Asatru Folk Assembly - 2⧸26⧸25 Victory Never Sleeps, Episode 138 - Adulting with Allen： Diet and Exercise

00:00:00.000 Transcription by CastingWords

00:00:30.000 Thank you.

00:01:00.000 We'll be right back.

00:01:30.000 Thank you.

00:02:00.000 We'll be right back.

00:02:30.000 We'll be right back.

00:03:00.000 Hello, and welcome to another exciting edition of Victory Never Sleeps.

00:03:11.700 And this is our second edition of Adulting with Alan, where our law speaker joins us and helps drop some practical wisdom to our folk who find ourselves sometimes in various need of said.

00:03:30.000 So, to start off with, I would like to just say, I just got home from a fantastic Charming

00:03:39.480 of the Plows celebration at Njortzhoff.

00:03:43.300 It was a wonderful weekend.

00:03:46.820 All of our folk, our leadership, as well as our volunteers at Njortzhoff did an amazing

00:03:52.080 job of hosting a fantastic event, of making a beautiful and sacred space to worship near

00:04:00.540 other inn, and to provide a really amazing weekend for all of us.

00:04:05.760 So we appreciate you guys.

00:04:07.000 Thank you so much for all that you did, and congratulations on an amazing event.

00:04:16.140 You too could be an amazing AFA event in just one month's time.

00:04:20.260 We have Ostara at Thorshof coming up March the 21st through the 23rd.

00:04:28.100 I will be there.

00:04:28.840 I look forward to seeing all of you there.

00:04:33.500 Anyone listening to this, if you're interested and you'd like to attend,

00:04:36.820 please contact any of our folk builders.

00:04:38.920 They would love to get you all set up.

00:04:43.020 Yeah, look forward to meeting you there, and I invite you guys to come out.

00:04:46.180 It's a fantastic event in a really, really cool spot in a Hoff that is, I don't know, particularly close to me.

00:04:55.380 That was the first of our Hoffs that we were able to make happen under my leadership as Ulsteria Gauthier.

00:05:04.400 So it's real special to me and something that, I don't know, happened in a real pivotal time for me.

00:05:10.880 So I thought I've always got a real special connection to the place.

00:05:16.180 You will experience some fantastic people with truly amazing hospitality.

00:05:20.800 Some of our very best people are in that area.

00:05:24.480 The building itself has a lot of history to it and is beautiful. 0.91

00:05:27.940 And the mural, and this is the first mural that Witten Svahn painted of one of the Isir in their haves. 0.84

00:05:39.800 And it is powerful in a way my words don't do justice to.

00:05:45.840 When you see it, when you walk in and you see Asa Thor in his hof, the mural dominates the space and you can really feel his presence in the room.

00:05:59.840 So I invite you all to come out and experience that.

00:06:02.820 I look forward to seeing you there.

00:06:03.840 uh other other stuff i appreciate everybody who has guest hosted for me in the last little bit

00:06:15.020 through travel and before that battling the illness that so many of us have dealt with

00:06:21.340 beginning part of this year um i've seen you guys far less than i am accustomed and then i would

00:06:27.340 like to so it's nice to be back and i appreciate uh goethe trent who filled in for me a couple of

00:06:32.600 times there. So this is, as I mentioned, the second of the Adulting with Alan episodes. And

00:06:45.720 this week, our law speaker wanted to focus on diet and exercise. So Alan, looks really cool

00:06:56.020 where your head is because you got the like wings on it. I tried to adjust so it doesn't look like

00:07:02.560 i'm trying to take on the you know just a helmet no you just own it it's cool uh swan often wreaths

00:07:10.480 his head into like the the the oak leaves with where he sits so it's it's all good and and the

00:07:17.760 raven's on my shoulder there see so it's all i see it there so either way you go you got something

00:07:23.840 something ethereal going on um that's my goal

00:07:30.320 okay floor is yours thank you sir um first i'll add my uh gratitude and praise for all the folks

00:07:38.240 there at njordzhoff that made us look so good um pam rocking the kitchen um alex ander rocking

00:07:46.320 everything else and um you know everybody just made everything happen it certainly made it really

00:07:51.680 easy um for those of us who conducted bloat to be able to just focus on what we were doing i

00:07:59.040 think we did each other proud and i think we did well manifesting the presence of the gods

00:08:09.920 both of us so thank you i'll share your go for your attendance and

00:08:15.040 And as always, bringing it all for the folk.

00:08:22.660 So a couple of things, just by way of introduction.

00:08:27.580 First of all, I guess broadly saying, some may ask, and valid question, what these sorts of discussions have to do with any kind of religion.

00:08:38.720 And to me, part of the function of a religious body, which we are, is to improve the lives of our folk.

00:08:47.940 That's why I try to talk about financial stuff and improving our people's financial health.

00:08:54.600 That's why I think diet and exercise is a very important topic for all of us.

00:09:01.040 One that I'm starting to pay closer and closer attention to as I near my 50s.

00:09:06.320 um the um it's and there's a lot of important research that's been done

00:09:13.380 and some of which i'm going to brush on uh talk about a couple of youtube channels i've been

00:09:19.060 following lately um but what i want to start with is just kind of the um the broad overview

00:09:26.580 the way that i see it and it's not that's not the only way i see it and disclaimer i am not a

00:09:33.820 medical doctor. I'm not a nutritionist. I'm just a guy who has too much idle time and watches a

00:09:40.840 lot of YouTube videos on diet and nutrition. So the first broad picture aspect of it comes to me

00:09:52.780 just in the idea that we all should be eating more whole foods. And by that, I mean,

00:10:03.400 And I guess the footnote to that is corporations are not your friend.

00:10:11.240 Corporations are not your friends.

00:10:13.200 Corporation.

00:10:14.160 All corporations are trying to do is sell you corporate food, which has been processed into oblivion.

00:10:22.140 All the nutrients rearranged in a way that is largely unhealthy so that it shoots through your digestive tract, shoots out into your system incompletely digested.

00:10:32.680 It's not food in any meaningful sense. It's chemical soup. So study after study that is not funded by the food corporations demonstrates that again and again, that food that comes, the more it's processed, the worse it is for you.

00:10:53.180 In fact, I recently read, sorry, I saw it on YouTube, that there is as much carcinogenic potential in an order of French fries as there is in a carton of cigarettes.

00:11:06.040 And what the underlying science behind that is more complicated than I really completely understand.

00:11:14.980 But basically what happened is they started frying foods in vegetable oil.

00:11:19.160 Vegetable oil does not hold up to heat very well.

00:11:21.620 They fry in very high heat. It rearranges the molecules in the oil and makes it into stuff that is really bad for you.

00:11:30.540 And your cells, the lining of your cells are made up of these oils.

00:11:35.160 So when you digest an order of French fries or chicken McNuggets, the oils in those substances stay in your body for.

00:11:43.460 again this is the this is the guy that i was watching but he was citing the science

00:11:49.860 that um those oils stay in your body for two years so you've got stuff that should be something

00:11:56.400 that's really nice and clean like a cholesterol molecule from an egg yolk or uh you know something

00:12:04.820 from the nut kernel of a pecan or some yummy bacon grease that should be making up the parts

00:12:16.820 of those cells. But instead, it's made up of something that is not as healthy. It's not as

00:12:21.800 stable. And it is more likely to go wrong in your body. And when things go wrong in your body,

00:12:30.500 that's how that is what's you know we call disease um certainly that's one of the reasons that many

00:12:37.300 doctors speculate that um that why cancer has become so prevalent because we have all these

00:12:43.620 nasty non-food substances that we take into our body quite frequently and they get in there and

00:12:50.580 And, you know, it's like, you know, I don't know, it's like putting diesel fuel in your, you know, in your gasoline motor.

00:13:01.940 It just it shouldn't be in there. And so and when it gets in there, bad things happen.

00:13:09.500 The other thing that certainly with my diet, I will say, as we all know, that good food costs more.

00:13:18.400 I mean, the crap that they want to sell you, crackers and potato chips are relatively inexpensive, but to get good food, vegetables, organic meat, all that sort of stuff is a lot more expensive.

00:13:36.940 But if you eat less, you can buy better food and end up with the same price point overall and just eat better. 0.95

00:13:43.960 so that's the way um and that's a long time ago when i drank more beer um that that's what i

00:13:53.060 decided to do that i was gonna uh you know i used to drink i don't even remember what it was miller

00:13:58.600 or whatever but then when i found good beer which at the time was bex or something exotic like that

00:14:05.980 you know um yeah that's you know i remember okay i'll tell you when the drinking age was 18

00:14:14.300 um when i was 18 so that tells you how long ago that was um but then once i found good beer i

00:14:22.780 just said i'm going to drink less and i'm going to drink better beer so we can do the same thing

00:14:27.500 with food you can drink you can eat better food just eat less and that's better for you anyway

00:14:33.580 your body is made to digest whole food like whole milk and you know vegetables or a piece of fruit

00:14:48.580 or something like that not as Rachel so rightly reminds us not energy drinks which are just a

00:14:58.700 chemical slurry that it's basically like mainlining sugar and these other things that are

00:15:05.780 basically hormonal substances or pre-hormones that get into your bloodstream and dink around

00:15:12.840 with your metabolism in a way that are really bad for you. We evolved for 300,000 years or 30,000

00:15:24.000 of years, whatever number you want to use, you know, having to, um, digest food and get the

00:15:31.360 nutrient out of, um, you know, uh, a kernel of, um, wheat or out of a, uh, you know, out of a

00:15:40.620 kernel barley, uh, if you want to use something that looks more like beer or even honey digest

00:15:45.860 very differently from table sugar. So, um, the best, best, best thing you can do is eat whole

00:15:54.880 food, um, fresh food prepared at home. Even if you use white flour, if you use whole flour,

00:15:59.940 um, that's cooked there at home with real butter, God, please don't use margarine or any of that

00:16:06.580 stuff. But the, but if you use all of that, those things, again, it's a little more expensive,

00:16:11.040 But if you cook at home, it's it's a lot less expensive than rolling through the drive through like I see all my clients doing.

00:16:20.180 So that, you know, that, too, is a big part of it.

00:16:25.700 Years ago, I watched a program about why small animals proportional to their species tend to live longer, like smaller dogs tend to live longer than bigger dogs.

00:16:41.040 And what the scientists seem to, what scientists said that the conclusion seems to be is that it looks out, it looks at just total throughput, like your liver, your intestines are in your entire lifetime or will only produce so much digestive enzyme.

00:17:04.660 It will only produce so much ability to keep yourself going.

00:17:14.520 Your heart will only beat so many times.

00:17:17.020 So the more food that you eat, like a big dog has to eat a lot more food to maintain all that muscle mass.

00:17:23.520 So they tend to have shorter lives than the little lap dogs that, um, because they eat less overall, they, um, you know, their, their liver just lasts longer. It's like anything else. The more you use something, the quicker you wear it out. Um, I can certainly say that this is not the easiest fight for me.

00:17:43.780 I still like to say I'm still trying to lose my baby weight, even though my youngest son is 24 years old now.

00:17:54.120 He'll be 24 next month. So, you know, I realize it's a struggle.

00:18:00.240 And, you know, part of it is, again, it's evolutionary.

00:18:03.960 We evolved with this and we evolved in a long over a long time of food scarcity.

00:18:10.280 I've been listening to books about English history, and it's pretty amazing how often there were widespread famines in a whole nation where substantial percentages, 5, 10, 15 percent of the population died because there wasn't enough food.

