Paleo Marine

Too many people undertake a new diet or exercise plan (or both!) only to fail within three months. Worse, most people who fail end up right back to where they started +3-5 lbs. How is it that people who have high school diplomas, college degrees, have served in the military (and got past boot camp, OCS, and MOS schools), or people who achieved certifications, completed apprenticeships, or reached other lofty goals can’t lose weight or get fit? These people surely know how to persevere, how to set goals, and how to do the work required to reach them. Or do they?

Improving your health and fitness, and in turn losing weight, is not the same as finishing a degree or passing a certification exam. In both of those examples, there’s an end; a very tangible and hard stop where the accomplishment has been reached and the work toward it can stop. The problem most people have is that they look at weight loss, health, and fitness as the same thing: a goal to reach. They couldn’t be more wrong.

If you’ve read my blog for a while, you’d recognize that I refer to my health and fitness journey a lot. I also refer to my Paleo lifestyle. Two words are key here: journey and lifestyle. I will break them down individually because they are very important.

Journey is defined as “something suggesting travel or passage from one place to another.” In our case, the place we want to get is good health and better fitness. How is that a place? Is it a destination we can reach? Therein lies the problem, because the place we want to get to (good health and fitness) as amorphous and nebulous. It’s not a firm time or place. It’s not a singular achievement. It’s an idea, or a state of being, that is relative and subjective. Therefore, it’s a place we can never truly get to, yet the work to get there is what keeps us healthy and fit.

Lifestyle is defined as “the typical way of life of an individual, group, or culture,” and “associated with, reflecting, or promoting an enhanced or more desirable lifestyle.” The lifestyle I lived before adopting the Paleo lifestyle was one filled with a lot of carbs and a lack of exercise. That lifestyle led me to being Type 2 diabetic with nerve damage, circulation issues in my lower extremities, and fatty liver disease. If I didn’t change my lifestyle, my health would continue to deteriourate and I would eventually die well before my 60’s. I investigated different healthy lifestyles and settled on Paleo based on my genetic heritage and my body’s reaction to carbs (swelling and rapid weight gain). To give myself the best chance to succeed on my journey, I needed to completely change my lifestyle and adopt a healthier, more desirable one. For some people, that’s Keto, Intermittent Fasting (IF), or counting calories (aka Calories In/Calories Out, or CICO) among others. For me, it was Whole30 and the Paleo Diet.

For me to succeed in the journey, I had to make a lifestyle change. I had to reframe the goal in my mind as not a stopping point, but an ideal to strive toward. This, for me, was the key to my success. I’ve said it many times over the years that it’s mostly a mental game. While receiving support from my wife has been one of the most important factors to my being able to get healthy and fit, none of that support would have mattered if I didn’t change the way I looked at what we were looking to accomplish.

My wife and I had tried many times in the past to improve our health, get fit, and lose weight. None of the plans we did in the past worked for us, not because they were ineffective (we did lose weight every time), but the way we thought of the process was wrong. When we’d either get close to a goal or reach it, we would fall back into old habits thinking that all was good. All was, in fact, not good, and we’d find ourselves in a worse position than we started in. We repeated this process of failure many times before coming across the mindhack of being in this new lifestyle for the rest of our lives.

Temporary change will yield temporary results. Going back to the old habits will bring back the old results. To achieve permanent, life-long results, you must make life-long changes and commit to them. That doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the occasional pizza, cake, or ice cream every now and then. It just means you have to have them on very rare occasions and find new foods to fuel your body on a daily basis. Fortunately, the Paleo Diet isn’t nearly as restrictive as some people make it out to be, and Sherry and I have found ourselves very comfortable with our Paleo foods. In fact, some are so good that I prefer them now over their non-Paleo alternatives!

Improving your health and fitness is all a mind game, but it’s not all perseverence, motivation, and struggle. A bigger part is that you have to make sure you set your goals appropriately; in this case, seeing the destination as an ideal and not a specific weight, speed of run, or amount of weights you can lift. The goal should be continuous improvement, or once you reach a comfortable health and fitness state, the goal should be maintenance. Maintenance requires continuous work as well, but it also demands avoiding the old habits and lifestyle. The old habits and old lifestyle will bring the old results, and why give back all that work? In the end, that’s one of my motivating factors. I hate doing work without reward, and I dislike work even more if it’s for nothing. If I lost 150 lbs and then gained it all back, that would mean all the work I did to lose the weight was for nothing. That’s untenable to me, so it helps keep me motivated on this healthy journey.

