Originally posted at: http://www.nerdfitness.com/

I know you’re overcomplicating things, because everybody does.

Including me, the nerd who studies this stuff for a living.

I shared a quick story the other day on ​Threads​ (and ​Instagram​):

A few thousand people resonated, and I couldn’t help but chuckle ​at the replies​. Magdalena jokingly said it best:

When life asks me to juggle chainsaws and then sets those chainsaws on fire, I tend to get away from the things that keep me functioning as a fulfilled human.

Lately, I found myself feeling a bit discombobulated and sluggish in the morning and struggled to focus.

So I asked myself where I was overcomplicating things and could simplify.

I went back to basics.

I got some exercise. I ate a ​balanced dinner​ (protein, vegetables, mini potatoes). And even though I’m hooked on Playstation’s Astro-Bot (delightful), loving Slow Horses on AppleTV+ (Gary Oldman is the man), and I’m really enjoying my time on ​Threads​…

I put down the phone.

I turned off the TV.

I climbed into bed at a reasonable time.

Instead of scrolling social media, I read some of Matt Haig’s new book ​The Life Impossible​, and then went to bed.

Weirdly, I woke up feeling like a million bucks

I had no problem focusing on my work.

I felt better.

It works. Crap.

Simple, Not Easy.

Many companies manufacture complicated problems to sell us complicated solutions:

“Be afraid of THIS ingredient, balance your gut microbiome, take these expensive supplements, do this complicated workout, buy this expensive mattress and mask and glasses and machine, only eat between 12:17pm and 7:34pm!”

Here’s your friendly reminder to go hard in the direction of simplicity:

Eat the right number of calories for your goal weight. Eat protein, fruits, and vegetables. Strength train 2-3x per week. Go for walks. Put down the phone and go to sleep.

If the scale isn’t going down, reduce calories consumed. Full stop.

Once we accept that the solution is simple (but not easy), we can figure out WHY we can’t get ourselves to do it.

This is the far more important question. We have hormones and kids and jobs and messy fights with our spouses and we’re all overwhelmed with inputs and information 24-7. Of course doing these things isn’t easy!

We don’t need to make it harder by focusing on the complicated. Instead, we need to remember that the simple solution is the right one, and put our focus on making that behavior the default one:

Speaking of which, Coach Matt Myers from Team NF put together a new resource that dives into both aspects of the above:

It’s our Starter Guide: how to eat and how to train, AND how to get yourself to do those things.

You can download it free ​here at the top of our Free Guides page​.

What part of your journey are you currently overcomplicating, and how can you simplify it today?

-Steve

The post You’re overcomplicating it. first appeared on Nerd Fitness.

Originally posted at: http://www.nerdfitness.com/

We have two choices for how we spend the rest of 2024:

• Path A: Coast and say “I’ll start back up in January.”
• Path B: Treat it like a Beta Test for 2025.

Our brains are going to try and convince us to pick Path A.

I want you to pick Path B.

Here’s how Beta Testing works:

We’re going to experiment with our lives and find out what we want to work on in 2025.

We’re not looking to stick with the perfect workout, or trying to build a flawless streak of running every day. We’re not trying to be 100% adherent to the optimized diet.

• Want to be “somebody who goes to Pilates or Yoga” but you’re worried about the ongoing commitment? Great! Sign up for ONE class this week or next week. Try it out! You’re not committing to a lifetime. You’re trying it out to see if you want to do this in 2025.
• Want to be somebody who gets really strong, because you want toned arms or you know getting stronger is important? You don’t need the perfect workout plan to follow. You need to work up the courage to ​go to the gym and pick up one weight​.
• Want to be somebody who has a better relationship with food? You don’t need to plan out the next 40 days of meals. You don’t need to perfectly plan out each portion of your diet every day. You need to figure out which ​healthy meals​ you don’t hate preparing.

The fun part about beta testing is that you can stop doing things without feeling badly.

You’re an engineer, tinkering away at a project to see if it fits your lifestyle and schedule. You’re dabbling in different disciplines, ​sampling different foods from the buffet line​, to see what works for you.

Your goal is to experiment and find a workout strategy and diet plan that work for you that you can implement more regularly by the end of the year. This way, instead of starting from a dead stop on January 1st, you get to start with momentum and knowledge about what actually works for you.

Sign up for a class you’ve wanted to try.

Give yourself permission to try and fail a different diet.

Experiment with a different productivity strategy.

Let go of the strategies you keep trying and failing to implement. They don’t work for you.

Try new stuff.

After all, 2024 is just a beta test for 2025.

What are you going to test and try out this fall?

-Steve

The post This is a Test (Year) first appeared on Nerd Fitness.

Originally posted at: http://www.nerdfitness.com/

For the first time in 10+ years, I rewatched my 2012 TEDx talk:

“​Nerd Fitness and Resetting the Game of Life.​”

My first thought: “Whoa, Steve. Those are some EPIC sideburns.”

My next thought: “Bold choice with the striped shirt, jeans, and flip flops!”

Then I gave myself some grace.

I’m deeply uncomfortable with the spotlight. I hate public speaking. It makes me want to vomit every single time. I also don’t like being on camera.

And yet, I have ideas that I think can help people.

So I write and share my ideas. And sometimes, I force myself to get on stage. For this talk, I had to take two buses through the jungles of Ecuador (where I was living at the time), and then take two flights to get to Atlanta.

