Monday, November 26, 2012

Longevity & Athletic Performance: Is Intermittent-Fasting the Key Strategy to Achieve Both?

Background: My Training Progression & Evolution: Athlete ~ Model ~ Holistic Health

            As I age into my 40s I’ve witnessed my training & nutrition goals become more ‘holistic’ in nature and evolve through various phases, sometimes back & forth, from basically bodybuilding, to body-sculpting as a professional fitness-model, to training for athletic performance, to now training for holistic health and ‘longevity’.  I’d like to say that I’m getting wiser as I get older, but also I’m trying to stick around a long time too, being the father & coach of two daughters.  Ideally speaking, a truly complete training & nutrition plan should simultaneously and equally improve athletic performance, sculpt an aesthetically appealing physique, and, combat aging and age-related diseases.  If nothing else, to be sure, some kind of exercise every day, ideally outdoors, will go a long way towards accomplishing all of the above.  But if you’re a fitness aficionado there’s way more to this story, depending on what your primary fitness goals are.
For me personally, athletic performance and optimal function used to always trump all else fitness.  However, to be completely candid, there was a period during the peak of my fitness-modeling career when I was booking jobs weekly to include magazine cover-tries, that aesthetics actually trumped all my other training goals.  This amounted to me basically always striving to improve lean-body mass & body composition.  Being that I am a professional model and not a professional athlete, I have no regrets about focusing on aesthetics so much.  Now I’ve become more focused on total holistic-health, maintaining range of motion, and exploring longevity, AKA, anti-aging techniques.  I feel like this is a natural progression and evolution that most athletes will arrive at as they age and begin families.


Longevity & The Athlete's Dietary Conundrum...

Friday, November 9, 2012

Maui Family Vacation:) A surf trip sorta!..

     For the record you can never technically call a family vacation a 'Surf Trip' - and I've known this! Even if the whole family surfs, eventually the wife and kids will demand a break from the constant search...from all the gear...from all the risks taken to score an empty surf break chasing 3rd hand information.  And even IF you score that empty, firing break it still comes with all the unknowns:  Why isn't anybody else out?  Is it sharky?  Is it shallow reef?  Crazy currents?  Private access with ornery locals?  Surfers understand and appreciate that it's not just scoring waves, but it's also the excitement of the search and the cumulative reward of all the small discoveries along the journey...
Coconut palms patch found on the backside of Honolua Bay, Maui's NW corner