Work Out At Home, At the Office, Or Anywhere You Want: How to Get Started With Bodyweight Training Today!

Today you take your first steps towards becoming a ninja/jedi/assassin/superhero, without needing to foot in a gym.

Interested? Of course you are!

That’s 4 amazing things all combined into a nerd mecha-robot.

Here’s the deal: It doesn’t matter if you’re a 300-pound guy who wants to lose weight and get back in the dating scene; it doesn’t matter if you’re a mom of three who wants to drop a little fat and gain a little muscle; it doesn’t matter if you’re an in-shape twenty-something who’s just looking for a new workout challenge.

Right now — right in front of you— are all the tools you need to get into amazing shape and live a healthier, happier life.

So…just where the heck are these tools? Check the mirror! Seriously go look in the mirror.

Did you go look? That’s okay if you didn’t. But keep reading.

Bodyweight Training Can Change Your Body — And Your Life.

“Use your body to improve your body.” – Something some zen master said at some point probably

Bodyweight training means doing any exercise that leverages your own bodyweight to build strength and muscle, burn fat, and become more resilient. Now, you might think that’s just basic stuff like push-ups and squats. And those things ARE bodyweight movements, and absolutely crucial to building a healthy foundation.

Hidden in plain sight, your own bodyweight is actually a complete training system waiting to be used. +5 points to Gryffindor for you being a complete training system. Go you!

Whether you want to use your bodyweight as a centerpiece in your training routine for decades to come (like me or Team Nerd Fitness Member Jim Bathurst), just build a foundational strength before you move to barbell workouts, or mix in some bodyweight training to compliment your yoga/swimming/running/dancing/international jewel thievery, today we’ll take you through exactly how to get started.

The best part: since bodyweight training scales in difficulty and has plenty of variety, it truly can be used from Level 1 to Level 50.

How Bodyweight Training Can Help You Build The Body You Really Want

Your body is a complex piece of machinery that has been fine-tuned over thousands of
generations. Think of yourself as Human Ver. 100000000.0.0.1. We’ve been doing “bodyweight training” as a species since our days as cavemen and cavewomen – except back then it wasn’t called training, it was called “life” and there were no spandex in sight:

Things like:

• Sitting in a deep squat around a campfire with our tribe.
• Crawling under and over things as we encountered obstacles in nature.
• Pulling ourselves up into a tree or over a cliff to escape danger.
• Pushing ourselves up onto a ledge or platform to get a better view.
• Swinging from vine to vine as King of the Jungle. (Okay maybe not this one).

Because we’ve had to adapt to do all of those things to survive, our bodies LOVE the idea of working with all of our muscles and bones and joints in unison to accomplish movements or overcome obstacles.

It’s the reason we rage against the machines in the gym – cue “bulls on parade” – they often create imbalances and other weird problems through isolation and non-functional movement. Think of it this way: Cavemen didn’t pick up various rocks to isolate their triceps muscles or do “curlz for the cavegurlz.” And they certainly didn’t lie on a bench at a 30-degree angle while doing log presses to emphasize their upper pectoral muscles before going to kill a gazelle.

Instead, men and women did whatever they needed to do in order to survive — and their bodies adapted as a result.

If you’ve been reading Nerd Fitness for a while, you know I’m a fan of this quote from the trainer of the actors in the movie 300: “Appearance is a consequence of fitness.”

Bodyweight exercises tap into our full, natural anatomy. Movements like squats, push-ups, pull-ups, dips, and rows recruit all the muscles in our body and teach our body to work in unison. When you do bodyweight training, your body becomes more efficient working as a unified organism: all of your muscles, tendons, joints, and bones get strong as hell together — and safely.

Plus, you get to master your body like a freaking Jedi.

We know that strength training — with your bodyweight or with free weights — also happens to burn plenty of calories and builds muscle and strength. So it doesn’t matter if you’re male or female, young or old — bodyweight strength training can help you build a body that looks good and feels good. In fact, as you get older one of the best ways to feel young is to stay strong! Just ask our older rebels.

Period. Exclamation point! Loud noises!

Bodyweight Exercises Can Be Done Anywhere

Read that headline one more time. Crap, there goes that excuse for not exercising! You always have your body with you, which means you always have the ability to exercise, even if it’s just for a few reps here and there.

You can always improve yourself physically. Anytime. Anywhere. Whether you’re:

• Traveling around the world
• Hunkered down in a bunker during the zombie apocalypse,
• Stuck in a cubicle
• Living in a hotel
• Training in your living room
• Near a playground
• On mars. Once Elon Musk sends me there.

Seriously, right now you can just drop down and do some (knee/wall) push-ups.

