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J Crew, Stretchy Jeans, and Donuts

September 14, 2016 By Jason Harrison

I dress pretty much like a child on most days. Take a look at a school bus stop near you, and then take a look at what I wear to work every day. You’ll struggle to notice a difference (other than the balding hair line and aging face). Despite my propensity for dressing like an adolescent, somewhere along the line I got subscribed to the J Crew catalogue for men. Maybe they felt sorry for me.

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I was flipping through the catalogue and I happened upon this bit of copy that I haven’t been able to get out of my head:

Stretch Jeans That Don’t Look Stretchy

That’s the title. And there’s a thin looking model dude bounding down some urban steps on his way probably to jump on a bike to grab some organic sushi or something.

“Thanks to top-quality Japanese fabric we source from one of that country’s original denim mills, they look just like all of our famous jeans. Which means now you can wear slim denim and eat doughnuts.” (emphasis in the original quote)

This copy bothers me on three fronts.

1.) The Settling

You know what? Forget it. Just wear stretchy jeans. You’ll never fit into regular jeans anyway. So here’s some stretchy fabric that might look decent for your fat butt and fat thighs and fat stomach. Fatty.

That’s what I read in this ad. Juxtaposed with the skinny dude accompanying the copy, I just find this offensive.

2.) Overeating = Only Reason Skinny Jeans Don’t Fit

The second thing that bothers me about this ad is the idea that eating to excess would be the only reason that someone can’t fit into some skinny jeans. Let me tell you something. Try to imagine an octopus on dry land riding a unicycle. That’s what I look like trying to put on a pair of skinny jeans. My ass and thighs just simply refuse to be associated with skinny jeans. They don’t want to be in the same room with them. They’re offended by the idea of skinny jeans.

And it ain’t the donuts.

It’s the squats, deadlifts, lunges, good mornings, Romanian deadlifts, and kettlebell swings. Don’t get me wrong, I can put away some donuts. But these thighs just ain’t ever gonna fit into skinny jeans. So why condescend to the people you’re selling to by suggesting that the only reason one might not fit into skinny jeans is that they overeat? I get it. It’s supposed to be funny. But, no. That’s a swing and a miss.

3.) It’s Just Bad Marketing

The thing I can’t shake about this copy is that it’s just bad marketing. It doesn’t fit the brand. J Crew usually seems to be marketing to a relatively sophisticated group of people who care a little about the fabric, the aesthetic, the origin of the clothes they’re wearing. Right? So why would you wink and nod to a guy sitting on the couch with his hand down his pants mainlining powdered donuts? It’s just the wrong audience.

Sometimes when you’re selling something, especially an aesthetic, cute just isn’t the way to go. And if you’re going to wade into what I think are the much needed waters of sizing clothing for a diverse group of bodies, don’t insult the very people to which you’re ostensibly marketing. I don’t know much. But I know that.

Should You Be Scared to Train?

August 31, 2016 By Jason Harrison

Your first session with a personal trainer should not leave you wrecked. Ever.

I’m beginning to realize why so many people are nervous before coming to see me. It can take people six months before deciding they want to train before they actually walk through our doors in the Oregon District. Why?

Fear.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve worked with clients who tell me that they did a session with a personal trainer that nearly killed them. There’s no excuse for this, and the only reason you should walk away from an initial personal training session feeling destroyed is a combination of ego and incompetence on the trainer’s part. Period.

Some personal trainers use detailed assessments like the Functional Movement Screen to determine what your strengths and weaknesses might be. Others take a no less serious approach toward assessment but are nevertheless not quite as regimented. Regardless, your very first session with a good trainer will be far less about making you work and far more about understanding where you are in your fitness journey.

I was that guy once. When I first started training in New York, my clients were smart, wealthy, and sometimes powerful people. They hired me and often tried to dictate what the session looked like–and I was insecure and stupid enough to go along. They had a preconceived notion of what hiring a trainer should look like and I obliged. The more I learned, the better I got, and the more secure I became, the more I wrestled control of the session away from the client.

That might sound strange to you. Shouldn’t the client dictate what the session looks like? Not at all. The client should dictate what her goals are, but then it’s up to me through experience and analysis to develop the right pathway to those goals. Clients think those pathways are built upon a foundation of ass-kicking workouts, when usually the answer is progressively overloaded multi-joint strength movements, thoughtful rest intervals, and sound nutrition. A good coach will push you just beyond your current capacity such that your body must change as a result, but not so far past your limit that you injure yourself, vomit, or can’t move for days.

It can be difficult as a consumer to determine who’s good and who’s not good. Web searches won’t necessarily tell you what you need to know about a trainer’s approach and experience. My advice? Use your social network. Ask friends who’ve hired trainers for their recommendation. Chances are if your friends received good, long-term results you might have a shot at it too.

The good news is if you hire well you’ll have nothing to be nervous about during that first session. And hopefully you’ll look back six months from now in amazement at how much harder you’re able to work than you were during that first workout. That’s the way strength and conditioning works: you get a little better each day.

A Lifter and a Yogi Walk Into a Room (Part II)

August 24, 2016 By Jason Harrison

Last week I published the first part of an email conversation between local yoga practitioner Anna Shearer and me. This is the second half of the conversation, in which Anna asks me questions about my recent experiences working with her on the yoga mat. While I’ve done yoga before here and there, the one-on-one practice I’ve started with her has been the most consistent yoga I’ve ever attempted. So she had a few questions for me about that…

Anna: What preconceived notions did you have about yoga before you started practicing it?

Jason: Probably the most important preconceived notion I had about yoga before I started practicing with you was that I don’t enjoy it. And before I make it sound like I’m yoga guy now decked out in Lululemon from head to toe, I should say that I still have moments of panic on the yoga mat. I don’t “enjoy” it the way I do strength training.

But what I’ve realized as I’ve gotten more serious about my own pursuit of strength over the last year is that yoga can be an integral part of getting stronger. And I almost hesitate to say that out of offending anyone who sees yoga more as a spiritual practice. But practically speaking, I’ve felt better in my body since I began practicing yoga with you, and the numbers in the gym indicate that it has helped me get stronger. That sense of efficacy is not one that I anticipated at all. I mainly expected to just feel uncomfortable.

Anna: What advice would you offer to people who want to begin a yoga practice?

