Day 5 – ‘A Day of Inner Rest – What, Why and How?’

This one comes in at a key time for me. Just as it is important that you take care of your fitness, nutrition and rest, it is equally important to care about the matters within yourself. What do I mean by Inner Rest?

Rock with me a moment, this is important!

Whether you are like myself, an individual who believes in the Lord Jesus Christ or believes in another faith/religion/practice, or perhaps nothing at all, it is difficult to neglect the health of the spirit. Whether your focus is on building up a strong hope despite your difficult circumstances or working to love those around you more to be a positive light in their lives, these efforts take energy and focus to grow!

Growth is gradual, no matter where you seek it!

For me, I will openly and gladly share my faith in Jesus Christ and my belief that He died on the cross to save me from the many sins I have committed, as well as those that I will commit. If it wasn’t for the grace of Father God and His love for us, He would have not sacrificed His only son to save us (John 3:16). Now if this doesn’t relate to you, that is completely fine! It is how I’ve come to restore my spirit, seek strength when weary and have a foundation to stand upon when times feel utterly hopeless.

There have been some utterly tough and seemingly hopeless times of late…

The holiday season was extremely tough for my family. My dad was on a positive upwards path in his battle against Prostate Cancer. Back in 2013, he was diagnosed with cancer at a later stage and some of the initial treatment options suggested (like surgery and radiation) were not doable. His prostate had grown to a size larger than his bladder and the doctors were concerned that they may radiate healthy tissue or lose my dad in surgery due to his condition.

A long 4-year battle, ending in a sudden loss…

For those who aren’t up for a tough story right now, I caution you to revisit this post at a later date. This is where it get’s extremely difficult. Not long after hearing positive aspects of my dad regaining his health, I received a call from my mom on an early December morning saying that my dad had a seizure, wasn’t recovering and was given 72 hours to live. About 5 days before, my father was feeling fine and had even sent me a video message following up with me on how he was doing, as we would usually do.

It so turns out that the cancer was spreading at such an extremely violent pace that the red blood cell count was diminishing quickly. With low counts, hemorrhaging started to occur in my father’s brain. They were able to stabilize him, but further seizures took place and eventually the call from my mom came. By the grace of God, I was able to book a plane and be there with my mom later that night (at least a 6-hour journey by plane and car).

I’ll revisit this story at a later time, it’s still too fresh…

Back to my topic at hand, it was a very emotionally and mentally draining time in my life. Business was having its trials, I was feeling especially challenged by my marriage and here I was facing the potential loss of my father. Had I not had a source to tap into and rely on during this time, I have no doubt I would’ve lost it. This was by far the worst holiday season of my life…

Not only has Christ been a solid rock with which to stand on and seek in leading my life, the Lord has put strong people in my life like my mentor – a fellow believer and brother in Christ – to walk with me in this journey called life.

However this may apply, I encourage you to work on your spiritual health too!

The goal is to encourage you to treat your spiritual health with the same precedence you do with fitness, nutrition or other areas of health. Those hard times will come, it isn’t ‘if’ but definitely ‘when’. None of us can escape hard times and those times can be crushing. They can leave us hopeless and in despair. Life without hope will kill any joy you may be experiencing… Lord help you if you don’t have any joy in your life when the hard times come.

I think you get the point, so what’s the takeaway here for Inner Rest?

If you aren’t a believer like myself, I suggest you spend some time researching simple meditation. Inner rest isn’t easy to come by in the loud and notification filled world we live in. It takes as short a time as 10-15 minutes and a pen/pencil and paper. There are two techniques I use to help me in times that may be hard or when I really need to spend time thinking about a challenging task/topic:

  • One, spend time clearing your mind thinking of absolutely nothing. If a thought comes to mind, simply write it down on your paper and go back to clearing your mind.
  • Two, if you’re working on a particular topic, think only about all that comes to mind. Allowing your mind to either rest completely and/or apply all of your mental faculties to one topic is quiet rewarding. It well help you gain the clarity that you seek. I rushed through this concept so I’ll gladly follow up with more in the future.

I’ll follow up with my story and my faith in later posts…

For those of you who are believers, feel free to drop me a line. I’m glad to partner with those who are seeking a stronger, healthier lifestyle fueled by the Grace of God. We live in a world that seems to get more complex and demanding every day. However, God created all that is creating the complexities and demands we now experience! He is above it all and I’d like to hear how He is showing you favor and grace. Perhaps you may need prayer as well… great, let me know how I may pray for you!

