Manage Stress: Routine In Chaos

Our daily lives have been up ended and our routines have gone out the window.

Now is the time to get yourself and keep yourself on track by implementing your own routine for you and your family. Today’s episode is all about how you can do this to make the most of your time at home.

ALSO! We're releasing a new program that WILL get you results & we'll be running this initial phase at a very discounted rate. We're looking for 5 parents stuck at home ready to drastically reduce stress, have more energy, and lose 5-10lbs in the next 60 days.

Head over to Enlightened athlete.com to sign up & be notified of the details!

How I Get It Together

““You are, on the one hand, the most complex thing in the entire universe, and on the other, someone who can’t even set the clock on your microwave. Don’t over-estimate your self-knowledge.””

— Jordan Pterson

We have tough choices to make each day. What to eat, whether to workout, do I have time to meditate today?

It can feel like there’s a hundred things you could do, then you “should all over yourself.” I should do this & this & this & that.

Before you know it, it's another day gone and another long list of unaccomplished tasks. As you wind down for bed a wave of anxiety washes over you because yet again, you put off your own well being.

I struggle with this as well. So many different priorities pulling you in every direction.

Here's what I do. 

Identify one thing you find to be the highest priority, ( let's say getting a healthy breakfast) and write out step by step what you can do to change that ONE thing. Go all in on changing that one aspect.

Usually you wake up late, rush out the door and pick up a breakfast sandwich at a fast food joint. Even if you do wake up in time, you don’t know what to cook or have the ingredients. FORGET ABOUT IT!

Ok, we have a breakdown in our system. We need to plan ahead and prepare so, here is a sample “plan”.

Step 1. Find breakfast recipes I like
Step 2. Buy necessary ingredients
Step 3. Wake up early enough to cook
Step 4. Cook that ish and enjoy it!

BOOM! Healthy breakfast plan achieved. Now go execute.

Once that’s done, start on the next one. This adds up to a substantial amount of change in a relatively short time.

Don't try to change your entire life in a week. You will fail. This may seem silly, but I'll leave it to Jordan Peterson to explain why you shouldn't write this simple process off.

"You are, on the one hand, the most complex thing in the entire universe, and on the other, someone who can’t even set the clock on your microwave. Don’t over-estimate your self-knowledge.” - Jordan Peterson

5 Minute Friday- The Perfect Diet

What is the perfect diet?! What is the best way to workout? How do you perfectly optimize your health and fitness routine? Dig into this quick episode to find out!!

My First Time As A Podcast Guest! (BIG news about the future of Enlightened Athlete)

I have been listening to podcasts for quite some time. I like to listen to them literally almost all the time. I worked at a factory during high school. I loved listening so much that I scoured the internet to find headphones that looked exactly like the ear plugs we were forced to use at work so I could listen to one the whole time and not be bothered. That takes dedication. I kept three pair of those ear plug headphones on hand in case one broke. I listen to them on solo hikes up 14ers in Colorado, when I’m driving, and when I'm doing about anything. I know this is world shattering news, I enjoy listening to them.

So when I had the opportunity to be a guest on one I was pretty pumped. I am so grateful to be able to talk a little bit abut my story and share my passion with as many people as possible.

I break some BIG NEWS in the beginning of part two about the future of Enlightened Athlete. So if you only listen to one part, check that out! We also cover some of my favorite supplements, some great books, and some activities I use to achieve flow states.

Also, Enlightened Athlete will be producing a podcast of our very own. We want to know what you guys want to heart about, who you’d like to hear on, stories you’d like to hear, topics you would like us to cover. If you have any suggestions shoot us an email, info@enlightenedathlete.com, or shoot us a DM on Instagram.

As I mentioned, I was a guest on a podcast recently called the Extraverts podcast and I’ve posted the links below to the podcast which is broken up into two parts. Check these bad boys out to learn a little bit more about me and my journey in fitness, nutrition, meditative states and why I believe its so integral to truly living life.