Jason: I think having a good teacher is probably more important in yoga than it is in strength training. What I do is fairly intimate, but not nearly as much as yoga. I know really good coaches who approach strength training with clinical precision, and you really can get stronger and leaner with an approach like that. But I think yoga necessitates a sincere bond between teacher and student. So I think it’s paramount that people try out one of the myriad studios or teachers in the area. It seems to me that in yoga, the “better” teacher might not necessarily be better for the individual if the vibe isn’t right.

Anna: What has been your favorite part of your practice thus far?

Jason: I have a fairly big insecurity around letting go completely. You and I were talking about this recently, but I’ve never been a big drinker or drug user, not because of any moral aversion to stimulants, but because I’ve always been worried that if my inhibitions were lowered enough that the “real” me would come out and people would hate that version of me. I try to stay fairly “held” in my work as a trainer, in part because I don’t want my reactions to things to elicit any sort of shame or guilt on the part of a client.

That sense of holding onto my own self, not revealing too much, can be incredibly limiting. I’ve found that yoga allows me the opportunity to try to be completely open in a way that is safe and encouraging. I can channel rage and aggression under a barbell, and I ‘d go so far as to say that rage and aggression can be necessary at certain loads under a barbell. And that’s definitely a part of my humanity.

But I think yoga has forced me to reckon with another honest part of my humanity too, which is to say vulnerability. And it’s quite possible this has nothing to do with yoga itself, but in surrendering in a sense to the guidance of a teacher I trust. But if I had to guess I’d say it must have something to do with the practice itself. At the end of each practice, in the calm and still room, I feel a sense of accomplishment. And that feels good. But I also feel a sense of calm in those moments that I rarely allow for myself. That’s a pretty powerful thing, but I have a lot of work to do to give myself permission to feel that more often.

Embrace Incrementalism

August 3, 2016 By Jason Harrison

There are two things I do as a personal trainer that you can implement immediately in your own workout regimen. I take detailed notes, and I increase weight incrementally. The first will just cost you the price of a notebook (Moleskine baby!), and the second might prompt you do join a different gym or to make purchases to round out your home gym.

The Power of Notes

I’ve not always been a good trainer. For many years I would say I was very bad. But I managed to get results for clients despite this because I’ve always taken good notes. That means I know exactly how many sets and reps you performed last week, I know what you’re struggling to grasp, and I know if it’s time to increase the weight for a particular movement. That’s all in the notes.

If you’re working out on your own now and you don’t have any injuries but you’ve been struggling to make progress, start taking notes. When you struggle with an exercise, write that down. What happened? Where did you go wrong? Take a video of yourself squatting. How was your form? Did you lean forward? Did your heels pop off the floor or did your left foot pronate? Taking notes of anomalies can help you address them during the next workout.

The Power of Incremental Progress

This note-taking is directly linked to another factor that can dramatically affect how much you’re getting out of the gym: increasing the load that you’re moving during your workouts.

Let’s say you’re still in the beginner’s stage of strength training and you’re using a basic 3 sets of 10 repetitions for your exercises. If you were doing a goblet squat for 3 sets of 10 repetitions using a 35-pound kettlebell last month, then you should be using a heavier one this month. Understand that this scenario presupposes that you’re still fairly early in your strength training life, so that a basic linear progression (add more weight next week than you’re using this week) still yields results. If you’re an intermediate or advanced lifter then you won’t be able to add weight to the bar forever. In the beginning, however, it’s not a bad idea to keep things simple. Just keep adding weight when you hit your goal of 3 sets of 10 repetitions.

If you’re working out in your home gym, a really underrated investment is small “change plates,” which are the barbell weights that come in sizes like 2.5 pounds, 5 pounds, or 7.5 pounds. You also can get them in smaller increments, like 1.25 pounds or .5 pound. It seems silly, but these tiny increments can help you increase your work capacity slowly over time. Then when you’re ready to convert to more sophisticated percentage-based programming, you’ll be all set when the day calls for a back squat at 77.5 percent of your one-rep max: you’ll have the change plates to get you as close to the actual number you’re lifting as possible. Not all gyms have change plates in small increments, but it might be worth looking for one that does.

You don’t need a lot of different exercises in the beginning of your fitness journey. And once again, the idea of “muscle confusion” is a fiction peddled by people trying to sell yo things you don’t need. You don’t want confused muscles; you want strong, smart muscles that know what the hell they’re doing. You’re not going to build those by hopping around to different exercises every week. And you can’t develop smart muscles without holding them accountable for what they’re doing: that means a combination of notes and incremental weight increases.

Make Time, Take Time for Yourself

July 27, 2016 By Jason Harrison

If you want a different body, then you have to make the time to build it. Sometimes I think I get my messaging wrong when I try (mostly in vain) to get people off the sidelines and into the fitness game.

I spend a lot of time pushing back against the idea that fitness is complicated. There’s a lot of noise out there about what works and what doesn’t, but there’s a remarkable consensus from people who know what they’re doing around what needs to be done to make a body stronger, leaner, and more mobile. Especially in the very beginning, you need to learn basic movement patterns like the squat, hinge, push, and pull; and you need to do these movements with progressively heavier weights while also eating vegetables at every meal, protein at every meal, and starchy carbs in moderation. That combined with walking a few days a week usually yields results with which people are incredibly happy.

I find it remarkable then when people come to me and voice objections right away when I tell them what the pathway to their goals looks like.

“Oh, I can’t give up my shows.”

“I like wine too much.”

“I don’t want to join a gym.”

“I have 8-pound dumbbells. Is that enough?”

“I only have 20 minutes a day to work out.”

“Working out is boring.”

“I’m too busy.”

Do any of these sound familiar? Ever used any of these excuses yourself? Chances are if you’ve said or asked any of these things then you’re not actually committed to the process of change. You have the body you have now because your lifestyle looks a certain way. Now you’re telling me that you don’t want to change anything about your lifestyle but you want a different body? Nope. Nope. All the nopes.

You have to make the time. You have to make the effort.

Fitness isn’t so much about discipline as it is organization, but you do have to make the effort. One of the things our gym offers free with personal training is lifestyle coaching, and we walk people through a habit-based curriculum focused on nutrition and body composition. A common theme from the feedback we get is that setting the 20 minutes a day aside to think through the “lessons” feels overwhelming. The pace is slow, so the first few assignments are things like “eat slowly” or “make time for yourself today.” We’re not talking advanced calculus. But just the process of taking the time to read a little and learn about habits feels like too much because of the 20-minute time investment.