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Day 4 – Is Nutrition Truly 80% of the Work?

This post goes out to those brothas and sistas in the office, either working for the man or for themselves! For those who feel that they cannot shake the crazy, busy lifestyle long enough to take care of their nutrition. I HEAR AND FEEL FOR YOU! I WAS YOU AND AM STILL YOU!!!

This is by far the hardest part of changing your body composition!

Right now I can think of at least five (5) men, all technical professionals who are well off in their career. They have kids/family to support outside of the very busy work grind. Yet, they shared with me their troubles and tribulations on eating. As difficult as it is to get into your schedule and maintain, Nutrition is almost a dirty word in today’s context. You see so many gimmicks and tricks on morning news shows, you wonder if it is all real. Well, some of it is real…

As mentioned on Day 1, it’s important to first find where you are with nutrition!

For myself, today’s accountability – probably the hardest of all areas that I share with you – is my food habits. Let’s take it back to 2016 when I was finally making it to my next milestone in my Corporate America run. I was about 4.5 years into my management position as a project manager, finally understanding what needed to be done… to get things done in that field, and making an income to match (broke that 6-figure mark, yea boi!).

As my responsibility grew, so did the hours… there were times where I was at the office/at home until 2:00AM (having started at 9:00AM) working to get things done. Parts of my team were in China and Germany. So that meant staying in the office till 7 or 8PM to catch China during their morning or waking up at 12AM to catch Germany during their morning hours so they could work while I slept… for a few hours.

The idea that you can get all of your work done in 40 hours/week is absolute BS!

That is if you want to be successful, provide for your family and grow, gaining more experience, leveraging that experience to create more knowledge and repeating the process with the bank of wisdom you work so hard to fill up. We all know and feel the cost of living going up. One job, at least in the area I live (SF Bay Area job), is not enough to get things done. Especially if you have someone to care for. If you’re on the ‘40 hours and I’m done boat’ and the 50, 60, 70 or even 80+ hour work week doesn’t speak to you, feel free to scroll to the next post, swipe up or close this sucka out…

I truly want to speak to those who have a desire to build all areas of their lifestyle!

Not only is fitness important, but more importantly, what you eat. It’s true when they say you are what you eat… don’t believe me? Check this cool ish out! OH, As I way saying, it is hard to “fit nutrition in” when you’re so busy. Ok, so if we agree on that topic, then ‘what do you know Ryan that will help me figure all of this out?’

So glad you asked, I’ll share with you what I’m doing right now!

To offset the poor habits I created during my old job, I am gradually moving back to the eating habits I worked so diligently on back in 2013-2014. If you happened to watch the first bit of the cool video I posted above, they started in on the science of carbs and how they turn into glucose. Glucose = energy right? Yes, it is the main fuel source of the body! My goal is to keep a high level of intake on my carbs, but not insanely specific on what carbs I eat. Here’s the reason why: I’ve added to my schedule 30 minutes of fairly intense exercise and need that additional energy to support this additional energy expenditure.

As I gain in consistency, I’ll start to “clean up” my carbs. For now, I’ve been eating carbs consisting of whole wheat bread (with no HFCS), cheese filled tortellini with pork/chicken sausage, pita with hummus and rice & beans. I’ll have a salad here or there. Also, the goal is to work back in avocados and keep the protein intake up as much as possible. Ideally, I’ll work towards 1g of protein per desired pound of lean muscle mass (which will be well over 200). My recent protein find are these not so bad protein bars from Costco.

PRO TIP – you may find these bars on amazon or eBay if you’re not in an area with Costco or don’t have their membership.

That’s cool Ryan, anything else to share!?

Yes, as a matter of fact, I want to leave you with my economically friendly and super easy dish of the week! *Cue for the cool intro music* I made this recently! Use a rice cooker and walk away (just make sure you have it set to warm your food after the cooking is done). I call it Sanders Mexican rice, brought to you by my younger bro Elliott:

SANDERS MEXICAN RICE
By Elliott Sanders

Ingredients:

  • 2 Cups of Brown Rice
  • 3 – ½ cups of Water
  • 1 Can of Pinto Beans
  • 1 Can of Black Beans
  • ½ Cup of Salsa (Mild, Medium or Hot per your preferences)
  • Minced Garlic for taste
  • Pinch of Mediterranean Sea Salt

Add all ingredients into rice cooker and hit preset cooking button on cooker. When done, combine with protein of choice (I find lean ground beef, chicken – shredded or ground – or ground turkey are nice options). You may add additional salsa for flavor if you want to make this a vegetarian/vegan option. If you aren’t on board with brown rice, do white. Be sure to do your research on white rice as it has down sides compared to brown rice.