Temporary change will yield temporary results. Going back to the old habits will bring back the old results. To achieve permanent life-long results, you must make permanent life-long changes and commit to them.

E.J. Hunyadi

So, that strained Rhomboid muscle I thought I had? Turns out, it’s most likely not a strain! It’s only been two days, and the pain is nearly all gone and I have full range of motion in my shoulder, arm, and neck. When I said it felt more like a crick, it’s because it was/is likely a spasm. I can still feel the spot where it was hurting after my workout and a bit yesterday, but for the most part, it’s almost all gone. I’m still going to skip today’s weightlifting session, but I will run. I am an advocate for being cautious and not pushing on with pain, especially if it’s injury-related. Since the spasm was caused by over-exertion, it’s something that could turn into something worse easily if I keep pushing. Therefore, today is a non-weightlifting day.

When I run, I almost always have some sort of pain in the beginning third of the run. Most times, it’s right at the beginning, but most of the time, it happens within the first half-mile or so; some phantom pain in a knee, an ankle, or some other joint. I know it’s a phantom pain because as soon as I change my pace (by running faster/harder) or if I keep going on it for about 20-30 seconds, it goes away. Also, it’s typically not a flaming/shooting pain. Those are very easy to interpret as an injury, and when I feel something like that, I stop immediately. That’s why this shoulder/back issue was so perplexing. When I “Hurt” it, it wasn’t a shooting pain like when I hurt my back a few months ago. It was a dull ache that just became more pronounced over the course of the evening.

After taking any long break (more than a few days) from running, I usually get some muscle soreness after getting back on the road. It’s completely normal and expected, and something I’ve learned to live with whenever I have to take a break from running due to work, vacation, and (gasp!) drill/annual training. Right now, since I run every other day without exception, I have literally ZERO pain after running. To the contrary, I actually feel better after a run now, and I like that. The runs themselves aren’t exceptional. I mostly don’t really enjoy my runs that much, although I’m learning to try to enjoy them. At least I don’t hate them anymore.

With my weightlifting, since I’m doing StrongLifts 5×5 which has the weight amounts increase with every workout, I do have a certain amount of muscle soreness after every workout. I’ve come to get accustomed to that, as well. However, I also have to remain vigilant to not talking myself out of recognizing legitimate injury. I’ve been known to ignore pain and push into full-blown injury, and right now with me attending WOCS, I can’t afford to not be able to participate in physical training. So, I’m being extra cautious, and it’s actually teaching me a lot about listening to my body.

A little over a month ago, I had sustained a slight groin injury. I was mortified. Two weeks before I was set to take my second Army Combat Fitness Test (ACFT), I thought I had sidelined myself due to training too hard. I let it rest for a week and eased my way back into weightlifting and running. It turned out to be the right about of time and I had no problems during the ACFT or afterwards. I’m doing the same with this spasm; giving it some time to heal/rest, and then when I get back to it, I will take it easy and ease back into things.

Fortunately for me, I don’t have any ACFT’s coming up for the next six months or so (we’re still unsure if we will have to take another one in April), but I do have some gruelling road marches (aka ruck marches) coming up; a 2-mile, 4-mile, and 6-mile in December, January, and February. Those will require carrying a rucksack with a minimum of 48 lbs overall weight at a pace exceeding 17 minutes per mile. That pace doesn’t sound very fast when you’re walking or even hiking with a light pack, but that 48 lbs rucksack PLUS the water really adds a level of difficulty you can’t imagine until you try it. One thing is certain, however; you can’t do it with a hurt shoulder/back.

So, I am ecstatic that it seems like it’s not actually injured. I will give it some time to rest some more, and on Friday, I’ll ease back into my weightlifting. The weekend after this upcoming weekend is my next WOCS drill, and I will do my 2-mile road march then. I’m expecting it to go well; I practiced a 2-mile ruck last Monday with 63 lbs, and I did it in around 29:30, well ahead of the 34 minutes we need to beat.

Listen to your body and rest it when it needs it. And remember: weight loss happens in the kitchen while increased fitness happens in the gym and on the road.

Yesterday afternoon, I went into my gym knowing it was going to be a tough workout. I was reaching close to my failure point on some lifts, and I knew that I was likely going to reach failure in that workout. That made me push harder, because I hate failing at anything. I started the workout, as usual, with Squats. I felt good, and did well, so I was confident about getting past what I knew was going to be a tough set. I also wasn’t going to accept defeat. What that led to was me pushing past a limit I shouldn’t have pushed past on the very last lift of the very last set of 5 Overhead Presses. On that lift, I felt a tinge of pain in my left shoulder blade. It wasn’t a sharp pain; it was more a soreness than a pain, but I felt it and knew I’d hurt myself.