If you can’t take 20 minutes a day for yourself, and remember, we’re not even talking about changing behavior, cooking, working out, or sleeping more, then you don’t have much hope for changing your body. The very first step in body transformation is giving yourself the permission to take time for yourself. This is not vanity or narcissism or selfishness. This is the foundation for success.

Over the next week, I’m challenging you to take 20 minutes for yourself, whatever that means for you. It could be taking a walk, reading, sitting in a dark room without speaking, meditation, or organizing the next day. The point is to take 20 minutes devoted to enhancing your quality of life. No one else can do this for you. Before thinking about taking big steps (like going to the gym or eating more vegetables), see if you can take this small step: make time, take time for yourself.

The Most Important Move You’re Not Doing: The Hinge

July 20, 2016 By Jason Harrison

People who’ve never worked out before often assume that the sole reason for stepping foot into a gym is to “lose weight” or change body composition. While those might be benefits for some (assuming they’re also getting enough sleep and eating well) I would argue that the first priority for most people who are new to fitness is to learn how to move.

Good movement is the foundation for increasing workload because you’ll be able to work harder and longer over time by avoiding injury. Sure, you can walk into the gym today and make yourself sweat, but if you’re not also learning how to move you’re not only building in a natural ceiling for your strength and fitness, you’re also increasing the likelihood of injury over time. Lifting weights is actually an extraordinarily safe activity in terms of acute injury (like rolling an ankle) but it can lead to chronic injuries (like that shoulder or hip pain that never seems to go away).

My guess is the most important movement pattern you’re not doing right now is the hinge. Remember when your parents first started letting you help them move heavyish things around the house and they admonished you to “lift with your legs, not your back”? Without quite knowing it, they were telling you to hinge instead of just bending over. But what is a hinge?

A hinge is a movement whereby you flex and extend at the hips. A classic hinge movement pattern is exhibited by a barbell deadlift. If you watch the animation below, you can see which muscles are responsible for hip extension (gluteus maximus and hamstrings). In everyday terms, that’s your butt and the muscles on the back of your legs.

A review of the anatomy suggests that your back does play a role in something like a deadlift even if the primary movers are your butt and legs, but I think it’s especially interesting to note just how important butt strength is on a movement like a deadlift. If you’re trying to get stronger and you still fit into skinny jeans–male or female–then you’re doing something wrong. (I’m only sort of kidding here. Big, strong butts are also functional butts. Go make yourself one.)

Until recently, I used to advise people that if they’re new to lifting then they ought to focus on squatting, horizontal pushing (like a bench press), horizontal pulling (like a dumbbell row), vertical pushing (like an overhead press), and vertical pulling (like a lat pulldown or pullup). But I’ve been thinking that this advice isn’t complete and that perhaps beginners ought to start their journey with hip hinging. Along with the squat, the hip hinge is the movement pattern you’re most likely to use in your everyday life. Therefore it’s important that you both get it right and learn to make it strong.

One of the best collections of video tutorials on learning the hip hinge movement pattern comes to us by way of Tony Gentilcore in a blog post appropriately titled “How to Hip Hinge Like a Boss.” You can view that here. Below I’ve embedded just one example of the many drills he’s put together to help you learn how to hinge correctly.

I’ve been stealing the above drill for a while now. Basically you’re using the wall to learn how to throw your butt back and engage the powerful muscles in your posterior chain. Notice how little knee flexion and extension is actually involved here. This makes the hip hinge much different than a squat. Check out the difference in this brief video below.

So why not just go into the gym and try to burn calories? Why “waste” the time learning the difference between a squat and a hinge? If two people walk into my gym, I know ultimately the more patient person who’s willing to learn the movement patterns will be happier with their body a year from now than the impatient person who just wants to sweat a lot. Why? Because once the patient person learns how to hinge well I can progress them through advanced movements like barbell deadlifts and kettlebell swings. These advanced movements, loaded progressively, will build more muscle and ultimately lead to more of a caloric expenditure than basic movements. Powerful movements like the hip hinge involve more muscle mass and thus provide the stimulus your body needs to change.

Before hiring a personal trainer or joining a gym, reorient your mindset toward movement and away from burning calories. You have to inhabit this body the rest of your life, so you might as well learn how to move it well. Once you do that you’ll also be able to push it harder and make big leaps toward the aesthetic ideal for which you might be looking.

A Child Asks: Why Get Stronger?

June 29, 2016 By Jason Harrison

“Why do you work so hard when you don’t have to?”

A child asked me that question recently, curious about why my own strength training sessions are relatively intense compared to the general population.

“I like the feeling of being strong,” I said.

“But you’re already strong,” she said.

“And how did I get this way?” At this point I thought I had her. Surely the logic of a 40-year-old man would trump that of an 11-year old’s.

“But you keep doing more and more. You don’t need to do that, do you?” It was a fair point. She’s right. I have certain numbers in my head that I’m trying to hit, for no other reason than pride and maybe more than a little ego. This was a classic case of an adult being forced to boil something down to its essence because of the logic of a child–granted, a really smart child, but a child nonetheless.

So why do I keep pushing? I don’t need a 500-pound deadlift in order to age well, and my young interlocutor understood this intuitively. The truth is that I’m addicted to being strong, and I’m trying to get as strong as I possibly can while I’m still able because there will be a day when getting stronger isn’t possible. I’ll have to rely on my “muscle reserves,” so to speak, to thrive in my octogenarian years.

But it’s more than that. While there is a part of me who is trying to bank as much muscle as possible for when I get (even) older, if you strapped me to a lie detector test I’d tell you that I’m doing this for the right now. I’m doing this because:

I enjoy the way a strong body works.

I enjoy the way a strong body feels.

I enjoy the way other people respond to a strong body.

I enjoy the self-sufficiency that comes with a strong body.

The difference between you and me if you’re not working out isn’t just physical. You’d enjoy all of the things I listed too. It’s that I’ve always worked out, and thus I don’t have the same insecurities you do.

I leave my cards at the coffee shop I frequent. I hear from people all the time who tell me that they picked up my card there “six months ago” or “several weeks ago.” What took them so long to finally get in touch?

Fear. Insecurity. Previous bad experiences in fitness (usually involving judgment). They spend half a year building up the courage to seek out the help they need to get strong, to feel the way I do.