I stayed at my friend Kappy’s house, and the night before the talk, I decided to stay up and rewrite the whole damn thing. That morning, I practiced my talk to his two dogs, and then hurried over to Emory and just went full YOLO and shouted my talk into the universe.

12 years later, rewatching this talk, I have thoughts.

If you want to take a trip down memory lane, you can ​watch the talk on YouTube​, which surprisingly has over 100,000 views.

My Biggest Surprise Rewatching…

It wasn’t as embarrassing as I thought!

Baby Steve actually had some decent ideas and was an okay storyteller! Especially when you consider I had rewritten the entire talk 12 hours prior and was on zero hours of sleep. Oh, to be young and naive again.

This is the slide that cracked me up the most, and I think the one I want to spend the most amount of time on:

Throughout most of my early 20s, I spent an unhealthy amount of time playing video games. At the time, I had convinced myself that the video games were the problem. They had become too addicting, too enjoyable, and they were the reason I wasn’t making much progress in my real life.

The reality is one level deeper. It wasn’t just the video games. It was that I didn’t have much life to look forward to. I didn’t like my job (selling construction equipment), I didn’t have goals or things in my personal life to look forward to. So I escaped into video games.

Older and wiser and with shorter sideburns, I have a better understanding of human behavior and my own personal struggles with procrastination and escape.

As laid out in my friend Nir Eyal’s book ​Indistractable​, if we don’t address the root cause of distraction or escape, our brains will get very good at finding yet another thing to get hooked on!

In other words, if you can go one level deeper as to WHY you’re procrastinating or avoiding reality (possibly with the ​help of therapy​) it can help you get out of the rut.

Once I found something to look forward to (for me it was turning life into an adventure video game like Zelda and EverQuest), suddenly video games became a far less appealing use of my limited free time.

These days, I still play video games regularly (I just finished Fallout 4), but I now know more.

When video games take over too much of my life, it’s probably because I’m avoiding confronting the reality of a problem in life.

Maybe I’m scared to get back to work on my secret-book-shaped project, because I worry it’s not good enough. Or maybe I’m avoiding an uncomfortable conversation or addressing a real problem in my life.

So, the solution isn’t unplugging the Playstation. It’s addressing the problem I’m actually working hard to avoid.

It’s better to know why I’m procrastinating instead of just blaming it on video games.

How’s My Epic Quest Going?

In my talk, I talk about my Bucket List, which I renamed my Epic Quest of Awesome. For a good 8 years, this was a big focus of mine.

Literally earning experience points for accomplishing quests in real life.

I did this after ​exercising around the world​ and living ​14 months of adventure travel​.

I even got a book published about turning life into a game, Level Up Your Life, back in 2016. I recently reacquired the rights to this book, and I’m hoping to put out a Version 2 in the coming year.

(This is why you can’t buy it now, sorry about that!).

12 years later, life is a bit different.

If you’ve been reading this newsletter for the past year, you might have noticed a theme: ​acceptance and self-compassion​.

I’ve changed my perspective on goals.

I had run myself ragged for over a decade, building Nerd Fitness, giving as much as possible, chasing the next goal. Each goal led to the next goal. Each dragon slain required me to go find another dragon.

It became an endless loop of perpetual “more more more.”

And eventually I realized that I had gotten pretty far away from what actually made me happy.

These past few years, I’ve decided to live a bit differently.

Instead of big long term goals with dramatically organized plans, I’ve narrowed my focus to: “How can I have a good day today?”

I live as if ​I will NEVER “get there.”​

I still have goals, and I still have things I hope to accomplish in life.

I’m just playing a different game than I was at 28. I think this “life is a game” philosophy served me well at the time, and I think now I have added a few extra doses of reality to how this plays out.

For somebody stuck in a rut, and escaping too much into virtual worlds, I think thinking about life like a video game can be a pretty fun way to try and break out of that rut.

It might not work for everybody, but I think having things to look forward to, and goals to work on, and then finding ways to make tiny bits of progress can help.

I cover this in an article called “​A Nerd’s Guide to Success and Happiness​” which still holds up!

A little bit of nuance and perspective can go a long way when gamifying life!

Wading into the Comment Section…

I made the perilous choice to wade into the cesspool of the internet:

The comment section on my video.

I was shocked to see that 95% of the comments were super positive!

There was one comment though, that provided me a unique opportunity to do something I’ve always wanted to do.

Prove somebody wrong on the internet.

In my talk, I mentioned that I hoped to one day deadlift 400+ pounds. I grew up scrawny and weak, and I later learned that I have spondylolisthesis, which means two of my vertebrae don’t line up.

For the past 15 years, deadlifting has been my favorite exercise. It’s the movement that has made me feel the most strong and empowered.

I went and found a ​video of myself from 2018​, where after 6+ years of dedicated, slow growth and focus on getting stronger, I deadlifted 420 pounds at a bodyweight of 172 lbs. No belt, straps, and double overhand grip too!

And yes. 12 years later, I HAD to reply and let the guy know I did it.

Not gonna lie, it felt good proving a random internet commenter wrong! Hahahaha

Petty and unnecessary? Yep!

Satisfying? Very.

Two Buttons: Power and Reset

I finished my talk with something that was far more powerful than I had expected.

