Let me preface this blog by making the usual and necessary statements that remind you that this is nothing resembling medical advice. As with any lifestyle, dietary, or other change you implement, consult a professional with any questions or concerns before you begin. It seems this is necessary oneself of legal recourse these days…
I am also going to say that I have set myself up for “health success” by being very active for my entire life. As a kid, I grew up on a farm, so when I wasn’t pitching in on tasks around the farm, I was running through the woods, building forts, and riding my one gear bike up very large hills in my surrounding area. From there, I went on to wrestle as a middle schooler, and VERY briefly in high school. After an injury ended that run, I started playing racquetball and I was a competitive athlete in that sport until age 30. After retiring from competition myself, I started coaching and continued to train and play at a high level in order to keep my players sharp and pull them up to another level. By building a very high-level athletic base as a benchmark for my own fitness, I am now in the position to have a fitness level that bounces back very quickly if I do take time off, and I retain a high level of fitness without a ton of work. It has been a lifestyle of fitness and good health, not a fad diet here and there hoping for good results.
Anyway, many people are looking to find ways to be healthier these days, but there is a lot of information out there that just seems to complicate and confuse everyone. Here are four core things to pay attention to that will have a lot of positive impact. The Standard American Diet (SAD, ironically enough) is the cause of a lot of the issues that people suffer from. According to the American Heart Association, as many as 697,000 people died in 2020 from cardiovascular diseases. Read this paper from the AMA that summarizes these and more stats that are staggering to say the least. And I say staggering because ALMOST ALL OF THESE deaths are preventable if addressed early enough through better diet and exercise. That is the sad part, much of these conditions, along with the massive expense that accompany them, could be avoided.
Alright, so let’s get into the things I focus on that may help you as well.
Exercise – this is an easy one to point fingers at, as many people just don’t move their bodies enough on a regular basis. Too many people have desk jobs, drive everywhere, and sit on the couch every evening watching some mind-numbing TV show and worse yet, the nightly news. Some studies show that working out first thing in the day will set your metabolism higher and you’ll burn more fat throughout the day. I am not sure if this is true, but I can tell you from personal experience that working out in the morning done, you are going to get more workouts per week in. When I wait to get to the gym in the middle of the day or at night, it is 50/50 at best. When I get my butt out of bed and work out in the morning, I know I am meeting my goals to stay on track.
Over the course of my life, I have worked out in different ways, depending on what my goals were at the time. For years, I was trying to gain weight, and I was skinny. I grew up this way; I wrestled at 98 pounds my freshman year in high school. As a freshman in college, I weighed about 120 pounds at a height of 5’7″. Once I retired from Pro Racquetball, I stopped burning more calories than I could consume in a day, so I gained about 10 pounds of muscle in the year after retiring at age 30. Slowly I worked my way up from 133 pounds to 165 where I am today. Much of this was heavy lifting, and of course supported by the diet to go with it.
I still lift heavy weights, just not as ambitiously as I did earlier in life. At age 54, I have switched things up dramatically for two reasons. First, I have stepped away from the game of racquetball, leaving my coaching duties and any time on the court behind. After 35 years, it was time to move on. So, the need to train the way I used to is no longer there. The second reason is that the HIIT style training and heavy lifting is the best approach aligned with longevity. I am putting a serious emphasis on training geared more towards endurance and aerobic capacity, and helping to ensure I am not damaging my body as I try to keep it in shape. Now I am working on Zone 2 training, more hiking and less stacking weights onto a bar that will sit on my shoulders. I made it out of my racquetball career with ZERO physical issues; I have good knees, no low back issues and I have no elbow or shoulder pain or injuries, despite playing racquetball competitively for over 30 years.
On an average day of training, I am getting a mix of steady cardio for a 30 minute plus duration, and then I am lifting moderately heavy weights. I use the two body parts per session approach, and I do this a couple of days a week. For me, again with a lifetime of a base built up, this is enough to have me in good shape year round, good enough to hike Mount Humphreys with no additional training needed.