I’ve not solved this problem. I don’t know how to prove to people that I won’t judge them, make them feel less than, or belittle their skills in the gym. People who study human behavior and change might say that there’s nothing I can say because people have to be ready to change. I understand this intellectually, but I want to solve the puzzle. I want people to know that the gym can be a safe, empowering place.

I want everyone to know this. I want this understanding, this belief in the power of strength, to reside deep in everyone’s soul, from the 22-year-old with body image issues and a questionable relationship with food to the 60-year-old grandmother who’s never touched a dumbbell in her life.

My industry has tried to solve this problem by lying to people, selling them supplements they don’t need, and telling them that the answer to their fears is a singular piece of equipment or THIS exercise modality (and definitely not THAT one).

So when you add extant fear and insecurity, mix in a layer of smokescreen-induced distrust, then you get the recipe for you not walking into that local gym or yoga studio.

But remember this:

I enjoy the way a strong body works.

I enjoy the way a strong body feels.

I enjoy the way other people respond to a strong body.

I enjoy the self-sufficiency that comes with a strong body.

And you will too.

I promise you.

You Don’t Know What You’re Doing

June 22, 2016 By Jason Harrison

A guy walked into my gym the other day and asked me if I offered memberships. “No,” I told him. “This is a personal training and private yoga studio.”

“Oh, because I don’t need a personal trainer,” he said. “Do you offer any quick bootcamp style classes? I just want to get rid of my belly. I already know what I’m doing.”

“Well,” I replied, “your belly is probably more about what you’re eating than anything else. A bootcamp isn’t necessarily the answer.”

“I’m a vegetarian,” he said, “and I already eat clean.”

At that point I just wanted him to get out of the gym as quickly as possible.

I like when neighbors pop in and ask questions. I like to give as much information away for free as I can. And I especially love the idea of people in Dayton seeing my place as a resource. Personal training is expensive, but I’m confident that there are enough people who see the value in my services that I can give away information as a sort of good neighbor policy. I do it all the time.

But nothing annoys me more than when people ask me questions to which they already pretend to know the answer.

Especially when they’re so, so, so wrong. I just don’t understand walking into someone else’s place of work with that level of arrogance.

Believe it or not, there are people who spend a lot of time figuring out how to get specific body compositions.

Here’s where my rude visitor went wrong. There are a few issues tangled up into his presumptive line of questioning.

1.) “Abs,” or body composition: One can be weak and have visible abs. One can be strong and have visible abs. One can be healthy and have visible abs. One can be unhealthy and have visible abs. One can eat vegan and have visible abs. One can eat Paleo and have visible abs. If your goal is abs–you can tell it’s not my favorite goal in the world–then telling me that you’re a vegetarian doesn’t do much to help me get you there.

2.) “Eating clean”: I’ve written before that people often tell me they’re eating clean when what they’re really doing is not eating enough to sustain their activity level. These people often have trouble achieving their body composition goals because they’re constantly catabolizing muscle just to stay alive.

3.) “Bootcamps” are the answer: Think about the logic of a bootcamp for a second, and think about where the terminology comes from. When a military recruit goes to bootcamp, they’re reporting to a purposefully challenging entry point to a career in which they will be asked to fight and possibly die with their brothers and sisters. Meeting at the park for abs exercises and calling it a bootcamp sort of misses the point.

Aside from the nomenclature, the real issue with a bootcamp style class is that you’re throwing twenty people into a group of varying skill levels, fitness, and injury histories and asking them all to do essentially the same thing. Sure, a good teacher will suggest modifications, but it’s difficult to ensure that five people are on point with their form, let alone twenty.

I’m not against all classes. We live in an area rich with them led by really good coaches. I’m against the idea of a class built upon the false and potentially dangerous notion that hard work alone–not programming, not form, not nutrition, not sleep, and not recovery–is the pathway for an unfit person to achieve abs or a “summer ready” body.

Use Your Eyes and Ears, Not Your Mouth

I’ve said before in this space that you don’t need a personal trainer or a coach. That’s true, but only if you’re willing to admit that you don’t know what you’re doing and you’re willing to put the time in researching, asking questions, and listening.

I’ve been doing this for a long time now, and I continue to research, ask questions, and listen. I can’t imagine training people now the way I did even five years ago, which means I’ve learned a lot in that time, discarded some techniques I once thought were sound, and added new ones. If you’re a lawyer or an architect with only a passing interest in fitness, why would you think it would be any different for you? So just shush for a moment and listen to the strong man or woman wearing the shorts. They might just know a little more about you when it comes to fitness.

Empathy: Part II (Gay Edition)

June 15, 2016 By Jason Harrison

I’m a proud Ohioan. I grew up here, I went to school here, and I cheer as hard for the Ohio State Buckeyes as anyone else. The state and specifically the community of Dayton has been incredibly kind and supportive of my business and my approach to fitness. But I’m troubled by what I see as an empathy chasm, which I’ll define in this context as a gap between our purported values and our demonstrated ability to put them into action.

Last week I wrote a bit about my own empathy blind spot when it came to homosexuals, and how I, unfortunately, required personal experience to understand the unquestioned humanity of our gay brothers and sisters. I grew up ignorant, I went to college and met a lot of gay people, and I learned from the experience. I’m a better person because of that growth.

Details are still emerging about the horrific attack against an Orlando gay club, but I think we can all stipulate that the gunman targeted the club because it was a sanctuary for gay people.

If you can't wrap your head around a bar or club as a sanctuary, you've probably never been afraid to hold someone's hand in public.

— Jeramey Kraatz (@jerameykraatz) June 12, 2016

I’ve been thinking about the stories I’ve heard from gay clients over the years. Stories about coming out to hostile parents; stories about punishing verbal and emotional abuse from peers; stories about feeling unsafe and vulnerable in cities with smaller gay populations.

My wife and I spent a recent weekend in Brooklyn and were surrounded by gay couples chatting, drinking coffee, going to the movies, and walking their dogs. I rarely see open displays of basic coupling among gays here in Dayton (outside of specific sanctuaries)–and I assure you it’s not because we don’t have a significant gay population. It’s because we are more hostile to homosexuals here.

The hostility isn’t necessarily overt. Our reputation here in the Midwest is for being unfailingly polite. “Please,” “thank you,” and “pardon me.” But that propensity for politeness, coupled with our relatively high degree of religious faith, mask an underlying empathy chasm for people who may love, make love, or identify with gender differently than you do.