The original Nintendo Entertainment System has two buttons: POWER and RESET.

In the game of life, we get to hit the power button once. It turns on when we’re born, and it turns off when we die.

But we also have an opportunity to hit the RESET Button. If there’s a thought or identity you have that’s no longer serving you, or some aspect of life that just isn’t working…it’s okay to hit the reset button.

It’s okay to try again, even if you failed the last time.

Remember, ​our knowledge carries over​, and we never start back at square one.

Game on, my fellow nerd!

-Steve

###

The post I apologize for my sideburns and striped shirt first appeared on Nerd Fitness.

Originally posted at: http://www.nerdfitness.com/

For a long time, I took a lot of pride in never needing to rely on other people.

I am a conflict-avoidant people-pleaser, so I would often pride myself on NEVER allowing myself to rely on others. I certainly wouldn’t let myself burden somebody else with my struggles.

I jokingly shared how I felt about ​asking for help the other day on Instagram​:

I would gladly help others without a second thought. But saw it as a character flaw for myself (and ONLY myself) if I asked for help.

I believed that this was one of my strengths: figuring everything out on my own and being available to help everybody else but NEVER asking others for help or guidance.

I’ve come to realize how silly – and harmful – this mentality was. And I’ll drill the point home in two wholesome ways.

Asking For Help is a Sign of Strength

Lord of the Rings has been at the front of my mind for the past week.

Season 2 of Rings of Power recently started (and early reviews are saying it’s a marked improvement over Season 1, which has me excited!).

I also listened to a 3-part series about The Lord of the Rings on the ​What Went Wrong? Podcast​. It covers how this trilogy came to life, just how many things had to go right, and what a monumental feat it was bringing Tolkien to the big screen in such incredible and cinematically brilliant fashion.

Thinking about Middle Earth and Lord of the Rings reminded me of one of the memes that ​inspired me to start therapy​. If Aragorn, the manliest man ever (okay he’s Numenorean and part-elf, but you know what I mean) leaned on his friends…maybe it’s okay for me to lean on others for help too.

Asking For Help is a Super Power

While I reflected on writing this newsletter, I stumbled across a video that brought a massive smile to my face.

Powerlifter/personal trainer Sherein Abdelhady was filming herself doing heavy deadlifts in a commercial gym, and a random dude approached her between sets and asked one of the most wholesome questions I’ve ever seen in a gym interaction:

“Hey this is a weird request…but can you teach me how to deadlift?”

His request was polite and respectful, and Abdelhady was more than happy to help!

As a result, this guy learned how to deadlift from somebody who knew much more than he did in that area! And now this guy will have a better experience (and probably save himself from injury) for the rest of his life doing this incredible exercise.

What a super power! Props to this guy for being a real human, and recognizing that asking for help and being open to learning is a freaking superpower.

I’m used to seeing videos of women who are approached by jerks who offer unsolicited advice or mansplain (with terrible recommendations) to women who are far more knowledgeable than the jerk..

So this was an incredible flip of the script. I love it.

Asking For Help (One Last Thought)

I’ll leave you with one final thought before I ask YOU for a request.

When I ask for help, I have a tendency to follow it up with “I owe you one.”

This ​thought from professor Adam Grant​ changed my perspective:

I love this.

I have to stop myself EVERY TIME somebody helps me, and instead of saying “i owe you one,” I simply thank them. I know that I would gladly help them without expecting a favor in return. I help because it’s the right thing to do!

Here’s my question for you today:

Is there a part of your life where you’ve avoided asking for help, trying to figure it all out on your own?

Can you reframe this in a more useful way? One that sees asking for help as a sign of intelligence and strength – not weakness.

Can you reach out for help today, and NOT say “thanks I owe you one” and instead just pay it forward?

Ask for help! It’s good enough for Aragron, and this nerdy dude in the gym…it’s probably okay for you too.

-Steve

The post Ask For Help first appeared on Nerd Fitness.

Originally posted at: http://www.nerdfitness.com/

Nick Cave has taken over my life for the past month.

Mr. Cave has been putting out music since the mid 1980s with his band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. He’s also a writer, screenwriter, poet, and all-around interesting dude.

His band’s most famous song, “​Red Right Hand​,” serves as the theme song for the show Peaky Blinders, which I have been watching this summer.

And last week, Nick Cave turned up again in my life, and I can’t stop thinking about his words.

In a recent interview with Stephen Colbert, Cave talked about a letter he received from a fan who struggled to find hope as a young father:

“Following the last few years, I’m feeling empty and more cynical than ever….do you still believe in us [human beings]?”

Whether we’re struggling to stay motivated on a project or goal, or we get overwhelmed as a ​”Receiver of Memories” for all the pain in the world​, I know what it’s like to get cynical and lose hope sometimes!

I bet you do too.

Which is why I was so damn moved by ​Nick’s reply​, which I promise you is worth the watch:

Because I’m a nice guy I took the liberty of writing out Cave’s reply here:

“My early life was spent holding the world and the people in it in contempt. It was a position both seductive and indulgent.

The truth is, I was young and had no idea what was coming down the line.

It took a devastation to teach me the preciousness of life and the essential goodness of people…

…It took a devastation to find hope.”

Here I paused the video, and learned that Cave’s 15-year old son had accidentally fallen to his death back in 2015.