Part One: https://soundcloud.com/odian-levy-593579074/extraverts-podcast-eps-009-an

Part Two: http://theextravertspodcast.com/blog/2017/12/18/extraverts-podcast-eps-010-an-interview-with-the-enlightened-athlete-part-2/

P.S. Thank you sooooo much for all of you guys who have used our Amazon banner. That means the world to me. It’s a great way to support us and what we’re doing and Amazon doesn’t charge anything extra to use that affiliate banner. If you shop on amazon check out our banner at the bottom of our homepage and use that link to navigate to Amazon and purchase through that page. Thank you guys!!

3 Tips: Minimize Damage From Treats of Trick-Or-Treating

Let me start by saying, HAPPY HALLOWEEN!! There's a few things I'd like to touch on before divulging my 3 tips for success on this spooky holiday.

There are far too few Americans that have a basic understanding of nutrition and the role it plays in the way your body is formed and functions. I mean on a cellular level. What you eat BECOMES your cells. So my question to you is do you want to be made of fast food and pop or grass fed beef and kale. The answer is obvious to me.

One is like building a house of duct tape and 5 gallon buckets. It will be a wobbly, leaky, shitty house. The other is like hiring the best contractor in the business to use the highest grade materials to build you the ultimate fortress. Guess which is which.

That being said, that should be the majority of the time, it doesn’t have to be all the time. If you can live 80/20 you will be doing pretty damn good. 80% clean, 20% less clean foods. The majority is clean and healthy. Building up your house.

Now, it’s a special holiday and you don’t have to be that restrictive psycho completely denying you and your family the indulgences of Halloween. There's a few steps you can take for yourself and your family to enjoy the holiday without going completely off the rails.

1.       Exercise. (higher intensity)

This will actually change the way your cells interact with glucose and can help minimize fat storage. Hopefully you’re already engaging in regular exercise because it will help stabilize your blood glucose levels overall. The exercise will hopefully deplete your muscle and liver glycogen and allow those tissues to more readily absorb glucose(sugar) instead of your adipose tissue(fat cells). If you’re going to eat candy, get in some intense exercise beforehand.

2.       Moderation

For god’s sake, don’t you or your children eat the whole haul in one sitting. Also try not to whoof the entire score before this week is over. Avoid eating three pounds of candy every day for the next 5 days just because it's there. That’s going to be more damaging than breaking it up to smaller amounts over a long period of time. So, what I suggest is placing some boundaries on yourself and your family on how much to eat on Halloween and for the rest of the week. Then put that candy away, (ideally just throw it away and the problem is solved) and save it again for a different occasion. Don’t just let your kids or yourself graze on it whenever you feel like it for the next two weeks. Make it a rare occurrence.

3.       Hydrate

This is a tip I include with almost any holiday nutrition help post due to the number of people that walk around in a constant state of dehydration. Drinking pop, diet pop, tea, sparkling sodas, anything but water. Your body will be able to function at a higher and more optimal level overall when you’re hydrated. It can handle stress and inflammation better (one cause of these effects is ingesting sugar regularly in high amounts) when it is properly hydrated.

These tips are hopefully something you will carry with you after the holiday as well. Even if you did go off the rails, putting these tips into action will help get you back on track much quicker. Day after and you ate 37 mini snickers bars?! Wake up, drink a large glass of water, hit a workout that will get you breathing hard and sweating, drink another glass of water. BOOM.

Follow that up with a hulk juice smoothie (recipe on our Instagram page: @enlightenedathlete) and you are back on the rails just like that!

These are some very simple things you can do to try and minimize the damage caused by walking in the door with a 10 pound sack of candy and diabetes ( I had to do it haha!).

If you'd like more advice on nutrition, exercise, mindfulness, strength & conditioning, recovery hacks, smart drugs, psychedelics or anything else enlightening; sign up for our newsletter to stay up to date on newly released content and our newest products! Sign up HERE, just enter your email in the form.