My Facebook feed has been full of sympathetic Ohioans expressing outrage at the shooting in Orlando. (I’m not as interested in those armchair quarterbacking antiterrorism experts who wouldn’t know the difference between Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Pakistan if you gave them a map and a month’s head start to begin reading.) I’m fascinated by the polite, seemingly helpful, and kindhearted mourners who express condolences along with the ubiquitous “thoughts and prayers.”

These social media posts often begin with “while I may not agree with their lifestyle,” or “they’re sinners just like me,” “whatever they want to do behind closed doors is fine,” or some version of an argument that dismisses the validity of how gay people live their lives while simultaneously acknowledging that crimes against them are terrible.

"Love the sinner, hate the sin" is homophobia wrapped in a sanctimonious platitude.

— Broderick (@BroderickGreer) June 14, 2016

This is not enough. An empathetic, welcoming, diverse, inclusive society recognizes not just the humanity of gay people but also the basic validity of two men (or women) loving, kissing, and making love. I’ve overhead enough homophobia and felt enough of it in my own heart at one point to understand that what makes so many people uncomfortable is gay sex acts. This is precisely why polite, otherwise loving people go on Facebook and say things like “love the sinner, hate the sin.” The sin, in other words, is the gay sex.

I remember saying to a gay classmate during my freshman year at Ohio State that I found the idea of gay sex “disgusting,” but that I would never discriminate against a gay person. I thought I was being inclusive and open-minded, but really I was creating a hostile and even permissively violent environment for my fellow students by denying them their right to express physical love without scorn.

People argue that their religion teaches that homosexuality is a sin. I have no counter to this, and I doubt anything that I could write would change anyone’s mind. But expressing public condolences infused with judgment or disgust, all the while masquerading as inclusive or open-minded is not at all helpful. Worse, it reveals a profound discomfort with and disregard for the fully formed humanity of our neighbors.

By framing our understanding of people whose sexual orientation is different than ours as sinners, we diminish our capacity for empathy. This in turns makes our country, our society, and our community less well. Kelly McGonigal in her 2013 TED Talk made explicit the connection between how we deal with stress and our capacity and need for empathy.

Here’s part of what she had to say:

Oxytocin is a neuro-hormone. It fine-tunes your brain’s social instincts. It primes you to do things that strengthen close relationships. Oxytocin makes you crave physical contact with your friends and family. It enhances your empathy. It even makes you more willing to help and support the people you care about. Some people have even suggested we should snort oxytocin… to become more compassionate and caring. But here’s what most people don’t understand about oxytocin. It’s a stress hormone. Your pituitary gland pumps this stuff out as part of the stress response. It’s as much a part of your stress response as the adrenaline that makes your heart pound. And when oxytocin is released in the stress response, it is motivating you to seek support. Your biological stress response is nudging you to tell someone how you feel, instead of bottling it up. Your stress response wants to make sure you notice when someone else in your life is struggling so that you can support each other. When life is difficult, your stress response wants you to be surrounded by people who care about you. (emphasis mine)

A well city is an empathetic one. We can be a well city in which gay couples can feel comfortable being themselves, holding hands if the mood strikes, or stealing a kiss along the river. But not until and unless we collectively get over our discomfort with the very idea of gay sex. When as a freshman I told my classmate that I was disgusted by the idea of gay sex, what I was really saying to him was that I was disgusted with a fundamental piece of who he was as a man. And if you think I’m wrong, ask yourself how important your sex life is to you and how fundamental it is to expressing your love to the person closest to you.

As a personal trainer, I hear about people’s darkest secrets. I hear about the demons that have tormented them since childhood. It’s because of this that I so often write about empathy. I know just how integral it is to a healthy, well-rounded, fulfilling human experience. Many of us think we exhibit it at the same time our attitudes, actions, and language make life miserable for our neighbors.

You want to make Dayton a healthy city? Make it a welcoming city–for everyone.

Strength Training for Old Folks

June 1, 2016 By Jason Harrison

There really is no disputing the fact that strength training is good for everyone. But when we think of “everyone,” we tend to leave out people in their 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s, as if there is no benefit to beginning a strength training regimen when one becomes too old to go to the club.

What should strength training for older populations look like? And what are some of the special considerations for pumping iron when one pushes into the fifth decade of life? I’m going to answer these questions with an eye toward people who have never worked out before.

Recovery Time

If you’re older and you’ve decided to start lifting weights, understand that you’ll need to do weight-bearing exercise at least two days a week. In fact, for the first several months I wouldn’t advise you to do much more than that if you’re not currently active. Your aging body will need more recovery time in between workouts than someone who’s younger or someone who’s been working out for years. (And you’ll need no less than two days because getting stronger is a learning process that requires repetition.)

If you’re seeing a trainer, try establishing a Monday/Thursday or Tuesday/Friday split. You’re going to need those couple of days in between sessions to recover. A lot of times people will ask, “what about cardio?” If you’re older, one of the best things you can do in between lifting sessions is to walk for thirty minutes. The purpose of these walks isn’t to “burn more calories,” but to aid in your recovery from lifting sessions and to develop your cardiovascular capacity. Walk at a brisk pace twice a week in addition to your strength workouts and you’ll be happy with the way you feel. The great thing about walking is it’s a simple, low-impact exercise that you can do for the rest of your life.

Learning

People feel shame around the fact that they’re not already in great shape. So they avoid trying to get into shape because they feel like they already should be. Pretty vicious cycle, right? Well, it’s not too late, and there’s no reason for you to feel ashamed. Just be ready for the fact that it might take you longer than your 20-year-old nephew to pick up some of the basics.

You’ve been moving the way you move for five decades or more, and if one assumes that some of those movement patterns aren’t the most efficient, then it follows that you’re going to have to learn new movement patterns in order to lift weights safely. This can take time–and that’s okay.

The older my client is, the more time I spend on the most basic movements like squatting. It can take several weeks just to get someone to the point at which they’re ready to work hard. Again, that’s okay. The key here is patience and an understanding that learning how to move is at least half the reason one should lift weights. It’s not just about getting leaner or a number on the scale. Longterm quality of life hinges upon good movement, and you’ll neither learn how to move well on your couch nor sitting on a bicep curl machine. Stand up!

Terminology

Chances are if you’ve never stepped foot in a gym by the time you’re 40, then it’s safe to say that working out isn’t your thing. So it’s likely that you’re not going to be familiar with a lot of the terminology of the gym. It’s relatively important for you to pay attention to the way people talk about the human body so that people around you (like personal trainers, doctors, chiropractors, etc.) can help you.