My suggested takeaway from this is that you find a workout routine that suits your current fitness level and will take you to the next level as well. You need to have goals in place and you need to have a reason to get to the gym. Willpower and Motivation are not good things to rely on; get systems in place that help you succeed. Remove as much friction to the process as possible and make this part of your lifestyle.
Physical Fitness is social currency; everyone knows you can’t buy six pack abs or muscular forearms. As Scott Galloway says: “In your 20’s and 30’s as a guy you should be able to walk into a room and know you could kill and eat everyone in there or at least outrun them all.” Truer words have never been spoken…
Diet: Next thing I focus on for my own health is protein intake. I tried the vegetarian thing for a year, and I bench pressed more that summer than ever before. However, it was a ton of work and I am sure I was not getting enough quality protein using this approach. It did not seem to diminish my energy levels, but I felt that I didn’t recover as quickly from hard workouts and I did not put on any muscle during that year. I had consistently added muscles to the tune of about 3-5 pounds a year for the past decade, but nothing during the year-long experiment. The good news is I got over my eating disorder and returned to eating like pretty much every other human society on the planet. You have no hope of changing my mind on this, as I have done my research, did give the vegetarian lifestyle a try, and came to my own conclusions. One of my conclusions is that you can survive without meat, but thriving is a different story. And the bioavailability of pea protein versus animal protein is not even close. Here is an article from WebMD that touches on this topic; please make your own decisions as to what is best for you and then do that.
I have now done a true animal-based diet for a year and have been MUCH happier with the results than my vegetarian phase. My gut issues subsided, I feel better, look better and leaner, as I had added another 3.5 pounds of lean muscle to my frame. I did straight, strict carnivore for 30 days and it was a great reset of my system for sure. I truly believe this would be a great thing for almost anyone to do. It will teach you a lot about how much you have been misinformed over the years and what your body really needs. Highly recommend. If you get to the point in life where you can subscribe to ButcherBox or a similar meat delivery service and live on rib eye steaks as your primary intake, life is grand.
And of course I would be remise if I didn’t add in water intake as a big boost to your physical and mental wellbeing. It is so easy to drink things other than water, and most of those things are doing far more harm than good. Excess calories, sugar, caffeine and more all tax the body and mind. Proper hydration is crucial, don’t sleep on it.
Sleep: Nice segue, huh? Sleep is such an important component for a healthy mind and body. I wear a Garmin watch that tracks my sleep and other activity levels daily. I knew I had some mild sleep issues for much of my life, but I had no idea just how bad it was until I started tracking it. This sent me down a rabbit hole of trying to find the cause and the solutions for it. I am getting close, but I still have a fair amount of nights where my duration of sleep is not great, and my body recovery is half of what it should be. No wonder I hate getting up early and going to the gym, my body is not recovered yet. I just did a saliva-based cortisol test to see what my levels are like, and it appears this may be the culprit. I am trying some new supplements as I write this to see if this solves my issues.
In my college days, I know I did not sleep well at all; too much to do and not enough time to do it. This included partying and working and playing racquetball tournaments and occasionally attending class as well. I don’t know if I created the issues from this phase of my life or not, but I do know I am working hard to reverse this trend, as it is not serving me well.
Work: Unless you inherited a bunch of money along the way, you have to have a job to pay your bills. Here are some things to consider that you may not leap to on your own. First, what lifestyle do you want to live? Do you need to have a job that pays you $125K a year, but works you 60+ hours a week? How many attorneys do you know (if any) that have a reasonable work/life balance. Please consider getting your true lifestyle level figured out and find a job that facilitates that lifestyle. At this stage of my career, I could probably make twice as much money working elsewhere, but then I would give up much of the lifestyle I have which is far more important to me. What good is a ton of money without the time to spend and enjoy it?
And I can you this from experience as well…lose the idea that you need to follow your passion and make it a job. I did that, and it killed the thing I loved most at that time of my life. Being a Pro Racquetball Player sounds cool, and it was for a bit, but it also became a grind. The sport I grew up playing and looking forward to every day became a chore and a burden to bear. It was brutal by the end of my career and I burned out because of it. Please learn from my mistakes…chase your talent and make money and lifestyle so you can pursue your passion(s) on the side. You will be much happier…I am sure of it.