I’ll wait.

You didn’t do them, did you?! You sandbaggin’ son of a biscuit… you SAILOR you.

Even if you DIDN’T do them, you weren’t completely overwhelmed at the idea of doing a few reps!

My point is this: You don’t need access to a gym to get in great shape. You simply need to know a few moves — which we’ll teach you below — and you can train anywhere.

You Can Make Bodyweight Exercises As Easy — Or as Challenging — As You Need

Although bodyweight exercises are a bit more tough to visualize as a scalable activity compared to weight lifting (where you just put more weight on the bar), with just a little bit knowledge bodyweight training is like improving a particular skill tree in video games.

For example, in the pushup you might start on your knees or with your hands on an elevated surface. Over time, by slowly adjusting the angle you are manipulating your bodyweight, you can effectively change the difficulty of an exercise to make it more challenging. With a tougher angle, you have to move a higher percentage of your bodyweight, and thus more strength is needed!

I guarantee you can train with just your bodyweight for the next 20 years and you will not reach a “MAX LEVEL” screen.

Here’s what an oversimplified progression tree for the pushup might look like:

Wall push-ups -> Knee push-ups -> push ups -> feet elevated push ups -> pike push ups-> handstand push ups.

Show me somebody that has advanced to the end of one or more bodyweight skill trees, and I’ll show you somebody that is in peak physical condition (and looks damn good too!).

Once you learn the progressions, it’s just like adding points to a skill tree or leveling up a skill to unlock the next one in a video game. You start at the base exercise, get stronger and better, and then rank up when that movement becomes too easy. Gamification ftw.

There’s always a new skill to work on, a new challenging variation, the next level in the skill you’re working on.

Bodyweight Exercises Build Great Physiques (Plus, They’re Great Party Tricks)

If you’re like me (and the other 7.2 billion people on the planet), you might look at gymnasts or see what Jim Bathurst is doing in that photo above and say “holy crap I wish I had a body like that” or “dang, would be cool to do that, but not me.”

If you happen to be somebody who is stockier or heavier, you might look at bodyweight-training-jedi and say “I can’t train like them, because i’m not built like them. I need to lose weight first before trying to those things” You’ve got it backwards.

They look like they do precisely because they train like that!

In fact, we have TONS of success stories from people in our community, male and female who have transformed thanks to bodyweight training. Yours truly included!

Some people use the training to slim WAY down, others like me, use it to pack some muscle on (click on each photo for the story!):

Now, not only do ninja/assassin/gymnasts look good, they can also do some pretty cool party tricks – like Jim doing handstands on chairs above.

I don’t think I’ll be doing handstands on stacked chairs anytime soon, or busting out one-handed handstands, but it’s amazing to know what our bodies are capable of when we train them with conviction and follow the right progressions!

If you’re somebody who scrolls through Instagram far too often (like me!), use motivation properly and follow people that inspire you to be stronger, fitter, and better.

May I suggest:

• Mats Trane: 53 years young!
• Andrii Bodarenko: your jaw will drop.
• Madeleine Leander – Starcraft 2 female champion with a PHD in math who has mastered the muscle up!
• Jennifer Tavernier – Dang!
• Nerd_Fitness – hey that’s us! You’ll definitely want to follow us this month.
• Jim Bathurst – Master of the Training Universe at Nerd Fitness
• Staci Ardison – Ring enthusiast, Deadlift addict at Nerd Fitness
• Steve Kamb (me!) – all around goofball working on becoming a monkey-ninja-assassin- gymnast-jedi.

How to Get Started With Bodyweight Training

At this point, you’re most likely nodding your head at your computer and saying “okay fine Steve I get it, I’m going to make bodyweight training a focal point of my training!”

Seriously, I can see you. You look nice today, and those shoes go great with that shirt.

But you might think you’re too overweight or too old or too [something] and that’s all nonsense. Hogwash. Poppycock. Balderdash. (Here’s that 53 year old Gymnast again who is in better shape than 99% of people 20 years younger.)

If you’re brand new to Nerd Fitness, we recommend you get started with the Nerd Fitness Beginner Bodyweight Workout. Read the article, and watch the video below, featuring me about 30 pounds lighter and with helmet hair:

(Fun fact, this is our most viewed video on Youtube at 700,000 views, and my shorts are on backwards. Professionalism at its finest!)

If you’re feeling particularly feisty, check out our Advanced Bodyweight Workout too.

Quick note: If you’re looking for more structure and variety and a boss battle system, you can check out the Nerd Fitness Academy, our flagship program with boss battles and a leveling system with 7 levels of Bodyweight Exercise Routines (and video demonstrations!) to follow along with as you level up.

