I suppose I’ll start with some feedback from my wife. When she heard the title, “A Fitness Practitioner,” she said, “isn’t a practitioner a doctor?” I suppose they are at times referred to as practitioners, but that’s NOT the context I’m using practitioner in. I am NOT a doctor.
A Fitness Practitioner is my journey as a practitioner in a more general sense. It’s the beliefs, principles and values I hold in the realm of “fitness.” To me being a practitioner means that you are a doer, not a talker. Unbeknownst to me, I’ve spent my life as a practitioner in a number of areas. I never really labeled it as being a practitioner. I just liked to try new things that I read about. It wasn’t until I read Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s book, Antifragile, that the idea of being a practitioner really took hold. I’ve been saying things like, “your actions tell me who you are far more than your words,” long before reading Nassim’s book. It seems like an obvious concept but it surprisingly isn’t to many. And after reading the book and viewing the world through this new lens it absolutely cemented how foreign this idea is to so many. The idea of a practitioner is loud throughout the book. As Nassim says, “I eat my own cooking,” and I like to think that I do as well.
A Practitioner’s Ethos is my story as a practitioner in the world of health, fitness and wellness. I hate putting those labels on it because I feel like that boxes myself in. To me, those represent an infinite number of topics as almost everything we do can be tied into these. We are complex beings full of interdependencies. What impacts the body impacts the mind. And vice versa. Hence, almost anything, in my opinion, can fall under the health, fitness and wellness umbrella.
With that said, I’ll write about things I’ve done. Things I’m naturally curious about. These are things and topics that I’ve read about for decades with no intent of ever writing about them. These are subjects and ideas that I’d sit down with a cup of coffee during my off time and get lost in for hours. They are ideas that I’ve thought about and marinated on over the decades. Most importantly, these are subjects and ideas that I have put into practice in my own life. Not once or twice, but hundreds and thousands of times.
Above all, these are practices that have enhanced the quality of my life. And maybe I’ll throw in a few discarded practices that led me to learn something new. I think these practices have led to some principles in my life that can lead to improving the lives for others too. Yes, we are all different. But physically, we’re all pretty similar in regards to our DNA. Of course some of us have different needs like professional athletes or those with certain dietary or physical restrictions. But I have a hunch that the things I’ve learned over the years, and more importantly put into practice, could help others as well.
This is not for the people who genuinely enjoy reading, studying, and watching videos on all things exercise, movement, and nutrition. This is not for the people who spend countless hours online watching lectures on nutrition or reading books on habits. All of you probably know and have tried a lot of the same things as me.
I’ve done all that studying, and continue to do so daily, and I’ve implemented actions based off those studies/works and most importantly I’ve learned a lot about what works and what doesn’t. I study those mediums and filter out what I believe is relevant for the people who aren’t as innately interested in the subject but still want to implement the practices to improve their life. That’s who this is for.
I think I can be a filter between the Ido Portal’s, Greg Glassman’s, Robb Wolf’s, Layne Norton’s, etcs. of the world and the Janes and Johns and Moms, Dads, and everyday people who want to improve the quality of their life but don’t know where to begin.
My story has been shaped by practitioners such as Greg Glassman, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Ido Portal, Stoicism, Mark Rippetoe, Robb Wolf, Mark Sisson, James Clear, Layne Norton, and many others. To me, these are people who walk the walk.
I admire practitioners. I admire people who do, not talk. In this day and age of the internet where everyone has a voice, it’s easy to see that many people are just that….a voice. A hollow voice with no actions or experience to back it up. No blood and sweat and tears behind their words. Theodore Roosevelt summed it up best:
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood.”
People love to put other people down. They love to point out, “yeah buts,” and criticize and chastise those people who are actually out there making stuff happen. They are the armchair quarterbacks of the world. As Nassim Taleb says, these people would be the type of people who would “lecture birds on how to fly…believing that the lecture is the cause of these wonderful skills.” He also points out that academia and so called “experts” are “leading us to believe in a flow of knowledge going chiefly, even exclusively, from lofty “science” to lowly practice.” But the men and women in the arena of life know better. The people out there who let their actions do the talking know the real story. They know that, “practitioners don’t put theories into practice. We create theories out of practice.”
There’s also a growing contingent of people on the internet who are “science-based” and pretty much seem to trash everyone who doesn’t have a PHD. Of course science has its place, but let’s be honest, there are a number of areas where science doesn’t have it all figured out. Do I really need a randomized, double-blind, level 4, controlled trial to tell me that salmon is healthy and Pop Tarts are not? No, I don’t. And if I choose to fast for 48 hours and feel amazing, do I need some PHD to tell me it’s really just because I restricted my calories and has zero to do with any mechanisms that came from the fasting? No. Because I don’t care why it made me feel great! But as a practitioner, I know that it did. I don’t need to know the why down to the cellular level. (Side note, I’ve spent many hours reading up on this stuff-I by no means have it all figured out and this studying has impacted my practice for sure but I can’t cite a study for everything I believe in and that’s why I write about what I’ve tried and what works for me NOT what is 100% backed up by clinical papers and science….one more side note, I’m guessing these two things mostly overlap).
So how is this site different? As they ask in business schools, why are you unique? Truthfully, I don’t know if I am. All I can do is tell my experience. I’d never say I have life figured out, but I have managed to figure a few things out that are pretty applicable to being fit, healthy, and happy. Over the years I’ve gotten tons of questions on these topics from friends, family, and co-workers. I thought there must be something that others want to know. I’ll put it out there and we’ll see if anything sticks with all of you.
I try to take the dogma out of these topics. I keep an open mind. My views have evolved over the years and they’ll probably continue to evolve. I by no means claim to have all the answers. I just have the answers that have worked for me so far.
Ultimately, this is for all the fathers, mothers, people who feel like they never have enough time, people who feel stuck, people who feel like they are always being pulled/rushed/in a hurry. This is for those folks who so desperately want to make a change but get so overwhelmed by science, headlines and competing theories and so called “experts” that they ultimately say, “forget it.” They decide to make a change; sit down to do some research; quickly get overwhelmed by the amount of information (much of it contradictory) out there; get anxious and confused; and ultimately give up before they’ve even started.
Hopefully I can help simplify some of that.
At the end of the day, my hope is that my experiences as a practitioner can help some of you as well.