Armed with this knowledge, I continued watching the video and was moved to tears:

“Unlike cynicism, hopefulness is hard-earned, makes demands upon us, and can often feel like the most indefensible and lonely place on Earth.

Hopefulness is not a neutral position.

It’s adversarial.

It is the warrior emotion that can lay waste to cynicism.”

Hope Plus Acceptance

I’ve ​written about acceptance​ quite a bit in this newsletter, as it’s the skill I’ve had to work hardest at developing for myself over the past few years.

I’m now realizing that acceptance combined with hope is the most powerful path forward when we are trying to navigate life.

It’s not just having passive hope that “things will work out.” After all, things might not work out. At least, not the way we expect them to.

Rather, it’s actively cultivating hopefulness that we can endure whatever comes our way.

In a ​past newsletter I wrote about hope​, I pulled this quote from Dr. Lakshmin’s Real Self-Care:

“Hope needs to be “something you do,” not “something you feel.”

Hope can be practiced by locating a deep desire, value, or commitment and taking a step towards it.

…While optimism is the sense that everything will be okay, people who are hopeful have the understanding that things may not be okay, but that they have agency to make things a little better for themselves or for others.”

Hopefulness is the warrior emotion that lays waste to the resistance in our heads.

Hopefulness helps us realize “Even if life is a dumpster fire, I have the ability to endure and survive whatever ball of chaos is heading my way.”

I leave you with this today:

Whatever goal you are working towards, whatever struggle you find yourself stuck on, no matter where you find yourself in the game of life…

I hope this newsletter reminds you that you have agency.

I hope this newsletter reminds you that any progress you make today, no matter how small, is powerful.

As Nick concludes in the final moments of the video above:

“Each redemptive or loving act, as small as you’d like, such as reading to your little boy, or showing him a thing you love, or singing him a song, or putting on his shoes keeps the devil down in the hole.

It says the world and its inhabitants have value and are worth defending.

It says the world is worth believing in.

In time, we come to find that this is so.”

-Steve

The post The Warrior Emotion first appeared on Nerd Fitness.

Originally posted at: http://www.nerdfitness.com/

About a year ago, I decided to make a big change to this very newsletter you’re reading.

You see, from 2020-2023 I was pretty unmotivated to do my job.

Which is kind of amazing, when you realize that I have complete autonomy, created Nerd Fitness, and essentially built my own job.

I had spent years trying to be the person that I thought Nerd Fitness and the community needed me to be, instead of doing what I’m actually good at (writing interesting things in fun ways and helping people level up).

How did I find myself in that unwanted place?

One small decision after another, slowly over many years.

I kept picking projects I didn’t like and forcing myself to do them, but justified it to myself by saying, “I just have to do this until [arbitrary goal or date], and then I can be done.”

The problem of course, was that I never reached my arbitrary goal. Or I changed what the goal was, or the world changed, or the business changed.

I ended up spending every day doing something I didn’t like, for a payoff that never came.

I did this for years, and burned myself out.

After ​lots of therapy​, long walks, soul searching and failing repeatedly, I finally asked the important question: If I NEVER “get there,” what would I do differently?

I realized I had to change how I spent my time and how I set goals.

Instead of doing stuff I didn’t like and hoping for an eventual payoff, I restructured my day around why I started Nerd Fitness in the first place:

Reading widely about random topics that pique my interest, and then sharing my excited thoughts on those topics with a bunch of nerds (hey, that’s you!).

Since then, I’ve written dozens of newsletters about weird topics, hobbies, life, philosophy, and everything in between:

• The ​Japanese philosophy I can’t stop thinking about​.
• Why we should ​STOP believing in ourselves​.
• We’re all ​grapes on a vine​.
• Why ​you shouldn’t be like me​.
• The art of ​Swedish Death Cleaning​.

130,000+ people now get this newsletter every week, and it’s only reinforced my decision to stop focusing on the destination and get back to finding ways to enjoy the journey.

I plan on writing this newsletter for decades to come, and I am excited about this opportunity to email you weird stuff weekly.

I now ask you the same question.

What if you never “get there”?

Years ago, I stumbled across somebody on Reddit asking what the worst part was about being overweight.

One answer broke my heart:

“The fact that you put your whole life on hold, telling yourself that you will resume living when you lose the weight. Then, not being consistent with said weight loss journey and basically…never getting to truly live.”

Every day, I see people doing exercise they hate, or trying to follow a diet they don’t enjoy, to reach an arbitrary number on the scale that they think will make them happy.

Most can’t stick with the diet or workout for more than a few weeks, get demoralized, and give up.

Others manage to lose the weight, only to realize seeing a smaller number on their scale didn’t magically solve all of their problems. They decide the daily misery isn’t worth it.

It’s time to flip the script and give up!

We’ll never “get there,” because “there” isn’t an actual place we can get. It’s a state of mind.

This should change how we think about the workout or diet we choose, the goal we design our life around, or the expectation we set for ourselves.

My goal with this newsletter, and for our coaching clients, is helping people reach the following realization:

Finding ​ways to enjoy exercise​, and making ​dietary changes that don’t feel overwhelming​, is the only path forward. Even better, this often results in reaching our goals faster than when we chased fads or strategies we hated!

I’m reminded of this quote from philosopher Sam Harris:

“Most of your life is the process of solving problems.