But you can get started with the basic stuff right, now, equipment and cost free! Start today by creating a free character and start working your way through the Assassin Quests which are primarily bodyweight focused!

Here are the three moves I want you to master:

• The Push-up
• The Squat
• The Pull-up/Bodyweight Row

If you can do a workout with 3 sets of 10 push-ups, 3 sets of 20 bodyweight squats, and 3 sets of 5 pull-ups, you will be in better shape than 95% of your peers.

Are those movements too easy for you? We have more advanced stuff soon…

Struggle with these movements? Don’t worry, more articles coming this month to help you perfect each of them!

Speaking of this month…

It’s Bodyweight Training Month at Nerd Fitness!

In case you missed it, this month we’re trying something different here at Nerd Fitness: We’re declaring October Bodyweight Training Month!

(Funny story: Our bodyweight guild at NF is the “Assassins’ Guild,” but for SOME REASON our lawyers didn’t think “Assassin Awareness Month” would go over well with the general public. But you and I will know the REAL name. Wink wink nudge nudge.)

It doesn’t matter if you’re a complete beginner or a super-fancy advanced person: We have lots more bodyweight training articles, tutorials, videos, and other surprises planned for you this month, so make sure to keep up!

And coming later this month… we’ll unveil our newest top-secret project: An easy-to-follow bodyweight training system for serious Rebels who want to look like a gymnast and perform like a Jedi (zing!) — without stepping foot inside a gym.

I mean, I’m pretty excited about it. Okay I can get excited about pretty much anything, but this especially.

But for now… answer me this:

What is the BIGGEST thing holding you back currently from getting started with bodyweight training?

What’s one reason you are going to add bodyweight training to your routines this month?

Leave your comments and questions below and we’ll do our best to answer them.

-Steve

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Photo: Leg0Fenris:Lego Pushup, Exile: Pull-Up Bar

source https://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2016/10/06/work-out-at-home-at-the-office-or-anywhere-you-want-how-to-get-started-with-bodyweight-training-today/

How a 330 lb High School Dropout Lost 140 lbs and Turned His Life Around

Talk about an Origin Story straight out of a comic book!

At 330 lbs, Joe was unemployed and a highschool dropout. Living rent-free with his grandfather, Joe would sleep all day and wake up at the start of the evening. Having grown up with unhealthy habits, Joe says he’d been binge-eating as long as he can remember. He developed a hypothyroid issue as a teen, and hadn’t bothered to take care of it.

Many of us feel trapped by our situations, and so we do what Joe did for years. Instead of using this as an impetus to change, we make ourselves feel better by falling even deeper into these negative habits. Joe says he would eat “entire loaves of bread with peanut butter or entire 2 pound boxes of chicken fingers” at night. “I’d have to use two baking trays to make them all. I’d stay up until 5-7am watching Turner Classic Movies or Buffy. Sometimes I had the energy to play videogames.”

He wasn’t taking care of himself physically, or mentally. Things felt dire: “Every night I went to bed thinking/hoping I’d die. I was a total wreck. It’s hard to remember.”

But – spoiler alert – Joe turned things around… this is a Nerd Fitness success story after all.

Joe is now 28 and has lost 140 lbs. Like many of our success stories, he used fitness as a gateway to change his entire life: Now he’s finishing a Masters in Library and Information Science and completing an 8-month work term in a special library dedicated to atmospheric and meteorological sciences.

Let’s hear some more from Joe to hear how he looks, feels, and acts like an entirely different person than he was a few years ago.

Joe’s Journey

Steve: Joe, thanks for sharing your story and your low points so honestly. I think many of those in the Nerd Fitness Rebellion are either going through or have some experience with these moments. Let’s go back to the starting point. Do you remember the moment that things started to turn around?

I’d gotten to the point where I could barely socialize. The photo of me at 330 is one of the rare times I went out to see people. I ended up drinking an entire forty ounce bottle of vodka and eating two bags of chips. Walked home in the snow, got home and vomited orange goo… And so it continued like that for a while.

It was the worst time in my life and I basically wanted to die.

I don’t know why something changed. Or how it changed. I just remember one night I was watching a movie by John Huston called “Fat City” (nothing to do with being fat – it’s a boxing movie with Stacey Keach and Jeff Bridges). After the movie I put on my headphones and went for a walk at 3am. It was raining. I could barely get down the block. And I just kept it up. Walking at night. Hiding but working at it. And slowly but surely I just walked more and more. I started seeing friends again. Went to my doctor, started correcting my thyroid (blood work twice a month). I got to the point where I walked 1-2 hours a day.