I had a client once tell me that they felt like an exercise was “pulling” on their leg. I had them immediately stop with the forceful concern of a parent who was watching their child head to a light socket with scissors.

“What’s wrong?” they asked.

“A pulling sensation is not good,” I said, “so we need to stop and evaluate what’s going on.”

“Well, maybe pulling isn’t the right word,” said my client. Turns out, by “pulling” my client actually meant “burning” or “difficult.” They were feeling the lunges in their quads just as they were supposed to be feeling them. But because they used terminology I associate with potential injury risk, I made them stop. This type of interaction happens a lot with people who aren’t accustomed to using or paying attention to their body.

You Can Do This

Don’t let the marketing around fitness fool you. This is for you too. I’ve never had an aging client tell me that strength training wasn’t worth it, even among those people who didn’t see a quick transformation in body composition. Just feeling better was worth the price of admission.

Aging doesn’t have to mean painful lower backs, using walkers to get around, and leaning on railings to get up and down from the toilet. It’s only that way in our culture because people stop moving. If you’re reading this I want you to know it’s not too late for you to avoid immobility and weakness. All you have to do is strap on the sneakers and be willing to learn.

Family Obligations and Fitness

May 18, 2016 By Jason Harrison

When I trained in New York, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C. there was a notable absence of family obligations for many of my clients. These coastal cities tend to be more transient* than a place like Dayton, Ohio, so to the extent that people had social obligations, they were more likely to involve friends and coworkers than family.

Here in Dayton many of us are surrounded by sometimes several rings of extended family, so it’s not uncommon for a weekend to be consumed by a cousin’s wedding or a childhood neighbor’s graduation party.

I’ve noticed in recent weeks my own struggle to balance the routines that I’ve implemented to make my life work for me against things like Sunday family dinners, invitations to social outings, and holiday gatherings one might otherwise ignore if not for family tradition.

It’s a lot easier to say no to happy hour with work “friends” than it is to the aunt who practically raised you and has invited you over for brunch. So what can you do to stay organized when a family obligation happens to fall right in the middle of your usual grocery shopping, food prep, or workout time?

The standard answer of course is you have to plan around these things. You have to know your calendar well in order account for a family command performance.

But that feels like glib advice to me. Sometimes bad timing is just bad timing, and no amount of calendar preparation and planning ahead can make up for the fact that Sundays are your grocery shopping days and going to the cookout will get in the way of that.

This is one of those areas in which my best advice is to give yourself permission to do the best you can most of the time and good enough the rest of the time. What I mean by that is if you have a well-established grocery, cooking, and workout routine and you get invited to a family gathering, then you ought to go. (I’m assuming here for the sake of discussion that you have a healthy, non-abusive relationship with your family. If you don’t, then this advice doesn’t really apply. Don’t put yourself into situations that are bad for you–family or no family).

Uncle Joe might not serve the healthiest food. And the spread at Sunday dinner might not have the best composition of macronutrients. But you’ll be glad that you spent that time with family, and you’re more likely to remember those Sunday dinners than you would the extra rowing workout you squeezed in. The people you love aren’t going to be around forever, and it’s best that you keep that in mind.

Here’s another thing to consider. The more authentically and openly you live your life, the more likely the people around you will be to consider your healthy choices when they decide to invite you over. Don’t proselytize–nobody likes that fitness guy–but be you. People will notice that you tend to always add vegetables to your plate, even at breakfast. And when they invite you over for Sunday dinner they might ask you what kind of vegetables you’d like, or even what you’d recommend. It’s then that your lifestyle choices begin to rub off on the people who matter most to you.

The other thing living authentically will do for you is allow you to say no sometimes. Don’t be insecure about the fact that you love to work out, love to eat well during your work week, and love the yoga class you’ve been attending. Set the precedent right now that these things are important to you so that you can say no to some things and not hurt anyone’s feelings. If they love you and care about your health, they’ll understand when you don’t come to everything.

*When I say these cities are transient, I don’t mean to suggest that there aren’t longtime residents for whom generations of families have called, say, the District of Columbia home. These cities are transient insofar as there are a number of residents moving in and out–but that’s not true of everyone living there. We tend to ignore the longtime residents who form the backbone of places. I don’t mean to do that in this case. For more on transience in American life, check out this helpful report from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Judge Not Your Friend Who’s Now Fit

May 11, 2016 By Jason Harrison

Your friend has never been particularly fit nor particularly interested in nutrition. Maybe she was your old college roommate, and you have distinct memories of late nights, bad decisions, and otherworldly alcohol consumption. But something has gotten into her lately. Maybe she started going to that new yoga studio down the street. Or she hired a personal trainer. Or she started running and has fallen in love with piling up miles.

She’s not obnoxious about her healthy pursuits. She still talks about literature and movies and books and the occasional reality TV show. It’s just, now when you suggest drinks or happy hour she tells you that she’s scheduled for a class or a lift or a run.

You have a choice to make here. You can be supportive of her new healthy lifestyle, perhaps ask her questions about her yoga studio, personal trainer, or running coach.

Or you can do what a lot of people choose to do and be an asshole.

Unsupportive friends do whatever they can to derail a newly fit person’s journey. “Come on, just skip the workout,” these people will say.

“Oh look at you! Now you decide to run. Whatever happened to the girl I knew in college?”

Some version of this happens in work settings all the time. Someone decides to stop treating their body like a dump truck at lunch and instead of going out for bar food he brings lunch from home. But instead of asking how this person is going about overhauling their lifestyle, people pressure him to eat garbage alongside them.

We rightly have pushed back culturally against body shaming and unrealistic expectations of women in particular to “be thin.” But it’s okay somehow for us to make fun of the friend who favors organic food, perhaps even more expensive but high-quality food, and home-cooked food over fast food, microwaved food, and processed food.

Why do we make fun of fit people? The simple answer is that our ridicule reveals some insecurity about ourselves. It sounds like trite analysis, but I think there’s something to this.

