Where are you now? And does it matter?

"Your present circumstances do not determine where you can go or what you can do; they merely determine where you will start." 

I came across this statement the other day and it totally resonated with me. Far too often we look at ourselves and want to use what has happened to us, or what is happening to us, as a crutch for why we can't (insert whatever it may be here). Don't get me wrong, some people are starting at a point that is much more suited for them to achieve success, but its just the start. Some people will wither under pressure regardless of the support they have or prosperity bestowed upon them. Others will achieve greatness regardless of all obstacles. Every day that you open your eyes to sunlight, you are given the chance to rewrite or continue your story. Will you let your last chapter determine your next chapter or will you write a new story, one that has you achieving what you know is possible without thought or credence to what had previously been holding you back. If you were these people what decision would you make........ And I am not talking just about people who overcome odds and go on to change the world. I am more amazed at the folks who overcome their circumstance to achieve personal actualization. Could you or I do it? Do we have what it takes? The great thing about life is that we are given a new opportunity to test ourselves each and every day. Take a look at these people. Everyday folks making the best of their circumstances and not letting it determine their fate. Just click their names to see their story.

Richie Parker

     Dick Hoyt







Now none of you, hopefully, will never have to overcome what these two have. But the point is clear. Get up, make a decision to be as great as possible and get on with it already. Whether you believe you can or you can't; you are totally right. You decide.

On a lighter note, I have been watching this chipmunk for a while now collecting about four or five nuts a week from a backyard with two intimidating cats. What if she let her situation determine her outcomes? Thats how this all ties in with my Primal theme. Our cave dwelling ancestors could not just sit inside all day because there was a big cat outside...... Are you getting your four or five nuts per week?

Live Primal.

Filling our treasure chests

            We live in a world where everything deemed good, enjoyable, exciting, and memorable has to immediately be recreated or packaged and mass produced.  Stop it. Part of being able to be present in the moment is directly tied to your ability to let a treasure be a treasure.  Being focused on the present and not trying to recreate the pleasures of the past on a constant basis allows us to be open and in tune with the potential that the world has to offer.  This is not to say that a great thing can't be recreated or enjoyed more than once. The message here is that maybe we need to take those moments that have, for one reason or another, become "cravings" and stop trying so hard to make them happen again. A particular person, event, meal, encounter, kiss, trip, meeting, or time period can be recalled and enjoyed again and again in our minds. Our ancestors did it all the time through group story telling and that is lost on us today. Let a treasure, whatever you definition of it may be, remain so. Who knows, the repeated event may never be as fulfilling or amazing as the first time around. Or to be all "financy" - the law of diminishing returns may wield its sword.  In brief, let go of the want, lock away your treasures and don't allow yourself to become an easily repeatable event to others.

Here is an example of an exchange between two fictional characters that perfectly encapsulates my point:

Irene Adler: “I don’t differ. I reject your whole premise. Our afternoon was one of the most unique and memorable of my life. It can’t be repeated. We could try, but that’s just a game of diminishing returns, isn’t it? I’d rather just remember it the way it was.”

Sherlock Holmes: “You preserve the integrity of the initial encounter by denying yourself further ones. Interesting.”

Irene Adler: “People don’t treasure things anymore. You should try it.”

Sherlock Holmes: “You’re not boring at all, are you?”

Irene Adler: “I try not to be.”

Irene Adler: “Is this all I am now? A piece of exercise equipment for your brain?”

Sherlock Holmes: “You’re the greatest piece of exercise equipment a man could ever hope to throw a leg over.”

Live primal......make memories...... fill your chest with booty!    ARRRRGH.....

Lessons from the SNATCH

So I purposely used the eye catching title only to get you reading.... stick with me.

The snatch is, and has been, my frienemy for quite some time now..... every time I think I have it, something else creeps its way into my mind and my technique goes totally haywire. But that's whats great about it too. I am of the mindset that a person can learn a lot about themselves at the bottom of a snatch, including important life lessons.

