Happy Pi Day! RIP Stephan Hawkins, rest in spacetime.

This easy to follow guide details a 7 week New Year fitness plan that works for everyone at every fitness level.

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#newyear #newbody, #getfit with 49 Days to Fit on www.wanderlost.today  - #fitness #bodyweight #EMOM #AMRAP #WOD #TABATA #circuit training

It's time to burst past those pesky Threshold Guardians and start your epic adventure:

If you've been keeping track of the phases of the Heroes' Journey you'll see we've reached the first major arc of our story:

1.  Ordinary World [Boring...]
2. Call to Adventure [...Answered.]
3. Refusal of the Call [Been there, done that.]
4. Met the Mentor [Swapped numbers with Odin.]
5. Crossing the Threshold ...

This is the first real challenge because it requires the first real action to separate your ordinary self from the Hero you will become.

Threshold Guardians come in many forms and may be active or passive:

1. Friends or colleagues
2. Family including Kids' needs 
3. Social Media
4. The TV (or iPad or Roku or ....)
5. Work
6. Play
7. The Shadow-self

It's this last one that is the most dangerous to face. The old adage is ever true; we are our own worst enemies and our shadow self must be defeated time and again. You have to make the decision to be the better You.

Start slow with this easily scaled circuit workout. If you can't do 21 Push-up, do 3 sets of 7 or 7 sets of 3.

Congratulations! You've crossed the threshold and taken the first step into the Extraordinary World beyond. 

Don't forget to eat a healthy meal after this first workout:

#start #today! #defeat your inner demon and cross the #threshold with VIKINGfit @ www.wanderlost.today #fitness #nutrition #cardio #strength #endurance ​#dayone

The Longest Day of the Year is upon us. More time for Adventure!

Here are 7 quick and fun facts about the solstice from timeanddate.com:

​1. Universal. The Solstice is and has been celebrated by every culture across the planet, basically for ever. It is part of the human experience.

2. Relative Observation. Technically the Solstice is when the Sun is directly above the Tropic of Cancer which occurs at 0424 UTC (think Greenwich) today. For those of us living in CST North America Solstice occurred at 2324 last night. 

3. Today is the first day of Summer.

4. Counter intuitive. Today the Earth is actually farthest from the Sun in her annual trip.

5. The earliest sunrise happened a couple days ago; the latest sunset will happen a couple days from now.

6. Daylight surplus. The Arctic Circle is experiencing 24 hours of Daylight. Bring shades.

7. While the Arctic got 24/1 sunlight we in CST North America [only] got 15:54 hours of BOB.

​The great news: That's more than enough time for a lottle [sic] Adventure!

That is more than enough time for 954 pica.adventures
-or-
Nearly 32 microadventures
-or-
4 Mini Adventures
-or- get crazily efficient and have yourself a straight-up adventure and sleep on the Winter Solstice.

***
​#Time enough for 900 #adventures. Make the most of #solstice and #summer @ www.wanderlost.today

Happy DDAY. Never Forget. Happy, not for the consequences of that extraordinary day but for the results.

The greatest coalition gathered the greatest force ever assembled not to conquer for polity but to free for liberty. ​

Every year I try to bring a humble homage to the Heroes of that fateful day so long ago. Those Heroes were our grandfathers and great-grandfathers...our brothers. There are very few of our brothers left that were there, in the Norman sand, breaching the Atlantic Wall in the first trudge of victory in Europe.

It was the deathblow of humanity's greatest foe and the first labored breath of freedom's youngest champion. DDAY turned the tide for freedom and shaped the world we now enjoy.

Please take a moment to read the transcripts of the previous two years "D+" articles now published here.

​

D + 26, 298

The anniversary of DDay is the spiritual resonance of the greatest effort ever put forth by man.

Whew, that’s heavy.  Another thing it teaches us is that years of effort go into the big days and that after the ‘grand opening’ there are still lots of long days of hard work.

DDay was essentially conceived on the day after Pearl Harbor in the sense that FDR and Churchill had a teleconference in which they determined – despite Imperial Japanese aggression – the primary focus of the Allied war effort would be to defeat Nazi Germany.

