One Meal Approach & The Heroic and Unnamed Father

🔎 In This Fit Tip Friday 

 Inside you'll find:

• Tip: One meal approach

• Finds: The back-safe guide to kettlebells (and more)

• Story: The heroic and unnamed father

• Quote: The joy of duty

• And a P.S. at the end

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1️⃣ One Meal Approach

Nutrition is noisy.

There are a lot of fads, promises, and approaches all making nutritional noise at you, telling you they are going to work…. whether it’s keto, paleo, intermittent fasting, Whole 30, or carnivore.

It can be rather overwhelming.

So here’s a tip you can use simplify your approach to making sustainable improvements with your nutrition.

It applies Proverbs 21:5 (diligence > hastiness), as well as some common sense.

Focus on one improvement in one meal.

Do you enjoy breakfast? Lunch? Dinner? What’s your favorite meal of the day?

Pick that one meal.

Then, focus on one making one improvement with that meal.

Here are some questions you can ask yourself to help you decide what to focus on first:

• Are you eating enough protein in that meal?

• Are you over-eating in that meal?

• Are you under-eating in that meal?

• Are there better ingredients you can use in that meal?

• Are there whole foods you can substitute in that meal?

• How can you make your favorite thing to eat for that meal healthier?

Just pick one, work on it diligently for a few weeks, and reassess. Then move onto the next improvement.

🔎 Finds This Week

Here are some of my favorite finds this week:

• The back-safe guide to kettlebells (Health Central article)

• Kettlebell Tip of the Day: Mastering the Clean, Part 2 (YouTube video)

• Jason Momoa’s experience training with kettlebells (Men’s Journal article)

• How exercise serves the Christian life (desiringGod article)

• Easy protein pizza recipe (MattsFitCheff article)

• HIIT workouts aren’t always good for you (Bloomberg article)

• Slow and steady wins the weight loss race (Healthline article)

🏝️ The Heroic and Unnamed Father

You can read the following post on my website if that’s preferable for you.

Stories of strength, heroes, risk takers, and bravery inspire us to get off the couch and get into action. This is one of the reasons I share a story in every newsletter.

This week’s story is about the strength and courage of father who has to lead his family through a crisis.

In the story The Swiss Family Robinson, a Swiss family of 6 find themselves stranded on an unknown island. A horrific storm left them shipwrecked and alone, with only the provisions of the ship and whatever the island can yield them.

Day by day, the family has to problem solve and figure out how to survive together.

• On one of the first nights, the father and his sons defend their family from a pack of wild jackals.

• The family creates everything from shoes, to a loom, to a home in a tree, to a shelter in a burrowed out cave, and on and on and on.

• They raise all kinds of animals, including those that were on the ship to animals they domesticate on the island (a monkey, ostrich, etc…)

As a dad, it’s hard to read this book and not be inspired by the strength of character and the range of skills demonstrated by the father.

The father leads his family spiritually and physically through all the dangers of their situation.

On the first Sabbath he stops the work and leads his family in thankfulness for their deliverance. He regularly thanks the Lord for the provision made for his family on the island. He ensures his children are educated in skillful living and in the fear and admonition of the Lord.

And from a physical standpoint, he has them practice athleticism like running, hunting, wrestling, climbing, and jumping. Here’s a quote on his approach to training his children physically:

And the best part… the father is unnamed in the entire book.

His boys are named (Fritz, Ernest, Jack, and Franz), but the father is not.

What a picture of fatherhood.

Here’s a man, in the middle of unknowns, dangers, and trials, who joyfully and dutifully carries out his role as a father, and the reader never knows his name.

The father’s legacy is tied not to his name, but to the names of his sons. He does his role faithfully, fades into the background, and provides a joyful life for his posterity.

👍 Did You Like What You Read?

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I also enjoy hearing about what others are doing with their health and fitness. Hit reply and let me know what you’re working on.

I’ll see you next week.

Be strong,

Don

P.S… today is the last day to apply for the Kettlebell Strength System, which is a program that helps Christian guys lose 10+lbs with at-home kettlebell workouts.

And there are only 4 spots left.

This will re-open in the future… but why wait?

If you want to learn more, click here.