Love: Choosing a partner is the most important decision you ever make, and far too many people do it too soon in life. None of us know who we really are, what we stand for and what we want out of life before age 30. I am a huge advocate of waiting to get married until age 30, as I have seen far too many relationships fail a few years in. Now you are starting over, splitting up everything you have, sharing custody of kids, etc. and life is tougher. It’s not impossible, as plenty of people end up here and still make it work. But you know I am not a fan of doing what everyone else does and so following the herd is not going to be on my list of options. Personally, I waited until I was 47 to get married; I met my wife when I was 42 and we dated for a good amount of time before we moved things forward. It was love at first sight, with a slow walk to the alter. We are happier now than ever, and we have been through a few tough times that we knew we were compatible enough to handle together. We have the same financial goals, desires around lifestyle and neither of us wanted kids. She is the partner I waited all these years for, and it was well worth the wait.
The divorce rate is 50%ish for first marriages and worse for second tries. I believe that too many people choose a partner too early in life and they grow apart. Men are especially guilty of prioritizing the prettiest girl they can find to be with, and this does not always lend itself to a successful long-term relationship. Looks fade, bodies change after a couple of kids. Now the main reason you chose someone is different, not to mention that for every child you add to the list, you as the husband slide down the list one more spot. Add a dog into the mix and you are bottom of the ladder at your house, but likely the one working the most to pay the bills and spending the least amount of time with everyone. It’s a crazy set up we have gotten ourselves into, but it is optional…keep that in mind. Do it your own way, not the way that “society” says we should. My wife is ten years younger than I, but you’d never know the way we act together. We have a model relationship in my opinion, great communication and very few issues. She has friends and things she does without me, and I have the same. We do plenty together as well. Choose wisely and you’ll be able to say the same.
I know this was a longer than usual post, but if you got all the way to here, congratulations. While there are no guarantees in life, I do firmly believe that these five core tenets will serve you very well throughout. As always, I wish you luck in your endeavors.
by Darrin Schenck
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by Darrin Schenck
Share
Let me preface this blog by making the usual and necessary statements that remind you that this is nothing resembling medical advice. As with any lifestyle, dietary, or other change you implement, consult a professional with any questions or concerns before you begin. It seems this is necessary oneself of legal recourse these days…
I am also going to say that I have set myself up for “health success” by being very active for my entire life. As a kid, I grew up on a farm, so when I wasn’t pitching in on tasks around the farm, I was running through the woods, building forts, and riding my one gear bike up very large hills in my surrounding area. From there, I went on to wrestle as a middle schooler, and VERY briefly in high school. After an injury ended that run, I started playing racquetball and I was a competitive athlete in that sport until age 30. After retiring from competition myself, I started coaching and continued to train and play at a high level in order to keep my players sharp and pull them up to another level. By building a very high-level athletic base as a benchmark for my own fitness, I am now in the position to have a fitness level that bounces back very quickly if I do take time off, and I retain a high level of fitness without a ton of work. It has been a lifestyle of fitness and good health, not a fad diet here and there hoping for good results.
Anyway, many people are looking to find ways to be healthier these days, but there is a lot of information out there that just seems to complicate and confuse everyone. Here are four core things to pay attention to that will have a lot of positive impact. The Standard American Diet (SAD, ironically enough) is the cause of a lot of the issues that people suffer from. According to the American Heart Association, as many as 697,000 people died in 2020 from cardiovascular diseases. Read this paper from the AMA that summarizes these and more stats that are staggering to say the least. And I say staggering because ALMOST ALL OF THESE deaths are preventable if addressed early enough through better diet and exercise. That is the sad part, much of these conditions, along with the massive expense that accompany them, could be avoided.
Alright, so let’s get into the things I focus on that may help you as well.