00:18:28.580 That's not the era that we live in today.

00:18:32.120 Now that we've invented the green, now that we've had the green revolution and we're strip mining the soils,

00:18:38.220 we are in a very different place as regards to food.

00:18:43.560 That doesn't mean it's healthy.

00:18:45.180 And again, the corporations are designed to sell us that food.

00:18:50.220 Thank you.

00:18:51.640 See, here comes some food in the door.

00:18:53.500 But it's good food.

00:18:54.480 It's healthy food.

00:18:55.160 and they're not they don't care about your health they care about your money so go to the farmers

00:19:04.280 market buy some real fruit and vegetables find a guy who has forest raised pork and have some

00:19:12.840 real pork chops and you know some real apples and that sort of stuff eat in season you know

00:19:19.080 there are hundreds and hundreds of recommendations along that line

00:19:25.160 Secondly, as far as exercise, you know, I'll hear you go there. I know you, you know, you love the gym. I am. I love in Kung Fu. It's not called the it's not called the dojo. It's called the quun. But it's the same thing. It's the workout temple. And I've been doing Kung Fu. Sorry.

00:19:48.060 Alan, can I interject? And I'd like to, I'd like to say a few, I don't know, I'd like to touch on a few diet things before we move on to exercise, because they work together, but while we're still fresh, and it's one of our questions that you alluded to.

00:20:04.540 So, as you will note, a lot of people, okay, something that I want to say is a preamble.

00:20:16.000 As I say a lot, don't let perfect be the enemy of good.

00:20:21.640 Make more good choices tomorrow than you are today.

00:20:25.660 And that's good.

00:20:27.480 That's a step in the right direction.

00:20:29.660 It's easy when people talk about diet or exercise.

00:20:37.880 Everyone, people get very passionate about it, and people get very entrenched ideas about the one right way to do everything.

00:20:49.920 People who are doing good, who are in good shape and living good lives and are healthy that are arguing over the best way to get there, that's a good problem to have.

00:20:58.820 but it's intimidating to people that don't know where to start to think that it's all,

00:21:05.980 you know, you're either doing it this one right way or you're doing it all wrong.

00:21:09.400 One of the secrets is most anything works if you do it consistently and you move towards it,

00:21:17.100 especially if you are currently in a state of obesity or if you are, you know,

00:21:22.900 unhealthily scrawny or whatever your situation you find yourself in.

00:21:26.760 picking any of a variety of really good options is going to help you get there

00:21:34.060 um one of our questions again uh rachel asks question for alan how do we convince our fellow

00:21:40.900 folk of the evils of energy drinks well you got to start here because i don't believe there are

00:21:46.180 evils of energy drinks but for an example if you're going to get it's true as alan mentioned

00:21:52.520 earlier. It's like mainline and sugar, except for it's not if it doesn't have the sugar in it.

00:21:58.880 So I think it is a pretty sound thing to say if you're eating full sugar energy drinks,

00:22:05.340 if you eat not full sugar energy drinks, that's a step in the right direction.

00:22:11.320 If you're drinking full sugar sodas, drink diet sodas. May not taste quite the same.

00:22:18.400 Alan shakes his head

00:22:20.140 but the calories don't

00:22:22.340 lie on it and here's the other thing

00:22:24.220 too there's so many things to factor

00:22:26.320 in and yes diet soda

00:22:27.820 is better than regular soda it's just true

00:22:29.840 the other thing

00:22:31.220 is how you're trying to get

00:22:36.140 natural or whether you're trying to deal with

00:22:38.160 your calories in versus calories out

00:22:40.260 either of those things

00:22:42.140 is better than if you don't care about

00:22:44.200 either of them and you're stuck

00:22:46.360 in a spot where you're struggling

00:22:47.900 there are a lot of options and there's some tools that i'd like to present to you guys a little bit

00:22:54.380 later so you can help monitor for a variety of the things depending upon what you're trying to do or

00:23:00.960 what diet you're trying to follow but i do say this most anything within reason is a lot better

00:23:10.140 than remaining stuck in a state where you are not happy with your health or you are not happy with

00:23:15.200 your fitness. These are all things that you have a variety of paths to get better at. Don't let

00:23:23.160 people's strong opinions on them confuse you. Either mine or Alan's or anyone else's,

00:23:30.020 but do something. And we're here to present you with our best ideas from both of our viewpoints

00:23:35.040 on how best to do that. But as long as you're doing something, it's a lot better than doing

00:23:40.260 Yeah, unquestionably. And as with a lot of other things, just mindfulness about your diet, just turning on that awareness will start to steer you in the right direction.

00:23:57.520 And you certainly don't want to get disappointed, you know, and like think, well, I have to go full carnivore.

00:24:03.480 And then, you know, so the first time you have a bag of chips, you think, you know, you've ruined yourself.

00:24:08.700 And now you can just go back to being, you know, because it's not on or off.

00:24:15.120 It's, you know, the goal is to be a little better every day.

00:24:18.020 You're absolutely right.

00:24:19.720 Another thing I wanted to add on that, just this is this is something that's been important to me.

00:24:24.320 And here's the thing. A lot of the time you get some people that purity spiral because they get obsessed about things. You also have people that develop these really entrenched views on it because they spent a lot of years paying attention to it and being interested in it and reading up on it.

00:24:41.460 And sometimes folks come to different conclusions, but I think one of the conclusions everybody notes, the biggest problem with any diet thing is consistency.

00:24:51.760 People will shoot for something very askew from what their norm is.

00:24:58.940 Then they will find out they can't be perfect.

00:25:01.980 They'll get discouraged.

00:25:04.120 And then oftentimes they'll like, fine, it's not worth it anyway.

00:25:07.780 They will binge eat themselves back worse.

00:25:10.160 yeah that's worse than they started and that's something to consider whatever you do and this

00:25:19.560 is another thing that's really hard and i'm sure we'll talk about this in the exercise portion as

00:25:23.700 well but and again it depends if you're eating for health and you have a really specific health

00:25:32.860 condition and i i think this is just a responsible thing to say anyway we're not doctors if you have

00:25:40.460 a diabetic problem or a particular cardiovascular problem or something you need a really specialized

00:25:46.860 medical thing on it by all means consult them and get that figured out and that's kind of outside

00:25:53.260 of the realm of what we're talking about in general um but barring that if you're eating

00:25:59.340 for a specific health result it may be a little bit different i know a lot of our folk struggle

00:26:05.340 with obesity if the problem is that you're obese keep in mind that most people didn't you know

00:26:14.460 you didn't get obese over a couple of months of bad choices most of the time when we find ourselves

00:26:21.180 obese and i've been there it's due to years if not decades of poor choices and you can accelerate

00:26:31.660 your progress but it's just not realistic to think that you're going to repair you know 20

00:26:40.140 years of poor choices in 20 days of good choices don't let that discourage you i'm also going to

00:26:46.460 to talk a little bit later about some tools to kind of check your progress in a way that maybe

00:26:51.720 can give you, give you some confidence that something's working, even if it's not working

00:26:57.720 as fast as you want. And that's the other secret. Nothing that we're going to suggest is going to

00:27:02.080 work as fast as you want. It's never going to work as fast. If you find something that does,

00:27:07.300 you let me know. But yeah, I just wanted to put that, put that out here that make the effort and

00:27:15.140 consistency all of these things it's a it is all about the long game and consistency and building

00:27:21.940 habits zero of it is easy but finding something that can be done consistently and when you fall

00:27:31.220 down getting back up and going back at it is is the key to so many things in life but very

00:27:36.580 specifically to this and then i'll pipe down you know that's all that's all absolutely well taken

00:27:43.700 And I tend to launch on it because I've been trying to overcome my own obstacles in that arena.

00:27:51.940 The diet thing has come hard to me because I work a desk job.

00:28:01.400 And so it's always easy just to have, you know, some delicious mixed nuts in there in the drawer, which I have now excised from being within reach.

00:28:12.480 So I'm not snacking all day. And certainly there are several tools that work, that can work to help you lose weight.

00:28:24.040 Everything from just simple calorie reduction, eat the same meals that you've always eaten, just slightly smaller for, you know, for everything.

00:28:33.060 Get a little more exercise and you will again, you begin to see improvement over a period of time.

00:28:38.980 um uh you know one thing that has become popular certainly the carnivore diet is

00:28:47.320 you know is a big thing it i've tried it for a while it worked um i did lose some weight on it

00:28:54.800 i actually felt better after i you know started after i pushed through the initial ketosis phase

00:28:59.300 um and it's odd to say it but you can only eat so much bacon um even even though so much can be

00:29:08.160 pounds and pounds and pounds of bacon over a few days, but eventually it surprised me too. You can

00:29:14.540 get tired of eating bacon and steak and cheeseburgers. But again, that's one of those

00:29:20.660 things that you can use to jumpstart a diet program, even if you end up going back to

00:29:25.480 something that looks a lot more like a mixed diet or, you know, a standard diet with just a whole

00:29:33.320 lot less, um, carbs in it, a whole lot less processed food, a whole lot less starch, a

00:29:39.580 whole lot less sugar. Um, if, and if a few days or a couple of weeks of the carnivore

00:29:46.080 diet helps you get in the, you know, get used to eating that way, then great. That's a,

00:29:50.700 that's a tool that can work for you. Um, I've been playing around some with intermittent

00:29:59.120 fasting. Um, I talked to Witten Erickson about his, which turns out he's doing the intermittent

00:30:05.680 fasting too. He's, um, he's doing it a little more rigorously than I was, although I have now

00:30:11.200 adopted the, uh, 24 means of, uh, intermittent fasting, which means you only eat food for

00:30:19.720 four hours a day, which means I have to finish my golden milk. So, uh, before 10 o'clock. Um,

00:30:26.660 But and then you're on fasting for 20 hours.

00:30:31.820 And so it.

00:30:37.100 While I was nerding out around on YouTube, looking at intermittent fasting videos.

00:30:43.580 And it hadn't occurred to me to ask the question, but it was answered nonetheless.

00:30:48.200 You know, why hasn't this been around longer?

00:30:51.220 And certainly there are certain religious practices that suggest fasting one day a week or something like that.

00:31:02.340 But it's actually the guy who won the Nobel Prize for doing research and intermittent fasting.

00:31:08.320 That Nobel Prize was awarded in 2017.

00:31:11.120 So this research has only been around for a fairly short period of time, at least in this format.

00:31:15.600 So I think that's what's going to work for me.

00:31:21.220 Even though I'm hungry all the time, now I'm just sort of getting used to it, and I'm going to be like Whit and Eric said.

00:31:28.820 I'm going to lose two pounds a day until I'm transparent, except for the beard.

00:31:35.160 I've got to keep that.

00:31:38.100 So, you know, that's a big part of it.

