. I finished #31 that year (2013). I was disappointed. I know I improved over 20% from the prior year but it wasn’t enough. I was missing several components to break into the coveted top 20. 2013 was the last year that just the top 20 got to go. 2014 has been proven to be different. Frankly, I was better but I wasn’t good enough.

What both Jim and my current coach, CJ Martin, didn’t tell about this quest was the price that would be paid. I knew there would be a lot of workouts. They didn’t tell me about the huge time commitment. They didn’t tell me about the pain I would need to endure on an almost daily basis…the pain of injury, the pain of growth, the pain of disappointments, the pain of missed social engagements.

It has been said that it isn’t a real quest unless you might lose your life. I have given up balance for a single minded goal. I have been willing to get up before dawn to work, and long after dark. I have spent hours turning into days in the gym working out and trying and failing. I have learned to love failing. I have learned to learn from every failure, every missed lift, and every failed time trial. I have lost the life that I had to become something and someone entirely new, like a caterpillar and a butterfly.

All my life I have never felt quite good enough. Good but not good enough. Smart but not smart enough. What this is really about is this: I have been measuring myself against the completion of the goal…whether the goal was X number of dollars in the bank, a certain placing in a contest, or an accomplishment at work (yes, there was a time when I worked for a living!) Since my going to the games and my placement in the contest does not define me (see part 1) why go through this much pain, injury, suffering, and angst to go to a contest that isn’t really going to change anything?

There are so many trite answers…because I can. Because I want to wear cool pants. Because I have something to prove. But, really, there is only one reason:

My mission in life is to be as fit in body, mind, and soul as humanly possible.

As part of my mission to be as fit in body as possible, the achievement of a trip to the Games represents an objective measurement of fitness. So, why do I want to go to the games? To prove to myself that I can stay with a plan and see it through to fruition. To know that my full effort is in fact full victory; that failure does not exist except as a teaching tool. To know what it really means to give an honest attempt to climb to the pinnacle in a field of talented and like minded individuals.

What’s your mission? What did you do today to move your mission forward? What will you do tomorrow? I am already looking forward to the 2015 games and increasing my fitness to an even higher level. Triple Unders, anyone?

Namaste

John Mariotti

www.crossfit-odyssey.com
www.martialartsnevada.com
www.sunday-stories.blogspot.com

Sunday Story…Why (part 1)

About 2 years ago I was sitting in Jim Fitzsimmons' office at the University of Nevada, Reno looking for a coach to help me in my quest to get to the CrossFit Games. He asked me the all important question…”why do you want to go to the games?” Now, Jim had been to the games before, and he was the one guy I could find in my neck of the woods who had the experience and knowledge to help me on the quest. I answered, rather flippantly, that I wanted to wear the cool pants like all the rest of the cool kids. Jim, graciously, gave me some things to do that would improve my game and sent me on my way.

Fast forward to the present moment. At this moment I have qualified for the 2014 CrossFit Games Masters (55-59) division pending video review. And Jim’s question is even more in my mind than it was 2 years ago. Why do you want to go to the Games?

Lots of people want to go to the games. After all more than 200,000 of us entered the Open this year. Does my success in going to the games define me? This is the corollary question asked of me by my current coach, CJ Martin of Invictus. Does my success in this pursuit make me a better person? A better coach, father, friend, or leader? Of course not. What my success in this venture does is show that I am pretty good (and better than most) at doing some fitness related activities.

I have been pursuing this goal of getting to the games for 2 years. I had no idea that getting to this point would be this hard. I have had to train with little or no break for the past 12 months. This would only be possible given that I work in this business since with warm up and cool down a workout might be 2 hours. Meal preparations, mobility work, ART (Active Release Treatment) appointments, injury restoration, mental wear and tear have all factored into the time spent in the pursuit of this thing.

In many ways the process of training has defined me. The daily commitment to the process of training. The unwavering dedication to learning new skills, fixing poor movement patterns, staying objective in the face of self doubt, and trusting the training process while in the middle of fear and self loathing. What defines me? Commitment, dedication, stick-to-it-iveness, perseverance, keeping the forest in mind while lost in the trees and faith in the process are what define me. The achievement of the goal is the tangible result of this definition.

None of this answers the burning question, however…Why do you want to go to the games? Stay tuned to part 2 for the answer!

Namaste

John Mariotti
www.crossfit-odyssey.com
www.martialartsnevada.com
www.sunday-stories.blogspot.com

Sunday Story…In My Room

Up in my head, there are lots of rooms with doors that are mostly locked. As well they should be. These are the rooms that don’t serve me and my mission. We all have rooms like this.

Rooms full of
Negativity
Self Doubt
Self Hate
Fear
Loathing
Discontent
And more

We keep them locked for the simple reason that they don’t serve us anymore. Maybe we were feeling that way one day. Maybe someone in our life filled that room for us. Maybe we filled ourselves from messages we took to heart too deeply. Maybe we were young, and dumb and didn’t know any better. Who knows why or how those rooms got filled, or who filled them. None of that stuff matters. Those doors are locked…mostly.

But, every once in a while, we re-open one of them. Maybe we forgot what we put in there and opened it by accident on purpose. Maybe we thought we were tough enough, grown up enough, experienced enough to handle it now.

In those moments we find out how far we have really traveled. Can you face the slings and arrows, the stones left by a rocky past? Have you grown enough to look and see that the who you are today is so far from the who you were that the scars from those wounds have disappeared long ago.

I know you weren’t ready to open that door. But you did, accidently or accidently on purpose. So take a good hard look and realize you aren’t that person anymore and haven’t been for a very long time. The you of today is ready to move past those doors with them unlocked and open. You are ready to look and see the ugliness and not let it define you…again or any longer.

You are stronger now. You are better now. You are amazing now. So ask yourself just one simple question…Are you going to let those rooms and the things you locked inside of them define you? No you are more than that; you are bigger, better than that.

Define yourself by who you are today. What you say and what you do today will create the future you live in. And the future you want is not the past you had.

Namaste

John Mariotti

www.crossfit-odyssey.com
www.martialartsnevada.com
www.sunday-stories.blogspot.com

Sunday Story…Now

You can wait until the kids get older, your work settles down (or ramps up), the weather warms up or cools down, you lose those few pounds, or the stars align and the cows come home. There will always be something. Some obstacle, some resistance to whatever change you are thinking of making.

My favorite is “I need to get in shape before I start coming to your gym or martial arts class.” No you don’t. You need to come to class because you need to get in shape. Stop resisting and start working.

The only thing standing between you and the change you want to see is a gossamer curtain of excuses. Just like the curtain that the Wizard of Oz stood behind…it really only serves to fool you and allow you to not to the work you already know you must do.

This is true in whatever endeavor you are looking at…new career, new body, new anything. Whenever you are going to shift and transform your life there will be resistance and excuses. The bigger the shift, the bigger the resistance and the better the excuses will appear. After all, wasn’t Oz the all powerful? And in the end he was a small weak excuse of a wizard. All of your excuses, even the best ones, are no good once you finish your work.

It is time to pull back the curtain of resistance and expose it for what it truly is…a no account version of an excuse.

Get started. Now. Today. Right this very minute. There is no time like the present. Besides the sooner you start the sooner you will finish!

Namaste

John Mariotti

www.crossfit-odyssey.com
www.martialartsnevada.com
www.sunday-stories.blogspot.com