After the Overhead Press, I still had Deadlifts to do, and I got through those without any issues at all (although, in looking at my post-lifting videos, I could tell I was distracted by the shoulder and didn’t have my back arched properly during my deadlifts; I dodged another injury bullet there!). I then went out for a two-mile run which went very well and was actually quite enjoyable.

Then, after my shower and some rest, the pain kicked in. Still, not a sharp pain, but the kind of pain you get when you have a crick in your neck. Only mine is in the Rhomboid region on my left shoulder. So, I took some Ibuprofin and massaged it with a hard pillow as I watched some TV with Sherry.

I was able to get through the night without difficulty, and when I awoke, while my shoulder was sore, I wasn’t stiff. I ate breakfast, took some more Ibuprofin, and now I feel pretty okay as long as I don’t make sudden movements with my neck. That leads me to believe that I have a level 1 strain of the Rhomboid which means I have to take it easy on that shoulder for a week, at least. I will still do my other exercises and runs, but at the end of this week, I will skip the overhead press and repeat my Wednesday workout.

I am also de-loading on Overhead Press and Barbell Row. Those two exercises have me at or near my limits, and I learned a valuable lesson in weightlifting yesterday; when you feel like you’re at your limit, STOP. I’m going to reduce my weights on those two exercises by 15% and start again. I’m still able to get through the Squats, Bench Presses, and Deadlifts just fine for now. I’m getting close to a limit on the three, but I figure I can go another week or two before I reach that limit and de-load.

Lesson learned the hard way (is there any other way?). Now I know to listen to my body more, and to not push past any signs or messages I’m receiving. As I get older, I have to remember to not push as hard as I used to be able to. Not only do I break easier, but it takes longer to heal. In this case, don’t be like me; stop when it gets too hard.

So, we did it. We got through Thanksgving. But we didn’t get through it unscathed. Like most Americans, I ate a lot more than I wanted to, and although it was 100% Paleo, too many calories means some fat storage took place. This weekend I ate all the things and snacked a lot on the Paleo cookies and other goodies we had (salmon dip with Paleo crackers were amazing!).

It’s easy to beat yourself up about decisions made over the holidays. Don’t do it. At this point, it is what it is, and you can’t change any of it. What you can change is today and tomorrow. So, that’s what I’m doing. Where I am today is a direct result of the decisions I’ve made before today, and I have to accept them to move forward. I’ve made peace with all the eating I did, and you know what? I decided that it was worth it because I enjoyed it and the company of my family. It was a great time, and it was what I needed emotionally. I wouldn’t change a thing. But now, what I need both emotionally and physically is to get back to where I’ve been, at least in terms of eating.

I started off the day with a salmon and egg breakfast made by Sherry. Lunch was her meal-prepped chili, and dinner will likely be meal-prepped gumbo. I’m sticking firmly to the portion sizes and no snacking in between meals. The appetite will be a little crazy for the next few days due to the increased carb count I had this weekend, but I know how to get through the cravings and get back on track.

Even though I lifted weights and ran on Saturday (which made it three workouts last week), it wasn’t (and couldn’t be) enough to counteract the extra calories I took in. Like I always say: you can’t out-exercise a bad diet. So, today, it’s back to the normal grind: I will do my weightlifting and run today. I am looking forward to it, not because it’s going to help me lose weight, but because I have really been feeling like I’m finally fit, and I like how it feels. I like getting into the gym and then onto the road for a run not because I particularly enjoy working out, but because I like how I feel in-between the workouts: strong, capable, and fit.

I know getting back to it after a few days off is tough. But, with each day off, it gets harder to get back to it. I won’t make that mistake again; I’m getting right back to it today and I’m not looking back!

This question arises often around this time of year; “How do you deal with Thanksgiving?” For me, it’s easy, because we host Thanksgiving at our home and my wife prepares Paleo-friendly foods along with the non-Paleo foods for our family and friends. However, that may not be the case for everyone else who has to go to someone else’s home for Thanksgiving. Some things I’ve learned at other holidays and parties will help during Thanksgiving or any other social event involving foods.