00:31:40.620 Um, and we'll save the long debate over, uh, sugar versus, uh, sugar substitutes for next month at

00:31:53.500 Ostara. I guess we could have the, um, we could have the, uh, showdown over, uh, over which is

00:32:01.560 better. Um, but the, the main thing is like one of the things I stopped doing and like, I just don't

00:32:08.480 drink soda at all. I go to a restaurant and get water. Go to a restaurant, it's always water,

00:32:13.280 a couple slices of lemon, that makes the water better for you. And I just, instead of paying

00:32:18.260 $3 for a drink, I put that extra $3 in the waitress's tip jar. As with anything else,

00:32:24.540 the point about mindfulness is really important. So if you're concerned about the chemical impact

00:32:35.600 of artificial sugar on whatever system you're concerned about it on that's being mindful and

00:32:43.520 perhaps there's something to that and certainly you're not going you don't need soda going no

00:32:48.240 soda is not you know that's not not impossible that's not a bad choice but if you want to again

00:32:56.880 what what are you doing what are you trying to accomplish and how is the best way to get there

00:33:02.640 because a lot of things like i said earlier you drive yourself insane figuring out um

00:33:08.560 the perfect on everything and there's something to be said for just having stuff that's delicious

00:33:13.840 because it's good that's not bad either as long as you're in control of when you do it and you're not

00:33:20.560 controlled by it there's something to be said for it but one of the things too is and my point on

00:33:27.680 diet soda versus full sugar is calories in versus calories out.

00:33:35.880 One of the big rules to kind of consider, and Alan alluded to this, you know, in a way,

00:33:42.780 and this is something very similar that I do. He mentioned you can eat the same foods that you like

00:33:47.800 to eat, but eat less of them. And you will see impact that way. Calories in versus calories

00:33:53.580 out is a fundamental truth. And there's a lot of people that have all kinds of different spins on

00:33:59.920 how to optimize whatever. But if you burn more calories than you take in, and you do that

00:34:08.440 consistently, you will lose weight. If you consume more calories than you expend, and you do that

00:34:14.760 consistently, you will gain weight. Now, when I say you expend, I also mean you and whatever

00:34:20.400 parasites you might have again there's any like random you know everybody's like well actually

00:34:27.440 and the deal is those actually are true we're talking about general truths and

00:34:36.000 consuming more calories than you burn helps you get bigger now depending on what the

00:34:42.480 other factors are in your life that bigger can be you know getting more muscular that bigger can

00:34:48.080 more often be getting more adipose tissue um same thing in the inverse so that's kind of

00:34:56.640 your calculation on that what i like to do on that is something called if it fits your macros

00:35:02.560 and again i've got a couple of different things that i'll share later in the program about

00:35:06.720 you know how you can track that so you can keep track because one of the first things

00:35:11.520 a lot of folks who haven't been eating intentionally do they have no idea what

00:35:15.520 they're taking in or what they're not they have no idea how much protein they're getting in or how

00:35:19.600 much carbs or how much fat or what's in the things that they eat a lot of people and no shame a lot

00:35:25.840 of us have been there just never gave it much thought and today is a really good time to you

00:35:31.280 know start giving those things a little bit of thought oh why and so i do not forget thank you

00:35:39.280 you guys very much. Started off the show with a $30 donation from GW Farnsworth, who is a very

00:35:46.400 consistent donor here on the program. We appreciate that tremendously. And also, our newest Oath

00:35:52.760 Folk Builder, Alexander Casso, bought us three coffees. That's a $15 donation. Thank you for

00:35:58.300 that, Alexander, and congratulations on Oath and Anna's Folk Builder.

00:36:02.300 Big time. And thanks again for your hard work this weekend. And everything said is

00:36:09.280 right except about artificial sugar um but it's absolutely spending some time and attention on it

00:36:17.360 um and to me this as with the financial stuff that we talked about last week last month and

00:36:28.080 so much other stuff that we do um within also true it is about mindfulness i'm glad you use

00:36:34.640 that word because that's exactly what it is. I think of Wotan as the God who lives at the

00:36:40.360 conjunction of thought and memory, and that is consciousness. And consciousness, mindfulness is

00:36:50.820 like any other muscle. The more you use it, the better it gets. And so you shouldn't just be

00:36:57.020 idling your way through and pulling in the first fast food restaurant that you see the first time

00:37:03.340 you get hungry, you should be planning your food in a way that, um, so that you're thinking

00:37:08.200 healthy, even, you know, and I'm not above going in and getting the, the, you know, the right kind

00:37:15.020 of fast food, but, you know, again, I've learned that, you know, it's two burgers instead of a

00:37:22.520 burger and fries, whatever. Um, so, you know, you can indulge yourself and you don't, so you don't

00:37:27.920 have to feel like being on a diet is torture that you're trying to put your body through because

00:37:32.420 that's less, makes you less likely to, um, to complete it. The goal is to help you feel like

00:37:40.160 this is your lifestyle. This is how I eat. And you just, you eat in a healthy way. That's good

00:37:45.360 for your body. And that's good for your mind too. Do you like to take us into, uh, the exercise

00:37:59.860 portion? Sure. Um, exercise. Um, so I recently went through a program. I don't know if they'd

00:38:12.340 want me to name them here, but I'd be glad to talk about to anybody about it privately. Um,

00:38:16.640 I went through a, it's sort of a semi-ritualized man-making type, um, uh, program, uh, where one

00:38:29.460 the requirements was to get an hour of physical activity every day so um that certainly helped

00:38:38.020 me get uh start to work in back into shape i'll tell you i've been doing kung fu which

00:38:45.540 i took a long break while i was raising kids but i've been back on it now since about 2013

00:38:51.700 um in the gym at least twice a day more often three times a week um there's a calisthenic

00:39:00.620 regimen that i do stretches sets you know so somewhere between an hour and a half and two

00:39:06.380 hours three times a week there um but then i started following a youtube channel

00:39:12.900 not religiously because there's only one religious thing that i do but i started

00:39:19.620 following this YouTube channel called I Am Longevity. One of the things that he sets up

00:39:25.980 is there's a very precise kind of HIIT, high intensity interval training sprint regimen that

00:39:34.780 he recommends that I've been doing. I've tailed off a little bit here because it's been raining,

00:39:41.200 but I was doing that regimen at least twice a week. And basically it's sprinting on and

00:39:49.560 off for 30 minutes, uh, which I do barefoot out here on my property. Um, and I couple that with,

00:39:56.540 um, um, book, sorry, backpedal. Um, I know one issue for people is that, you know, not everybody

00:40:07.080 likes to go to the gym and I like to go to the Kung Fu gym because it's a big wide open space

00:40:13.000 and I'm there quite often without a whole lot of people there. Um, but, and especially when

00:40:18.420 you're getting started um you know you feel like you don't know what you're doing you're going to

00:40:23.080 embarrass yourself but and man i'm sure you could speak to this even more than i could but but the

00:40:28.660 other gym guys will help you i mean if you say how do i do this exercise they are willing to

00:40:33.620 help you out so you shouldn't be embarrassed about being the newbie the only thing that is

00:40:38.020 embarrassing is trying to think you know what you're doing when you don't um but in my experience

00:40:44.080 The guys at the gym are actually very helpful to people because they want they want you to be in better shape, just like they are.

00:40:51.440 And, you know, they they appreciate the effort that that people put in down there for myself.

00:40:57.260 That's not the environment that I like. Again, I do the Kung Fu stuff, which I'm happy to share with anybody.

00:41:04.300 Tai Chi also. But then one of the things that I did in conjunction with this

00:41:12.300 regimen that I was talking about is I bought a book of body weight exercises. I should have

00:41:18.280 brought it in here so I could hold it up and say, here's the book, see? But it's just a series of,

00:41:26.080 well, it's actually 100 different workouts. And so I downloaded a random number generator onto my

00:41:32.400 phone. And so I just go in there and go, okay, generate it. Okay. 63. And I go out there and I

00:41:38.600 do whatever exercise regimen 63 is, which takes about 20 to 30 minutes. And then I go run for

00:41:45.580 30 minutes. So that's what I do on the days I'm not downtown at the Kloon doing Kung Fu. 0.90

00:41:53.500 So that's kind of a cool idea. If we could take an aside for a second, you could maybe

00:41:58.260 tell folks a little bit about your kung fu bona fides and like what style you do what that looks

00:42:06.400 like i'm sure folks are curious well i um okay so a long long time ago um in a galaxy far away

00:42:19.500 um middle georgia uh i walked into this guy it's just it was roper school of self-defense

00:42:28.300 and i had no idea what i was getting into um but that teacher was amazing and i've got what i've

00:42:38.180 got some few videos of him he was the real thing i mean he worked out and did kung fu eight hours

00:42:44.580 day. He taught class. He worked out. That's all he did. So he had sets that he taught that were

00:42:52.480 five animals, crane, snake, tiger, dragon, leopard, and then also long fist, which is like the human

00:43:02.060 animal striking in its own form. So in many ways, it is like the somewhat overstated kung fu movies

00:43:11.580 that you see, you know, where the guys are doing this strikes like a snake or, you know,

00:43:16.660 dragon fist and all that stuff. I mean, that's a real thing. Um, and the, the joy that I, that,

00:43:24.480 that came from learning from this guy was that he knew so much his debt, his, uh, education was so

00:43:32.360 broad that he, like, after you trained with him for a couple of years, he would then take you

00:43:38.700 down the path that best suited you like the tall thin guys ended up doing long fist or you know the

00:43:46.380 advanced snake stuff um i'm more like a you know ground menace and so i do tiger crane which is a

00:43:57.340 uh it's also called hungar hunkun which is a you know there's a lot fewer kicks it's all about um

00:44:05.500 real hard um stance work and real hard um blows where basically the idea is that you take a

00:44:14.620 stance and you and you can always move forward even if by slow steps and um and if you don't

00:44:22.060 get knocked down which the goal is you know to be a striker and not get taken to the ground um

00:44:28.060 um, you know, then it, it sort of all follows from there. A lot of it is breath work, especially in

00:44:35.440 the higher sets, you know, you, there's a lot of breath work involved. So it, it is, it also has a

00:44:42.040 long, it has a lot of endurance, uh, component to it. Um, and then I'm trying to relearn the kick

00:44:53.160 set that he taught us which is 64 leg attack which i'm not much of a kicker but i do give it

00:44:59.480 you know i give it a try and again you know that to me is is part of the joy of doing uh kung fu or

00:45:06.040 or all of it is because it's also there's a large mental component you know remembering the set

00:45:12.760 remembering the full 108 moves um remembering all 64 kicks you know it's difficult to do it's

00:45:20.520 certainly a lot of physical exercise but it's also um you know it's a lot of mental exercise

00:45:26.120 as well so you're training your uh your head bone in there too so um that that which is another

00:45:34.920 muscle that needs a lot of training and the um and i'll say this i'm never bored when i'm in the gym

00:45:42.760 i'm trying to learn it luckily he made me write it all down so i have notebooks for all of this stuff

00:45:48.040 um where i uh so i can go back and fill in the details when i miss stuff

00:45:54.840 but yeah i've been doing that um i did it um from the first time uh from like i did it for six years

00:46:03.240 under his direct training there uh in all benny and then um when i moved to tallahassee it was

00:46:10.040 a little bit slower than for i was gone from it for about 10 years and then when i got divorced

00:46:16.440 in 2012, I went back and started training with him in Atlanta. He was gracious enough to let me go up

00:46:21.720 and stay with him a weekend at a time. He re-taught me the stuff that I had forgotten and then taught

00:46:28.760 me the upper sets of the Hungar stuff. So, definitely grateful for that opportunity.

00:46:38.280 And I feel like that it is, you know, I mean, it gives me a thing that I can do to stay in shape.

00:46:46.440 And, you know, I may not be able to bench press as much, but I can do a spin jump kick and hurt myself and not somebody else.

00:47:06.880 I think it's worth saying here, too.