Exercise – this is an easy one to point fingers at, as many people just don’t move their bodies enough on a regular basis. Too many people have desk jobs, drive everywhere, and sit on the couch every evening watching some mind-numbing TV show and worse yet, the nightly news. Some studies show that working out first thing in the day will set your metabolism higher and you’ll burn more fat throughout the day. I am not sure if this is true, but I can tell you from personal experience that working out in the morning done, you are going to get more workouts per week in. When I wait to get to the gym in the middle of the day or at night, it is 50/50 at best. When I get my butt out of bed and work out in the morning, I know I am meeting my goals to stay on track.
Over the course of my life, I have worked out in different ways, depending on what my goals were at the time. For years, I was trying to gain weight, and I was skinny. I grew up this way; I wrestled at 98 pounds my freshman year in high school. As a freshman in college, I weighed about 120 pounds at a height of 5’7″. Once I retired from Pro Racquetball, I stopped burning more calories than I could consume in a day, so I gained about 10 pounds of muscle in the year after retiring at age 30. Slowly I worked my way up from 133 pounds to 165 where I am today. Much of this was heavy lifting, and of course supported by the diet to go with it.
I still lift heavy weights, just not as ambitiously as I did earlier in life. At age 54, I have switched things up dramatically for two reasons. First, I have stepped away from the game of racquetball, leaving my coaching duties and any time on the court behind. After 35 years, it was time to move on. So, the need to train the way I used to is no longer there. The second reason is that the HIIT style training and heavy lifting is the best approach aligned with longevity. I am putting a serious emphasis on training geared more towards endurance and aerobic capacity, and helping to ensure I am not damaging my body as I try to keep it in shape. Now I am working on Zone 2 training, more hiking and less stacking weights onto a bar that will sit on my shoulders. I made it out of my racquetball career with ZERO physical issues; I have good knees, no low back issues and I have no elbow or shoulder pain or injuries, despite playing racquetball competitively for over 30 years.
On an average day of training, I am getting a mix of steady cardio for a 30 minute plus duration, and then I am lifting moderately heavy weights. I use the two body parts per session approach, and I do this a couple of days a week. For me, again with a lifetime of a base built up, this is enough to have me in good shape year round, good enough to hike Mount Humphreys with no additional training needed.
My suggested takeaway from this is that you find a workout routine that suits your current fitness level and will take you to the next level as well. You need to have goals in place and you need to have a reason to get to the gym. Willpower and Motivation are not good things to rely on; get systems in place that help you succeed. Remove as much friction to the process as possible and make this part of your lifestyle.
Physical Fitness is social currency; everyone knows you can’t buy six pack abs or muscular forearms. As Scott Galloway says: “In your 20’s and 30’s as a guy you should be able to walk into a room and know you could kill and eat everyone in there or at least outrun them all.” Truer words have never been spoken…
Diet: Next thing I focus on for my own health is protein intake. I tried the vegetarian thing for a year, and I bench pressed more that summer than ever before. However, it was a ton of work and I am sure I was not getting enough quality protein using this approach. It did not seem to diminish my energy levels, but I felt that I didn’t recover as quickly from hard workouts and I did not put on any muscle during that year. I had consistently added muscles to the tune of about 3-5 pounds a year for the past decade, but nothing during the year-long experiment. The good news is I got over my eating disorder and returned to eating like pretty much every other human society on the planet. You have no hope of changing my mind on this, as I have done my research, did give the vegetarian lifestyle a try, and came to my own conclusions. One of my conclusions is that you can survive without meat, but thriving is a different story. And the bioavailability of pea protein versus animal protein is not even close. Here is an article from WebMD that touches on this topic; please make your own decisions as to what is best for you and then do that.
I have now done a true animal-based diet for a year and have been MUCH happier with the results than my vegetarian phase. My gut issues subsided, I feel better, look better and leaner, as I had added another 3.5 pounds of lean muscle to my frame. I did straight, strict carnivore for 30 days and it was a great reset of my system for sure. I truly believe this would be a great thing for almost anyone to do. It will teach you a lot about how much you have been misinformed over the years and what your body really needs. Highly recommend. If you get to the point in life where you can subscribe to ButcherBox or a similar meat delivery service and live on rib eye steaks as your primary intake, life is grand.
