The Winter Olympics? Totally inspirational.

I love sports -- playing them, watching them, all of the above. But, as I've certainly made clear here previously, I get tired of the me-first attitude of so many athletes in the "big" professional sports. So I've always had a real affinity for the games where that ego-driven stuff is minimized.

Back in the pre-cable/satellite-TV days as a kid, ABC's Wide World of Sports would bring what we'll call The Weird Sports into the lives of us suburban kids. One day we'd be playing good ol' American football in the neighborhood, and the next we'd be trying to replicate something freaky like Irish hurling (by and large a poor idea, I'll have you know), that we'd seen on Wide World of Sports, or we'd stage our own decathlon, heaving sticks (javelin) and rocks (shot put), and running all over hell and back (all the other events) through the neighbors' yards.

But, with the limitations of climate (where I grew up in suburban Philadelphia just wasn't all that consistently cold), some sports were too weird even for us to try and imitate.

We called those the Winter Olympics.

God, I love the Winter Olympics. To this day, they leave me giddy with anticipation in the weeks leading up to them, and full of joy for the two weeks that they are around every four years.

The winter games are packed solid with sports that kids would invent if they: (1) lived in a very cold place, (2) owned sleds, skis, snowboards and target guns, and (3) were concerned with only one thing: unremitting fun.

They are also the last bastion of awesomely weird in the sports world.

And I realize that my perspective on this topic is shaped considerably by the fact that, as an American, it seems that only one sport that's in the winter games is regularly on television here -- men's hockey. There's may be a country where you can watch the Curling Super Bowl (I think that country is probably called Canada). Somewhere, undoubtedly, the World Series of Biathlon is big stuff, and cross-country-ski racing is all the rage, but not here.

Here are the sports being contested at the Sochi games:

--Alpine skiing
--Biathlon
--Bobsled
--Cross-country skiing
--Curling
--Figure skating
--Freestyle skiing
--Ice hockey
--Luge
--Nordic combined
--Short-track speed skating
--Skeleton
--Ski jumping
--Snowboarding
--Speed skating

Take alpine skiing and men's hockey off the list, for the moment. They are great sports, and in the case of NHL hockey, it's truly one of my favorites, but the American Olympic competitors in those sports are pros who are generally not scraping by on ramen noodles. (And take figure skating off the list because… I hate it, and I'm sure that's my fault and not theirs, but blech…).

What's left, from an American perspective, is a complete freak scene. A glorious, wonderful I-just-want-to-hang-out-with-them-all freak scene, full of wacky sports with athletes who have to balance hardcore training with scraping together enough in the way of sponsorships that, if they are lucky, they don't have to work 9-to-5 day jobs while doing that training. It's also seemingly loaded with folks who are in this thing for the simple reason that they love it.

I'm a sucker for a great back-story, and, just as I enjoy a band more when I not only dig their music, but think they are great people as well, I want to really like an athlete as a person. The Winter Olympics are as full of great human-interest back-stories and wonderful people as they are loaded with mindbending thrill rides.

Where else would the guy who was about to win the gold medal in slopestyle snowboarding tweet: "Whoa how random is this[?] I made finals at the Olympics!!" And judging by the reaction of his fellow competitors, they all were "stoked" for Sage Kotsenburg, not self-absorbed in their own losses. In the women's halfpipe, you could watch Kaitlyn Farrington, in her first games, have to ride all day, because she missed the easy ticket to the finals, and then turn around and tenaciously win the gold medal over vets like Torah Bright, Kelly Clark and Hannah Teter -- all while the four of them looked like they were just there to have a good time.

And then there's Bode Miller. I used to think of him years ago as a bit of a brash, cocky skier who maybe needed to tone down his ego. Now he's the quiet, reserved, 36-year-old bronze medalist in super-G who was skiing with the heavy burden of the memory of his recently-deceased brother. It was amazing to watch him overcome all of that with patience, reserve and grace. He was pure class.

And mine wasn't the only heart that was breaking for John Daly, the 28-year-old slider whose skeleton sled popped out of the groove just into the start of what might have been his bronze medal run -- a sadness mitigated only by the fact that it cleared the way for his teammate, Matt Antoine, to hold onto that bronze.

The stories go on and on. Every day I run into another one that moves me to pay a little extra attention to an event and to one or more of the competitors.

But if one Olympic athlete's saga has stood out just a little more than the others, it's been the tale of 29-year-old skeleton athlete Katie Uhlaender. Last Thursday, I just happened to be tuning in when the women were taking their first of two skeleton runs that morning. Skeleton is a crazy sport to begin with. It's essentially headfirst luge -- something I saw way back when on Wide World of Sports at the old Cresta run in St. Moritz -- precisely the sort of controlled/chaotic blend that attracts me to the winter games in the first place. (In the early 1980s, I was so intrigued by luge that I almost went to a luge training camp… really. And my crappy car at the time was the only thing that stopped me, but I digress...).  I heard Katie Uhlaender's name announced, and, as NBC started one of those "up close and personal" video histories of her, I realized why her last name sounded so incredibly familiar. Her dad, Ted, played on the 1972 Cincinnati Reds. I was a kid back then, but I remember it well: that Big Red Machine team was a legend, and the '72 league-championship series with the Pirates was a down-to-the-last-game nail-biter. Ted Uhlaender's daughter, sporting a glorious shock of red hair, and a determined look, was about to make her first skeleton run of the 2014 games.

Well, I quickly learned from NBC how deep-seated her determination was. It turns out that Ted Uhlaender died of cancer in 2009, and Katie took his death hard -- really hard. After a sixth-place finish in Turin in 2006, she was hoping for great things at Vancouver in 2010, but Ted's death wrecked her, and she had a disappointing finish in those games. Thereafter, there were successes -- a couple of world cup championships -- but also a concussion just this past October. Slowly, Katie Uhlaender got it all together again, with the help of people as diverse as Picabo Street and Charlie Manuel (and really, if there's a better, more decent human being in baseball than Charlie, I haven't heard of him, but that's another digression as well.). She even took over the operations at Ted's farm, a 700+-acre spread in northwestern Kansas that Katie once professed she just didn't understand, but now it was home, and a place to rekindle all the good thoughts about her dad. As of Thursday morning, Katie Uhlaender stood on the brink of a serious punk-rock/hell-yeah/phoenix-from-the-ashes comeback, and, just barely into the NBC video of her struggles, I was completely hooked on the whole damn story -- zero-to-60 mph fandom in about three seconds. "Go!!!!!" I yelled at the TV on her first run. And then, by the time run #2 had ended, she was in fourth place, poised on the edge of a bronze-medal-winning position. Nice.