It would take another 11 months after the DDay landings to defeat the Wermacht and receive a surrender from second Fuhrer.

The idea came to life the second week of December, 1941; was executed during the first week of June, 1944 and culminated just after Cinco-de-Mayo in 1945. Flash-to-Bang: 4 1/2 years.

As this article posts, it will be the 72nd anniversary of D+2. The worst carnage of beaches was over but the hard slog had just begun. In two days, two million troops had been brought ashore in Normandy. The regular units were making contact with the far-flung paratroopers. The British had begun there encirclement of Caen, the primary city of Norman France.

99,000 air sorties were performed in support of the ground effort, destroying half the Luftwaffe in French forward airfields.

In the channel sea one of the greatest engineering efforts in history was undertaken: The deployment of the Mulberry Harbours. The Mulberries were massive precast, concrete blocks (caissons) that could be fitted, like giant LEGOs, to form harbors capable of supporting shipping traffic until a European deepwater port could be captured from the Germans.

​D + 25,932

Saturday marked the 71st anniversary of the D-Day. (No, not USD’s homecoming)

Operation Neptune, the landings in Normandy, France. “The greatest day of the 21st century,” according to Baylor University Professor Ray Starman.

I have, for many years, greeted my friends and comrades with “Happy DDays,” upon the anniversary much like people salute “Merry Christmas.” They always think I am a little off. But I believe that if any day deserves remembrance it was June 6th 1944.

In order to breach Hitler’s Atlantic Wall and raise the flag upon the rampart of fortress Europa the Allies would be assembling the most complicated international alliance, delivered via the most numerous littoral fleet, to assault the most heavily defended coastline, with the largest amphibious force ever uniformed, supported by the most numerous air-force ever to have taken flight.

All to defeat the most dangerous enemy we have ever known.

One heckuva case of The Mondays… And, of course, like so many things, the invasion was completely dependent upon the predictions of a meteorologist.

Second Lieutenant William J. McCormick, 01295577, was one such soldier. My Grandmother relates his story to me: Her uncle, a paratrooper, landed with the 101st Airborne Division in France before dawn on that momentous day.
 “Red” McCormick, as his buddies called him, died defending a bridge against an armored counter-attack as the sun set on the Norman countryside. He was 22 years old, his birthday was June 6th.
In the end, it happened on a Tuesday. No one ever read the note General Eisenhower penciled while entertaining his darkest despair as history has written the victory of Operation Overlord into the books.
I say “Happy DDay,” not to celebrate the carnage of that day but to venerate the colossal undertaking and achievement of so many men and women 71 years ago. 332 of those men and women are honored at our memorial on Lake Arlington.
I never knew Red. The only two things we have in common, that I can be sure of, are some genetics and that I was, once, also a 22-year-old Second Lieutenant. From his sacrifice I gather strength in the understanding that nothing is impossible, if we can overcome Hitler’s Atlantic Wall – together we can accomplish anything we set ourselves to. 

***
@USArmy @USNavy @WWIImuseum @dday7 @DDayMuseumUK Remember the #heroes of #DDAY at www.wanderlost.today 

We are very excited to announce our Amazon Author Page is now live!

Join us in the effort to bring VIKINGfit to more audiences through the Amazon Kindle.

If it easiest for you you can buy and download the kindle version here. 

Or sign up for the newsletter and get it for free at right ----->

We will send the Guide in both PDF and .mobi

***
Check out the #VIKINGfit guide on www.wanderlost.today 's new #amazon #kdp page #fitness #nutrition #bodyweight training

Introducing the Valknut on page 6 of the VIKINGfit Thrall's Guide to Fitness.

I love the symbolism of the Valknut as a brand identity for VIKINGfit.
​
A Norse trifecta as borromean rings, the Valknut, is a great metaphor for the three aspects of fitness and their inter-dependency. Plus, it's the symbol for Odin, our narrator.

The cool thing about borromean rings is that you cannot remove just one, pull one and the whole thing falls apart. Fitness is the same: You must eat well, exercise your cardiovascular system and build your muscular system. 