It is not, and never will be, a condition of basking in the absence of all problems. There will always be something to do.”

Author Mark Manson put it more succinctly:

“Don’t hope for a life with no problems. Hope for a life with better problems.”

What are you going to do differently?

As Albert Camus explains about ​Sisyphus pushing the boulder up the hill​, there’s a beautiful freedom that comes with acceptance of never “getting there”:

Sisyphus is “free” from the hope he would ever succeed. He accepts his fate he would never win, and thus can just get to work on finding meaning in pushing that rock, watching it roll back down, and starting over again.

None of us are getting out of here alive, and today is the only guarantee.

I want to hear about what you would do differently if you knew you would never “get there.”

What would you change?

Would you:

• Pick a ​type of exercise you actually like​?
• Go on that trip, even if you haven’t lost the weight yet?
• Find a way to be “​pretty good, most of the time​” with your diet?
• Shift your focus from weight loss to improving your relationship with food?

I want to hear what you’ll change on your daily journey.

Hit reply and let me know. I’ll be over here pushing this boulder up a hill.

-Steve

The post What if you NEVER get there? first appeared on Nerd Fitness.

Originally posted at: http://www.nerdfitness.com/

In 1992, a study was conducted on weight loss resistant individuals.

In this study, the lab specifically studied people who reported eating less than 1200 calories daily and had bodies that were resistant to losing weight.

Researchers set out to explore this phenomenon:

• Were their bodies kicking into starvation mode?
• Did their bodies process calories differently?
• Was something else going on?

They brought these people into a metabolic ward, and used an energy tracking system that involved “doubly-labeled water.”

Essentially, these techniques allowed them to track everything exactly: How much energy was expelled via waste, sweat, or breath, how many calories were consumed.

This is the gold standard for tracking calories “in” and tracking calories “out.”

Group 1 included the people above who were described as “diet resistant.”

Group 2 was the control group: people who had zero history of “dietary resistance.”

What did this study reveal?

What was different about how Group 1 processed calories compared to Group 2?

The result: ​not much​!

Total energy expenditure and resting metabolic rate in the subjects with diet resistance (group 1) were within 5 percent of the predicted values for body composition, and there was no significant difference between groups 1 and 2 in the thermic effects of food and exercise.

Here’s what the study DID reveal:

Subjects in Group 1 drastically underestimated how many calories they were eating by an average of 47%.

This meant they thought they were eating 1200 calories, but actually consumed 1800 calories or more.

Group 1 also overestimated how many calories they burned through exercise by 51%.

Which meant if they thought they had burned 300 calories exercising, they really only burned 200 calories.

Combine these two things and most of us have a massive discrepancy between how much we think we eat, and how much we actually eat.

We humans suck at all sorts of things!

Life is hard, and ​we humans aren’t cut out to thrive in a world of abundance​.

At the same time, we’re pretty bad at quite a few things:

• We often ​measure the wrong thing​.
• We ​suck at time​.
• We suck at counting calories.

I can tell you what we’re really good at though: crafting narratives.

Our brains will jump through hoops to craft a story that explains why our body doesn’t obey the same laws of thermodynamics as everybody else.

It’s similar to the story we tell ourselves about getting older: “Of course I gained weight, my metabolism slowed down when I hit 20/30/40 years old,” when ​science tells a different story​.

Our brains are convinced by these narratives far more easily than accepting the uncomfortable reality:

If we are ​trying to lose weight​ but the scale isn’t going down, we are eating more than we realize.

YES, hormones and stress and life and our environment and relationship with food can impact how much food we eat, or the types of food we crave. Some people have medical conditions that impact how their bodies respond to calories or exercise…

But when it comes to the number on the scale, our bodies still obey thermodynamics.

This is actually amazing news, if we can accept it.

So let’s start there.

Self-compassionate Acceptance

If we’re telling ourselves a narrative that we’re broken and progress is hopeless, we can start with self-compassionate acceptance:

Of course we suck at counting calories!

Of course we don’t know how much we actually eat!

We’re not cut out for this type of environment in which delicious, calorie-dense food is always available.

That doesn’t make us a bad person, nor does it mean we need to shame ourselves or beat ourselves up.

Instead, we can accept that we’re bad at this (because everybody is), and then adjust our behavior accordingly:

• We can learn how to actually track calories, educate ourselves on actual serving sizes for our favorite foods or meals.
• We can work on ​eating more nutrient rich, filling foods​ that have less calories. Lean protein, fruits and vegetables. It’s quite tough to “overeat” vegetables!
• We can cut back on easily consumed liquid calories and switch to zero calorie beverages.
• We can use ​Ulysses Pacts​ to protect ourselves from…ourselves.

And even then, despite our best efforts, we should accept that we’ll still eat more than we think each day.

Not because we’re broken, dumb, or stupid.

But because we’re human.

-Steve

The post Can you really be Diet Resistant? first appeared on Nerd Fitness.

Originally posted at: http://www.nerdfitness.com/

For disastrous humans like myself, routines are pretty damn important.

I’m easily distracted, impacted by my environment, and strongly influenced by ​the people around me​. A predictable routine gives me the best chance to still get stuff done while being human.

Unfortunately, while traveling, plenty of things slip by the wayside.

And this past week I found myself traveling and falling behind on my nerd duties.

I needed to catch up on House of the Dragon (Season 2 is a big step-up!), and I was also behind on a few of my favorite nerdy podcasts.