1.  Embrace what you suck at and attack it head on.  Do not shy away from something because of the degree of difficulty. Great things never happen without some risk taking.

2.  The shortest distance between two points is....... execution. Lines don't draw themselves.  Learn to do things the right way and all of a sudden some of the hardest challenges become effortless. Execute well and execute often .

3. We will only fail at the margins of our experiences, by expanding what we experience everyday, we are ensuring our future success.

4. Obstacles are what we see when we take our eyes off of our goals. This one really resonates with me. When I focus on where I want to be by years end with the snatch my mind stops thinking about the points of performance that I am still not mastering. Just like life, focus on the goal, enjoy the journey.

5. There are things in life that should be done because they make us better at everything else. In Fitness its the snatch, dead-lift, and squat. In life I think its reading, getting outside, learning about others, and paying attention to what we eat.

So there it is, my five life lessons gleaned from the feeling that my whole body is going to explode when I hit the bottom position. As always, live primal my friends...............

Behavior modeling

Short and sweet this week folks......... If you want your children to live right and make appropriate choices that will aid them throughout their lives you must model the behaviors. Primal eating, and lifestyle will rub off on your children. Commit to it, and do not be afraid to say no when your children give resistance.

This weekend my daughter asked me if we could PLEASE have chicken parm..... I said yes. When we began to prep for dinner she had already set up a breading station that included coconut flour instead of bread crumbs. She was also busy chopping up some bell peppers and onions. I asked her what she was doing and she replied "I figured we could have these instead of noodles". Way to go Mia! 

Live right and you are helping guarantee your families health too..............

 Who knew she had actually been paying attention all along?

Primal & Paleo going mainstream?

It has been said that imitation is the ultimate form of flattery and that there is no such thing as bad press. Until recently, if someone were to mention paleo/primal living they would usually be greeted with an odd look and follow up comment like "What is that? Some type of fad diet?".  Today however one can find mainstream media splashing headlines like "10 food you didn't know weren't Paleo" and "The Primal diet for Dummies".  Open a new issue of Shape magazine and you are likely to find an article encouraging women to "Give CrossFit a Try" or "How to Cook Paleo Without Sacrificing". This attention is well deserved and encouraging, but the fear is that the message will be morphed and lost in translation. Primal is not a diet, or a program, or a regimen. CrossFit (more accurately, CrossFit's principle of health and wellness ) is not something that you "try" once in a while to get a great workout. This thing that all these really fit, barefoot, meat and nut eating weirdos are doing is a totally lifestyle conversion. It is a way of applying principals to daily lives in order to form a better connection with ..... well....... everything. If you are living right, you are likely reaping the benefits, and you fully understand the point being made here.

Instead of looking at all of this media attention with discontent and abhorrence, embrace it. Use it as an opportunity to encourage others to live better, and connect with what really matters. The difference between a lifestyle transformation and what happens in media/trends is time horizon. Individuals who subscribe to primal living become examples of how to live over the long term, how to forgo instant gratification, how to truly enjoy life.

Many people over the last few years have found it frustrating that no one listened when primal or paleo lifestyles were being advocated..... well here is the opportunity to turn this attention in positive results for others. For once, the average citizen is aproaching  us with questions about that "diet" they read about in Newsweek and thought we "did".  Use your powers for good you barefoot meat lover. Build the tribe.

Cultivating my garden Episode 1.

So I've decided to add a section to my blog about my adventures in gardening, and within these adventures I will try to deduce a "moral of the story" moment. But for today, let me introduce you to what I am doing in my little primal garden.

 This first photo is of my spinach. I used seed tape to plant these and it worked wonderfully. I am really happy with the amount of spinach that has come up and I'm excited to make a few awesome summer meals with this.

My herb area is coming along nicely, even though I think I may have lost my Purple Basil in a frost. Oh well, herbs are easy, and I can just replace.

