If all hell breaks loose (which it might) and shit is flying left, right, and center, what is going to be something that provides you with the ability to withstand it and not go down in the first wave?
[WATCH: the article and more as a video podcast]
I have a bunch of answers to this question. The next four weeks I will provide a good portion of them. Sometimes it feels like we are either living in or heading towards a future that has been well described in many a novel or movie. It would probably be more accurate to take those novels and movies and blend them into one melange of dystopian lunacy. Of course, we could easily add a few like Mad Max, The Walking Dead, The Hunger Games, Terminator, WALL-E, or a variety of others.
Feel free to add your top picks in the comments.
Last month, I delved into the theme of our profoundly sick society. This was inspired by Jiddu Krishnamurti’s quote:
This month, we are going to explore how to not be well-adjusted, or to be well-unadjusted, or perhaps to be unwell-adjusted. Whatever. The basic idea is to embrace one’s exceptionality in the face of the pervasive mediocrity and sickness that is unfortunately accepted as normal.
On this point, those of us who have been kicking it for more than four decades (or perhaps less as well) have probably heard a doctor or someone else declare with authority that the reason you (or someone else) is feeling/experiencing _______ (fill in the blank) is because you are getting older. To blame aging for anything and everything that has to do with feeling or performing in a diminished way is so commonplace that it is basically paraded around as fact. For example, you have sore knees because you are getting older or you are tired because you are older.
Well, when I was a kid and watched Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, I remember Indy telling Marion, in response to her comment about how he was not the man she knew 10 years ago, “it’s not the years, it’s the mileage”.
That has always stuck with me. The truth in that statement captures two things:
Years matter less than wear and tear
Mileage can have less of an effect on condition and performance if we have good maintenance, fuel, practices, care, and servicing.
So, let’s break free of the acceptability of being sick in our society and one of the oldest excuses in the book, aging, and embrace some philosophy and practice that enhances our exceptionality, health and youthfulness.
I often think it is important for my writing, videos, information to provide practical and actionable items to offset the heady reflections and potential of a doom and gloom mentality. Here we go with as month full of it. I recognize that some might like a little critical rant more than putting health practices into action. I don’t think this is necessarily a great longterm proclivity but I enjoy ranting - it’s cathartic - so I will strive to throw in at least a short rant every week.
Maybe next month I will get back to more robust critical social commentary. Let me know your preferences.
The rest of this article will move forward with some practical information that will both have you healthier now and more prepared to thrive as a post-apocalyptic warrior.
There is also a small rant at the end of the article for those uninterested in practicalities.
On that note, let’s walk the walk. Literally.
WALK the walk
Surviving any major meltdown of society might very well include a loss of some (or all technology). If it is not an outright loss, it is likely to be a rise in scarcity. To survive and rebuild, one will need resilience in every way imaginable. Let’s start with one of humanities greatest physical super powers - long distancing walking.
Yup, one of the things that separates us from our animal relatives and mammalian cousins is our capacity to have great endurance as bipedal walkers. We are not the fastest, strongest, best swimmer or climber, nor do we sit as an apex species in regard to a variety of other powerful physical attributes. However, walking does give us great advantages and we are naturally really good at it.
Unfortunately, many of us have neglected this ability and our modern lifestyles have made us rusty with it. Many of us avoid it and even reject it as being as worthwhile as it is. Without harness it, many have become weak.
I discussed the growing weakness in my last week’s article, 6 Ways People Are Being Made Weaker, and in my video rant here:
This is why I think it is important for me to offer support in gaining strength and capacity in as many ways as possible. In light of this, I like to test things out on myself before I recommend anything. I enjoy treating my life and body like a lab, changing variables and noting the findings. Clearly, this is a N=1 study approach but comes with a robust literature review backing my findings.
I am not giving medical advice nor claiming the universal benefits of what works for me for others. However, I think the information is valuable and can likely help some people.
My Birthday Challenge
I decided to challenge myself leading up to a milestone birthday and see how ‘young’ (i.e., biological age) I could make myself prior to turning the big 5-0.
I declared a 20K steps/day for 20 days as my goal.
I completed my 20,000 steps a day for 20 days challenge on May 19. My start date was April 30.
It was not easy.
Granted, I began the challenge in good shape with a regular accumulation of 10,000 or more steps a day for over a year. I quite regularly had hit 20,000 before in a day. Maybe once or twice every two weeks on average. I’ve even top 30,000 in a day before.
So you could say I have some experience with step counts, monitoring the volume and various other metrics. Here are my findings:
Significant metrics of Steps at 20K a day
1. A 20K day means likely 10 km (6 miles) or more of walking sometimes depending on your stride length and speed that number could be up closer to almost 15 km a day (which is close to 10 miles).