Oh and if you didn’t catch it, yes indeed, nutrition is 80% of the work!

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Day 3 – Getting Away From The Grind

You know what’s interesting, I selected the content of todays post based on the structure of my company, Project: FRESH. I will cover more of what FRESH means later, but here’s a quick video in case you’re interested.  The focus of today is getting away from the grind, the hustle, the bustle, the GRIT to be FIT… kind of mentality. Finding rest in your schedule was something that I struggled with in college. I also struggled with during my 4 years of construction management work. I am here to say your boy still struggles with in my current work and lifestyle.

Don’t be surprised by this, but we’re on that accountability again!

Well, believe it or not, I was struggling to figure out what to write about on this topic. I am just now realizing the good Lord provided me with a great opportunity to get some recreation in today. That is, during one of my business meetings. I’ve been getting the blaring horn from several sources pointing to the major necessity and lack thereof in having rest in my schedule. By blaring horn, I mean I’m hearing it from every one such as in my recent scripture readings to a few mentors to even recounting a common phrase my father use to tell me every time I would talk to him on this subject…

“Son, every man must know his limitations!”

Back to today’s business meeting, my client lives up in the hills of our city and the purpose of the meeting was to set up their mom with a wearable device that reads several bioparameters like blood pressure, blood oxygen, heart rate, and energy for example. My client and her husband are looking for something that would help them keep close track of her parent’s health. We stepped outside and BAM! My moment of rest, lined up and ready to enjoy.

Didn’t see that coming… but should have!

In short, I sincerely wish I would have saved my Snapchat video of the view. Although it was slightly overcast, it was a view I was familiar with but not from this angle or elevation. My client was chatting with me on a few various things, but we had some short pauses that allowed us both to take the view it. It was hard for me to not look at my phone or start up another conversation as well… I struggle with taking rest breaks. In short, reflecting as I write, I see it as the Lord giving me a gentle reminder that rest is important. Whatever your belief system may be, give it enough time and you’ll find (like me) that pushing too hard for too long will have you burning out in no time.

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Day 2 – Fitness is Key… Isn’t It?

As I mentioned in my post yesterday, I specifically started this blog for accountability to myself and my wife. She (Oliana) and I have been talking about “getting back to it” for months. I know from prior experience that Fitness is Key, in fact crucial. But for those of you who don’t know that, how do you come into knowing that?

It’s all about that fitness right!?

When we were still dating, Oliana and I would work out together at least 1-2 times a week.  We would do so 1 day of the week for sure because she would come to my fitness class I taught on Friday nights before our scheduled date night. The other workout was her trying to convince me to run (which I absolutely am not a fan of… I know, I know.. terrible boyfriend to not run with your lady when she comes to your class). After getting married and moving in together, our frequency of exercise went up to 5-6 times/week. It was nice… I was feeling real nice… she was looking all kinds of nice… I think you catch my drift.

Fitness for life they say… oh I’m all about that!

Well what’s interesting about our marriage is neither of us really put on any weight. Usually they say you put on weight after finding the love of your life… that didn’t really happen with us. In fact, my wife has maintained and I have actually lost weight. Several times she and her mom have pointed out that my face has gotten slimmer since we were married, mostly due to stress related causes like work and getting use to each other and our crazy ways (LOL). So, right now it isn’t necessarily important that I work out specifically for weight loss. On top of that, we lost consistency in our workouts about the middle of last year and that went on for a number of months. Each of us have been in and out of exercise every since.

Ok, so maybe fitness isn’t life all the time?

For me personally, starting the day (or sometimes ending it if schedule doesn’t allow for a start, as I start training my clients around 6AM at least two days of the week) makes such a significant impact on my mental health. I can see the stark difference, night and day, between the days that I workout vs. when those excuses excuse a workout right out of the day, I see that difference as well! Then if you compile a number of days back to back with no workouts, it can really wear on a brotha (and sista too!). When I hit my fitness days, I often feel like this, live and fired up!