I noted that the final two runs were the next day, checked out when they'd be aired, and made plans to watch. I even did a little more research on the subject of my my newfound fandom -- reading some stuff about her dad that took me right back to my baseball-heavy childhood, noticing a pic of Katie Uhlaender on her Twitter feed in a squat rack with 300 pounds on her back, and soon learning that she is an aspiring weightlifter, hoping to make the 2016 U.S. team for the Rio Summer Olympics. (Yes, really. I thought the same thing: "Are you kidding me? She's a weightlifter too?!")

I would love to tell you about the amazing happy ending in Sochi, about how Katie Uhlaender shed every last bit of both the doldrums of 2009 and her concussion of 2013, and won an Olympic medal. Instead, it all came down to being on the wrong side of 0.04 seconds. Despite having her best run of the competition on the fourth and final slide, and her main opponent, Elena Nikitina, having an awful last run, Uhlaender nevertheless was bested by Nikitina for the bronze medal -- by 0.04 seconds.

0.04 seconds is less than time than you can consciously do anything. Losing by that little is truly the harsh randomness of the universe slapping you upside the head. And this is where my admiration for this woman, and her amazing back-story, just got greater. She could have acted like she got robbed, like there was funny business going on with the timing, like all the spoiled-brat "professional"athletes of our day might. Instead, she was sad -- who wouldn't be? -- but her grace in defeat, which changed after not very long to talk of the next winter games, in Korea in 2018, was inspiring. She was on television in the ensuing days with her silver-medal-winning teammate Noelle Pikus-Pace, and there wasn't a hint of envy in Katie Uhlaender's voice, just praise for her friend (who had another of the many great back-stories at these games as well), and the determination to get even better results in the future.

And what you could hear in Katie Uhlaender's responses in all those post-race interviews was an unstated truth: Sad stuff happens, but life eventually goes on. Judging by the way she's handled adversity so far these last few years, I think Korea 2018's going to be epic for Katie Uhlaender.**

I already know it's going to be epic for me, because, man... I love the Winter Olympics. More amazing back-stories, please?


*******************************

**Seriously, with her work ethic, she could overcome the considerable hurdles to make the summer games in Rio as a weightlifter. I've seen the American Weightlifting movie that Greg Everett released last year. (And so should you, by the way). Making the Olympics is a long hard slog in that sport, but Katie Uhlaender has that inner strength that's needed to make a good run at it. (And if not, good lord, she'd be a good CrossFit Games athlete once Korea 2018 is over…. )

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Modifying your CrossFit workout to fit your goals, or: When to tell your ego to get f*%$ed

I love CrossFit. You may have heard that here before.

But CrossFit isn't a "one size fits all" program. It's pretty likely that you have heard someone from CF HQ expounding upon the "scalability" of all things CrossFit. It truly is one of the assets of the CF system. But I bet you think about one thing when you hear talk of "scaling" a workout:

"Scaling is for newbies."

I don't mean to imply that you have a sneer of superiority on your face when you say that. (I'll assume you don't). One of the purposes of scaling a workout is certainly that, yeah, maybe sometimes someone shows up at the local box for the first time and he or she is in better shape for beer pong than for the workout of the day. Too many years on the couch, and pullups aren't going to happen right off the bat. Or maybe someone's nemesis is the box jump, or the snatch, or... whatever movement he or she isn't quite up to doing when the person begins CF.

There is simply no doubt that "scaling" a workout down in reps, or modifying movements, is a way to get a new CrossFitter over the initial hump of "I can't do that."

But it's not the only way to scale, or the only reason for doing so.

Most people understand that there is an enormous difference between doing CrossFit for general health and fitness and actually competing in CrossFit as a "sport." But I think the impression is that the principal distinction between the two is that the "CF as a sport" CrossFitters just do more than whatever workout that the health/longevity/fitness folks are doing. The "sport" CrossFitters are the ones trying to qualify for regionals, competing in the CF Open not just to get some idea of where they stack up against the monsters of the game, but because they want to join the monsters and throw down at the highest levels of the sport So you will find them doing extra work, often a lot of extra work.

And that's cool. It makes sense because the extra effort fits their goals.

But let's get back to the health/longevity/fitness crew. Even after the newbie phase has passed, and those CrossFitters don't "need" to scale workouts down, are their goals all the same?

Probably not. A typical CF box -- let's say, the one that I belong to, for instance -- has in its membership all sorts of people who will tell you they are there for reasons of general fitness, long life, happiness, etc., as opposed to an effort to qualify for regionals in the "sport"' of CrossFit. But within that fairly large group of people who are, ostensibly, just there to "get fit and stay that way," there is a lot of variation. There are young people, and 50-somethings like me (or older), and everything in between. There are toned, muscular, already-fit folks who are occasionally dabbling in local competitions between boxes, and then there are people who are there just because they want to improve body composition and would like to pick up heavy things around the house -- like their kids, or grandkids -- without pain. In fact, sometimes members of that latter group get so damned fit that they start thinking about joining the former crew and hitting a throwdown at a local box.

And here's the catch: within all those groups are a myriad of different goals. Different goals can present options for "scaling" a workout that go far past that "newbie" shit that you associated scaling with when you first started reading this.

Here's the dirty secret for most of us: scaling often makes sense, but it's our egos that are stopping us from doing smart, intelligent training modifcations that fit our goals.

Example #1:

Maybe your box is doing the "Filthy Fifty." Although you can finish that workout, it's going to take you 40 minutes to do so. You are slow at those movements and you are also unhappy with your body composition. In fact, you joined CrossFit to "burn off" some fat that's accumulated over the last few years. The best prescription for fat burning that I know of is contained in Jason Seib's book The Paleo Coach, and the exercise component of that plan is: heavy lifting a few days a week, walking every day and a few short sprint-length metcons per week. If fat loss is your goal, what exactly are you doing grinding out a 40-minute metcon? I can tell you what you are not doing: heavy lifting and a short sprint-style metcon. And you are probably so smoked from the 40-minute grind that the walking part of a fat-loss program is not going to happen that day either. You've just jacked up your cortisol levels so high from prolonged, excessive exercise stress that you may very well have added fat to your midsection. By doing a workout you probably shouldn't have done. Yes. Really.

Example #2:

You're an older dude -- say... a 50-something drummer with a somewhat gnarled right arm from years of the music grind. You are doing CF solely to live long, strong-ish and healthy. Olympic lifts? Some of 'em are OK. Snatches and cleans feel all right in singles or pairs, but jerks? Not so much. And none of the O-lifts feels good when done in a repetitive fashion, like 30 cleans as part of a metcon, or 30 snatches. They just plain fucking hurt in that kind of volume. Today's metcon is a 1000m row, followed by 30 power cleans. But you "suck it up" and do it as prescribed, even though you knew that you could substitute kettlebell swings for those cleans with almost no pain at all. Your right elbow is on fire afterwards.