2. That results in a significant amount of hours walking. These hours regularly surpass three but, how are you get that time can be done without completely compromising your ability to do anything else in the day. More on this later.
3. On average, you’re probably burning around 1000+ calories, which depends, of course, on your basal metabolic rate, speed and the terrain in your walks, your own body weight and lean muscle mass, and a whole bunch of other variables into the minutia.
Overall experience.
As I mentioned, I came into this challenge, ready and experienced. I do not recommend beginning at 20,000 steps a day routine of 20 days or even less without having consistent high step counts leading up to it. 10,000 a day for a one or two months is probably a minimum recommendation.
Canine factor
The challenge started well with lots of motivation. Having a dog makes it generally easy, considering his youthfulness and energy, to achieve 10,000 steps in a day, but that requires me to take over the bulk of his walking.
Time
The first five days were not significantly challenging, although I did quickly notice the amount of time it was taking, especially when days had many other obligations in them. This was not my only form of exercise as I continued to do resistance training in a gym, five or six days a week for an hour to an hour and a half throughout.
Energy expenditure
It is clear that my energy expenditure was high and at first I saw significant changes in both scale, weight and body composition for such a short time. However, as I sustained this practice, I recognized that I was probably beyond the point of optimal efficacy for my physique goals. I believe by about day eight there was a low level fatigue setting in and I experienced soreness that I don’t usually experience in my daily physical activity regime.
As I moved into the day 12 range, I experienced some slight indications of loss of strength in the gym, which to me, is a clear sign that I had gone past the optimal activity level for myself at this point in my life. This underlying low level fatigue, and loss of strength and performance in the gym, resulted in increased hunger and cravings, which diminished the fat loss benefits that I had initially experienced.
The amount of energy expenditure, plus extended hours of wakefulness on my feet, resulted in less optimal recovery, which tends to lead to a diminished willpower and cravings for less healthy food choices. I noticed this. In fact, I indulged in various sweets, and other suboptimal - for physique improvement - carbohydrate choices. There were even a few days where I had to finish my steps as the clock neared the midnight hour. Cutting into sleep is ill advised for any long-term health program, but not catastrophic in the span of a 20 day challenge for someone who is already in good physical fitness and health.
Aftermath
After the 20 days, I immediately dropped down to just over 10,000 steps for the subsequent day and within a day or two of that I had my lowest step count in over a year or more with a only 7500 steps. Even though my streak of 10,000 steps or more per day have been broken, my achievement of 20,000 steps a day for 20 days made that misstep (pun intended) not much of a concern for me at all.
Overall, my body weight shifted from around 202 pounds down to about 195 and fluctuated back up and down a few times as I made poor food choices and poor quantity choices. My body weight never exceeded 199 since I began the challenge. I stand at just over 5’11 and my body fat percentage is currently probably between 10% and 13%. I might have sacrificed a small amount of lean muscle which doesn’t make me happy but I can accept that as a small price to pay for this challenge as I am sufficiently familiar, knowledgeable, skilled, and experienced in regaining muscle after losses. However, generally speaking, at a later stage in life, this is not a great recipe for health. Age-related sarcopenia continues to be a major concern for all the downstream effects on one’s health that can occur with it, and both the literature and my own opinion would claim that we want to prevent this as much as possible .
Survival and success strategies
A few things I did to offset potential over expenditure of energy resulting in muscle loss were to continue to weight lifting at the gym, while attempting to maintain my strength in all my lifts. I also was very diligent about keeping my protein intake high, hitting almost one and a half grams of protein per pound of body weight on a daily basis. I did this without measuring but I have experience gauging it from any past macro nutrient breakdown recordings.
Some days I found myself walking around my living room or house at the end of the day to get the needed steps to hit my goal for that day. But in general, I avoided sitting when I had the opportunity to stand and pace or walk , this is not the greatest thing for making others feel comfortable or for your social life. People tend to find humans who are pacing to be anxiety producing, or at the very least less conducive to relaxation and calm.
This technique is key to making this fit with a life that has other demands and to not forcing oneself to unreasonably extended amounts of time focusing on just walking.
It is quite surprising how many steps one can get by putting one plate away at a time at the gym instead of two, pacing around between sets, moving around the house instead of sitting for no particular reason, reading emails on one’s phone while doing laps in the living room, and other such efficiencies that both save time and the need for focused dedication just to the act of amassing the required steps.
Pros of 20K a day for 20 days.
1. 20,000 steps a day offers a considerable buffer to some poor nutritional choices and higher caloric intake.
2. This practice results in almost guaranteed fat loss with zone 2 cardio which reshapes the body without extensive taxing that could result in muscle loss and/or dramatically increased hunger cravings. What I experienced might’ve had to do with the fact that I still maintained my intensity at the gym and had various other work life demands that cut into my sleep and recovery as well. Nonetheless, I essentially maintained all my muscle with maybe a loss of a half pound or less.
