Geek Fitness: Level 1

Why should I care? Why am I doing this? Those are both excellent questions when approaching your personal health. This is putting appearance aside, that will be covered in another Geek Fitness post. I'm sure there are many things we all strive to live for, like I personally want be alive to see as many new Star Wars movies as I can. So the question should be: how do I improve my quality of life? We can’t all be some mythological creature that lives centuries, but what we can do is improve our health through exercise and nutrition. Oh, and let me tell you that exercise comes at the amazing price of…… FREE! Nutrition itself, contrary to popular belief, is quite inexpensive if properly applied. I can tell you right now, from personal experience, if you’re sitting on your ass playing immersive RPGs, you are not improving your quality of life. No matter how ripped or well endowed you make your character to be, that character running and swinging 20 pound swords is not you. Now unlike most fitness professionals, I’m not going to tell you to put the controller down and go run, the point is to balance life and still do the geeky crap we all like to do. I know I myself have been dragged into a particular MMORPG for 8 hours and still kept my heart from committing ritualist suicide. Again, I will never stop playing video games, but I also want to be alive to keep enjoying these games that help me escape from an otherwise powerless reality.

I wouldn’t recommend reading stuff out of a magazine or self proclaimed fitness models online to get your information from. As a matter a fact, stay away from all that bullshit! There are plenty of credible sources for you to get peer reviewed studies to answer most legitimate questions online, just try looking outside of facebook and instagram. I am always cautious when viewing these females with yoga pants and big t.… uh… egos with the hash tag FitFam or some Fit anything, even more so all the Bros out there spitting out there venomous “bro science.” The best way I can term it is, that it is easily to be fooled or dragged into false claims when one is not very educated on the matter. I of course am not calling anyone dumb here, I have had to correct many M.D.s in the science that I practice, and most of them probably aren’t dumb. No, what I mean is when something interests you and you know little about it, it is easy to follow the word of someone you think has the appearance you wish to achieve. Now don’t get me wrong, there are some people out there who will give you the proper knowledge needed, but whether or not you know it be true is the question. Maybe some of the knowledge in here may help you determine whether or not you continue on following that person.

With all the being said, I won’t dive deep into why you should take care of your meat vessel, but I will give it to you straight. One of the factors I find most important is the regulation of body fat. Whether or not your goal is to look like a mountain troll, it isn’t about appearance that I speak about, but overall risk factors of excess fat. I think personal appearance is self explanatory and is relative to one’s personal values. You don’t need to have a six pack that rivals that of Thor, but keeping a lower body fat percentage has its benefits. Higher body fat percentages may put one at risk for many ailments affecting the cardiovascular system, as well as some metabolic diseases like diabetes, or more commonly seen in memes as DIABEEEETUS. Again, this isn’t fat shaming of any sort, because to low of a body fat percentage brings its own demons and is not sustainable for a healthy human. But please understand while it isn’t ok to judge one on appearance, there are certain risks that comes with excess amounts of body fat. If you’re like me and spend hours in front of an Xbox with orange cheese snack powder stained fingers and a liter of cola and rum, thats fine, enjoy the little things in life. With that being said, I want to continue indulging on gratuitous amounts of snacks and rum with out dying prematurely, remember we don’t really respawn in this life.

Exercise and proper nutrition has its benefits on your daily life as well. Here is a question you should consider, “Do you like feeling good?” You ever stuff your face with fried chicken and beer to the point where you pretty much beach yourself where ever you are sitting or laying down? I’ve had countless times where I pursued the instant, yet short, satisfaction of eating a bucket of chicken only to feel like crap for three to four hours. So was it really worth it?…mmmm probably not, maybe once or twice when I was already bed ridden from a cold. Eating the proper foods may have significant effects on your daily energy levels, strength, memory, vasoregulation, cognitive function, and appearance. It should also be noted that even if you are eating proper nutrient dense foods, you will still need the proper portions is to not undereat or overeat and feel weak or slow. Eating properly may have many positive effects on how you feel, the way your skin looks, and hormone regulation, so it is an important daily factor. Exercise also has similar effects, where it may help with your energy levels through out the day if you exercise early. Exercise may also help with your metabolic functions also well as the way you feel as it may release endorphins and help you relieve stress from a shitty day. There are many approaches to exercise, so don’t think that you need to spend your time on a treadmill or in front of a weight rack to get your fix. I personally like lifting and Brazilian jiu jitsu for my exercise, as they both bring me fun and joy.

Now all this leads to my most important point: have fun! Don’t just become a robot and force yourself to go through the motions of working out in a gym and paying money if you do not enjoy what you’re doing. Its the same as a job, do something you love so it does not feel like a job. If you like human interaction try some yoga or spinning class, if you want to get massive hit the weight room, if you like to get punched in the face or put people to sleep, then give mixed martial arts a try. If you think outside the box you will see that the options are numerous and it does not have to be in a gym. Geez, I hate to quote cross fitter because I don’t recognize them as….. ugh.. doesn’t matter, but the quote is “the world is your gym.” So get your ass out there and put some some work in. Bee tee dubs, reading this Geek Fitness Post adds +2 motivation, +1 Endurance, and +1 Perception.