I can only think of two reasons that you might have made either of those mistakes: (1) you didn't know any better, in Example #1 because you have never read similar advice from that book (and a lot of other sources) to go short, hard and heavy for fat loss, or, in Example #2, because it is literally the first time you ever tried repetitive O-lifts, or (2) you actually knew all of that, but you felt "dumb" or didn't want to stick out as the "weird kid" by modifying the first workout to a shorter version (e.g., "the Terrible Twenties"), or the second to include KB swings. I get the first reason, but now you know, so that won't be the reason next time. The second reason is your ego, plain and simple. You didn't want to "stick out" by scaling or modifying the workout.

You can't blame your trainer, because your trainer -- if he or she is worth the money you pay -- is never going to tell a client that the client can't "scale" a workout to reach a goal or to avoid further injury. You can't blame your momma, because she always told you not to give a fuck what the other kids say -- although it's possible she was a little more polite about it.

This one is on you.

Let's give your ego the b-slap it needs.... Scaling or modifying a metcon -- or even a heavy lift -- isn't just for newbies. It's called knowing your goals and working out in a smart way to achieve them.

Maybe you are the next Rich Fucking Froning (yes, that's actually his middle name), and striving for CF Games glory. Have at it, dude. Train like a beast. Or maybe you are a pretty fit CFer who is really happy with where you are at body-comp and fitness-wise, but you want to take a stab at some local CF competitions. Yeah, you probably shouldn't do a lot of downward scaling below the level of where those competions will be. In fact, you might want to occasionally scale upwards to test yourself to see if you are ready to try to reach those goals. But maybe, just maybe, you are like me -- because I'm the barely-disguised dude in Example #2 -- and want just to stay fit, decently strong and free of further injury. Or maybe you see yourself in Example #1, at the stage of CrossFit where what you want the most is to get fitter and drop a few sizes -- you know, fat loss is your primary goal right now. You may need to scale/modify downward on a workout. And, if you do, you should hold your head high, do the workout that works for you, and politely tell your ego to fuck off.

Smart exercise is no different than smart eating. What you do, and how you do it, depends on your goals. Life: modify as necessary.

ApoE, lipids and alcohol, or: "How I learned to stop worrying and love the [Jager] bomb"**

Ten days ago, I lost my mind just a little bit.

The loss was, as always, temporary, but, as my wife can most assuredly tell you, this time was a little worse than "usual."

As I have told you plenty of times previously, I started going to a paleo doctor last summer. He runs super-extensive NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance) blood testing that not only gives readings for lipids in measurements that aren't found in your "typical" bloodwork, but also provides results on inflammation markers and informs the patient about his or her genotype in some critical areas.

Last August, my NMR bloodwork showed zero inflammation, high HDL and low triglycerides -- all great. But it also showed an LDL-P (LDL particle number) that was higher than optimal. The paleo doc wasn't terribly concerned. But he suggested low-dose fish oil and some Vitamin D supplementation because my D was a little low and my Omega-6/Omega-3 ratio was about 3.5/1.

Off I went with those recommendations, and a couple of minor dietary tweaks, but nothing significant.

In late January, I got retested to see what the new results would be. There was a lot to like: HDL is even higher (whoo!). Triglycerides are the same (whoo! again). Vitamin D levels were up 50% (in the winter!) and the O-6/O-3 ratio was down under 2.4/1 (awesome).

But, especially when it comes to my own health, I could find the dark cloud of doom in a sky otherwise full of lollipops and sunshine. While I was happy with the good results, something else caught my attention: every single measurement of LDL cholesterol was up 40%.

Forty fucking percent. From "kinda high" to what I consider "astronomical."

In just six months. Six months!

LDL-P, LDL-C, small dense LDL…. Whatever I looked at, my various LDL numbers screamed to me: "Son, you gonna die soon. Probably later this afternoon."

But, in a moderately successful (my wife might say "barely successful") effort not to spazz out completely, I started scouring my brain for possible reasons for the bad increase. Logic told me that it had to be something that I had either added to my diet, or had taken away. Added? Vitamin D? No. That wouldn't do it. Fish oil? I used to take five times*** the amount of fish oil that I take now and it didn't raise my LDL a point. Had I taken something away completely?

"Ohhhhhhhhh... wait," my weary, stressed brain said, "What about alcohol? Can removing alcohol from your diet completely actually increase your LDL?"

Or, put differently, can drinking moderate amounts of alcohol lower one's LDL?

As any regular reader of this blog knows, last August -- just barely before my previous bloodwork -- I quit drinking alcohol. It wasn't for reasons related to addiction. I just noticed that my gym performance, and, to a lesser degree, my mood and general outlook were a little rosier when ethanol was gone from my life. So, during the entire time between bloodwork #1 and #2, I hadn't been drinking at all****.

So off I went to Dr. Google…. What I found blew my mind. We'll divide it into two parts:

1. THE SCIENCE-Y PART

Apolipoprotein E (ApoE) helps to regulate how the body deals with cholesterol, particularly triglycerides and LDL. There is a genetic test for ApoE that is part of my paleo doc's bloodwork panel that he orders. Indeed, there are a number of genetic tests performed as part of that bloodwork. In fact, astute readers may recall a rather extensive discussion here about the MTHFR gene based on that very testing. But I hadn't paid attention to the ApoE results previously.

Those tests showed that I am, ApoE-wise, a "2/3" for that gene. There are three types of ApoE alleles (2,3 and 4) and you get one from mom and one from dad. So that means one parent gave me a 2, and one gave me a 3, hence the 2/3 designation. It turns out that what the literature calls ApoE-2 (which include 2/2 and 2/3) are pretty rare -- only about 10% of the population. On the other hand, ApoE-3 folks (just the 3/3) are really common -- about 65% of the population. That leaves 25% as ApoE-4 (3/4 and 4/4).

Are you with me so far? It's not that hard. I sucked at genetics, and I understand it…. One from mom, one from dad. You can be an ApoE-2 (which includes 2/2 and 2/3), an ApoE-3 (3/3) or an ApoE-4 (3/4 or 4/4). (Yes, really smart people, you can also be a 2/4, but that is super-rare, so put a sock in it). I am an ApoE-2, the rarest of the three major designations.