3. Gets you outside, in nature (in my case), and often time by yourself to be together with your thoughts, listen to podcasts and/or audiobooks, and reflect on various aspects of one’s life.
Cons of 20K a day for 20 days.
1. Significant amount of time is consumed hitting 20,000 steps. It is unlikely to be sustainable for most people and depending on your ability to get steps in while doing other tasks might not be even achievable at all in someone’s busy life.
2. While I believe that a certain amount of steps are beneficial to recovery from the gym, and in particular, leg day, this amount of steps probably is detrimental, or slightly detrimental, to gains and performance. In my mind, 20,000 steps is probably excessive for most anything, and would fall in the right downside on a Bell curve in regard to the law of diminishing returns. This might not be the case if someone is young and their career or current job is to be capable of high walking capacity. Again, it would depend on terrain, speed and weight carried, as well as various other considerations.
3. General expended energy in one area will likely lead to demotivation in other areas carried forward for a long time. While I was able to overcome a loss of motivation and still get a lot done, I did notice the desire to go to bed earlier and experienced a struggle to maintain motivation for various tasks.
Tips for achieving 20K for 20 days.
1. Get as many unintentional steps in as possible. What this means is utilize multitasking and avoid sitting or being still when you could be pacing, circling, walking, or however else you can get steps up. The steps add up and cut incredible amount of time out of your focused step counting walks.
2. When possible and as desired, walk on flat and easy trails, so you can get steps in without too much overall exhaustion, and have the option to increase your pace so you can cut some time off total walking without adding to tiredness.
3. Obviously, track everything. This can be done with your Fitbit, or your phone, or what another passive mechanism that will count steps, even when you are not focused on them.
4. Stay hydrated, and eat the right foods to bring up energy. This is not the place for me to discuss nutrition but we can do that a subsequent time.
5. Footwear is crucial. For me, I’ve adjusted to wearing minimalist footwear for almost 10 years now. Changing footwear into shoes that are more narrow, or have a heel, or walking in sandals, or flip-flops, results in a slower pace, and various other aches, pains, and compromised performance and recovery.
It might be different for you. However, I would still strongly advise in not taking on new footwear at the beginning of such an endeavour as well as choosing the most comfortable and suitable footwear for you.
Recommendations from going through 20K a day for 20 days.
1. 20,000 steps a day is a lot on any day. Doing that for multiple days in a row probably has some benefit. Doing that for 20 days in a row is almost certainly going past the peak of these benefits.
2. As mentioned above, get in as many steps while you’re not in “dedicated walking“ practice. I believe this approach should be utilized for most people in their regular life regardless of whether they are trying to hit 20,000 steps, 10,000 steps, or 8,000 steps. We sit too much and often for no good reason. Take advantage of opportunities to get a few extra steps in and it’s going to benefit your health and fitness.
3. It is important to take stock of all the stressors from the physical, mental, emotional, and others in one’s life to recognize how hard to push in any and all areas. The notion of allostatic load aims to reflect on this. Doing a challenge is great. It can be highly motivational. But timing that challenge in one’s life so it doesn’t coincide with other unintentional or intentional challenges is probably a wise idea.
4. Don’t compromise sleep. As much as possible, guard and prioritize sleep.
5. Nutrition is always important, even if you gain leeway by expending more energy than usual.
More on walking:
Here is an instagram post where I discuss some of the science behind walking and health.
Here are some studies:
Daily steps and all-cause mortality: a meta-analysis of 15 international cohorts
Rant on laziness.
Laziness is pervasive. It is more obvious in the realm of physicality but it is perhaps more destructive in the realm of intellectual rigour and critical thinking. People lean into convenience and comfort, both in terms of settling into a couch and a bag of potato chips as well as settling into the directives from the ‘experts’, government and their favorite media outlet. People outsource their health, world perspective, values, and just about everything else that can shape an individual. The forces that influence us rarely care about distinct human lives but rather are heavily invested in a collectivist agenda.
While it might be worthwhile to have some care about the greater good, it is a very slippery slope to self-sacrifice and unacceptable sacrifices of personal well-being, liberty, and even life. If you don’t believe me, just study history. In fact, it would seem when people take personal responsibility for their own health and well-being, they do better and are more likely to contribute positively to society affecting improvements in the health and well-being of others as well.
Some people need support but I would still maintain the old adage that it is better to teach a man to fish than give a man a fish. This we he can feed himself for life instead of just having a meal for a day.
Lazy people are easier to rule and easier to hurt. If we want to withstand the storm, we need to work towards being hard to kill. It is what all of our ancestors did to get us to this time. We owe it to them and to our children and the future of humanity. Get up and let’s GOOOOOO!!!