I thought about how I would manage to get caught up while also getting my workouts done. I know that I feel like a better human being after I exercise.

And then I remembered a habit-building technique I had learned about years ago.

Before I started writing about it, I googled the technique…only to realize I had already written about it! Good job, Past Steve!

(I guess when you publish 1000+ articles over 15 years, it’s bound to happen.)

The technique is called “Temptation Bundling.”

It’s when you combine two activities: one you need to do with one you want to do.

Example: listening to your favorite audiobook or podcast ONLY when you’re at the gym or getting your steps in.

As I point out in my updated ​article on Temptation Bundling​, Professor Katy Milkman ran an experiment to test whether or not “audiobooks at the gym only” would influence people’s behaviors:

The people in the study who were told they could listen to addictive audio books only while working out visited the gym 51% more frequently than those who were just told they should exercise more.

Knowing that exercise is ​my constant​ while traveling, I took my own advice:

I told myself I could only watch House of the Dragon while walking.

In addition, the more time I spent at the gym, the more of my podcasts I could get through.

Sure enough, I found myself jumping rope a few extra minutes to finish a podcast episode, I went to the gym an extra day for mobility work, and I walked an extra mile on the treadmill just to see the end of an episode.

More “nerd” plus more “fitness” = win!

• All caught up on ​The Watch​ and ​The Big Picture​ podcasts.
• Two extra workouts and mobility sessions complete.
• All caught up on House of the Dragon.

Feel free to read the full article on ​Temptation Bundling​ and give it a shot.

If you try it out, hit reply on this email and let me know how it goes!

-Steve

The post Revisiting a Classic: Temptation Bundling first appeared on Nerd Fitness.

Originally posted at: http://www.nerdfitness.com/

At the turn of the 20th century, cities around the world had a crappy problem that was getting worse by the day.

Literally.

Metropolises were rapidly growing in population, and thus so did the number of horse-drawn carriages to transport people from place to place.

The problem? Horses generate a lot of waste.

At this time, New York City had an estimated 130,000-200,000 horses transplanting people and goods around Manhattan, which meant there was upwards of 5+ million pounds of manure being generated every day.

Yeah, that’s a lot of poop.

At this point, with city populations exploding vertically into taller buildings, and more horses being employed daily to serve these people, the future looked pretty dire.

In 1894, The Times of London allegedly predicted that in 50 years, the city would be literally buried in horse poop! And can you blame them? If one looks at the trajectory of people, and horses, and poop, it would be simple to just continue to draw all of those lines up and to the right.

Two years later, in 1896, a battery and internal combustion engine was attached to a horseless carriage, and within two decades the automobile had taken over, and the horse manure problem solved itself.

Simultaneously, while humans were solving the transportation problems on the street, they were still struggling to solve another transportation problem…

Would human beings ever actually fly?

By the late 1800s, after millions of wasted dollars, terrible mishaps, and fatal accidents, humanity’s attempt to fly had largely been abandoned.

Despite widespread interest and plenty of experimental attempts, too many people had died and too much money had been set on fire. There just didn’t seem to be a safe path to success.

The Washington Post soundly declared, “It’s a fact that man can’t fly.”

A particularly pessimistic gentleman predicted that “men would not fly for fifty years.”

That prediction was made in 1901.

We all know what happened next: Less than two years later, Willbur Wright took to the skies in his glider and became the first person in history to fly a manned aircraft.

Who was the idiot that made the comically bad prediction about not flying for 50 years?

Wilbur Wright!

Luckily, he took the fact that his prediction was off by 48 years in stride, and was glad to have proven himself wrong. It’s also one hell of a lesson to have learned: hold those predictions loosely!

We suck at predicting!

Look back at any major development in history, good or bad, and you can find comically bad predictions from noted experts.

1968’s The Population Bomb predicted worldwide famines due to overpopulation within decades…which makes sense. One look at this chart would lead you to the same conclusion:

Of course, this is no longer the problem we’re facing as a planet.

Most experts these days are still raising alarm bells…but they’re ​terrified about underpopulation​, the exact opposite problem compared to a few decades prior.

Predictions are fickle, and we humans are quite bad at them.

Hell, the reason I can send you this essay is due to the fact that one of the most famous predictions ended up being comically wrong. In 1998, Nobel-prize winning Economist Paul Krugman said ​the following about the Internet​:

“The growth of the Internet will slow drastically…By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet’s impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine’s.”

Yikes.

So, if humans, even experts, have been comically misguided and made terrible predictions about some of the most transformative moments in human history, do we think it’s also possible that we are wrong all the time about the predictions we make about our own lives?

It’s time we start holding our predictions a little less strongly.

My vote? We start to be a bit more like Willbur Wright.

As laid out in David McCullough’s ​The Wright Brothers​, Wright thought about the future differently after proving himself wrong:

“This demonstration of my inability as a prophet gave me such a shock that I have ever since distrusted myself and have refrained from all prediction—as my friends of the press, especially, well know.

But it is not really necessary to look too far into the future; we see enough already to be certain that it will be magnificent. Only let us hurry and open the roads.”

This is a pretty good strategy for looking at our own lives.

We can start with acceptance: we’re never going to get better at predicting the future.