2. THE IMPORTANT STUFF THAT FOLLOWS THE SCIENCE-Y PART

It appears that a rather significant, well-regarded study (the Framingham Offspring Study) found the following regarding ApoE:

--ApoE-2 folks (me!) (the 2/2 and 2/3) have significantly lower LDL cholesterol if we drink alcohol. Significantly! Lower! LDL!!!!!!!! From alcohol!!! (Mind blown).

--ApoE 3 people (3/3) see no positive or negative effects on LDL cholesterol from drinking or abstaining.

--ApoE 4 people (3/4 or 4/4) increase their LDL by drinking alcohol. They probably shouldn't drink.

(And you really smart folks have, again, figured out that I omitted discussion of one type of ApoE: a 2/4. The study didn't cover them. They are, again, super-rare. So, again, put a sock in it).

The bottom line? After clearing it with the paleo doc*****, I am, as a proud ten-percenter ApoE-2 person, conducting a one-variable science experiment from now through retesting in May: one alcoholic beverage a day (either five ounces of red wine or a shot of whisky or tequila). If the Framingham study is right, my LDL should plunge quite a bit.

3. THE OTHER IMPORTANT STUFF THAT FOLLOWS THE IMPORTANT STUFF THAT FOLLOWS THE SCIENCE-Y PART (AND YES, I TOLD YOU THERE WERE ONLY TWO PARTS. SORRY….)

This does not mean that alcohol is health food, even for ApoE-2 folks (me!). I have been back to the sauce -- mostly red wine******because I'm finding whisky on a daily basis really drags me down -- for a week now and my lifting/gym numbers already have taken a hit. If I were trying to do something earthshattering in the world of CrossFit competition, I would have to choose between abstaining from alcohol for the clear athletic-performance benefit or drinking it to lower my LDL cholesterol from its current mega-levels. But that is an easy choice for me. I am always more about health and longevity than I am about athletic awesomeness. I will opt for what I hope is still pretty decently strong at a few lifts, and heart-healthy. Remember, on this one I happen to have "won" the genetic lottery. I am part of a rare ten percent that appear to get a positive effect from alcohol on my blood lipids. And yet, I am going to have to be very careful about keeping to the one/day limit, or else risk all sorts of mood/sleep/etc. issues. I really wasn't kidding a few months back when I said I was digging the clean feeling of no alcohol. Now I have to see how it goes walking what is almost an an oddly tighter line.

Also, remember, if you are an ApoE-2, but you already know that you have addiction issues, I am not telling you to ditch the meetings and do a high-dive off the sobriety wagon. There are likely more important concerns to you than lipid levels in your bloodstream.

The real lesson here seems to be that this genetic-testing stuff is The Bomb. (People don't actually say that anymore, do they?) Imagine… you could go here or here and make an appointment with a paleo doc, and learn all sorts of predispositions that you may have to bad health*******, and, most importantly, learn dietary strategies for addressing those issues. If it sounds like I am telling you that you could personalize your food intake via genetic testing, yeah, that's exactly what I am telling you. I mean -- for the love of all that is good and right, man -- I took a big step and quit drinking six months ago because I thought it was a healthy thing to do, and now it seems that maybe it was a really awful idea. For me. Because… genetics.

You might want to learn about your own version of those genetics.

More on all this in May when the retesting happens.

Oh, ironic universe, you rarely cease to confuse and potentially amaze me….

*****************************************


** Under no circumstances, should you think that I am actually drinking Jagermeister/RedBull bombs. As with the photo that begins this post, the Dr. Strangelove reference was simply too much to resist….

***Back in 2010 when I started paleo, the going recommendation regarding fish-oil supplementation from both Robb Wolf and Whole 9 was really high, and I followed it. Later (sometime in 2012) I ditched taking it entirely, and then last summer I began two pills per day, about six-eight pills fewer per day than I was taking in 2010.

****Two tiny exceptions: 4 ounces (yes, not much) of hard cider on my wedding anniversary in October, and, on Christmas night, one shot of Laphroaig 18 Scotch whisky that my father-in-law really wanted me to try. Otherwise? None.

*****By the way, I should note that my doc shared none of my feelings of doom and gloom about my LDL numbers. He would like to see them improve, and he is signed on to the drink-a-day plan because of the Framingham study and my ApoE-2 status, but he thought, as do I in my less-freaked-out moments, that the most important issue is inflammation, and I have none of any significance.

******The presence of the ale label in the photo that begins this post should not be seen as an endorsement for drinking beer. One word: gluten. Don't do that. Wine, cider, spirits? Yes. Beer (other than the rare gluten-free one)? I can't get onboard with that. Sorry.

*******Indeed, if you were to read this article, you would find out that ApoE affects a hell of a lot more than blood lipids. For instance, ApoE-2 people really have to watch their carb intake or they run the risk of high triglycerides and diabetes. I don't currently have those problems. Low-carb paleo saves my ass on that. ApoE-4 folks are at greater risk for Alzheimer's. Knowing your variation could give you all sorts of other information about your likelihood of Alzheimer's, diabetes and other diseases. Wouldn't you like to know that?

The winter of bone broth

I am all about n=1 experiments. In other words, yeah, I collect a ton of advice from folks like Robb Wolf, Chris Kresser, Liz Wolfe, Jason Seib, etc., but, when it comes down to it, I chart my own path through the paleo/primal world by trying things out and seeing how they work for me.

So this winter became the time to start *seriously* experimenting with bone broth. The benefits of regular, daily consumption of homemade broth are pretty indisputable. You could go here if you want to read a longer piece on all it can do for you. 

All those positive effects are beautiful, but I was most interested, in the midst of the cold-and-flu season, in bolstering my immune system from the ravages of the filthy, filthy world. 

However, alas, I am lazy in the kitchen. So previous broth-y experimentation had been derailed by simple issues like: (1) "How do I store all this?" and (2) "I made so much that it'll go bad if I keep it in the fridge, so, now I have to freeze it."

My old method of addressing these two "problems" (which are really kind of the same problem, I know) was to store it in ice-cube trays in the freezer. I read this somewhere as a helpful hint. <Cue soothing, yet uplifting musical tones, and perhaps bring in Mr. Rogers to say: "If you store your broth in the freezer in ice-cube trays, it won't go bad, and you just pop out a few cubes each morning into a mug and heat it up, neighbor!">

I found the whole ice-cube-tray thing to be spectacularly annoying. There's a photo of me in the Oxford English Dictionary (photo version) ladling tiny amounts of broth into individual segments of ice-cube trays next to two entries: "Stupid" and "Sucks."

I didn't like it at all. And the fact of the matter is that when I don't like something in the kitchen, my internal verve to do said thing is going to be mighty small mighty quickly.