• Bring your own dish (or two) to a gathering. The vast majority of the time, additional food is welcomed by the host as taking some workload off of them. Make sure to check with the host prior to showing up with food, though.
• Stick to the most basic foods. Meats and vegetables without additional ingredients will be a safe bet.
• Small portions help if there are no safe food choices. Just eat a little bit to show that you’re being polite to your host and acknowledging their effort in making the meal.
• Pre-flight/post-flight. This one caveats off the last point. If you know that the menu will be 100% non-compliant with your diet, eat before you get there. I know this is normally considered kind of rude, but leave enough room to have some small portions of the meal your host provides. That way, like I said above, you can be polite. If you didn’t pre-flight, you can post-flight, which is to have some compliant food after the meal.
• The very last option is to abstain completely from any non-compliant meal. I usually don’t recommend this one unless your diet is more ideological or religion-based, in which case this may be the only option available to you (Halal/Kosher/Vegan/etc).

Depending on how I’m feeling, where I am with my health/fitness, I sometimes allow a bite or two of non-compliant portions. I once had a family member make a side that I absolutely love and used to eat a lot of in the past. This side takes a lot of time to prepare and literally takes days to make properly. For me to say no to that side would have been extremely rude and disrespectful, so I had it. I didn’t even take a tiny portion; I took what I would normally take. I call this, “Taking a bullet.” It gave me some gastric distress, but in the end, I’ll take that bullet for a loved one.

You can get through Thanksgiving without going off the rails. For me, the hardest part of holidays isn’t the non-compliant menu items. My willpower is strong enough now to withstand the temptation. What I have the most trouble with is when there are snacks available. I find myself going back for more and more and more. My mind says, “But it’s just a little piece of date with bacon on it,” but that one turns into three or four or seven, and before I know it, I’ve eaten two days’ worth of calories in the leadup to the main event. Don’t be like me. Stay away from the snack table if this is something you have trouble with as well. I know I will do my best to avoid it.

“What do you do if you just threw your hands up in the air and had all the great foods at Thanksgiving anyway?” Good question. What I do is say, “Oh well” and start anew at the very next meal. That’s right; we all slip up. We all have moments of weakness, or we sometimes have to just go along and do things we don’t necessarily want to do. That applies to sticking with diets. Will you gain all 110 lbs you’ve lost over the last year back in one meal? No. Will that one meal cause a domino effect that will keep you from eating right from now on? Of course not. Just don’t beat yourself up emotionally for eating non-compliant foods. Enjoy it, have fun with your family, and at the next possible meal, get back on track. It’s easy. Just do it.

So, that’s my pep talk for Thanksgiving. You’ve got strategies and plans. Stick to them if you can, but if you can’t; so be it. I wish you all lots of love, friendship, and happiness over the coming days.

On Monday, I talked about pushing through adversity and framing your mind for success, but did I actually follow through with my own advice? The answer is: YES! I did it! I went and did my push-ups, pull-ups, leg-tucks, StrongLifts 5×5 weightlifting workout followed by a 2-mile foot march (aka “Ruck March”) with a 63 lbs ruck sack.

Why was my ruck sack so heavy? It was a mistake on my part. I wanted it to weight about 50 lbs since the minimum weight we have to carry on our timed foot marches is 48 lbs, but I miscalculated and put too much weight in mine. No worries; I still went out there and did the two miles. I even completed it within the required time. For me to pass, I have to complete the 2-mile foot march within 34 minutes and 20 seconds and I completed it in 29 minutes and 50 seconds. Not a lot of wiggle room, but considering I exceeded the weight we need to carry by 15 lbs, I’m okay with my time.

Pep talks are all well and good, and anyone can be a cheerleader. The strength within comes from following that advice; listening to the pep talk, especially when it’s not easy or when it feels like the obstacles are overwhelming. Yesterday, I felt worn out and my muscles were still sore from the weekend, but I pushed through and did it anyway. It ended up being a great decision. I did exceptionally well in my push-ups (I hit my goal of 20+), leg tucks (I did 6!), pull-ups (I did 5), and my weightlifting went better than I thought it would. The foot march also went better than I thought it would with my heartrate staying in the 129-135 range.

Bottom line: I wasn’t really wanting to do the work, but I did it anyway, and as always, I felt better afterward both physically and mentally.

Mind over matter. You’ve heard this, read this, and might have even said this to someone else at some point. In the military, we turn that into, “Embrace the suck,” which is to say that in the misery of the moment, learn to find something in it that you can cling to, and to maybe even enjoy. Maybe not in the moment, but later, when you can say, “That 6 mile road march was hell, but it felt really good to cross that finish line.”