We can also hold two conflicting ideas in our head at the same time. As President Dwight. D. Eisenhower once said, “Plans are worthless, but planning is everything.”

I’ve simply accepted this is just how life works. I still make plans, and I still make predictions…but I hold those plans and predictions very loosely.

Looking back five years, I never would have predicted how the world and my life would turn out. I certainly wouldn’t have predicted a worldwide pandemic and life-altering medications like GLP-1.

Hell, if I look back at last week, I can point to a bunch of things that didn’t go according to plan. But, because I expect nothing to ever go according to plan, I’m rarely caught off guard when things turn out differently than expected.

This is our task for today:

If we want to become more resilient and make progress on our goals, we need to accept that our plans will rarely go according to plan!

Here’s what that might look like in practice:

• “I plan on working out at 5:30PM on Monday/Wednesday/Friday, but I fully expect one of those dates to get screwed up because of work. So, I have a backup “home workout” plan I can do in my living room on those days.
• “I have my “meal plan” for the week, but I expect 30% of my meal plan to get blown up by my kid’s unpredictable after-school schedule, so I know exactly what I’m going to eat if I end up driving through McDonalds and not fall off track.”
• “I am trying to reach this goal weight by this date, but I know that everything will always take longer than expected, so I won’t get impatient and instead just keep my focus on what needs to get done that day.”

This is my homework for you today:

1. Is there a plan or prediction you’re holding onto far too tightly?
2. Can you make an alternative plan for when things inevitably don’t go how you predicted?
3. Are you currently assuming some future scenario that will absolutely be true, instead of being open to the possibility that you’re going to be proven wrong?

The sooner we can accept we suck at predicting, the sooner we can get to work on what to do about it!

Strong predictions, held loosely.

-Steve

PS: In case you missed the past essay, ​we also suck at time​! Fun. I know.

The post We Suck at Predicting first appeared on Nerd Fitness.

Originally posted at: http://www.nerdfitness.com/

I spent the past week in The Land of Shadow.

It was miserable.

I loved almost every minute of it.

I recently finished playing Shadow of the Erd Tree, the expansion for 2022’s game of the year, Elden Ring.

In case you’re unfamiliar, Elden Ring is an action-adventure game where you play as an undead warrior tasked with slaying grotesque bosses across a hauntingly beautiful landscape.

Fair warning: I will be making QUITE the analogy between two toxic online discussions I’m seeing these days. Don’t worry, I promise to bring you along for the ride even if you’re not a gamer.

Let me first set the stage, and then we’ll get into the details.

Elden Ring is Incredible and Incredibly Difficult

Most modern big-budget games hold the gamer’s hand, providing a tutorial and guardrails, making sure gamers never feel overly frustrated or confused.

Hidetaka Miyazaki and the team at FromSoftware, the team behind Elden Ring, go hard in the other direction:

They essentially drop you in the middle of a terrifying world full of enemies that can kill you in two hits and essentially say, “Good luck, idiot.”

This has been true for all of FromSoft games: Demon’s Souls, Dark Souls, Bloodborne, and Sekiro.

In the book, ​Dark Souls: Beyond the Grave​, Miyazaki’s game design philosophy is explained in glorious detail, like in this discussion with Game Informer:

“Having the game be difficult was never the goal. What we set out to do was strictly to provide a sense of accomplishment. We understood that difficulty is just one way to offer an intense sense of accomplishment through forming strategies, overcoming obstacles, and discovering new things.”

Years later, he further refined his philosophy when speaking with Playstation Blog about his next game, Dark Souls:

“We are trying to create a game that is spicy. And we want to make it as spicy as possible. But it’s edible and tastes good and leaves you wanting more.”

So, yes, difficulty and dying repeatedly are part of the FromSoftware experience.

But!

These games also have certain built-in systems that help less-experienced or skilled players. Players can find certain weapons that are overpowered, enlist the help of computer-controlled allies, and even recruit other human players to help.

This allows all gamers of all levels to play the same game while experiencing completely different levels of challenges.

• Some gamers will use every system available to win.
• Other games will voluntarily choose to NOT summon any help.
• Other gamers will specifically choose to not level up at ALL to make it extra difficult.

The fact that all of this works in a game with one difficulty level is brilliant game design.

Still with me?

Good.

Now that we know Elden Ring is difficult, but also includes different systems for players of all skill levels to win, we can get to the current toxic discussion around Elden Ring and difficulty!

There’s No “Right Way” to Play Elden Ring

Find any article about the difficulty of Elden Ring (and Shadow of the Erd Tree) and you’ll find comments that say you’re not a “true gamer” unless you beat every Elden Ring boss without recruiting any help.

These gamers feel morally superior for beating a game without using its built-in systems, and they will not allow for any discussions like “Is it possible this boss is poorly designed?”

According to them, the only possible response is, “I beat the game without help. Just get better.”

Personally, I think Shadow of the Erd Tree has some of the best exploration I’ve ever experienced in any video game. And also, some of its bosses are difficult in a way that’s neither interesting nor well-designed.

I’m a fan (and proud Patreon supporter) of the podcast ​Bonfireside Chat​, which had a great discussion around why Elden Ring’s “Just get good” argument is tiring.

They point out that many people simply decide there’s no room or need to discuss Miyazaki’s decisions and the game’s difficulty. Those people explain that because they’ve beaten the boss without a challenge, everybody else should suck it up and get good.

