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Strong Medicine
(How to demolish disease, extend your life, and tap into your true genetic potential as a Man).
“It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable” – Socrates
The wisdom in this quote goes un noticed by many. Sadly these days the norm for most men is survival at best. Survival through work, at home, and in life in general. We have fallen as men into reactive state where we neglect our health until a problem is evident. The brutal truth for for many men is the problem can be the end.
What is health? There are many definitions such as…. absence of disease, falling into a number range for your height and weight, being not as fat as your other guys friends etc. Health has become a set of numbers, a series of tests, and a way to justify poor life and nutritional choices. How many times do men defend their body weight with “yeh but my blood pressures good” we lie and deceive ourselves from the truth that we as men have become soft and weak. We easily throw excuses and justify our actions based on our current situation or how stressful life is. Get the F over it and get over yourself, Health is a state a being and right now most of our states suck. Health, vitality, and a long life start with you standing in a mirror pointing at yourself and saying I’m the problem, I get Into my own way, I lie to myself and make excuses. The sooner you own your current health state the sooner I can help you break free and become a damn powerful, strong and free man.
The truth is simple, your flesh machine (body) on a cellular level (literally you are made up of billions of these tiny cells) and you are either giving them what they need to grow, repair, and replicate or you aren’t and your starving them and they are dying and or damaged. So you are either giving your body it needs or you aren’t. The body is an adaptive machine meaning we endure stressors all day and our body either adapts to handle them and make us smarter and stronger or it doesn’t and our bodies begin to breakdown slowly until we become sick, in pain, or dead.
I like to think that Heath as I mentioned before is a state of being. We flow in and out of different states all throughout our lives. We are not invincible but we can get pretty darn close. Learning that health is a lifelong pursuit is key to our long term success and our future generations. We literally pass our habits, genes, and health to our off spring. We all have a duty to ourselves, our family, and our fellow man to do all we can to help our Flesh Machine thrive and be productive for as long as we breathe on this earth.
Okay, now that I have said my peace lets get into the how. I’m going to lay out strategies to help you unlock the man you have always wanted to be. Remember hope is not a strategy. A strategy requires a plan and a plan requires a set of rules and tools for us to accomplish our mission. The most important part of your mission is to know your enemy. Our mission if you choose to except it….. is to bring ourselves into an optimal state of being within our health.
There are 3 domains of Health for the Flesh Machine and they are:
The Mind
Literal Definition: The mind is a set of cognitive faculties including consciousness, perception, thinking, judgement, language and memory. It is usually defined as the faculty of an entity’s thoughts and consciousness. It holds the power of imagination, recognition, and appreciation, and is responsible for processing feelings and emotions, resulting in attitudes and actions.
My Definition: What you see, think, and know to be true, Your Reality.
The Body
Literal Definition: The human body is the entire structure of a human being. It is composed of many different types of cells that together create tissues and subsequently organ systems. They ensure homeostasis and the viability of the human body.
My Definition: The flesh Machine your physical reflection in the mirror.
The Spirit
Literal Definition: The human spirit is a component of human philosophy, psychology, art, and knowledge – the spiritual or mental part of humanity. While the term can be used with the same meaning as “human soul”, human spirit is sometimes used to refer to the impersonal, universal or higher component of human nature in contrast to soul or psyche which can refer to the ego or lower element. The human spirit includes our intellect, emotions, fears, passions, and creativity.
My Definition: this is you, that voice inside yourself, that thing that causes you to create and do awesome things, this is your internal guide.
As I mentioned earlier you need to know your enemy and this article your enemy is anything that causes your mind, body, or spirit not function the way it was created too. Each of these systems have unique functions and when we learn that they are all deeply connected we can unlock our flesh machine to do unbelievable things!!!
Manstrategy 101
I will include strategies below to help you unlock each of your 3 health domains.
The Mind
Lets tackle the mind first, it all starts with your thoughts. There is a famous quote “A man is the total sum of his thoughts. Think about it you have the power to literally create and do anything you want and with that power comes great responsibility. What you think creates actions and actions create habits and habits are everything. We all have habits good and bad. A strong mind is a calm mind and with all the distractions thrown at us daily our minds are usually a cluttered mess. We must learn how to calm our minds. Clarity takes practice and patience. This is why so many great men and leaders meditate. Meditation is the key to tying all 3 domains together. Meditation can be as simple as a prayer, quite time, or breathing and listening to relaxing tunes. There are many ways to do it and each person has a unique way that they achieve the calm mind.
Here are a few tips:
- Read frequently. Learning new things makes your mind grow and expand.
- Do things outside your comfort zone.
- Set aside time to just be with your mind in the quiet.
- Practice letting your thoughts come and go. Your mind is like a busy street just sit back and watch the traffic.
- Get in a position you can relax your body. This could be sitting, lying down etc. There isn’t a wrong way to do it just get comfortable.
- Breathe deeply as if your pulling in all the good in the world and pushing out all the bad.
- Get outside early in the morning and just walk around and connect with yourself and nature.
- Make your thoughts good thoughts and avoid negativity about yourself and others.
- Absolutely eliminate negative self talk. Ex. I suck, my job sucks, traffic sucks. Find as many things as you can to appreciate and speak these things to yourself. What you say will become what you do.
- Lastly there are multiple apps that can help such as Head Space or Simple Habit.
The Body
Next is the body, there is so much information out there so I’m going to keep this as simple as possible. Key elements for the body are Movement and Recovery. Each of these encompass several categories.
Movement- How you move and train your body.
Recovery- everything else after you train.