This is [why] we do it!

This day damn one is done! After 30 minutes of work, we touch on stability, cardio endurance, and strength training exercises that all focus on bringing the body together. Essentially, it is a synergistic approach to fitness. Instantly, I notice the difference and I’m glad my wife and I are getting back to it.

Word of the day…Accountability!

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Day 1 – Lose 30 Pounds in 30 Days… or Less

Now I know what you’re thinking, is it really true that you can lose 30 pounds of weight from your body in 30 days or less?? It’s not a bad question depending on your experience and what you know about the human body, most importantly YOUR own body. I would suggest you ask the following question:

Do I have 30 pounds of weight to lose from my body?

As you see in the video I’ve made with this first post, you can simply start typing in ‘lose 30…’ and many options for losing 30 pounds comes up. For example, in ‘…3 months’, ‘…4 months’, ‘… 6 months’, and yes to stay in line with my subject, ‘…30 days.’

I get to ask you a question now, don’t you think that is a bit crazy? Maybe unhealthy? Possibly insane? Well… again I think it is really important that you ask yourself again the following question:

Do I have 30 pounds of weight to lose from my body?

I am starting this new blog & vlog for several reasons. Most importantly, I am a fitness and health professional who has been making a living full time for almost a year with 4 prior years of part time work (over five years total) and I find myself being able to help my clientele stay accountable to their goals while I struggle miserably to keep my fitness, nutrition, and overall health in check. I’ve been telling my wife for quite a while now that I know I’m missing my own fitness routine. Not only that, even though I put in at least 8 hours of moderate exercise per week, I know without a shadow of a doubt that not maintaining my own fitness regime has been impacting my spiritual, physical and mental health… I literally feel it.

For those of you who don’t know me, I will tell you I’ve lost the 30 pounds. In fact, it was more like 33 pounds… however, it wasn’t in 30 days. It wasn’t even in 3 months. No, it took me 8 months to lose 33 pounds…

So wait Ryan… you didn’t lose 30 pounds in 30 days?

Nope, not even close. Nor have I ever lost or gain 30 pounds in 30 days. I don’t think I ever will need to either! So I don’t lose you, I will share with you more of my story later (stay tuned). What’s important is why I am writing this post… and that first key reason is ACCOUNTABILITY.

Oh… and working on my writing & blogging skills!

My second reason is my wife, plain and simple. I want to not only be around for her as long as I can (Lord willing… and I mean that literally), but I also want to be present for her today in the best way possible. That means loving her despite whatever she may throw my way but, more importantly, loving her despite my own shortcomings, personal feelings and current mood… which isn’t always positive. In fact, I’ve been rather grumpy all weekend. I’m sure I am a joy to be around right now… in fact this lack of progress in my fitness (and business thereof) had me awake at 3AM the other night. Hence why I’m starting in on this accountability blog…

Ok, ok… get to the point Ryan!

You saw my results (here they are again if you missed them before), you and I know I have achieved a level of fitness and health that was excellent. I saw results I’ve never seen before, felt mental clarity that pushed me to new limits in work and obtained a closer walk in my faith with God based on taking care of my temple over many consistent days. That’s great but that was years ago, I’m no longer single with a job that is 40-50 hours which allowed me to cook well and do double days on my exercise 2-3 days/week. No, those days are gone… I’m a married man building two businesses and going non-stop (I’m writing this on Sunday, my usual day of rest)…

If I’m saying anything at all, I’m saying it’s time to leave the past in the past, start working on me in today’s environment, with today’s challenges & responsibilities and the body I have now. I know it will do me well, I just have to show myself it will do me well.

Oh, about those 30 pounds in 30 days?

Can you do lose 30 pounds in 30 days? Yes, it is physical possible. If you have fatty tissue in excess on your physical frame, it is quite possible. There are several YouTube videos on it. Before you get into the what’s, how’s, when’s & where’s detail of your lifestyle goal called changing the breakdown of your body composition, I encourage you to do like me and figure out why you want to make the change in the first place. If you don’t, you’ll be like me before I decided to write this long, verbose, mundane blog post… stuck thinking about how you could be ahead and feeling bad about yourself when all along all you need to do is get up, get going and figure out the rest along the way!

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