00:47:09.780 there is a whole lot of and i think this as much or more so a diet depending on what people's goals

00:47:19.680 are and i think that martial arts is a little bit different because people don't just get into it

00:47:28.000 as an exercise or as a physical thing you get into it to learn a skill so it is a little bit

00:47:33.660 different, but when looking at exercise to achieve a result, either to gain muscle or to lose

00:47:40.660 body fat, there's a million different ideas on what the best routine is or the best exercises

00:47:49.360 or the best set and rep ratio. Almost all of them are good if you just do them and stick to doing

00:47:57.500 them. The consistency is the key, but something that afflicts everyone, and I don't think I can

00:48:03.560 say good enough is paralysis by analysis where everyone will try a new thing every week and then

00:48:10.800 no this doesn't work and start something else and they don't give any of them time to

00:48:14.900 bear a result or a fair shot and then they psych themselves out by stacking up kind of

00:48:23.060 unforced errors on that when you don't need to the truth of it is if you are sedentary right now

00:48:29.920 becoming less sedentary unless you have some serious physical disability I don't know about

00:48:37.060 is going to be good for you it's going to be good for you in lots of different ways

00:48:41.260 be good for your mindset absolutely absolutely and and and if you're truly sedentary and like

00:48:47.800 that it's those first few moves are the ones that can really make a whole lot of difference in your

00:48:52.720 life you know just going from no hours of exercise a week to two hours a week that's you know but it

00:48:59.240 be tough because you know you got to loosen yourself back up something is better than nothing

00:49:05.720 you get to a point where no you need to push yourself you want to make progress but if you're

00:49:09.400 just starting go out there and do something just about anything is going to be something really

00:49:15.720 good and if you're fat you want to be less fat go out there and you know sweat a little bit and do

00:49:23.160 some stuff if you're scrawny and you want to put on muscle put your body through

00:49:29.400 stimulus that's going to require that it gets more muscle in order to accomplish

00:49:34.200 but also if you're a person who's aging and this is good for a person throughout their lives but

00:49:40.280 specifically as we age weight training and doing things that strengthen your bone density becomes

00:49:46.520 increasingly important the i'll say this tremendously about martial arts anybody

00:49:53.880 doesn't know um this may i got my uh i got my black belt in danzan ru japanese jujitsu

00:50:03.160 and it's been such a cool thing and something i wish i found a lot earlier in my life

00:50:09.080 but so much of it is mental like a mind muscle connection with forming um muscle memory towards

00:50:23.040 movement that you do there's a focus when you're doing in a way it's a form of physical yoga

00:50:30.340 in the sense that you have to do a set of actions in a particular way focusing on a perfect

00:50:38.020 implementation of those actions and your mind has to be in what you are doing or you know there's

00:50:45.460 something called no mind where you have to be open to reflexively do what you're doing

00:50:51.220 but either way you're engaged in a task for whatever those hours are that you're in the dojo

00:50:59.080 that's very refreshing and at least in my life has been a much needed reprieve from all the

00:51:05.360 other things I have on my mind to be able to go in there and like it's hard for me meditatively

00:51:12.420 to just sit and let all the thoughts leave it's difficult for a lot of us to do but it's different

00:51:20.360 when you are physically engaged and you have something else that you're focused on

00:51:24.340 and I think it's very beneficial mentally and I think that's particularly important for folks as

00:51:32.480 they age. But I also think those of us engaged in Ausatru, and we make the point all the time

00:51:39.040 that, you know, Ausatru isn't about Viking warriors. Like, you get a mental image in your

00:51:47.940 head, especially when you just start out, and especially if you just start out as a young man,

00:51:52.140 that that's what this is, is this like Viking warrior religion. And as much as we spend time

00:51:57.700 talking about how that isn't the depth and breadth of our faith it is an important aspect especially

00:52:03.940 for our young men but also for our ladies that you're active you have agency over your body

00:52:11.700 and how you use it and how you implement your will to shape that the connection to the health

00:52:18.660 of the of the leak which is part of our soul complex in our faith your physical presentation

00:52:24.980 is a part of your soul complex not just the body itself but also the image you project from how you

00:52:32.760 look to how you carry yourself to whether you have a martial bearing all of those things are

00:52:38.580 elevated through you know martial arts and again all right jujitsu is the best japanese jujitsu

00:52:45.080 is the only way to go everything else is not effective in real life ah kung fu is better

00:52:49.560 everybody thinks their school is the best all of them are better than you know sitting at your

00:52:57.480 computer and not doing it right so there's a lot of really really good again if we all get to an

00:53:04.820 elite point where we're debating you know how to edge out other top martial artists in the world

00:53:13.980 and that's an awesome place to be let's all get there and then we can have that argument if we're

00:53:17.860 so physically elite that we argue over which set and rep scheme, you know, if we're all Mr. Olympia

00:53:24.640 competitors, cool, that's a really valuable argument to have. But for most of the rest of us,

00:53:32.640 it's really kind of beside the point. Picking something and doing it well and throwing yourself

00:53:38.440 into it is going to give you very good results. And it's not just about finding something that's

00:53:43.700 the most optimal physically but also something that you like that you're interested in and that

00:53:49.120 you're likely to continue doing and keep up the longevity of doing that definitely is a big part

00:53:55.980 of it um which is why kung fu has been such a good fit for me that because i like doing it so

00:54:01.600 i will keep doing it um i like to see to a certain extent even though some days i think it's really

00:54:10.940 boring doing like the the kung fu reps that i'm sorry the calisthenic reps that i do every time

00:54:15.580 in the kung fu gym it's the same six exercises in the warm-up but there but even then there's

00:54:22.860 something comfortable about that uh about that routine that um that that works you know and then

00:54:30.060 so i can get my body warmed up so that when i'm doing the uh you know doing the

00:54:35.260 set work then you know it's it all just feels right it feels right and and there's certainly

00:54:45.280 the idea there and i would suspect that it's the same thing in the you know when you're uh

00:54:51.580 in the weight gym you know you fake it till you make it you just keep telling yourself you like

00:54:57.000 it and you like it. You know, I guess I'm telling on myself a little bit, but there are many days

00:55:06.480 I'm in there, you know, trying to knock out my sit-ups and think, you know, I could just walk

00:55:10.940 out of here. I could just leave and nobody would care. And that's true. Nobody would care, but I

00:55:18.280 would not be in the whatever condition I'm in, but, you know, if I had followed that

00:55:26.320 nagging part of my mind that said that it's not good for you, because it is, it absolutely

00:55:33.260 is good for you, and if it, you know, even going to the stuff that I would, and I have

00:55:42.860 certainly learned to be more broad-minded about a lot of things. I do think it's sort of silly that

00:55:49.660 you know that all the it's all the parking places at the right by the door of the gym are all taken

00:55:55.500 so people can walk the shortest possible distance to get in there and walk on the treadmill

00:55:59.300 but you know if if that's what helps you feel good and you you know you like the protected

00:56:07.500 safe environment of being in the gym like that and you don't want to walk around in your

00:56:15.140 neighborhood um and you think you know and you think you're just more comfortable in the gym

00:56:20.840 even though it's the same basic idea walking on a treadmill instead of walking on the road

00:56:25.140 do it do do what do what you're comfortable doing and um and and don't and like matt like you said

00:56:34.040 I think it's absolutely right.

00:56:35.820 Don't think just because you're not perfect the first time you do it or the

00:56:38.480 hundredth time you do it, that, that, that that's a reason to quit.

00:56:41.660 You just gotta, you just keep going.

00:56:43.980 You just gotta dory it out.

00:56:47.700 Keep swimming, swimming, swimming.

00:56:50.260 Don't you, don't you guys watch Disney movies?

00:56:56.540 It was a deep cut.

00:56:57.760 Hey, I'm so old.

00:57:03.440 I remember when MTV played music videos.

00:57:08.340 It's been about 30 years.

00:57:12.580 I was six.

00:57:15.420 Before we move on, I would like to mention that Tyler M. Hall bought us a coffee.

00:57:23.440 Thank you very much for that, Tyler.

00:57:25.000 It's a $5 donation.

00:57:26.820 We appreciate it.

00:57:27.620 greatly. And Bobby in Pennsylvania donated $20 to help us pay off Njortzhoff. Thank you so much,

00:57:35.220 Bobby. We appreciate it. We're getting closer just about every day on that.

00:57:42.420 Yeah. Can we say how much money we raised at the auction?

00:57:46.900 The auction at Njortzhoff this last weekend, correct me if I'm wrong, was $4,500-ish.

00:57:54.820 yes that's right pretty amazing uh so this is due as well everyone who donated items to that auction

00:58:04.500 some of them were at the event some of them were not and sent in items to be uh auctioned thank

00:58:10.340 you so much that absolutely counts it counts in a huge way and it makes some really special things

00:58:18.100 happen we are able to accomplish a lot of the things that we do certainly due to the blessings

00:58:25.620 of the icer uh due to some of the uh the good luck that we've built through through actions

00:58:32.340 over the years but also and in a huge proportion due to the generosity and commitment of the folks

00:58:39.860 listening to this program right now and our wonderful members that give of themselves either

00:58:44.660 through their hard work and dedication, through their financial gifts and all the other ways

00:58:50.940 that they contribute. You guys are amazing. And I am truly astounded by the things we're

00:58:56.860 able to make happen together. So thank you guys. Because that's another, like Gilbert,

00:59:04.680 the bulls and idols and things that he carves, like that little sailor, you know, it's just,

00:59:12.880 that's that is a different kind of magic to me i mean that's just uh you know he to me it's just

00:59:20.880 a chunk of wood but he can see in there and bring that out and just make something beautiful it's uh

00:59:25.600 it's it's quite magnificent one of our fantastic members named gilbert

00:59:31.920 first is a tremendous donor and we appreciate that way just with uh cash donations but

00:59:40.480 but truly astounding with the beautiful woodwork that he donates pieces and you know all of

00:59:50.020 our auctions it it is so far above and beyond and it's very very much appreciated and it's

00:59:55.660 beautiful work we also and it's kind of a cool story there is a a gentleman a local

01:00:03.140 gentleman that has gone to our food pantries and was appreciative of those food pantries

01:00:09.400 and uh decided uh he's some sort of a potter um and decided to make i don't know 10 15 different

01:00:19.640 pottery items uh as gifts for the hof that helped us in the auction and some of which were used for

01:00:26.920 ritual there that are that are beautiful pieces he was able to make so some really special things

01:00:32.120 that way i'll tell you know i may have told this last time i was on but i'll say it again so you

01:00:37.640 You can just sit still and listen.

01:00:38.940 The other thing that the food pantry does for us, like, for whatever reason, we've had a hard time keeping that grass mowed over there.

01:00:47.780 And, you know, we showed up.

01:00:50.540 We were going to – we showed up for a workday, and the grass had been mowed.

01:00:54.160 And it was just – it was one of the guys.

01:00:56.300 His aunt comes through the food pantry every month, and he said, I drove by.

01:01:02.060 I saw your grass needed mowing, so I went and mowed it.

01:01:04.280 And that's, you know, that we are ingratiating ourselves into the community in a very positive way.

01:01:12.780 We're making positive steps toward reinvigorating the faith.

01:01:19.100 Absolutely.

01:01:20.220 So before we get to our questions, is there any more things you wanted to talk about up front here this evening, Alan?

01:01:29.140 I think we've laid out the summary.

01:01:31.760 You know, we can certainly go 4,000 miles to the center of any of those rabbit holes, and I have on more than one occasion, but we can run through the questions.