Have you ever met someone who’s incredibly accomplished, good-looking, and nice? And your initial reaction rather than appreciating the opportunity to meet this person was to search for something wrong with them? I sure have. If I find myself comparing my accomplishments to someone else’s and see that I don’t quite measure up, sometimes I’ll start deducting points from their side of the ledger to make myself feel better. I’m not proud of these moments, but I know myself well enough to be able to admit to them. Getting older has done wonders for helping me realize that talent, merit, accomplishment, and admirable traits aren’t a zero-sum game: there’s enough out there for all of us. Still, I can be petty just like anyone else and it ain’t pretty.

If you find that a friend or family member is making an effort to live a sustainably healthy lifestyle, be supportive. Ask questions. JOIN THEM. Your ridicule and shaming of their choices could quite possibly undermine their efforts–leaving both you and them less healthy.

Besides, ridiculing someone else for doing something positive for their wellness just isn’t a good look. Don’t do it. Ever.

About That Abs Class…

April 27, 2016 By Jason Harrison

The other night someone stopped by my gym to ask about what kind of training I do. After explaining that I focus primarily on personal training with a strength focus, the person asked if I do training sessions specifically focused on “abs.”

This made me think about the gap between what people want and what they actually need. I can tell a lot about whether a person is committed to goals and process or their comfortable routines based on what types of exercise they do.

Generally, I’ve found that devotees to classes and cardio machines are addicted to their routine. They like their 7 PM Zumba class, their elliptical session while watching Morning Joe, or their abs sculpting class at noon. These things make them sweat and generally make them feel good. These aren’t bad things.

The problem is that they’re not going to be particularly effective either. Hopefully, you know me well enough to understand that I’m not here to shame or belittle anyone’s choice of exercise. I’m not. And hopefully, you also know me well enough now at this point to realize that I’m not dogmatic about exercise. My non-negotiable is that everyone ought to be doing some sort of progressively overloaded weight-bearing exercise, but that can look like a lot of different things for different people based on goals, interests, and experience.

Zumba is only going to work for so long before it stops changing your body. It’s not that it’s not challenging, but that it’s difficult to progressively overload and it’s not weight-bearing in the sense that you’re targeting your central nervous system, bones, muscles, and joints for adaptation. One can lack mobility in significant areas but still complete a Zumba class. This is what makes it a great option for someone who’s never exercised–but not as their ONLY form of exercise. Because if one lacks mobility, one ought to work to gain mobility. That’s not going to happen in a class like Zumba.

Abs classes might make your belly burn, but chances are you’re not going to flatten out anything if you’re not also doing squats, lunges, presses, and pulls along with a healthy dose of well-balanced eating that includes a lot of vegetables. You might view your stomach as your “problem area,” but that pathway to a flatter midsection is paved in the kitchen and in the strength training facility or yoga studio–not the abs class.

That morning elliptical ritual you have is great if you’re using it to clear your head and get a good start on the day. But don’t think that you’re going to elliptical your way to the body you want without also a good bit of strength training or yoga. The more you use the elliptical, the more efficient your body gets at handling it–which is the death knell for forcing an adaptive response.

My sense of why people opt for routine instead of actual change is they’re afraid that they’re somehow the people for whom fitness doesn’t actually work. Why commit to an actual goal only to be disappointed? This is fear talking to you. Don’t listen to it. I’m here to tell you that if you lift progressively heavier weights or practice yoga with a good teacher; if you sleep seven to eight hours a night; and if you eat vegetables and protein at every meal (and your protein can come from the right veggies) you can change your body.

Don’t resign yourself to routine when you can accomplish. Don’t settle when you can achieve. Don’t give up when you can succeed.

So before you sign up for that next abs class, ask yourself this: Do you want to do what you like? Or do you want to do what works?

Family Conversations About Meals

April 20, 2016 By Jason Harrison

What are you having for dinner tonight?

You should know the answer to that question, even if your spouse is the one responsible for preparing dinner on this particular evening.

Lately I’ve been coaching a number of people who can’t answer that question, usually because they’ve outsourced all responsibility to their significant other. The problem with this scenario–even if, at best, it represents a mutually agreeable division of labor–is that it removes responsibility, buy-in, and empowerment from one half of the household equation.

Most of the time–though not quite all–it’s us dudes who aren’t quite dialed into what’s at the table. I’m sure someone smarter than me could give you an entire socio-historical breakdown about why this continues to be the case in 2016, but for now let’s just agree that husbands and boyfriends ought to be a part of the discussion.

Food is such a source of guilt (I shouldn’t have eaten that), turmoil (read: picky child eaters), and judgment (I can’t believe you’re eating that) that I can understand why we avoid talking about it. By outsourcing the cooking duties to someone else, I think there’s a part of us thinking that we’re absolving ourselves of responsibility.

“I’d like to eat a little better, but my wife does all the cooking.”

“I’d like to eat a little better, but my husband usually does the grocery shopping.”

If you’re married with children, my guess is you spend some amount of time discussing college funds, vacations, and visits from the in-laws. You have those discussions because navigating each of these things requires some degree of planning. I’m here to argue that food for your family is more important than all of those things combined–and requires no less planning than figuring out how to save for college.

Too many people talk about food in terms of willpower and discipline, but in my experience the real issue around eating well is planning.

Who does the grocery shopping and when?

What’s going on this week?

Kids have a softball game on Wednesday? Cool–what’s for dinner?

Compulsory after work drinks with the new boss? Cool–what’s the plan for eating well so you don’t end up eating all of the mozzarella sticks?

Traveling for work? Have you checked Google maps to see where your hotel is and what decent food options are around?

We think we get stuck, don’t we? “Well, I only ate McDonald’s because we had the thing and then I got off of work late and then–”

No.

You ate McDonald’s because you didn’t have a plan, you didn’t have fresh food in the house, and you didn’t coordinate with your partner. It’s not because you’re dumb or because you lack discipline. It’s because you’re a human being with responsibilities and the only way to eat well under such circumstances is to plan for it with the seriousness you apply to other important things in your life.

I’m in no position to be giving you homework, but I’m going to do it anyway. If you’ve never talked to your spouse, boyfriend, or girlfriend about food, do it today. See where the conversation leads. You might be pleasantly surprised about what you’ll learn from each other.

Let’s Talk Butt Stuff

April 6, 2016 By Jason Harrison

If you’re committed to the pursuit of strength, then you ought not worry about whether or not you’ll be able to fit into those skinny jeans. In fact, if you’re getting progressively stronger, more mobile, and healthier, chances are you’re NOT going to be able to fit into those skinny jeans. That’s a good thing.

