Since the early days of science fiction, readers and TV watchers have been spellbound by great heroes such as Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, Captain Kirk, Luke Skywalker, and such.
Even heroes outside of the “sci-fi” realm such as The Lone Ranger, Zorro, and Tarzan have captured the fancy of those that love adventure and stories of daring exploits and heroism.
One common factor among all of them is how healthy and fit they are. Razor-sharp reflexes, running great distances without losing a breath, great strength, and tremendous agility are all hallmarks of who they are. You would think that many science “geeks (such as myself)” and other science/engineering buffs would be in tune with this . . . but so often we aren’t.
In my own life, I remember overeating while watching superhero and sci-fi flicks. I’d often lounge in front of the TV or PC for hours playing video games of space and super heroes that looked much fitter and healthier than I was becoming. In my mid thirties, I was beginning to get the infamous “dad bod” as my metabolism was switching from growth mode to steady. By and by, I began to get very dissatisfied that many of my old clothes weren’t fitting anymore and I was starting to look older than I was. Fortunately my wife loved me anyway, but I wasn’t really feeling good about myself (off camera).
So what did I do? I actually had to get “mad” at the way I had become. I had gone from 190 (my college weight) to 234 by age 35, and I could not stand the way I looked in pictures. I didn’t like the feeling of huffing and puffing just from sitting on the floor and playing with my kids. I finally talked with my wife and she suggested I get on a regime of not just excercise, but of diet changes. For working out, I did the following:
- Got a Nintendo Wii Fit, and started doing the Strength Training and Yoga excercises each day. It would weigh me each day, but what helped is that I saw my weight literally go down each day as I increased in my ability to balance and do the excercises. I went from 234 down to 212 in about 6 weeks just from excercising with the Wii Fit.
- I gave up gluten. So much American food is filled with GMO-based gluten now that it’s incredibly hard to start out eating without it unless you take a determined & proactive approach. My weight loss went down more rapidly when I cut this out of my diet. There’s lots of good supplemental flour-based alternatives (e.g. rice flour, almond flour, etc) that can help. My weight was down to 203 after doing this.
- I took up some cardiovascular activities. I enrolled in hapkido (another Korean martial art like Tae Kwan Do) and took up distance running too, and drank more water.
- I began to take more defined, professional yoga classes. This increased my balance, stamina, and also my cardiovascular fitness and I was no longer trying to catch my breath as much while running. I also did programs like P90X and ab crunches.
- I found out that my HDL cholesterol levels were 2 points below the low-end of acceptable and they remained that way despite all the previous efforts. I finally began to adapt a stronger Paleo-centric diet (e.g. no gluten, no processed sugar, and no animal-based dairy) and my HDL levels went up by 10 points. The doctors wanted me to simply take a pill to address this, but I did it via diet alone (and highly recommend this if you can). I lean toward as much use of natural medicine as you can to avoid side effects but I always check with my doctor.
All in all, it worked! Not only did I look better but I felt healthier and much stronger. It’s a regime that I’m practicing to this day.
The mindset is basically “Can I watch the great super and star heroes be fit and do great things”, or “Can I BE like the great super and star heroes, and be fit and do great things too”? The best answer is YES to the latter one.
On my 36th birthday, I ran a 10k race and thanks to yoga and diet, I’m healthier now in my early 40’s than I ever was in my 20’s. It’s great brain-power too. So often, tech workers, scientists, and engineers (like me) find ourselves sitting in front of PC screens out of necessity for work. It’s easy to replace real life with images we see on screen. We have to break that imbalance, with the benefit of boosting our own health. I have, and want to keep going to improve the quality of my life, and enjoy and do more things that benefit all.
I prefer myself visiting my old dojo instead of my sitting in that rocking chair in red shirt several years before.
I’ll talk more about this journey as time goes on. But I would like to hear stories from you on any “health moral-crisis” moments you’ve had in the past and what you have or am now beginning to do. Make sure you respond in the comments section, and don’t forget to add your e-mail to The Great Galactic Space Gimmick’s mailing list so you can get updates.
For The Great Galactic Space Gimmick, I’m Gimmick Commander Ben Faltinowski! 🙂
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