And then I recalled the words of Robb Wolf: "Some people call it bone broth. I just call it soup."

And this made me wonder: why the hell am I using ice-cube-sized portions of broth? You can't OD on soup, for crying out loud. So I said to myself, "Self, why don't you buy some man-sized containers, and just store this stuff in the fridge? That way you can drink a mug of it every day, not just three ice cubes' worth. And, self, you will never *ever* have to freeze it."

I occasionally make good sense with myself.

Furthering the laziness, I decided to opt for "easy" ingredients that would probably lack some of the flavor of the more fancypantsed recipes, like that one I linked to a few paragraphs ago, but which would lack none of the immune-boosting whap-a-dang that I was looking for. (It's possible that "whap-a-dang" has not yet made the current edition of the OED).

This is how easy it is to make bone broth my way:

Ingredients:

-- a bone or two from a grassfed cow. Bonus points for joint bones.
--a crockpot full of water
--garlic
--salt
--pepper
--two tablespoons of apple-cider vinegar (helps get the minerals out of the bones into the broth)

Combine all that stuff (garlic, salt and pepper amounts are up to you) in the crockpot. Heat it to a boil and then cook on low for 24 hours.

Yes, 24 hours.

Strain out all the goop and bones. Store in the man-sized containers in the fridge. Drink a mug of it every day, and, yes, drink the fatty film that forms on top… it melts when you reheat the broth before drinking it, and it has spectacular good-for-you fat in it because it is from a grassfed cow.

It's like deadlifting for your immune system. Get going on that.

Thoughts from the Costco checkout line

                                             socialmediabuff.com

"Dude.... Oh shit, no way. Ack. Dude!"
-- the sound of my brain in the Costco checkout line, where the contents of everyone's carts are on display for all to see.

I love Costco. They have things I need in large, cheap containers, like toiletries, paper products and cases of San Pellegrino (an item that used to fall into the category of "total splurge" that we purchase a lot now now that we don't really ever spend money on alcohol). They also are a decent source for some vegetables, occasionally some meat (although I hear that some of them are more than "decent" in that regard and actually carry grassfed beef…. Sadly, not ours yet), etc.

Costco also sells all the same ultra-processed/grain-and-industrial-oil-filled crap "food" as the supermarket, in much larger containers. So the shopper has to make a lot of responsible choices.

Or not.

From what I can tell there is an absurd amount of "not" going on.

And the fact that often I am the "weirdo" that gets questions about the contents of his cart from other shoppers is some strange amalgam of horrifying and amusing. It often goes something like this:

Other person (OP): Wow, avocados, sparkling water, spinach! Trying to eat healthy, huh?
Me: Yeah, I don't eat a lot of the food they sell here.
OP: Are you vegetarian?
Me (stifling overreaction): Uh, no. No. Definitely not. I just don't eat processed food. Like, um, anything in a package really.
OP: <blank stare as if I just responded in an obscure Serbian dialect>

Or, truth be told, sometimes I get a positive reaction ("Wow. Good for you!"), but then invariably followed by the qualifier that OP "couldn't possibly" do that because of some reason that ultimately comes down to liking the flavor of all that shit in the large boxes.

What's the point of all this? Oh nothing profound, believe me. … just a further expression of the sobering realization, once again, that eating clean is: (1) something that only you can decide to do, follow through on, etc., and (2) if you do it, you will sometimes be the complete fucking weirdo. You will have to explain yourself more than you want to, and you will have to reorient your brain so all that crap that you used to buy simply is not food to you any longer.

But, god, it's glorious once you "get there." Living well is truly the best reward.

Oh yeah, there's a third realization: Most people aren't going to do this with you, which gets back to realization #1, I suppose. You are driving your own bus down the highway of life. Take charge. Or don't. It really is entirely up to you.

And Costco is there for you either way.








- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

CrossFit changed my life

"What, other than your family, has had the most impact on your life in the last few years?"

It's a kind of deceptively simple question. My friend asked me just because we tend to roll like that --  occasionally posing a left-field interrogatory to see what will happen if we pour a little kerosene on the burning embers of our aging brains….

I didn't really hesitate more than a second: "It has to be CrossFit."

And the answer makes me laugh, because I have been kind of vocal on occasion about having some serious issues with the delusion of a few folks who think they are doing CrossFit just to be healthy and live long, but are actually training at a pace, frequency and intensity that has left health/longevity in the rearview mirror in exchange for, something resembling flat-out exercise addiction and grinding themselves to bits.

But those complaints are with the misuse of CrossFit, or, more specifically, the failure to distinguish between CrossFit as a health/longevity training tool versus CrossFit as a sport. (Either is fine, by the way, but understanding which path you are buying into is critical).

Let's not confuse all that with a basic fact: CrossFit has radically changed my life for the better in a number of very significant ways:

1. I am so much stronger at age 51 than I ever was before. No one's going to confuse me for a strongman competitor, mind you, but when I started CrossFit in the spring of 2010, I had never picked up a barbell in my life. I was a runner who also did some haphazard machine-based strength work in a globo gym. I had, as I like to call it, the flexibility of a man twice my age. CrossFit, particularly in a gym that has a so-called "strength bias," has done great things for me: my deadlift is currently at about 2.25 times bodyweight;  50-ft farmer's carry = just under 2.5x bw;  front squat is up over 1.5x bw, and my back squat is a little more than that. I move better than I did twenty years ago, and I keep improving in both strength and mobility. It's, well… it's totally fucking cool is what it is. I feel like I have slowed down the aging process, and I am, as always, firmly against the aging process.

2. Short intense sprint-based workouts a few times a week are wickedly efficient for general health/fitness. I wasted so much time back in the day on a treadmill that it just kills me….

3. When I play other sports, or do any outdoor activities -- whether volleyball or hiking, or even drumming (yes, drumming is a sport… heh) -- I have more stamina and endurance, and a general lack of soreness afterwards, than I ever did. One particular example: I have day-hiked Mount Whitney, tallest peak in the Lower 48, three times in the past ten years. (That's a 22-mile round trip with over 6000 feet of elevation gain -- and then loss -- in one day. The day-hiker starts at 3 a.m. with headlamps on so he or she is sure to make it back down the mountain on the same day). The first two times I hiked it -- both pre-CrossFit -- the uphill was grueling, but the 11-mile downhill from the summit to the trailhead completely slaughtered me. Quads on fire, feet about to quit. Just awful. In 2012, two years into CrossFit, and just after I turned 50, I did it all again, but that time with minimal pain. Sure, it was hard, but it was the easiest it had ever been for me. Why? Strength. I no longer felt at mile 17 like I had five miles to walk on legs that were about to give out on me. Strength is a very good thing, and it translates into endurance -- the ability to go long distances and not have your muscles give up.