Movement
- Get clear on exactly what you want. Ex. Weight loss, Strength, Pain Free movement etc. Write down exactly what you want from your flesh machine then don’t stop until you get it then re evaluate set new goals and repeat.
- When it comes to physical training move your body as much as possible in as many unique ways as possible. The body was created to move that’s why we have feet and joints. Despite what most people think our asses were made for moving literally your glutes (butt cheeks) are a big thick muscle that helps you move they weren’t made for sitting. Think about how well children move, they don’t warm up or get on a treadmill they get outside and run, crawl, climb, jump, and get dirty. Train like a kid. What we really need is more Adult Play grounds.
- Don’t workout TRAIN!!! Anyone can go shuffle around a gym and workout but when you train you set goals and you train for them.
- Make your training progressive. That means if its easy do more, run harder, squat a little heavier.
- Get outside and flip tires, run, carry weird things, make your body suffer a little bit so it can adapt and become stronger.
- Condition your body don’t just do cardio. You need a blend of both. Cardio is steady state work like walking or running 3 miles. Conditioning is burst or maximal effort intervals like FRAN, or Sprint Circuits. There are many ways to do both of these. Just remember conditioning is for predators, cardio is for prey. Train like a predator.
- Mobility is crucial to pain free movement and high human performance. Mobility is a fancy word for moving really well the way your joints muscles are made to move in a full range of motion. You should work on mobility every day.
- Go or walks frequently in the morning and after meals.
Recovery
- “Don’t be a human garbage can.” I got that advice from a former Special Forces Operator. If you put garbage in your body (fast food, tons of sugar, processed food, and so forth) you will look and feel like garbage. Your body needs as much good nutritious food as you can give it. You won’t get fat loading up on veggies trust me I’ve tried. If you can get foods directly from the source like a farmers market. The closer to the ground you can get the more nutritious the food. If you cant then do some research make the best choices you can when buying groceries. Remember your choices impact everyone around you.
- Avoid at all cost vegetable oils (canola etc) and sugar. These are literally poison to your body. Watch how vegetable oils are made on youtube. And science has proven that cancer cells love sugar. Moderation is key. Will a piece of pie kill you? No!!! your body is awesome and durable but pie everyday will cause some serious damage to the flesh machine.
- READ THE DAMN FOOD LABLES!!!! Why would you not want to know exactly what goes in your body.
- Make your food as nutrient dense and calorically light possible. This means don’t waste your calories on poor nutrient food. Ex. Honey Buns are delicious but they have very little nutrients and tons of calories. Broccoli is loaded with nutrients and has much less calories.
- Remember calories are just a fancy science word for fuel. Put good fuel in your body.
Stay of the scale it lies. Focus on how you feel and how you perform. - Develop a nutrition plan that is easy for you to follow and fits into your lifestyle.
- Drink, drink, Drink water then drink more. Your body needs water and most people don’t get near enough. Drink water all throughout the day. Check your pea keep it clear or lightly colored. Your water needs adjust based on what your doing. If your sitting on the couch still sip on water, if you train your body drink more water. Proper Hydration is very under valued.
- Protein is essential for the recovery and growth of muscle. You can get this in your food, in a shake, or in a smoothie. All are great choices.
- Avoid they hype with supplements. If you train hard and eat good food that will take you really far. Don’t get supplement crazy. A supplement supplements what you do. No pill or powder will make up for crappy food and crappy training.
- Have lots of sex with your significant other. When 2 people connect intimately all sorts of amazing things happen in your bodies. As men this helps us feel like men and its also a very great stress reliever. This can jumpstart your recovery before sleep.
- Sleep. Sleep, Sleep snoreeeeeee……get it??? The magic happens when you are sleeping. Your body goes into to super power mode while you sleep all the nutrients are fed to the tissues and cells and hormones release into your body to help you rebuild and recharge to attack the next day.
The Spirit
This is probably the most neglected part of the flesh machine. Your spirit is the absolute key to a happy long life. Your relationships, your guiding force, who you are is all deeply intertwined in your spirit. Here are my tips for a strong, powerful, spirit.
Find something to believe in. For me this is my personal belief system that includes God. Do you have to believe in a higher power? No but you should.
Have a servant’s heart. The best way to feed and calm your spirit is to invest your time in others. As men we were created to be servant leaders.
Invest in your relationships. This can be your wife, children or family and friends.
Connect with your spouse if you have one. Learn her love language, Do the small things. Take time to talk, laugh, and enjoy each other physically, emotionally and sexually. Your wife is your greatest asset in life if you let her be. Yes, strong men wash dishes and change diapers.
Be in tune with your sexual desires and needs. Talk to your spouse openly and share desire. It can lead to some fun times depending on your idea of fun.
Your children don’t keep a clock on how much time you spend with them, but they do remember the quality of time you spend with them and what you say and do.
Find meaning in your work and serve your passion. If you don’t do what you love you will be miserable and it will leak into every aspect of your life causing a break in the deep link of the mind, body, and spirit. Everything will suffer.
Never be afraid to ask for what you want in life.
Learn to feel, Don’t bottle up emotions, creatively let them out. Express yourself.
Write down your thoughts and how you feel. Re evaluate these frequently.
Never ever be afraid to ask for help.
Lastly “Your spirit it is the key to your future, above all guard it with diligence.” Proverbs 4:23
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I hope this helps you unlock your true inner warrior, I hope you conquer each day and discover the greatness that lies inside you. Remember there are a lot of great men in SoM that can help you dive deeper in many of these things discussed today. All you gotta do is ask for help.
We were all created for a unique purpose, we must find that purpose.
If your reading this I love you and you need to know that people do care about you. Now come join the brother hood. -ARGOS Class 002
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