And of course I would be remise if I didn’t add in water intake as a big boost to your physical and mental wellbeing. It is so easy to drink things other than water, and most of those things are doing far more harm than good. Excess calories, sugar, caffeine and more all tax the body and mind. Proper hydration is crucial, don’t sleep on it.
Sleep: Nice segue, huh? Sleep is such an important component for a healthy mind and body. I wear a Garmin watch that tracks my sleep and other activity levels daily. I knew I had some mild sleep issues for much of my life, but I had no idea just how bad it was until I started tracking it. This sent me down a rabbit hole of trying to find the cause and the solutions for it. I am getting close, but I still have a fair amount of nights where my duration of sleep is not great, and my body recovery is half of what it should be. No wonder I hate getting up early and going to the gym, my body is not recovered yet. I just did a saliva-based cortisol test to see what my levels are like, and it appears this may be the culprit. I am trying some new supplements as I write this to see if this solves my issues.
In my college days, I know I did not sleep well at all; too much to do and not enough time to do it. This included partying and working and playing racquetball tournaments and occasionally attending class as well. I don’t know if I created the issues from this phase of my life or not, but I do know I am working hard to reverse this trend, as it is not serving me well.
Work: Unless you inherited a bunch of money along the way, you have to have a job to pay your bills. Here are some things to consider that you may not leap to on your own. First, what lifestyle do you want to live? Do you need to have a job that pays you $125K a year, but works you 60+ hours a week? How many attorneys do you know (if any) that have a reasonable work/life balance. Please consider getting your true lifestyle level figured out and find a job that facilitates that lifestyle. At this stage of my career, I could probably make twice as much money working elsewhere, but then I would give up much of the lifestyle I have which is far more important to me. What good is a ton of money without the time to spend and enjoy it?
And I can you this from experience as well…lose the idea that you need to follow your passion and make it a job. I did that, and it killed the thing I loved most at that time of my life. Being a Pro Racquetball Player sounds cool, and it was for a bit, but it also became a grind. The sport I grew up playing and looking forward to every day became a chore and a burden to bear. It was brutal by the end of my career and I burned out because of it. Please learn from my mistakes…chase your talent and make money and lifestyle so you can pursue your passion(s) on the side. You will be much happier…I am sure of it.
Love: Choosing a partner is the most important decision you ever make, and far too many people do it too soon in life. None of us know who we really are, what we stand for and what we want out of life before age 30. I am a huge advocate of waiting to get married until age 30, as I have seen far too many relationships fail a few years in. Now you are starting over, splitting up everything you have, sharing custody of kids, etc. and life is tougher. It’s not impossible, as plenty of people end up here and still make it work. But you know I am not a fan of doing what everyone else does and so following the herd is not going to be on my list of options. Personally, I waited until I was 47 to get married; I met my wife when I was 42 and we dated for a good amount of time before we moved things forward. It was love at first sight, with a slow walk to the alter. We are happier now than ever, and we have been through a few tough times that we knew we were compatible enough to handle together. We have the same financial goals, desires around lifestyle and neither of us wanted kids. She is the partner I waited all these years for, and it was well worth the wait.
The divorce rate is 50%ish for first marriages and worse for second tries. I believe that too many people choose a partner too early in life and they grow apart. Men are especially guilty of prioritizing the prettiest girl they can find to be with, and this does not always lend itself to a successful long-term relationship. Looks fade, bodies change after a couple of kids. Now the main reason you chose someone is different, not to mention that for every child you add to the list, you as the husband slide down the list one more spot. Add a dog into the mix and you are bottom of the ladder at your house, but likely the one working the most to pay the bills and spending the least amount of time with everyone. It’s a crazy set up we have gotten ourselves into, but it is optional…keep that in mind. Do it your own way, not the way that “society” says we should. My wife is ten years younger than I, but you’d never know the way we act together. We have a model relationship in my opinion, great communication and very few issues. She has friends and things she does without me, and I have the same. We do plenty together as well. Choose wisely and you’ll be able to say the same.
I know this was a longer than usual post, but if you got all the way to here, congratulations. While there are no guarantees in life, I do firmly believe that these five core tenets will serve you very well throughout. As always, I wish you luck in your endeavors.
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