Replying to this perspective, Gary and Kole share an opinion that is full of a wonderful thing called nuance:

They possess the ability to hold two different thoughts simultaneously. They rightfully point out that a game can be brilliant and some parts might be unnecessarily difficult or poorly designed.

The point: if we’re ever going to evolve past this noise and have good discussions around gaming, we also need to bring nuance and understanding to the table!

Bringing all of this together, here are my summarized thoughts on “Elden Ring is/isn’t too difficult” debate:

• Shadow of the Erd Tree is sometimes too difficult for the wrong reasons.
• Systems exist to help players of all levels still advance.
• There’s no right way or wrong way to play Elden Ring.

Great! Now that we’re all on the same page, it’s time to tackle the other toxic discussion taking place on the internet right now…

I promise these two things are related, so bear with me.

There’s No “Right Way” to Lose Weight Either

For a large majority of the population, losing weight is unbelievably difficult or impossible.

A combination of environment, physiology, and genetics creates a situation in which sustainable weight loss just isn’t going to happen.

This isn’t a question of willpower, discipline, or intelligence. It’s not because these people are lazy. It’s not a moral failing either.

The problem, as I laid out in “​Of course you don’t like to exercise​,” is that we’re creatures built to survive in scarcity, not thrive in abundance.

As a result, sustainable weight loss is something nearly everybody struggles with despite their best efforts.

And this is where we combine the Nerd discussion with the Fitness discussion:

Elden Ring has multiple in-game systems to help people of all skill levels win…

So does losing weight!

Over the past few years, dramatic breakthroughs in weight loss medications (like Ozempic and other GLP-1 medicines) have helped millions of people lose weight and keep it off.

This development has thrust the discussion of weight loss, difficulty, and willpower into the spotlight. And because the internet doesn’t do nuance well, the discussion has turned toxic.

Find any post or article about weight loss medications and you’ll find comments like:

• “That’s cheating and lazy.”
• “Just eat less and move more.”
• “It’s not that hard. I did it.”

People who make these comments enjoy the feeling of moral superiority for losing weight “the right way.” They look down upon anybody who doesn’t also lose weight without medication or assistance.

This is the same playbook that vocal gamers are using for Elden Ring and difficulty!

This viewpoint is toxic, lazy, misinformed, and unhelpful.

Just like there’s no shame in the way somebody chooses to play Elden Ring, there’s no shame in how somebody loses weight either.

That’s between them and their doctor. Full stop.

As I explained in my essay on “​5 fitness beliefs I no longer believe​”:

Instead of asking, “Why don’t people just get more disciplined and eat less instead of ‘cheating’ with weight loss drugs?”…

The better question is, “Which tools are available to help each individual person get healthier?”

For many, it’s education around calories and making slightly healthier choices. For some, it’s weight loss medicine and therapy. For others, it’s all of the above.

We’re most interested in the end result (a healthy, happy life), and we’re open to the infinite paths to get there.

If we accept that we’re not designed for modern life and abundance, we’re all wired differently, we all have different physiologies and opportunities and privileges, then we can also accept we’re all playing the Game of Life in our own way.

It requires us to apply both self-awareness and nuance.

Recently, I had a viral post that explained how I ​maintain my physique at 39 years old​:

I got to play “fitness” on easy mode, and I am well aware that other people don’t have that same luck or privilege.

So I have no problem with anybody else using any tool available to them on their journey. That might include therapy, surgery, hiring a trainer or dietitian, or weight loss medication.

My friend ​Dr. Spencer Nadolsky​, a board-certified physician and one of the kindest, most considerate, and well-read doctors I know, has worked extensively with patients who use or don’t use GLP-1 medications.

He shares some ​desperately needed experience​:

His caption provides even more clarity:

“The reason why many aren’t able to sustain [weight loss] over time is due to biological appetite drivers that push people to regain any weight lost.

So does everyone need the medicine? No, of course not. Not everyone has strong biological drivers. About 15% of people who do an intensive lifestyle program will have similar success to the average that these medicines get over the course of a year or so. Likely a lot less as time goes on.

So not everyone will need the medicine.

However, why would you be against a tool that helps people decrease their risk of disease progression and even decrease the risk of heart attacks etc?”

If you tell people they’re cheating by using weight loss medication, it says more about you than it says about the person you’re criticizing.

Here at Nerd Fitness, we have many ​coaching clients​ on GLP-1s, all of whom are also doing the work of exercising and learning about nutrition and adjusting their lifestyle. The medication allows them the mental space and clarity to stick with their lifestyle changes.

Yes, there could be medication side-effects for some. Yes, exercise and behavior change are also still necessary. All of that can be true AND weight loss medication can still be the best decision for that person.

Keep this in mind when seeing discussions on the internet about the right way to do anything. We’re all trying to live the best life we can before the “Game Over” screen. So, here’s your permission to use whatever tools you have available:

• If you want to play Elden Ring and recruit help, great!
• If you want to play ​Elden Ring using a Guitar Hero controller​, swell!
• If you need to use a tool like GLP-1 to manage your weight, neato!
• If you’ve lost weight without a tool like GLP-1, fantastic!

Everybody should have the ability to play the Game of Life how they want.

Cool? Cool.

-Steve

The post Weight Loss Medication and Video Games first appeared on Nerd Fitness.