4. CrossFit got me into paleo. When I started CrossFitting on my own, the Zone was big. There is nothing wrong with the Zone as a nutrient-partitioning strategy, but as a "way to eat" it can lack some basic guidance about what the foods providing those nutrients will be. You can "zone" Ben and Jerry's, McDonald's and cookies -- not really what I was looking for as an overall nutritional plan. But reading up on the Zone led me quickly to "paleo" this and "paleo" that, and, once I joined a CrossFit gym, in June 2010, where the trainers emphasized paleo as the ticket to good health, I was sold. Four years later, here I am, having experimented all over the map with different shades of paleo and primal food, and having fully worked out a "way to eat" that works for me. Thanks to the Paleo Physicians Network and Primal Docs, I even have a doc who is down with the whole plan. My wife has put an autoimmune disease into remission with a paleo autoimmune protocol (AIP) that she never would have known about from her AI-specialist doc. It's all really remarkable, and it simply would not have happened when it did had I not gotten into CrossFit.

5. Community. We were recently at a party at the home of a fellow CrossFitter. In fact, everyone there was from our gym, CrossFit Aspire. People were talking about liking this or that workout. Some of them were discussing training regimens that would crush me with their frequency, and others were professing love for long metcons that I don't really enjoy at all. Finally I said, "You know what I like the most about CrossFit?" and, pointing to the gathering in the room, I answered my own question: "This. This is what I like. Hanging out with cool, smart, focused people who have a sense of community." That pretty much says it all. I don't belong to another organization where people are so tightly bonded together. It's completely fucking cool, and gives the cynical-bastard side of me hope for humanity. Really.

In early 2010, my son Kevin invited me to come out to his CrossFit gym to watch an in-house competition because, he said, "I think you will think this CrossFit thing is pretty cool." I'm not sure that "pretty cool" adequately describes what's happened since then. Thanks, man. I'm in for the long haul.

Crockpot beef heart with bacon/soppressata stuffing

A couple of years ago, I posted this recipe for crockpot beef heart stuffed with bacon, mushrooms and onions. It is a wonderful way to get offal into your life pretty "painlessly." Heart is a lean muscle meat. Yes, it is technically also an "organ" meat, but it has none of the "organ" taste of, say, liver.

According to Mark's Daily Apple, beef heart is "an excellent source of a number of nutrients, including thiamin, folate, selenium, phosphorus, zinc, CoQ10 and several of the B vitamins. In addition, beef heart contains amino acids that are thought to improve metabolism and compounds that promote the production of collagen and elastin (thin and wrinkle free? Sign us up!)."

But yesterday, I changed the recipe enough -- with glorious results -- that I thought it was worth officially revisiting it. Yeah, the old recipe is great, but this one is top-notch as well.

Ingredients:

--1 (grassfed) beef heart
-- 1 can full-fat coconut milk
-- four ounces soppressata or other hard Italian salami, diced into cubes
--10 slices of bacon (thick cut if you can)
-- turmeric

-- garlic

-- cumin

Cook the bacon. Chop it up. 

Clean the heart by trimming off most of the fat and any obvious arteries from the outside. Then stuff all of the bacon and salami into the heart cavity. Really stuff it full and then use toothpicks -- the longer the better -- to hold it together. Or, you can skimp on the toothpicks; just be sure, when this thing is done cooking, to scoop up the stuffing that falls out into the crockpot.

Put the stuffed heart in the crockpot along with the coconut milk, some garlic, cumin and turmeric (it's a crockpot… use a lot of each or the flavor gets lost).

Cook for 11-12 hours on low.

Do not skimp on the cooking time or you could get very rubbery meat as your reward.

Slice and serve with the stuffing slopped all over it. It's so delicious. Enjoy.

(And I forgot to take a pic, so here is the old pic again….)

What Richard Sherman could learn from the NHL

Note: I wrote this the morning after the rant in question. As you will see farther down, two days after that incident, Sherman apologized. 
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"I've been gifted. The world is full of people who not only haven't been gifted, but have had something taken away from them. All I have to do is see one of them, some little girl who can't walk, and then I don't think I'm such a hero anymore. I think that compared to them, I'm a very small article."
--Bobby Orr 

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You can read a lot today about Seattle Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman and his post-game "interview" last night where he was asked to comment on the final play of the game. What we got from Sherman in that interview was this outburst. 

I remember that, when it happened, a few thoughts came to mind:

-- "Really? Didn't your team just win? How about you talk about the team, or the win, instead of yourself."
-- "Another football player acting like he is the center of the damn universe."

-- "That was awfully egocentric -- even for a football player who thinks he is the center of the damn universe."

-- "I hope Sherman isn't one of the players that coach Pete Carroll has convinced to start meditating, because if he is, pretty clearly, he is doing so while looking into a mirror… contemplating his own 'greatness.'" 

And finally, the most dominating thought:

--This is why I like hockey. 

Hockey is different -- beautifully different. Watch a hockey interview -- any hockey interview. It could be with the guy who just pantsed the top goaltender in the league -- whom the scorer hates with a burning passion -- just after said scorer plowed through four opposing players with no help whatsoever from his teammates to put in the Stanley Cup winning goal in triple overtime, and the interview would still go like this:

Reporter: "Tell me about that last play?"

Player: "Oh, you know, I saw an opportunity, and, you know, he's a hell of a goaltender, so I knew I would need the support of my team on that one, and, sure enough, they were right there and set it all up."

Sometimes the reporter will even try to stoke some controversy:

Reporter: "You and [goalie that he just beat] really go way back with an intense rivalry. Some people would even say there's a lot of animosity there."

Player: "He is a competitor, for sure. I'm just glad our team really stepped it up."

Now go watch that Richard Sherman interview again…. It has it all: self-promotion, denigration of the opposing player, and then a little more self-promotion. The word "team" is nowhere to be found. Sherman's teammates, including the one who caught the ball that Sherman tipped, are not mentioned.

Then go read this "defense" of Sherman as a warrior girded for battle who we wrongfully or unreasonably expect to act like an adult in an interview. 

That piece falls apart as soon as you consider: "Hey, what about interviews with hockey players?" Who is more of a hyped-up warrior than an NHL player? Yet somehow, those guys manage to put all that adrenaline away to respond to the questions -- even the dumb ones, even when the interviewer tries to provoke something more Richard-Shermanesque from them. Hockey is a sport so concerned with keeping the individual ego in check that a mere over-celebration of a goal will get a firm rebuke from one of the game's premier commentators. In football, on the other hand, the individual ego reigns so supreme that players on teams that are losing celebrate sacks like they just won the Super Bowl.