01:01:45.560 And certainly another thing that I meant to mention at the beginning is that we can also take questions on anything else.

01:01:53.120 I mean, if you were, if you, uh, the financial stuff that I talked about last month, if that resonated with you, but you have some other questions you want to talk to me about, I mean, I'm happy to, we can look at that or about the dark money pools that control wall street.

01:02:10.640 Um, so, you know, uh, I don't know if silver is going to break out over 35 this year, but I'm hoping that it does.

01:02:19.320 So any of those things or any other topic that you feel like that you want us to discuss, I'm sure Matt's up for it.

01:02:29.660 Yeah. Keep that in mind, guys. Literally anything you want to talk about.

01:02:33.800 This adulting with Alan topics, also true topics or things just in general.

01:02:39.100 We appreciate you guys being here and we appreciate your questions.

01:02:41.700 I promised you guys some tools. So a couple of things that I talked about earlier. This thing, if it fits your macros, really, really helped me. It was a time in my life that I was just so focused on getting bigger. All I would do was focus on my protein and I would get tons of protein, but I wouldn't care about all the other stuff that I'd get.

01:03:05.620 so i got bigger i got a lot more muscular i also got uh quite a bit fatter and i crossed over that

01:03:14.740 obesity threshold that i don't want to be across and this helped me get back on the other side of

01:03:20.340 it um so this link that nick put up and it's a lot of stuff so maybe he could put it in the

01:03:28.500 description to this video i'm not sure how that works for those of you who are listening on um

01:03:34.820 who are listening to this as a podcast later on

01:03:41.080 or in any of our podcast locations.

01:03:44.180 But it's just youfitness.com,

01:03:47.700 and you can kind of go from there.

01:03:49.360 And it talks about the ability,

01:03:51.040 like how to do the calculations for your macros.

01:03:55.740 What to do with that information.

01:03:57.680 And anybody who doesn't know about macros,

01:03:59.060 there's your macronutrients,

01:04:00.680 your carbohydrates, your proteins, and your fats.

01:04:04.820 In order to track that, there's another tool that I use on my phone. My Fitness Pal. If you could post the link up for that, Nick, that would be awesome. My Fitness Pal. It's a calorie slash meal tracker. You can make your own recipes of stuff and load in your own foods that you like there.

01:04:25.280 but it has a database of lots and lots and lots of things lots of things other people have put in

01:04:31.440 there can give you really good guidelines and get you close to calculating that number just right

01:04:36.640 because a little you know a few tweaks here and there done over the long run can make a really

01:04:41.280 big difference um so this is something that don't be intimidated i was at first it took you know

01:04:48.880 just a few days and then it's old hat and you're used to it and it's it's very easy use to stick

01:04:53.600 with it but it's helped me out tremendously it's helped mandy out tremendously and we use it every

01:04:58.000 single day and have for a decade now um also it's really important to be able to track where you're

01:05:08.240 at so you can know your progress it's easy over the course of months and months to figure there's

01:05:15.040 a lot of things you can look in the mirror you can see how your clothes fit you you can judge

01:05:20.080 by the reaction of other people remember it was a really cool day for me i was always i had this

01:05:26.800 thing i was scrawny for a long time and i i wanted to be this big strong larger than life guy uh when

01:05:34.720 i was when i was a young man when i was a kid and you know used to people you know would phys see

01:05:43.440 your physical presence and react a certain way and i remember i was accustomed uh i was in a

01:05:48.960 diverse place in anchorage alaska and i was accustomed to in the bar if somebody bumps into

01:05:54.720 you like them turning around and getting mad at me for having the audacity to be bumped into like

01:06:00.720 you're in the way and they come at you or whatever i remember the day because i'd been working out

01:06:06.320 uh i started working out in 2000 yeah in 2000 i started working out and trying to put on size and

01:06:13.840 bigger and i remember the day i was so used to that kind of interaction and this uh ebony gentleman

01:06:20.720 bumped into me at the bar and then turned around to come around on me and get my face about it

01:06:25.040 looked at me he's like whoops my bad i'll get you a beer and that again those are the things

01:06:32.640 that sneak up on you that you realize but subtle changes are hard to figure out and so this um

01:06:39.680 um this tool is the scale that i use that does like an electronic impedance body fat calculation

01:06:49.680 it's really cool because it calculates a lot of different things on here though too it does your

01:06:54.240 bmi which i don't like or i don't know how to make best use of perhaps it's got stuff it calculates

01:07:02.160 your, you know, your hydration, your lean mass versus your fat mass, your skeletal mass, all

01:07:10.040 kinds of things. And it's very, very useful. It syncs with an app on your phone. It's not expensive,

01:07:16.500 but it helps a lot. And it helps people may argue about its accuracy compared to other ways of

01:07:24.440 calculating body fat. That's not really my point. It's accurate to itself. So if you're checking in

01:07:31.200 it once a month or so you will be able to see your progress go in one direction or another

01:07:37.040 i'm not saying take the numbers for gospel but you can take the difference in change right

01:07:44.080 to be indicative of what you're doing because there's a lot of different ways to measure that

01:07:50.640 that are better and that are i say that are better or worse or that are you know sometimes more

01:07:57.680 expensive more difficult to come by this is a very easy one that is within everybody's grasp

01:08:03.280 and it again it helps you be able to compare from one month to the next on what direction

01:08:09.360 you're running in a really efficient way the other thing the last link i'm gonna throw at you um

01:08:16.160 is for a food scale because people want you know if you're using the other app that i talked about

01:08:20.800 about measuring your food and how much you have this allows you to do that in a way to where you

01:08:27.440 You can, you know, find out how many grams of what you're having and really dial in on that.

01:08:35.180 And again, it seems like a lot.

01:08:39.000 I was really surprised how fast I was able to adapt to it and make it not a big deal.

01:08:44.280 It's something that I do and it's something that I do every single day and I have for a decade or more now.

01:08:49.780 But all these tools are ways to help you if that's something you want to do.

01:08:53.500 the biggest thing is we don't allow your self-consciousness of your current state

01:09:05.100 and how far you are away from where you'd like to be prevent you from getting closer to that

01:09:12.540 there's no good that is accomplished by wallowing in the fact that you are not who you want to be

01:09:18.300 if you aim for that or you aim past that every step you take there that's a win that's a victory

01:09:26.940 for you if you wake up you know three months from now and you're a little bit closer to that person

01:09:32.460 that you know you should be and that you want to be we all want to celebrate that with you

01:09:40.780 it's hard to make life changes that

01:09:44.460 sometimes take a very long time for you to feel the effects that you want

01:09:51.000 but it's worth it and you can do it you have a community of people here in the astro folk

01:09:58.500 assembly that would love to help you do it and that's something else i want to mention

01:10:02.140 within the astro folk assembly um we have to do a lot of our social media in group things

01:10:08.400 on a platform called MeWe. Facebook purged us as they did so many people back in early 2001.

01:10:17.800 So we get on MeWe and we have a group called Physical Excellence. And a lot of our members,

01:10:23.000 both members who are in really good shape and members who are in atrocious shape, but have

01:10:28.060 decided to have the courage to step up and fix it, are on there. And we try to help each other,

01:10:34.380 you know, celebrate each other's successes, talk about different, you know, ideas and ways and

01:10:40.900 tools to help each other succeed, and to move everybody forward. Don't be ashamed of your

01:10:49.720 shortcomings to the extent that it motivates you to do something better,

01:10:55.440 but there's nothing gained in wallowing in it. We all have that, the opportunity,

01:11:01.420 starting literally at this moment certainly starting tomorrow to make our physical condition

01:11:09.540 better and I want to encourage everybody to do that and if you need help or ideas or anything

01:11:17.280 that way please reach out because there's a whole lot of people that would love to help you accomplish

01:11:21.340 those things i'm gonna move on to some questions tonight so uh from a vns email it's a good time

01:11:31.580 to remind everybody vns at runestone.org ask questions anytime you want and we will have

01:11:37.740 those questions answered for you on the next vns episode please do that and i'm glad tyler took

01:11:43.980 advantage of it hey there question for the show tonight can you speak on the carnivore diet and

01:11:48.380 whether or not you recommend it specifically for someone who is trying to lose some fat and put on

01:11:53.100 some muscle also any tips for newcomers in the gym thanks alan you may want to touch on this

01:11:59.420 you talked about it a little bit earlier is there anything you'd like to add well i you know i that's

01:12:06.300 sort of uh the carnivore diet was one of the first big changes that i made like one of those first

01:12:13.260 like slap in the face title changes that i tried that i tried when i was uh

01:12:21.180 sort of tired of carrying around too much weight and it did uh you know it did jolt

01:12:26.700 my system in a way i i think we did it for about three months um and i did lose some weight doing

01:12:34.940 it. And it just got me in a healthier frame of mind. So I would, it definitely works. And if

01:12:46.100 you can stay on it, it's one of those things, again, that you have to use advisedly. I know

01:12:52.120 there are a lot of doctors who have some criticisms about it. So you got to sort of monitor some of

01:12:58.080 your other blood pressure or whatever, you know, I mean, I've,

01:13:03.260 I've never been one much for measuring anything. So, um, it, uh,

01:13:09.460 except I just,

01:13:10.360 I know when I'm losing weight cause I get another notch in my belt, but,

01:13:13.840 um, the, uh, but if that,

01:13:17.860 it seems to me that before you would go on it, you know, to,

01:13:22.380 to adopt it as a full on lifestyle,

01:13:24.400 You'd want to have a physical because, you know, first of all, all the mythology out there about cholesterol and those sorts of things, I think are exactly that.

01:13:39.080 And I think there's, you know, I've watched enough of, in fact, I've read the Raw Egg Nationalist and eat a lot of raw eggs every week.

01:13:47.400 But that too is one of those things that there's been too much hype made out of.

01:13:54.400 too little bad information so um but do your research and if it and if it worked for you and

01:14:01.840 you love bacon i i don't think there's anything wrong with it at all and you know it's one of

01:14:06.480 those things that can help you get start to turn your life around just by developing new habits

01:14:13.600 so i i think carnivore diet or anything ketogenic like that is a really good

01:14:19.760 would shake stuff up and kickstart fat loss um I think it's good for that I don't think it's good

01:14:30.500 long term in my experience and talking to a lot of people who've done it there's not a lot of

01:14:35.900 long-term success on it as a matter of fact the guy who's kind of the founder of it has recently

01:14:41.780 you know recanted that that's a real good thing to do for the long term but for the short term

01:14:47.300 shake stuff up i think it's good i've also anecdotally um and again i haven't tried it

01:14:54.820 myself anecdotally i don't feel that it's good for muscle building carbohydrates have

01:15:02.820 an effect of fueling your muscle gain in a number of different ways that i don't think you achieve

01:15:10.340 the same when you cut those out and you're running a deficit or you're running ketosis

01:15:16.180 and what i've read many times in many different articles by various bodybuilders and gym

01:15:24.340 enthusiasts who've tried it is that there's a lot less success than they would have wanted

01:15:31.460 as far as muscle building goes but i've heard really good things for fat loss and i think that's

01:15:36.020 something i know a lot of people who've gotten a lot of benefit out of the fat loss element

01:15:41.460 right um question where did matt get his thor's hammer it looks epic so i wanted to look it up

01:15:51.020 because it's a it's modeled after an archaeological find uh from uh otis hogg in

01:16:00.500 Ulster Gotland in Sweden, and it's

01:16:05.720 really neat

01:16:11.440 hammer. Had it for a number of years. It initially had the

01:16:17.560 kind of gold facing on it that the original hammer had.