But I still have clients, mostly women, who worry about fitting into their same jeans after a few weeks of working out. They’re losing body fat, feeling stronger, and moving better, but there’s a connection between how and whether clothes fit some women and their self esteem that I’ve not been able to break, try as I might.

So let me make the case for big butts. I’m not talking big butts from indulging in too many fried cheese sticks, but big, powerful butts sculpted from lunges, glute bridges, hip thrusts, and curtsey lunges.

The performance case

If you want to be a strong squatter or deadlifter, you’ll need a strong butt. These full body movements demand what we call a strong “posterior chain”–that is, the muscles that predominate on the back of your body from top to bottom–and your glutes are a relatively important part of that chain. Glutes are responsible for what we call “hip extension.” Want to pick up something heavy from the floor safely? Hip extension is a key part of the equation.

The metabolism case

The biggest mistake I see people making in commercial gyms when I’m traveling and working out in one is focusing too much time on minor muscle groups (biceps, calves, etc.) instead of major muscle groups (back, quads, hamstrings). People think the path to sculpted arms lies in things like tricep extensions, but really what they need to do is squat and deadlift more while eating more vegetables and balanced meals. This in turn will help you burn more fat, which will reveal the strong arms you’ve been building from your rowing and pressing. What you’re after if you’re trying to lose body fat is working big muscles every time you work out–and your glutes are among the biggest in your body. So having a big, strong butt will actually help you burn fat while you’re not working out.

The aesthetic case

The old sexist punchlines centering on a woman asking her husband if “these jeans make my butt look big” ought to be dead if they aren’t already. The cultural tides have shifted–in a good way, in my estimation–away from the drive to be skinny and toward the pursuit of a strong, curvy body. Men and women alike seem to enjoy looking at “squat butts” more than ever. Fitness is my life, but I’m not naive enough to think that people aren’t working out in part to catch other people’s eyes. Filling out those yoga pants, jeans, slacks, or shorts with a big ole squat butt will definitely get you noticed.

Resources

Now that I’ve convinced you that you need a bigger butt, it’s time to put thought into action. How do you build a strong, big butt?

To answer that question, you really should start by reading and watching as much Bret Contreras content as you can. Dude has built a career out of building butts (and publishing serious research in fitness). Start here for his myriad resources on butt building.

I would also check out what TNation has done on building strong glutes. Within just the past few days TNation editor Dani Shugart wrote an entire piece on the how’s and why’s of building strong glutes. That article, “The Flat Butt Fix,” is here.

You Changed Your Body. Now What?

March 30, 2016 By Jason Harrison

This week I’ve had more than one person express fear to me about their new habits. They’re lifting now, eating better, feeling better, and looking better, and just when you think things couldn’t be any better the old adversary pays a visit.

Fear.

If you’ve done the hard work and engaged in the self-reflection necessary to change your body, you want to keep the “new you.” This desire can cause more than a little anxiety about slipping back into the old ways that yielded the old you.

I wish I could tell you or my clients that I can guarantee that you won’t slip back into the old habits, but there’s no guarantee for that. I can only share with you what I’ve seen from people who’ve successfully made dramatic changes and who continue living a healthy lifestyle.

A Focus on Strength, Not Weight Loss

Strength, and thus, muscle mass, is the best insurance policy against sliding back into an old unhealthy body that there is. If you’re continuously getting stronger, then it’s going to be difficult to simultaneously continue getting fatter. This doesn’t mean that you might not gain weight, but it means that your ratio of lean mass to fat mass should tip in your favor as long as you’re–

…Eating Vegetables At Every Meal

Tired of me talking about veggies yet? Sorry. I’m not going to stop. You need to be eating more vegetables. Right now, in fact. Seriously. Stop reading this post and go eat some damn vegetables.

If you’re getting progressively stronger and you’re filling half your plate with vegetables every time you sit down to eat, it’s going to be really, really difficult to slide back into your old ways. You’re going to feel too full to eat extraneous calories, especially if you stick to the rule: veggies at every meal. The corollary to this is that you also should be eating protein at every meal, but generally I’ve seen people fall short in the vegetable department. The key is eating balanced meals full of nutrients, the building blocks of immune health and muscle, and satiety.

The people I’ve known who’ve successfully changed their lifestyles have incorporated some sort of weight bearing exercise and eaten well. At least some of these people had tried the usual prescription of “eat fewer calories and do a lot of cardio” and failed before adopting the sustainable path built upon muscle mass and balanced meals.

When someone says to me that they’re nervous about returning to their old ways, often I’ll ask them to compare how they used to approach wellness to their new approach.

Old Approach

Often what I’ll hear about their old approach is that they counted calories, they ran a lot, and that they were injured a lot. I’ll hear that their weight loss journey generally made them miserable.

New Approach

In comparison, their sustainable approach often involves fewer workout sessions (but with more intensity), eating more often (but with nutrient dense foods rather than calorie dense foods), and feeling stronger.

So the fear usually stems from the fact that most of the time when people embark on a weight loss journey they’re engaging in behaviors that are patently not fun. Who wants to be injured all the time? Who wants to feel hungry all the time? Who wants to feel weak? Who wants to eat bland chicken and broccoli for dinner every night?

No one.

The most important thing you can do if you’re trying to change your body is ensure that the process you’re using feels good, tastes good, and is fun. You’re going to be sore if you’re new to working out–I’m sorry, that’s just the price of admission for the first couple of weeks. As you get stronger, however, as you walk up and down the stairs without pain, as you play with your children or grandchildren without tapping out because you’re tired, as your clothes fit better (even if the scale doesn’t change), you will feel good about yourself. And you’ll want that feeling for the rest of your life.

Worried about the eating part of the equation? I promise you that a well-prepared home cooked meal will always taste better and make you feel better than fast food, processed food, or anything you can get from a big chain casual restaurant. What this means though is that you have to learn how to cook. The people I know who’ve changed their lifestyles sustainably have almost always incorporated more cooking into their weekly routines. This is not negotiable.

If you’ve changed your life using the sustainable path, if you’ve learned to cook, if you’ve learned how to get stronger, and if you’ve embraced the process–you have nothing to worry about.

If, on the other hand, you’ve dieted your way down to that dress size you’ve been chasing; you’ve been doing hours upon hours of cardio; and you’ve been counting every calorie, I can’t say that you won’t slide back to your old ways. I’ve seen it happen too many times.

Turns out you have to enjoy your body in order to sustain it.