"Me! Look at me! I'm great! Never mind the team!" 

It's embarrassing. Or it should be. 

Richard Sherman is a very talented football player. He really may be the best corner in the league.  But he should be the object of universal criticism today for that egocentric rant, not the subject of apologist nonsense telling us how he probably was still all wound up over whatever he was wound up over and needed some chill time. The top tier of former coaches and players -- the "elder statesmen" of football, so to speak -- should be stepping up to put a lid on this behavior. I would say "before it gets out of hand," but it's already a long way out of hand. It really doesn't matter what baggage Richard Sherman brought with him to the game. And it doesn't matter what the reporter's question was (although seriously, a request to "take us through that last play" is about as non-controversial as it gets).  If he were a hockey player, his attitude would change quickly, or he wouldn't be in the league.

Do your job, sir. You do it well. But let your play speak for itself. Be humble. Be… well, be more like a hockey player.
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POSTSCRIPT (January 21, 2014): The Philadelphia Inquirer just posted an account of Sherman's apology. The main line from it: ""I apologize for attacking an individual and taking the attention away from the fantastic game by my teammates. That was not my intent."

Well played, sir. Now you finally got it right.

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In the spirit of full disclosure, so the reader doesn't think this is a secret anti-Seahawks rant. I was rooting for the Seahawks last night. I like both Pete Carroll and Russell Wilson immensely. No, they aren't "my team." That status is reserved for the Oakland Raiders, who have disappointed me for a long time. I am still hoping the 'hawks beat the Broncos, but Mr. Sherman needs a serious change in attitude.

That Year -- looking back at 2013

2013 made me stronger.

Not necessarily in a physical sense... but I guess there's that too. I PR'd often enough in the gym and did things, particularly regarding deadlifts and front squats, that made me proud that I am still lifting heavier each year. (But I'm still just fitter than the average dude my age, not some kind of gym beast).

Instead, 2013's strength gains were really more about exploring and learning about weaknesses, and inner toughness when it came to various other challenges.

My dad died back in late May. Over the previous few years, he had experienced an awful mental and physical decline that I have gone on about here a number of times previously. But, despite the fact that his death was mostly a sad relief -- for him and me -- May and June were a madhouse around here as a result. And when I really think about it, everything about my existence had elements of This Is More Stressful and Hectic Than I Want It To Be from August 2011, when he went into nursing-home care, to his death this past year. It took seven dumpsters (yes… Seven. Fucking. Dumpsters) to empty his house before I could even start paying someone to bring its interior from its aesthetic perch in the mid-1970s to the present so it could be sold. And then there was all the crazy shit that someone always has to deal with when a person dies.

Fortunately, I am blessed with an amazingly supportive wife, and I got just the perfect level of help from friends, family and those I paid to work on everything that needed to be done regarding my dad's care, his house and his death. There is some magic blend of tenacity, fortuity and gratitude that gets a person through this sort of challenge, and I got lucky and tapped into all three.

The last few years forced me to re-learn two principal things: (1) we are much tougher than we might imagine, and (2) what matters the most is the people you surround yourself with and your health -- mental and physical.

And this all brings us to other aspects of 2013.

More than ever, meditation has been an essential, daily part of how I empty my busy mind. And this past year, I not only blogged about meditation, but I got to blab on about it on a podcast with my friend Kendall Kendrick, from Primal Balance. I even ran a 30-day meditation challenge in July, and started another one more recently. I used to joke that there is no quicker route to deafening silence on my blog than mentioning meditation. Slowly but surely, that is changing a little bit as a few more people realize that their busy, crowded brains need emptying, and that all that CrossFit hoohah about being a "badass" isn't worth shit if your head isn't right.

Good food is critical to health and happiness too, and, besides going on and on about the benefits of an ancestral lifestyle here and on my Facebook page, I also got involved with a couple of paleo/primal challenges at the CrossFit gym where I am a member. There is little I enjoy more than helping out people who really want the assistance, and both of those events have given me a chance to do that. I really dig it.

And then I learned that even when you get sleep, food, stress and exercise where you think you want them to be -- you know, even when you are the fucking paleo drummer, maaaaan (I'm kidding!) -- there are always improvements to be made. I went to see a paleo doc this year for the first time. I learned most things on my insides are great, some are good, and a few improvements are in order. In a month or so, I am going to go back for my second round of bloodwork to see if the changes the doc suggested have helped me step up my game in the health/longevity department.

I also realized this year, more than ever before, that the only focus of my fitness regimen should be health and longevity, and that my ego is the enemy in that regard. I'll keep relearning that lesson as needed.

There some other enemies too, though. I have been up, down and all around with alcohol over my life, and I am just about done. As I said in that post, I won't foreclose the notion of a very special drink in a very special place, preferably with a very special person. But seriously... it is not going to be often. Amazing things have happened since I stopped regular moderate consumption of alcohol. Most notably, my blood pressure has plunged, even in stressful times. Fuck yeah.

And there will, undoubtedly, be further adjustments in the future. Right now, as a matter of fact, I decided my body fat could use a downward turn, so I am eliminating fruit for a month, just to see what happens. I am only a week or so into that new approach, and already I am seeing good results, a fact that just further underscores to me the neverending value of treating one's life as a constant self-improvement project/science experiment. N=1 is good enough, most of the time.

My free time in 2013 was also a little bigger than ever. Both my kids are now off to college/grad-school, and while I miss them, their independence is something I have always encouraged, and now that it is here, it has provided me and my wife with more time for fun on our own. There was a trip for both of us to Paleo FX, and another to Utah and Arizona for some high-quality hiking. I had more time for volleyball, more time for the gym, and more time to play drums -- on my own and in a band. There was just more time. And time is freedom. And freedom is good.

This was also the Year of the Dog just a little more than usual around here. We have always loved our pets, but in 2013 my wife and I added one dog to the pack, lost one, and we both started volunteering as dogwalkers at the local animal shelter. We already knew that dogs were awesome. But giving back to the world of dogs has proved even more so.

It was a really good year. It wasn't always a really happy year. But things, overall, are even better than they were when 2013 began. And even around my little slice of the blogosphere, there are more people checking in here than ever (hell, I even have smart guest bloggers -- like her, and her, and him -- and I even get asked occasionally to write something on someone else's blog). Sometimes great people who I respect even say nice things about my efforts here. 2014? Let's go.