01:16:21.480 That has worn off over the years, unfortunately, but

01:16:25.340 And it's the same modeler, it's modeled after the same hammer that my very first hammer I had was, which was just a little cheap brass one that I had from the museum store that used to be in the malls at the time.

01:16:48.340 all right that one was made by he who shall not be named right

01:16:57.500 that's why i didn't name him um still cool hammer yeah i think it's really it's really

01:17:06.280 neat hammer uh do you know okay do you know any uh remedies for the effects of detoxing

01:17:13.720 from processed foods? Alan, you may want to take that one. Um, wow. Um, no, uh, you know, other than

01:17:27.480 that's, I guess I've never, I was never so far over the edge that I, uh, you know,

01:17:35.560 that I had to detox from it, but, um, I, it's, I would guess though, that it's like anything else,

01:17:43.820 you know, if you felt that bad for so long, that feeling bad feels normal. And then you start to,

01:17:48.580 your body starts to work like it should, you know, it's like a, an engine falling into a good rhythm,

01:17:54.500 you know, if it starts revving, like it should, then, you know, it's gonna, it's gonna,

01:17:58.460 you're gonna you're gonna feel different um you know get get some sleep get lots of water the you

01:18:09.100 know that's the other couple of things is you know when you're especially when you're making a big

01:18:12.860 change like that even if you're doing the carnivore diet or if you're going to a more natural food

01:18:18.380 diet from uh you know too many trips through the drive-through water water water is uh is certainly

01:18:25.020 a big part of that. I have come to believe that, and I say it like that because I know that a lot

01:18:35.000 of doctors don't like too much salt in the water. I put a little sprinkle of salt, natural, organic

01:18:44.360 sea salt. There's some from California that I buy that costs more than I would like it to,

01:18:50.020 But it has more minerals in it instead of just stable salt. It's not just sodium chloride as magnesium and a lot of other things in it.

01:18:57.560 But, you know, I put a little of that in my water. A little bit of lemon in your water makes it alkaline.

01:19:04.960 That makes it counterintuitive, but that's what it does. That that, too, makes water better for you.

01:19:13.320 um ideally if you and you know we're making also true healthy again um and like rfk jr i'm a i

01:19:25.400 i bought a berkey water filter so i can start filtering the fluoride out of my water

01:19:29.920 um so you know i drink super healthy water

01:19:34.760 i guess you could buy bottled water if you don't have access to a you know to a water filter

01:19:41.780 especially if your water system is fluoridated i think that stuff's really bad for you i know

01:19:48.860 there are people who disagree um to be continued um but if you know if you're detoxing like that

01:19:58.140 drink lots of water and um even you know you can and it doesn't have to be like a switch you don't

01:20:06.040 have to just turn it off i mean you can you know you can go from five burgers a week to two and

01:20:12.560 you're still doing yourself a whole lot of healthy good um you can drink raw milk and eat raw eggs

01:20:21.260 especially if you could find somebody like on craigslist or the food co-op that can gift you

01:20:26.500 real eggs the eggs that my ann um gets for us here it's just you know the yolks are orange not

01:20:35.840 this pale yellow like you get with grocery store eggs so it's a totally different food um than

01:20:42.240 than getting anything else so the the healthier you eat and you know what one guy was watching

01:20:52.400 you know he doesn't like almond milk but i think almond milk is better than homogenized milk but

01:20:58.720 you know and if you can't get raw milk because it's you know if because you have to take it

01:21:03.040 away from your dog because you know raw milk is usually sold for pet food only

01:21:07.240 but if you buy your dog some raw milk and he lets you have some that's that's

01:21:11.980 actually a pretty healthy food in my opinion and the nut milks if you can't

01:21:20.080 get stuff you know try to find something that's at least not homogenized to me

01:21:26.740 it's the homogenization that uh causes milk to be really unhealthy for you but you know and yes

01:21:34.900 you're going to be detoxing that those nut oils as they start to break out of your cell membranes

01:21:39.780 they're gonna um make your digestions digestives and as your digestive system starts to loosen up

01:21:46.500 that too is going to be you know there's going to be some period of discomfort in there um

01:21:51.300 As a transitional thing, you could eat a lot, a fair bit of oats and grains and that sort of thing.

01:21:59.480 I did that for a while until I sort of purged my system. Now I tend to be, I do a lot of probiotics.

01:22:06.500 I drink a fair bit of kefir. I eat yogurt.

01:22:11.920 those those are the sorts of things that can really help you reinstate a healthy digestive

01:22:19.280 regimen that um you know where where your food process is better like it ought to

01:22:24.960 and again the occasional fasting can can give your give your body a chance to clean itself out

01:22:31.120 in between big big meals and um so that you're feeling better overall

01:22:35.680 so to the question um as far as the the uh remedies for the effects of of of detoxing

01:22:47.800 a lot of actually a really important one earlier

01:22:54.640 if you are replacing your processed foods with very nutrient dense often very fat heavy foods

01:23:05.680 That's very satiating. One of the things is if you get unsatisfied and you're hungry, that's an uncomfortable feeling.

01:23:14.680 If you're not just getting rid of processed foods, but you're replacing them, especially with proteins and fat that are very satiating, you will counteract a lot of the fullness issues.

01:23:31.320 also the being hydrated a lot of the times you feel like you're hungry when you're really just

01:23:37.080 thirsty keeping yourself well hydrated helps you to feel full as well another thing that is hard

01:23:45.400 is the psychological effect of carbohydrates for your mental health if you're used to being very

01:23:53.380 you know having a very high sugar diet and you comfort eat it can be really jarring if you try

01:24:01.040 to shut that off all at once know that alan and some folks are not fans but i do think that if

01:24:06.480 you replace uh processed sugar with fake sugar alternatives you get a lot of the sugar negativity

01:24:14.880 out of it while still satisfying the sweet new the sweet tooth and the psychological

01:24:21.360 need for the comfort eating so i think that's a really good option if you still need to have

01:24:27.040 that in your diet or still want to have that in your diet i think it takes you a better route

01:24:33.200 if it's just about the processing though if if fat also has an effect on the comfort eating

01:24:40.000 phenomenon to where it helps get you some mental health in there and makes you and it makes you

01:24:46.720 feel full for longer as well so i think those are some tools to help with the uh with you know

01:24:53.280 know the detoxing effects and for me one of the one of the things that helped me feel full

01:25:01.520 although it's too easy to get too many calories is nuts you know i you know the

01:25:09.040 members club big box of uh deluxe mixed nuts that was uh that lived in the drawer for a long time

01:25:18.520 And also pumpkin seeds, you know, are really good for you.

01:25:30.100 And everybody's got slightly different stuff they're trying to go for and stuff they're trying to do.

01:25:35.980 If you just eat less things that you know are not good for you and you eat more things that are,

01:25:42.120 one of the other things that is a truth if you like i gave you the macro calculator deal earlier

01:25:51.080 any of that is going to put your protein much higher than if you are not counting it it typically

01:25:57.080 is for example usually i'm eating about 285 plus grams of protein a day

01:26:08.360 um if you're eating that much protein

01:26:12.500 like the the diet that i suggest isn't eating less it'll probably have many of you eating

01:26:19.440 more than you're used to but it's a much different ratio of macronutrients and

01:26:25.960 if you eat all of the protein that you need to get there's a lot less room for you to eat

01:26:34.560 junk that you don't want. You find it's easier because you are full if you're full of good

01:26:41.180 things before you start resorting to not good things. I think that's an important way to think

01:26:50.220 about it. One of the phrases that Ann said to me not that long ago, but it's just not worth the

01:26:59.300 calories like if you're going to only eat 1800 calories a day or 2500 calories a day whatever

01:27:04.960 your mark is you know instead of a bag of chips you want a bag of dried blueberries you know you

01:27:10.700 want something that's good that has good nutrient value because you only have so many calories you

01:27:16.320 can take in in a day so you got to have nutrient dense food not empty calories i was just gonna

01:27:22.540 note i know doritos taste good but they're not good for you i was gonna note because 280 grams

01:27:28.500 protein that's a lot of protein how much of that if any is from uh supplements supplements powder

01:27:37.540 like whey or protein powder um it all depends on that's a lot of steak if not well it's a lot of

01:27:49.780 steak beef is really expensive so it it really depends on the day and what other stuff i'm

01:27:56.660 eating so um as you may have picked up i'm not real big on this cut out processed foods i really

01:28:02.900 don't care about chemicals what i care about is overall carbs fat and protein in versus not

01:28:12.340 and adjusting that based on you know where i'm at but the thing is if you eat a lot of processed

01:28:20.340 stuff it spikes your carbs up really really high and then it doesn't leave you a lot of room for

01:28:26.180 anything else so i could you know eat healthy things or you know alan proved things a lot of

01:28:33.860 the day and be okay or i can have a very small amount of matt super sugar stuff and blow all of

01:28:42.740 my carbs in one you know in one brief meal and then have to figure it out for the rest of the

01:28:49.300 day so if i'm splurging on something or eating out or doing something else then i'll hit my carbs

01:28:58.180 and fat number way before i get my protein number and in that case then i'll supplement with um with

01:29:06.100 whey protein but most of the time and again early on whey protein is really your friend on getting

01:29:12.100 that protein number where you need it but once your body adjusts i don't find it to be too much

01:29:17.620 at all as a matter of fact a lot of the time i have trouble staying under my protein where i

01:29:23.060 want it like i mean i think today i'm gonna check my if it fit my or i'm gonna check my uh

01:29:31.860 my fitness pal right now and tell you yeah today i'm gonna have 324 grams of protein by the time

01:29:37.780 i go to bed that's not difficult for me because my body's very used to it because i've been eating

01:29:44.420 a lot of protein for a very long time it is a challenge up front i think a lot of you if you

01:29:48.820 take stock of what you're eating you'd be surprised how little protein that you're getting

01:29:54.020 but most of that like today the perfect example a lot of it i i got like 10 grams of collagen

01:30:02.340 in my coffee this morning my joints aren't great and i think collagen helps that i

01:30:08.340 really do feel like i benefit from taking collagen um i'm going to eat these things called uh

01:30:15.940 real good emphasis on real um that are these like frozen chicken strips from costco that are

01:30:23.780 minimally breaded minimally messed with um fairly close to being uh something the law

01:30:30.740 speaker would recognize as food but but but they're really good and the ratio is really

01:30:36.260 good they taste very good they're very satisfying that's where i'm going to get the majority of my

01:30:41.620 protein today um but yeah i mean steak steak's good if you can get it it often gets your fat

01:30:50.180 high um but depending on what you're doing that's not necessarily bad um eggs i do a lot of i mean

01:30:58.820 chicken is always a good go-to just because the ratio is right but you get bored with it so vary

01:31:04.580 it up it doesn't all have to come from from one source there's so many different ways to do it

01:31:10.100 but yeah whey protein supplementation is is certainly your friend starting out on that you

01:31:14.740 can get there but there there are other ways to do it if you get creative and get used to it you

01:31:21.220 start getting a feel for what it looks like to track it to answer the question um we have another

01:31:27.460 question that's completely unrelated but kind of a random to put out there has anyone tried to quote

01:31:32.980 meet the gods or a god of ours by taking psilocybin for a spiritual journey in the afa i mean

01:31:40.520 official or not or not sanctioned um i will say that certainly i'm sure that people have

01:31:47.900 in an unsanctioned unofficial way um i i am i am fairly positive that folks have have tried to do

01:31:58.220 that in perhaps say a vacation to other countries or other places where that is a legally acceptable

01:32:06.540 practice. You do not officially condone that officially. So yeah that's that was the question

01:32:16.180 official or non-sanctioned so I will say theoretically there is certainly a case to

01:32:24.140 be made for for some validity in in doing that and i think that's if you read on that from a

01:32:31.260 right not just psilocybin but a number of different substances that is a commonality in the human

01:32:38.940 existence um the process of breaking down barriers mentally that prevent you from perceiving subtle

01:32:51.060 things in the world around us is there is validity to that certainly. And I think that's one of the

01:33:00.480 things that folks sometimes try to do through non-fungal methods like various breathing

01:33:07.420 exercises or meditative practice to accomplish chemically something similar in the brain

01:33:14.400 that I think is probably much easier accessed in some of the traditional fungal processes.

