What is Life Without Risks? A Message to Those Overcome With Fear in the Covid Age

I still see so many people in this country (USA) willfully locked down since early last year. It is a shame that they have allowed fear to overrule their judgement and critical thinking processes.

And I'm talking about healthy, younger people here, not the ones that are old and frail.

I recently took a trip to Aruba. My aging parents (79 and 72 years old) have a timeshare down there and booked airline tickets early after I made an initial analysis of the #Covid19 situation. And they invited me to come, in which I said yes.

Living the life in Aruba

For a short background, I have been a scientist of a consumer products company with exposure to the FDA for 12 years before I became a coach, so statistics and analytical reasoning is my strength. I'm not "blowing this out of my ass" like some people claim when I tell them that the #Pandemic is overblown.

Everything evolves around the CDC figures. Namely, 99.8% of the people survive this virus if infected. For my parents, 94.6% of those 70+ years old survive the virus.

And of those people who were hospitalized, 80% of the people are severely deficient in Vitamin D!

My parents aren't the fittest of the bunch but I told them this information back in May and left it up to them to decide what to do, stay shut in or have a life. They decided to take the risk and have a life. They were also placed on a steady Vitamin D, C, Zinc, Mg, and multivitamin regimen 6 days per week to keep the immunity levels up. Link: Vitamin D as treatment for Covid reduces death by 60%

My mother did contract #Covid through a friend in August. She was sidelined for 2 days but she pulled through just fine. I am convinced that her strong immune system with the regimen helped tremendously. She only had a bit of a problem with taste and smell for a couple of months afterwards, but otherwise she was fine.

There is also a greater issue at play here, one that touches on our humanity. We are social creatures, we intermingle with people, get a sense of belonging, we're outside a lot. This is who we as humans are. And in order to have a rich and fulfilling life, some risks *have* to be taken! We get in our cars knowing that we can be hurt or killed in a car accident, but the freedom to get to another place efficiently makes that risk worthwhile.

My parents are living the remaining part of their lives up to the fullest. They went to Aruba for 2 weeks. Seeing that I'll be going to Ironman Florida 70.3 in April and that we have relatives there, my parents started booking tickets to Florida at the same time to visit them.

I truly feel sorry for those people holed up in their homes since last April or May overcome with fear. Message for those people: if you don't take risks, you're not going to *have* a life!

#health #fitness

My "Covid Passport" To Health and Fitness

There is a lot of evidence that suggests that a regimen of good health, diet, exercise, and Vitamin D is enough to ward off Covid-19

Just like any other viruses that came along in the past.

I've posted the evidence multiple times before. Treat your body well, and it will treat you well in kind.

Goal Oriented! Yes, Men Are Tools, They Need To Be Used To Feel Productive

Most men need to be healthy and be productive in order to be happy. I know it's an insult in some ways, but we're tools. 😁

I mean it as a compliment though! We need to give ourselves goals so that we, as tools, can be used to work towards that goal.

 

We're only useful when we are being used. Not that kind of used! But used in a productive way in which we are proud of our results.

A lot of men have lost that usefulness in 2020 as their goals were either destroyed by government lockdowns or forcibly modified as a result of this "new normal." As with the former, we are goal oriented creatures, and we lose that motivation when the goal is removed. A tool that just sits there isn't making itself useful. As with the latter, sometimes the new goals don't reflect what we are used to doing, and we feel at best awkward when trying for these modified goals. Using a knife to loosen a screw doesn't work very well, doesn't it; a knife is used in cutting things.

During this period, a lot of men have either given up to despair or have committed suicide, feeling their lack of usefulness in society. This is where some intervention is necessary.

I lost two longtime friends to suicide last year; one was such a shock because he ran a very successful personal training business. Being forced to close down his studio must have been such a blow to him that he might have felt there was nothing else to do. He did pour his time and effort into that business to the point where it defined him. Take away his business and I guess his soul was taken from him.

Although I don't have a studio, I am associated with a couple of gyms. Most of the time, my appointments were personal, either making house calls or having a session in a park or a beach. With this Covid Panic last year, "personal" was thrown out the window. So I'm converting the business to a virtual format.

 

 

One of my normal beach sessions turned virtual; seems like a nice setting to use.

It's been awkward at times, like that knife being asked to loosen screws. But I'm slowly coming around to adopting the 21st century tech to go virtual.

And as a result of the loss I felt from my friends' suicides, I want to reach out to others who might feel lost with this new paradigm. We're not alone, and that if you need any advice, don't hesitate to contact me or other people in your life. Sometimes it takes a simple evaluation of all of your talents to figure out what might work for you from here forward.

The sooner you can re-evaluate yourself and establish new goals and start moving forward on them, the less you'll feel useless, get yourself into despair, and minimize your chance of getting suicidal tendencies.

Groundhog Day Winter Storm Run - Be A Child Again!

 When life throws you lemons, make lemonade.

Two straight days of snow to start my least favorite month of the year. But, instead of lamenting missing my chance to move to a warmer clime, it's time to embrace it and have a little fun.

Yesterday's 4.5 mile run was in a storm that was ramping up. This morning's 6.5 mile run was in a storm that was winding down. No worries about pacing, or speed, or intervals. Just get out there, have fun at an easy pace (that's about all we can do anyway in the ice and snow), and embrace my inner child.

That, and the 2 hours of shoving two feet of wet, heavy snow afterwards made for very productive morning. And a hot chocolate for my reward after all is done!

I'm 51 years old turning 3 again.

(bad lighting, but this is a picture of me wearing my Dunkin/NYC Marathon hat, balaclava for the wind, 2 layers above and below the for the cold, and good trail shoes for traction. I was nice and toasty for the run)