Speaking of road marches, I found myself embracing the suck in October during a 3.1 mile road march with a 54 lbs pack on my back, carrying an 8 lbs M4 rifle, and wearing a helmet. It was around 5:45 a.m., and there I was, alternating between a light run and walking as fast as my little 28 inch legs would carry me. A person’s mind wanders all over the place during one of these road marches, but I try to keep my mind focused on the task at hand which was completing the event within the time required; in this case, 53 minutes.

In one of the moments between light runs, I started smiling, but not because the road march was particularly fun. To the contrary, road marches are tough endurance events, and I had packed my rucksack too heavy (I had made it harder on myself on purpose because subsequent road marches will require 48 lbs, and I wanted to make sure I could do it). I started smiling because I thought of all the people I know who are my age and with whom I served in the Marines. The vast majority of those Marines have told me that they wished that they could still serve, still get out there and do the hard work, still get out there and wear the uniform. And there I was, doing just that. It was hard. It was miserable. It was testing my endurance and willpower, but there I was: making it happen, and still in the military at my age.

I also smiled because I was succeeding. I kept track of the time, and I knew where I needed to be by the half-way point, and I was way ahead of schedule. I kept pushing on the second half, knowing that I had all day to rest after the event was done. The weather was actually perfect, and although I hadn’t slept well the night before, I had banked some sleep in the weeks prior to this road march, so I was feeling energetic and mentally sharp. Putting all these positives together overcame the discomfort of the heavy pack and my legs burning from exertion. All the preparation was paying off. This is why I run and lift; to make these events easy.

It’s easy to allow yourself to get overwhelmed with negativity while going through big changes. A new diet, adopting a new lifestyle, a new fitness plan; all of these bring about new challenges, difficulties, and discomfort. It’s how you handle them that differentiates you from those who only tried and failed. I’ve said before that the hardest part in taking on a new lifestyle or fitness plan is starting. It’s even harder to start a workout when you’re sore from the last one. It’s harder to start on meal prep when you have flu-like symptoms from cutting the sugar out of your diet. But it’s the push-through to actually get going that gets you to success. It’s pushing the discomfort or the challenge aside and making the conscious decision to keep at it anyway.

That’s where I am today. I wasn’t sore yesterday from the kayaking and mountain biking we did on Saturday, but I am today. I had planned on my daily Army preparation drill (I’m trying to learn them all because I need to lead PRT at my next WOCS drill) followed by my StrongLifts 5×5 weightlifting workout and then a 2 mile roard march with a rucksack filled with 48 lbs of weight. When I woke up, I thought to myself, “Maybe I need another day to rest these old muscles,” but then that other voice in my head said, “Nah. You aren’t having any injury pain, just exerted muscle pain. Push through, be safe, and continue on the path.” That second voice? That one isn’t nearly as loud as the first one, and it takes some practice to hear it, but that’s the one to listen to. That’s the voice of reason and logic, and it’s easy to miss in the cacophany of emotions and feelings.

In this case, it’s mind over matter, or embracing the suck. Do my muscles hurt? Absolutely, and they hurt all over. But I’m going to get out there and get it done anyway. The same will apply to Thanksgiving this week. Will there be food on the table that I know is delicious but not Paleo? Yes. But I will stick to my Paleo foods, I will stay on-track, and I will continue to fuel my body with the best foods possible to keep myself healthy. It’ll be a challenge, but this won’t be my first rodeo.

This weekend, my wife Sherry and I went camping at Huntsville State Park in Texas, and we took our Tucktec kayaks and our bikes with us. We were hoping to get some time on the water with our new kayaks, and I was hoping for some trail time with the bikes. Fortunately, the weather was perfect, and we were able to do both!

Breakfast was Paleo pumpkin spice pancakes and sausage made from scratch by Sherry. As always, the meal was yummy and just what we needed to fuel our morning activity: kayaking. We assembled our kayaks (the Tucktecs are foldable which make them easy to store and carry in the back of our 4Runner), and put them into the water. We ended up kayaking for nearly four hours, up one side of Lake Raven and down the other before heading back to our campsite for lunch. I did have one close call; I tried to grab Sherry’s kayak as a joke and almost capsized. My kayak took on a lot of water, and I was pretty wet below the waist, but I was able to get the kayak righted without falling in. It was a scary couple of moments, but it was a good lesson for two reasons:

1. I was reminded to not mess around when in the kayak.
2. I learned that the Tucktecs are very stable, but it’s still a kayak, and if you try to do something out of the norm, you can find yourself in trouble quickly.