01:33:25.680 Do you have anything you'd like to add on that, Los Peter?

01:33:29.220 From what I've read, it can be a tool that can get you to, like you said, leverage some of those

01:33:38.560 doors that are stuck half open it the the important thing is always about set

01:33:47.740 and setting you know and having somebody there that has some idea what's going on

01:33:54.400 the I think it would be a useful avenue to explore for those who are interested

01:34:06.280 it's certainly it's like like any other tool it's it's something that's not for everybody it's not

01:34:11.640 uh and it's certainly not a mere entertainment it is i think it is something to be approached with

01:34:18.280 raw and rev awe and reverence um and and done in that way i believe it could be a useful tool

01:34:26.040 absolutely i concur um be careful out there psychonauts

01:34:32.840 bring back some souvenirs

01:34:36.280 Ah, Beetlejuice.

01:34:44.360 Matt, what is your favorite pre-workout?

01:34:50.440 So, there's a thing, and I didn't preload it for Nick to show a link.

01:34:58.120 There is a President Trump-themed pre-workout called Trigger Warning.

01:35:03.920 and i and i'll front load with this you may have caught on to some of alan and my back and forth

01:35:10.400 about energy drinks i am very very resistant to feeling the effects of caffeine my tolerance for

01:35:20.060 a lot of stuff has been extremely extremely high most of my life and i find that when i'm taking

01:35:26.600 medication for a variety of things i've found it in any you know

01:35:33.640 uh with alcohol i've found it with uh you know when any kind of like marijuana or anything

01:35:44.440 my tolerance is very high which sounds cool and in some ways it is but it also means that

01:35:51.880 if you're slamming stuff to go hard you very easily cross the line of where you're trying

01:35:57.080 to go before you recognize that you're there um but same has been the case with uh

01:36:05.960 that's it nick you are you're a magician um so that's this i say that to say this

01:36:13.560 being you know lifting heavy and being really involved in the gym working out

01:36:18.440 for 25 years now um also yeah they're not a sponsor if you would like to sponsor to if anybody would

01:36:28.360 like to have me sponsor their products or be a sponsor of the program by having us advertise

01:36:32.920 their products uh this can go on the list because i support it i would not advertise anything that

01:36:38.040 i do not fully believe in the efficacy of this i have uh i so again i've tried all of these

01:36:47.400 different pre-workouts over the years and what i would find with a lot of them and in order for

01:36:52.120 me to try them i would only want to get the super extreme heart attack 5000 whatever labeled stuff

01:37:00.280 that is advertised to be really really hardcore and i sometimes i i take it i feel amazing

01:37:08.680 the first day and the second day i'd be like that's all right for third or fourth day

01:37:14.040 and then after that it was just flavored water and I say that I'm sure chemically it did something

01:37:20.640 that as far as me feeling the effects of it the pre-workout I talked about that trigger warning

01:37:26.500 is the first thing I've ever tried that and I've tried it for months it still works every time that

01:37:35.820 feel that it does stuff but i suppose haha trigger warning it is a very powerful diuretic as well

01:37:45.900 if you take trigger warning

01:37:50.220 it will really really mess with your stomach and i don't think it's like a just till you get used to

01:37:55.740 it i have found that it continues to mess with your stomach in the long term to the point of

01:38:02.460 i don't know if the juice is worth the squeeze because it just kind of wrecks your guts but

01:38:11.100 you you get you get the stimulant effect but you also get the endurance effect

01:38:17.340 you can push more and go longer and i find that's pretty consistent in it

01:38:22.940 it makes you it helps with your feeling like you're in good shape journey because i think

01:38:28.620 of the diuretic effect so you're you're flushing out a lot of fat and other stuff and you're

01:38:34.540 messing with your body composition that way but i found that to be the most effective

01:38:40.140 and if that's something you want to do that's the one that's worked the most for me

01:38:47.500 my pre-workout routine is driving to the gym

01:38:49.900 i mean there is that it's more subtle approach to pre-workout

01:39:00.620 getting geared up in here

01:39:08.540 got to talk about cold showers too man i know that's uh that's

01:39:12.060 so um nick had a question in the queue that i don't understand maybe he'll

01:39:20.780 send me some more on the back end to make it make more sense to me um

01:39:31.660 okay so american farmer says i'm more convinced that encouraging women to do pilates 0.99

01:39:37.260 is better than yoga, mainly because I don't want Indians dominating women's desires, 0.98

01:39:43.380 but also teaching girls such powerful spirituality goes too far. 1.00

01:39:48.920 Now I understand Nick's question.

01:39:51.320 Alan, do you have any comment you would like to make on that?

01:39:57.460 And still be able to not watch my back constantly at OSTAR next month?

01:40:03.740 Um, I understand what the, I understand the gist of the question. Um, I'll say that traditionally, and we are traditionalist people, um, traditionally the, the, the, the, the path, um, to higher attainment, um, by the, um, each through the, uh, as it is bisected by sex, um, the,

01:40:33.740 The female path has always been devotion and service, as opposed to the left-hand path that is the male path, the wet path that men follow through physical.

01:40:47.380 Um, that said, I hope that's the, uh, the sound of a LaCroix crack it open. Oh, good. Oh, good. So beer, beer is good for you in, in small doses. Now, now that being said, um, I don't, I think that the American yoga scene has been, um, watered down enough that 0.88

01:41:17.380 The vast majority of yoga studios are not doing anything that looks like real hardcore spiritual-based yoga.

01:41:28.920 and i can tell you that um the yoga that i have been doing for the last

01:41:36.580 13 years incorporates a large rune component so i have swept those two divergent paths together

01:41:48.000 to i sometimes call it rundalini yoga that's trademark you got you got to pay me a nickel

01:41:54.700 if you say it. But so that being said, I think there is a real danger if if you got on the path

01:42:04.120 where you're in, you know, in Swami want to have a good time yoga studio, then I think it could

01:42:13.120 lead people astray if they are easily led. I don't think that that's our folk. I mean,

01:42:19.340 don't think you find it. I don't think you find your way to this path by being easily led into

01:42:26.120 any of the wrong paths that are out there. It's certainly a valid point for the, like, for the

01:42:34.440 vast majority of NPCs, if that's the term that you want to use out there, that, you know, that could

01:42:42.680 be um led astray uh into a you know into a wrong spiritual practice but i think most of them are

01:42:52.700 doing something that looks a lot like pilates already you know they're doing hot yoga or

01:42:57.160 something like that which is not the deep spiritual practice that could lead them into errancy

01:43:03.520 yeah what alan said no re really and truly um

01:43:11.560 i think that i also do not want to encourage uh white women to go to some creepy guy's 0.69

01:43:26.520 ashram to get led astray by his yoga sex cult and i say that and it's funny but that's a thing 0.80

01:43:35.160 and that at one time was a prevalent thing i think that what is so much more prevalent now

01:43:42.680 is soccer mom yoga talked by an aged hippie that is basically doing pilates and it's pretty good

01:43:52.740 they're in there getting some exercise and doing stretching and doing things. And I don't think

01:43:58.760 that broaches upon, you know, a deep spiritual practice in most cases that people are going to

01:44:05.140 be familiar with, unless that's specifically what they're seeking out with it. I don't think women 1.00

01:44:09.840 in the United States, by and large, if they're going to find a yoga studio for health and fitness

01:44:16.280 purposes, are going to run any risk of that. Now, yeah, if they're trying to pursue it for the

01:44:21.660 spiritual aspect of it, they do run the risk of the creepy guru guy, or they also could

01:44:32.220 potentially access some higher spirituality through it, which is kind of its own issue.

01:44:40.920 But I don't think that's at play in the fitness yoga realm here in the United States, at least.

01:44:46.620 still something to be on the watch out for i mean valid point yeah and and i say that literally

01:44:57.140 knowing people who have gone and traveled places to go to some guy's ashram to do their

01:45:06.740 you know yoga and there was a predatory sexual sexual element to the that equation so it's a

01:45:15.080 thing. And it's a thing, you know, that I'm one degree away of knowing somebody who was involved

01:45:20.280 in. So we have another question. Thoughts on dividend investing, REITs, to retire early.

01:45:31.400 I'm looking into that. Alan, this one's all you. Okay. So real estate investment trust, REIT.

01:45:40.100 um um i'm a strong advocate of passive income um if you can you know if you can leverage it right

01:45:50.460 it can be good um i tend to like things on a smaller scale though um if you watch

01:46:00.160 i didn't understand the real estate collapse of 2008 until i watched the movie the big short

01:46:06.880 And, and I think that the danger of real estate investment trusts is very much like what happened

01:46:13.440 in 2008. You get, you know, a hundred D class mortgages and wrap them together and they call

01:46:21.840 it one, a class mortgage, but it's still just a whole bunch of D's and it's going to, you know,

01:46:27.120 and that's what happened in 2008. We had all these different investment type

01:46:38.880 instruments that were typing up the real estate prices. And honestly, from what I've read,

01:46:47.520 your mileage may vary, but all the leading indicators are that we're in 2007 right now,

01:46:55.120 like real estate is overinflated we're hanging over the cliff again there are more of these

01:47:01.840 trust instruments out there and derivatives although they call them something different

01:47:06.240 than there were in 2007 so it's a you know you know rather than getting involved in a

01:47:16.080 real estate investment trust i'd buy a rental property i mean that's the you know one thing

01:47:20.880 that you can manage that you can keep an eye on i and i know that i'm uh in a lot of investment

01:47:27.840 a lot of these investment ideas i am the counter force to what so fine i'll just say it i don't

01:47:35.760 own any stock i don't have you know i don't have any of that stuff but what i've done is i paid

01:47:39.600 off all my debt i mean except for my mortgage but you know i don't i don't have debt and so i uh

01:47:46.240 And so rather than having investments on one hand and a lot of debt on the other, you know, I own my cars and so I can, you know, I've got a rental property that we, you know, that doesn't have any debt on it.

01:48:01.360 And so we can, you know, so, I mean, it takes a long time to make your money back, but, you know, that's, as I look to retirement and, you know, another 25 or 30 years, that's one of the things that I just, that I have to be aware of that there's, you know, that there has to be cashflow of some, in some measure that social security is not going to do it.

01:48:25.440 You have to have, you definitely need to have some sort of, something that looks like an investment portfolio.

01:48:35.380 You know, you got to be, and everybody's risk reward ratio and that sort of thing is all very, is scaled differently.