Everyone has heard some variation of the phrase "Nutrition is [insert arbitrary statistic here]% of being fit and healthy." Well, it's true. If someone said it was 90% of the equation I probably wouldn't argue with them.

Remember the old adage "Shit in, shit out?" That is nutrition - if you eat fast-food and drink soda everyday your screwed. Bummer dudes.

That is why Freya's nutrition guidance is 50% of VIKINGfit. We wanted to express two things: 1 - Nutrition is half the battle and 2 - Nutrition is as important as both cardiovascular training and strength training PUT TOGETHER.

Heimdahl takes second place. Why is cardiovascular endurance training more important that strength? Simply put, it's a proximate cause of fitness. In other words you can be the fitter you by only doing cardio but not by only doing strength training. Body builders while potentially looking pretty cool are not actually that fit regards to health, agility and longevity. 

Then why bother with strength training? Balance baby. Strength training helps metabolize nutrients and proteins differently and helps increase your endurance. Endurance is the function of the machine (the sum), strength is the individual parts of the machine and nutrition is the fuel the machine operates on. 

Let me put it another way...You want SIX-PACK ABS? Well, you cannot get a six-pack by crunches alone. You MUST run (or something cardio) to burn away the belly fat. You CAN NOT run off a #1 value meal everyday. You want SIX-PACK ABS? Use the 50/30/20 split of the VALKNUT:

EAT. HIIT. RUN.

#learn the simple  #truth in front of #SixPackAbs @ www.wanderlost.today #fitness #nutrition #cardio #strength #endurance 

Tackling excuses on page 5 of the VIKINGfit Guide Rundown.

You know what they say about excuses right? They're like bumholes - everybody's got one and they all stink!

I'm gonna go ahead just drop the blanket excuse like it's hot: "I'm too busy...."

Yep, I get it for sure. Between your work and her work, between kids and homework, between school extracurricular and adult extracurricular time becomes a commodity like everything else.

That being said, Parkinson's first law applies:  

(this book is worth a Lost Library review in the future)

So in other words: Make time for your health adventure and the rest will sort itself out. 

And that being  said ...  here are three simple tips for beating the excuse monster:

1. Set aside the TIME. I think 60 minutes, first thing in the morning, is best - over lunch or right before bed also works if you stick to it.
2. Find a BUDDY to hold you accountable, keep you on task and have fun.
3. Set a measurable GOAL. Something SMART (another future blog post) i.e. Simple, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound. One of the easiest ways to set a SMART goal is to sign up for a race or triathlon. 

Check out the whole VIKINGfit Guides TOC below and download to follow along --->.

#noexcuses with VIKINGfit on www.wanderlost.today  #fitness #goal tips: 1. Set aside time 2. Find a Buddy 3. Set a SMART goal

The VIKINGfit Rundown continues on page four where we talk about starting the day right. 

How we begin sets the tone for the entire day. In my experience if we don't workout in the morning (or some other designated time) then the workout doesn't get done. It becomes the victim of the 1000 other things we have to get done in a day. 

Here's the VIKINGfit advice: Get up 90 minutes before your first commitment of the day (not work; think getting dressed, waking the kids, watching Good Morning America...) do a short meditation or journaling exercise and then work out for 60 minutes.

Then while your metabolism is in high gear: EAT A HEALTHY BREAKFAST. Healthy is defined as not from a box. Even if your constitution or schedule doesn't permit you to exercise in the morning , breakfast - just like grandma always said - is the most important meal of the day. 

Unfortunately, American society trains us from a wee age to skip breakfast either totally or nutritionally. How many kids, running late for school, are shunted out the door every morning with a pop-tart in pocket?

Page four is a good example of the design format of the guide. Each page will give you a little bit of encouragement or practicable advice. 

Nearly every page will have either a easy recipe or a #RAID (what we call workouts or WODs).

This page also has another design feature: The DRINK WATER. About every third page will have a subtle-ish reminder of how important it is to stay hydrated during the day by drinking 7 glasses of water from dawn to dusk.

Check out the VIKINGfit TOC below to see what you are missing and download the Guide to follow along.

#Start every day right with VIKINGfit @ www.wanderlost.today #breakfast #fitness #hero