Currently I have sweet basil, purple basil, sage, cilantro, parsley, thyme, oregano, stevia and rosemary. I am hoping to freeze some of the yield so that I can utilize the herbs all winter long.

From this angle you can't yet see much but I have a white eggplant, some onion and yet to emerge watermelons. There  are brussel sprouts and romaine lettuce in the middle. There was asparagus in this area in years past, but the yield was minimal and we decided to go another direction this year.

 

From the other side you can see a variety of pepper plants and some young cucumber sprouts. I am growing quite a few pepper plants this year and I plan on doing some canning. As of today I have green, purple, and orange bell peppers, cayenne, hot wax, sweet poppers, and some jalapeno going.

And finally I have tomatoes  (Cherry and Cherokee purple) Along with some additional hot pepper plants. I am really into honing my hot pepper relish recipe this fall. I like to use a variety of areas and pottings.... I feel like it adds a little personality to the mix.

 

So there is my garden so far, and the moral of the story for today's post is.........

 

 

A seed is a starting point....... Fill your mind with seeds that will help you achieve your goals, and remember to nourish them constantly in order to harvest the rewards. A seed alone lies dormant. Grow Something!!!

Milk in the raw... Drink Up!

I grew up drinking raw whole milk from a dairy farm that was literally a stone’s throw away from my childhood home. On occasion I was annoying enough to garner the attention of the farm workers. On these days I was able to help in the entire milking process. At the time, I had no idea what raw meant and even if I did I'm not sure it would have mattered. My habits changed over time and I became a skim only kind of guy. Recently however, I have made the switch back to raw milk as a result of some research that I've been doing.
 
Now I want to preface everything that follows by stating that I am not writing this to convince anybody that they need to immediately change what they are doing, or how they are eating. If you read my previous blog post about awareness you know that I am always trying to open eyes while not forcing hands. Instead I want to disseminate some information that I found useful, and arm you with a few resources that can be utilized in order to help you make a more informed decision regarding your choices. I have no intention on arguing for against the raw milk debate. I drink raw milk, my wife does not. We still get along just fine.
 
Why raw milk? I prescribe to the doctrine that our food sources should be left in the most natural state possible for consumption. Milk consumption has been traced back as far as 7,500 years, and pasteurization has been prevalent for only about 2 percent of that overall time. I personally feel that raw milk tastes better and is better served for cooking purposes. Additionally, as a primal living advocate, I am able to have a more personal connection with the raw milk that I consume. I know that sounds weird, but humor me for a moment. You can't just wander into the local Uni-Mart, grab a gallon of raw milk, drink it without ever considering where it came from, or how it was produced. Raw milk being unpasteurized, and not as readily available, forces a consumer to be more aware of how the milk was sourced and how the animals are treated. Large scale dairy farms and other comparable milk producers are forced to use hormones and other un-natural components in order to increase milk production. I am of the opinion that these little "extras" are not so good for me.
 
As stated earlier, I did not write this with the intention of argument for or against. This is just one man’s point of view with regard to getting our lives back to basics; one glass of milk at a time.
I personally purchase my raw milk from Natures Panty in State College and during the summer months will occasionally purchase from one of the local farmers markets (Home Depot on Saturdays / Downtown on Fridays) but only if I can speak with the farmer about his /her practices and commitment to natural and un-altered milk production.
 
The first link below is to the Facebook page of the farm that produces a majority of the raw milk that I  buy, and the second link is to a resource that I feel takes a very good non-biased look at raw milk and the two sides of the pasteurization debate.
 
Happy Cow Naturals LLC.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Happy-Cow-Naturals-LLC/233467586701542#!/pages/Happy-Cow-Naturals-LLC/233467586701542
 
Pasteurization and Raw Milk
http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/cellular-microscopic/pasteurization6.htm
 
 
Even if you decide not to give raw milk a shot, I hope that I will have at least convinced you to give a little more thought to where your food comes from and how it got to your table or glass.
 
Move around as much as possible, chew slowly and play in the dirt……….bye.