After kayaking, we were hungry, so we had our standard camping/overlanding lunch of Hungarian “Sport” sausage (known as Gyulai in Hungarian) along with some green onions, red pepper, Paleo bread with butter, and radishes. This quick and light lunch is always just enough to give us some calories without weighing us down.

After lunch, I aired up the tires of the bikes and we hit the trails. This was a challenge, as there are lots of hills with tree roots on them, so while going down them can be bumpy, going up them is treacherous. Fortunately, I grew up trail riding, so for me, it was pretty easy and fun. Sherry had a much more difficult time with it, but in the end, she prevailed and did very well!

After biking, Sherry showered (thankfully we have a Waterport and a Tough Stuff Overland shower curtain attached to the 4Runner) and made us an amazing Paleo pizza dinner. For dessert, we had a Paleo brownie that she made Friday night after our dinner. It was the perfect end to a perfect day filled with activity.

Five years ago, before I did my first Whole30 and adopted the Paleo lifestyle, I never could have even considered a day like this, let alone attempt it. I was so overweight and out of shape that there’d be no way I could safely operate the kayak let alone work my arms for four hours straight. The same goes for the biking up and down those hills and along the trails. Thankfully, now that I’m healthier and fit, the day was great and fun and it didn’t physically waste me. To the contrary, waking up this morning, I felt great, and my muscles were happy with the workout.

When you change your lifestyle and adopt a healthier diet and throw some fitness in there, your entire life follows suit, and things you couldn’t even fathom become realities. I never thought I could be an “Adventure person,” yet here I am, along with my wife, doing all kinds of fun things outdoors. We decided we really enjoyed the kayaks and we will be taking them with us more often, making sure to find places where we can use them in the future.

In other words, making progress is more important than quick progress. Think about it; if you want to go to the store, it’s more important for you to turn towards the store and drive slowly than it is to drive quickly if you’re headed in the wrong direction. Making progress with your health and fitness is no different.

People always want the most results in the least amount of time. I get it. We’re all busy, and we are all impatient. We want to see the weight loss, we want to see the muscle gains, we want to have it all, and we want it now!

However, I’m fairly certain that you didn’t get overweight or unfit very quickly; it took time. In my case, it took me 20 years to get to 320 lbs. How could I expect to lose 150 lbs quickly? Fortunately, I didn’t have any expectations for either the amount of weight I could lose or the period of time it would take. I just wanted to be healthy; weight loss was a bonus. I never imagined I could lose 130 lbs in one year, but that’s how it turned out, and I think it’s because my focus was on overall health and not on the scale.

When you focus on overall health and consider all the data points, outliers can be easily dismissed. What’s an outlier in overall health? A rise in the scale for a day or three. Some bloating. Maybe feeling tired or worn down even after a full night’s rest. When taken as one part of a whole, you still see progress happening. Case in point: when I’m being strict with my diet because I want to lose weight, I find that I never lose inches off my waist and pounds on the scale at the same time. It’s like a pendulum, and it’s either one or the other for me.

As I continue my health journey, I keep looking at all the data points: how do I feel? How do my clothes fit? What’s my 2-mile run time? What is the max weight I can squat, bench, or lift? How many pull-ups am I able to do? What’s my weight? What’s my resting heart rate? Most of them will align, and one or two will not meet expectations, but it’s easy to get past that and stay motivated when everything else is looking good.

This past Monday, my runtime was horrible even though my weightlifting went exceptionally well. My weight was also a little higher than I’d like due to indulging in some non-Paleo food and drink this weekend at the Renaissance Festival, but that was expected and I knew it was coming. Taken together with all the other health data points, I decided I was still doing well, still on-track, and it kept me motivated. If anything, seeing setbacks like a higher weight or slower runtime pushes me to do better; to eat better, to push harder, to run faster.

The one thing I never allow myself to do is to try to cheat for better results. I never starve myself, I never overdo my exercise sessions, and I don’t take any pills, powders, patches, and I’ve never had any medical procedures to aid in my health journey. As the old advertisement used to say, I do things the old fashioned way; I earn them.

Don’t set time goals when it comes to your health. Set a direction and don’t let anything stop you. If things are moving slower than you’d like, don’t get discouraged. Keep going. Keep making that progress. Eventually, your hard work will be rewarded and you will start to see the results you’re looking for.