Guest post! "Floating on [a Salty] Cloud Nine [Days in a Row]" by Skylee Robinson

Skylee is an attorney in Seattle who enjoys spending her free time searching for the best meal, cup of coffee, and fitness regimen. You can find her online @skyleejane on Twitter, Instagram, and Gmail. I (Steve) met her (and a whole lot of other people) for, oh, about 3.6 seconds each at a Paleo FX 2013 afterparty. While we didn't get to talk then, her subsequent Twitter feed has contained references to floating in a sensory-deprivation saltwater tank that made me think, "Wow, what a cool, meditative way to chill." I asked her to do a guest blog post, and she agreed! Enjoy….

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It’s 8:35 a.m. on the first Friday of the New Year and I’m sitting on what is (in my opinion and at this moment) the most comfortable spot on the planet.  I’m on an insanely soft and plush couch with a blue throw pillow under my left arm and my legs up on the long part of the fabric sectional.  As I sit (rather: lie) here, reveling in how comfortable I am, I start chuckling about something so trivial I’m almost too embarrassed to type it out:  I’m laughing at how I know it’s exactly 8:35 a.m. even though I haven’t yet seen a clock.  

I think back about my morning, which started with an hour of power vinyasa with my favorite instructor at the spot above the Whole Foods on Westlake.  The relaxing and meditative properties of yoga have been well-discussed and I have no intentions of boring you with them here.  I will say, however, that I recall feeling restless during the morning’s shavasana because I knew today’s true resting pose was meant to exist in water.  

Right after class I took a short drive along Lake Union and across the Fremont Bridge to where I am currently lounging: at Urban Float in a prime location right on Fremont Avenue.  Because I arrived on time for my scheduled 7:30 a.m. session, I walked straight from the front door into my private room, briefly greeting Eve the Receptionist along the way.  This being my ninth consecutive morning session with Urban Float, Eve knew that I knew how to handle the next hour.

Yes, this is my ninth day of floating.  Yes, that’s incredibly indulgent.  No, you do not need to float nine days in a row to feel relaxed (but it doesn’t hurt).  

When Urban Float first opened over six months ago, I signed-up for a membership package that provides me with four floats per month.  This allows me to come for a visit for one hour once a week, which is usually more than enough to help me clear my constantly-buzzing head and calm my frenetic mind.  Yet during the Fall work kept me on the road or otherwise away from Fremont.  Then Thanksgiving and Christmas arrived with its flurry of friends and family, shopping, Holiday parties, and cooking.  During the process of picking up torn bits of wrapping paper on Christmas morning I realized that those four monthly floats were still waiting for me like the presents under the tree that had waited until that morning to be opened.  I logged into my online account and booked a Boxing Day appointment…and another appointment the following day.  After tweeting about how wonderful I felt, Steve asked if I would be willing to write about it.  I decided to bridge 2013 with the New Year by continuing daily float sessions into 2014 and write about how I felt then.

Jessica Tupper

Back in my room, I pulled off my yoga gear and hopped into a lukewarm shower, not once minding the chill from the tepid water as I rinsed the sweat, condensation, and the smell of incense from my hair and body.  Instead of drying off I grabbed a washcloth to completely dry my face, then I tore open a small plastic pouch containing two hunter orange foam ear plugs.  Though the color is loud, the soft cushions are effective at silencing both the room and my thoughts.  I patiently waited as the pliable material reformed itself to the contours of my ear canal, then turned my attention to my best friend for the next fifty-five minutes:  my very own sensory deprivation pod.  

Twitter: @gennapeterson

I have often described to people that a pod is approximately the size of a tanning bed, but in retrospect that is not accurate.  I would instead compare it to the size of a small car (I could even go a step further and compare it to an Isetta since both enable entry via a single hinge, but this tank certainly feels larger than that tiny Italian vehicle).  But like most things in life, it’s what is inside the pod that counts, and inside a sensory deprivation pod is about a foot of special water.  The water is automatically filtered and circulated between visits, but that’s not the best part about the water itself.  The water is heated close to your body temperature; around 95 degrees.  Additionally, inside the water is about 850 pounds of epsom salt, making the density of the water comparable to that of the Dead Sea.  That means that as soon as you are inside the pod and inside the warm, salty solution, your body’s natural buoyancy brings you right to the top of the water.  

The first time I floated was nearly a year ago at the Float Shoppe in Portland, Oregon.  Earlier that week I was traveling in Chicago and did a CrossFit session that involved over 100 pull ups, which was dumb as all I had to show for my effort were two pulled lats.  I sought relief from my massage therapist but there was nothing she could do to alleviate the pain in my back and shoulders; simply touching my lats would make me flinch.  I couldn’t sleep either because no matter how comfortable my bed it was always pushing upon the same areas of my body that were already causing me discomfort.  Through either sleep deprivation or sheer desperation, when I found a Groupon to the Float Shoppe while visiting a friend in Portland I decided to give it a try.

I’m so glad I did.

Once you close the lid of your pod and turn off the lights it becomes pitch black.  It takes a few seconds for the flashes of the last light you saw to leave your retinas, but once they disappear you experience true darkness.  It is so dark that you will have to make an effort to think about whether your eyes are open or closed.  This darkness, in combination with the body-temperature water and warm humidity of the ambient air, means that you will have no idea where your body ends and the warm water begins.  And you will just lie there in silence, floating on a warm, salty cloud with nothing but your thoughts and the experience to entertain you.

The first time you float you’re initially reluctant to dip your head back into the water for fear of drinking in a gallon of water saltier than the sea.  But even through that first session you trust you won’t drown and you find a way to let go.  That is exactly what happened the first time I floated.  My head dropped back into the water, but my face was never submerged.  My arms naturally positioned themselves in a cactus pose above my waist so I could rest comfortably in my state of weightlessness.  And while lying within that tank and in that water I experienced something so uniquely calming that I fear my words cannot appropriately describe it.  But I will say after finishing my first float session I felt like it was more than my neck and lats that let go.  I felt such peace that lingered with me, and is perhaps still with me today. 

And so here I am, 8:35 a.m. on the very first Friday of 2014.  Today’s session was so relaxing that I fell asleep until gentle music pumped into the water, lightly reminding me that my hour in the pod was ending.  After rinsing away the saltwater in a slightly warmer shower, drying my body and wrapping a large white towel around my hair, I am now wearing my favorite pair of sweatpants, smartly paired with a smirk.  Yes, I am still giddy about how I know what time it is.  Does it matter that some time has already passed in the process of me writing this piece?  No, not at all.  Am I aware that exactly one week has actually passed since I was sitting in the lounge at Urban Float that first Friday?  It doesn’t matter.  I suppose that’s the thing about floating, let alone floating nine days in a row:  I feel too damn good to mind the little things.