01:48:43.600 I, you know, I just don't like, I think the stock market's a bet, like a real, like a REIT is a bet of a certain kind, Bitcoin or any of that stuff.

01:48:52.420 I think it's all a gamble of a certain type.

01:48:56.100 And I don't like gambling on something I'm not in control of.

01:48:59.140 The rental property that I own, I'm in charge of.

01:49:02.360 I let people rent or not.

01:49:05.540 They, you know, they pay me.

01:49:06.920 I do the maintenance.

01:49:08.280 It's all, you know, it's all right there in hand.

01:49:11.740 And, you know, that's, again, that's a lot harder to do if you're working a, you know,

01:49:19.740 eight to six gig and you don't have time

01:49:23.460 to mess with that sort of thing. I understand it.

01:49:29.000 Live small.

01:49:31.960 Own your vehicles. Don't borrow

01:49:35.480 money.

01:49:39.020 There you go. Sound advice.

01:49:42.220 Our next question.

01:49:43.340 and the last question we have in the queue for tonight should someone who is obese focus more

01:49:55.060 on cardio and low calorie intake rather than weight lifting and counting protein

01:50:00.400 alan do you have thoughts

01:50:02.620 i would go back to what you said earlier um i think that whatever works

01:50:13.000 to get you started um you know for a lot of for a lot of people who are obese i mean cardio is

01:50:22.220 walking or um you know i mean if you can't walk you could get on a bicycle you know and turn the

01:50:30.360 resistance up or get on a rowing machine but you know those sorts of things i think i think cardio

01:50:36.280 is beneficial. Um, I, but I, for the studies I've read, the, um, you know, weightlifting

01:50:44.100 is actually better for you as far as losing weight. So, um, certainly I think if you've

01:50:52.000 led a sedentary lifestyle for very long at all, um, you need to start working up your

01:50:58.940 cardio, but you need to lift weights too. Um, and I think one will help with your wind

01:51:04.560 and the other one will uh help you lose weight faster yes so the answer is yes um

01:51:14.000 really something to consider and there's different levels of obesity there's

01:51:22.720 you know discovery channel level of obesity and then there's just somebody that's

01:51:28.080 you know let himself get a little bit too fat um

01:51:34.560 For any normal range, sometimes if you are so far obese, there's very little you can do until you reach a certain level of progress.

01:51:47.560 So, like Alan mentioned, just walking a little bit is a big deal for you, and that's great. Do that by all means.

01:51:55.680 if the problem is a massive amount of overeating eating a little bit less

01:52:02.840 progressively will make a big impact in that scenario if you're

01:52:08.740 you know a more more normal level of of obesity

01:52:17.400 the thing to consider i would say the latter as opposed to the former so if you're if you're

01:52:23.780 if we're going to have the hard dichotomy between either doing cardio and

01:52:29.060 lower calorie intake or counting your protein and lifting weights,

01:52:33.940 I'm going to go with lifting weights,

01:52:35.020 counting your protein because muscle is a calorie furnace.

01:52:43.020 Building your muscle mass,

01:52:46.560 you're in a spot when you're really fat to where you can do body

01:52:50.600 recomposition in a way that other people can't you have a lot of stored energy stored calories that

01:52:58.600 can be put towards your effort at gaining muscle in a different way than people who

01:53:07.080 aren't in the same kind of overage

01:53:11.640 if you ate the exact same calories but you made sure you got the protein recommendation that i

01:53:18.840 I would recommend, that change alone would make a difference to you at that level of

01:53:26.220 obesity and would help your body, if you are doing some kind of weightlifting, do recomposition

01:53:36.000 in an important way.

01:53:37.080 And the more muscle you build, the more every movement your body makes does to burn calories.

01:53:43.300 another thing to consider though when you talk about weightlifting that is worthwhile when you're

01:53:50.900 that big walking in and of itself is a form of weightlifting if you are squatting 500 pounds

01:54:04.900 every time you use the toilet that counts that's something and i and i mean this sometimes people

01:54:11.940 who are very obese will develop really really advanced lower body musculature because just

01:54:20.900 moving around they are literally moving you know it's like the rest of us with 100 pound rucksack

01:54:28.500 or 100 pound squat bar on our back doing things so that's something to consider too a really fat

01:54:36.420 person doing body weight exercise is weight training in a way that's you know much more so

01:54:44.180 much more direct than somebody who's a lot lighter um but yeah i think that weight training is

01:54:52.580 essential we talk about cardio but if you're a person who's very obese and you're not in good

01:54:57.620 shape if you're really putting the energy into your weight training you're going to be sweating

01:55:01.940 you're going to be out of breath you're going to be cardiovascularly accomplishing something with

01:55:07.460 that weight training and i think you'll see results faster um i would you know if you are able

01:55:15.620 figure out what your calorie intake is do the math get your protein right if you're still eating too

01:55:21.540 much also decrease your calories do weight training and then also do cardio that would be optimal

01:55:29.460 but if you have to one or the other i'd say the cat the weight training protein

01:55:34.100 since you're going to do cardio i think hit is the way to do it um you know i surprised myself

01:55:42.340 when i started running um you know that's one of the things where i actually did start to

01:55:47.460 see a change in my waist size you know even though you know 30 minutes three times a week

01:55:53.380 uh anybody who's not familiar high intensity interval training and i

01:56:00.180 thoroughly agree with alan on that is a much better route to cardio for

01:56:08.420 body composition than other types of cardio uh there's something that happens and somebody who's

01:56:16.820 you know more of a chemist on here can explain it in a more detailed way but

01:56:20.740 But the, okay, the idea of high intensity interval training is you do bursts of near maximal effort exertion broken up by periods of steady state cardio, brief periods, and you alternate those back and forth in intervals for, you know, whatever amount of time you do that.

01:56:46.860 And a lot of people do that for 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 20 minutes, maybe up to a half an hour, but typically not longer than that.

01:56:54.000 There's a lot of different varieties of how to do that.

01:56:56.080 I typically will do that on a treadmill or on the stair climber.

01:57:00.980 A lot of people do that sprints, sprints and walk and sprint and walk and sprint and walk.

01:57:07.740 There's a lot of right ways to do it.

01:57:09.520 People will do that in boxing rounds.

01:57:11.980 I know people do that with battle ropes.

01:57:13.600 there's a lot of different ways you can do it but high intensity interval training is the good

01:57:18.720 cardio and one of the effects that it does is it doesn't just burn cardio while you are doing it

01:57:26.240 but through the interval training method of it it tends to have that fat burning effect

01:57:32.800 for hours after you're done completing the exercise so it's a really efficient way to get

01:57:39.520 a really powerful bang for your buck and it also activates your fast twitch muscle fibers

01:57:45.520 in a different way if you look at the body composition of marathon runners versus sprinters

01:57:53.520 sprinters tend to be much more muscular and have a lower like lower body fat whereas you get

01:57:58.960 marathon folks that they'll end up being skinny because there's running themselves the bone but

01:58:03.760 they're also they're often what's referred to as skinny fat to where it's not the muscular

01:58:08.320 definition there's just kind of an overall lack of everything yeah and i i don't mean to be

01:58:16.880 disparaging if you're if you're on here and you're struggling with obesity and your way out of it is

01:58:22.000 you want to run marathons by all means please do that i will support you every step of the way

01:58:26.320 that's great but as far as best practice 26 miles i mean i will stand at the end here first

01:58:34.480 smiles and like cheer um but yeah so those are those are the questions we have lined up this

01:58:44.640 evening alan is there any any thoughts you'd like to leave people with tonight

01:58:50.640 well i you know i'm glad that you use the word mindfulness um because that's really a lot of what

01:58:55.920 What I think adulting really comes down to is internalizing the idea that you're responsible for yourself.

01:59:03.000 You're responsible for the way you look.

01:59:05.120 You're responsible for the way your wallet looks.

01:59:07.880 You're responsible for the way your children behave.

01:59:11.760 And mindfulness is a good, good part of that.

01:59:16.960 And that's one of those things that, uh, that I think practicing the way, um, is a, you know, mindfulness is a big part of that.

01:59:26.820 We, we are pious and worship the gods and, um, revere our ancestors and inside in here, we should be mindful and that, and that will help you with your money.

01:59:40.720 It'll help you with your diet and exercise, and it'll help you with everything else to get you through to be a better person.

01:59:50.400 Yeah, I think that's solid advice, and it applies to almost anything.

01:59:56.740 And I'll double up on it.

01:59:58.880 um in our interaction i don't know in life generally specifically in our ritual in our

02:00:12.400 gift cycle with the gods sometimes we're putting in work for the afa that counts as a gift towards

02:00:23.280 our gods and that's a really straightforward thing to see when we're imbuing the horn

02:00:32.640 in bloat with our energy with our you know good feelings

02:00:42.640 the fundamental element in it is intention and your ability to focus intention into what you're

02:00:49.600 doing and i think that carries on throughout all of the practice of our faith

02:00:57.760 and the the npc meme is really very relevant to this there are a lot of people that just

02:01:05.360 kind of float through life and don't give it much thought and don't put a lot into it

02:01:10.240 in a way our whole lives because also true is a um a holistic religion it's not a

02:01:19.120 something you do on sundays it's a it's a whole uh way of living your life

02:01:26.280 in that sense our whole life is a very large ritual that is done best and most beneficially

02:01:37.140 when the maximum amount of the things we do are done with very purposeful intention

02:01:43.300 we see this all the time when we speak to people when we interact with people

02:01:48.100 oftentimes it truly is the thought that counts you can tell if what someone's saying is

02:01:54.320 something that's heartfelt that they put thought into that they are making the choice to do

02:02:00.680 or if we're just reflexively going through the motions in life.

02:02:06.480 Life is too short to go through the motions on stuff.

02:02:10.240 Live intentionally, make choices, take ownership of the choices that you make,

02:02:16.720 and I think everything will start becoming better, richer, and more successful.

02:02:23.840 And that's such a big part of what we do.

02:02:25.860 all right well law speaker thank you so much for joining us um we have a lot of people on the side

02:02:34.500 in comments and stuff throughout throughout the week and throughout responses to your previous

02:02:40.420 episode that are very happy to get a chance to hear more from you and learn from you so thank you

02:02:46.100 for being with us this evening i'm honored to do so and um as we all as i always say you know if

02:02:54.100 if you have specific questions or if you have a specific substance that you want to come over and

02:03:00.880 try, you know, you can find me through the RuneStone website and I will be happy to indulge

02:03:09.400 to the best of my ability. I'm here to serve. This is what I live for.

02:03:14.620 All right, guys. Well, I'm looking forward to talking to you all next week. I am also excited.

02:03:20.880 you are going to join us again next month is that correct for another edition of adulting with alan

02:03:26.000 yes sir fourth wednesday of the month that's going to be a regular

02:03:31.600 that is now a regular feature on the program yes sir until next week when i talk to you guys if

02:03:38.400 i don't talk to you before then hail the icer health folk hail the afa and remember victory

02:03:45.120 He never sleeps.

02:04:15.120 We'll be right back.

02:04:45.120 Thank you.

02:05:15.120 Thank you.

02:05:45.120 Thank you.

02:06:15.120 We'll be right back.

02:06:45.120 Thank you.

Asatru Folk Assembly - February 27, 2025

2⧸26⧸25 Victory Never Sleeps, Episode 138 - Adulting with Allen： Diet and Exercise

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