Steve: A journey started by simply walking. Love it. Reminds me Frodo taking a first step out of the Shire. In fact, it was even inspiration for our Walking to Mordor and Morning Mile challenges – tools to help people find their way in to the beginning of the game. What happened next? 

Eventually I got down from 330 to 280, finished high school through Distance Education and enrolled in university. I remember finding a pair of dumbbells in my aunt’s basement and borrowing them. I didn’t even know how to work out. I just did curls and what turns out to be overhead presses. I kept that up. Didn’t see much of any result from it since the dumbbells were only 10 pounds. But it began the habit.

Some time after I googled workouts and somehow found Nerd Fitness.

It was an earlier article you wrote about how to construct a workout. The basics of push/pull/legs/core. And I started doing bodyweight circuits. I could barely do knee push-ups.

I wasn’t transformed, but things were different. I was accepted to a university with scholarship, but I was still eating like a death-row inmate on suicide watch.

I’d often go get a footlong steak sub and a full-sized bag of Dorito’s and 1L of diet coke…and it eat it all before a single episode of Community was over. But I was walking an hour a day and starting strength training. I was a lot healthier emotionally and mentally too. This was huge progress.

Steve: It sounds like your journey of a thousand miles happened slowly, one step at a time. Walking each day, learning strength training, and just trying to take positive steps each day is an incredible difference from where you were at a year prior. So, how did you go from there to the “Joe-today” we see in this post?

Starting with the bodyweight workout from the Nerd Fitness article, I eventually got a kettlebell (although at first, I could barely do knee push-ups).

Throughout this time I was kind of active on the NF Forums, but struggled to achieve my goals.

However, I did keep the habit of working out. I get more motivation, I think, from just surprising people with my accomplishments. Eventually I could do a few push-ups (along with rows, lunges, and planks) and it gave me a lot of confidence.

I ended up at a boxing gym nearby, and learned from people in real life what good form looks like. My diet was still just total bullshit, but I managed to get down to 235-240.

One day I’d just sort of realized I’d gained muscle. People started commenting on how much better I looked.

I’d always read new posts on NF and try things out diet wise. Paleo for a few weeks. Then back to non-stop binge eating.

So, when I hurt my knee and stopped boxing, I ballooned back up to 260. It was only when I put a focus on diet that things really changed for good.

Steve: Diet is so damn hard for all of us, but as you know, the central driver of progress. How did you break through?

I started doing flexible dieting (roughly counting calories) and weighing myself almost every day. Diet-wise this is what, and still, works for me.

It’s enjoyable and I can be totally consistent. And it helped me mentally that I can eat what I want, just as long as my calories are around where they need to be. When I started cutting, I was losing weight on 3200 calories a day. This blew my mind.

I was also using intermittent fasting, which saved me a lot of calories at night. Basically, I accepted that I enjoyed eating a lot of calories at once, and built my strategy around this fact.

As my diet was getting fixed, I began working out at a normal gym with a really basic workout routine: OH Press, Chin-ups, Front Squats, Trapbar Deadlifts, Rows, Push-ups and even started doing a bit of isolation work, which I’d never done before. Today I use a similar minimalist routine, and focus the rest of my attention on diet.

Steve: Wow, an incredible journey. I bet it’s hard to look back and say it was easy or a smooth ride. What was your secret?

Ultimately, what was my issue was psychology and strategy. I never gave up. I kept respawning.

I tried a lot of different things to figure out what works for me and what lets me be consistent. I like working out and enjoy the zen aspect of training and hiking/walking. Dieting took A LONG time to figure out for me. I had to deal with a lot of binge eating issues, childhood crap and who knows what. A lot of mental demons were slain along the way.

Nerd Fitness was always there and it was the first place I ever went to for advice. If I’d ended up on another site or fitness forum, who knows where I’d be today! Probably doing curls in the squat racks and 3 different bench variations for my chest… The positive success stories on NF always kept me going. I also discovered GMB through NF and I love them: their attitude was a huge influence on how I mentally approach training.

Steve: Slaying personal demons around food sounds like it was your final boss battle. Do you have any other thoughts to share for someone reading and struggling with the same thing?

Weightloss is thermodynamics. It is simple math that is terribly clouded by our emotions and mental gymnastics.

Food shouldn’t be a cult and it shouldn’t be avoided unless you’re truly allergic to something or you just can’t control yourself around it.  I’m not saying don’t eat healthy – I love fruits and vegetables – but I finished an Angus Bacon and Cheddar Burger with fries from McDonald’s before writing this response.

Do I eat that every day? Hell no. But I do eat it maybe once every week or every two weeks. And I know it’s about 1200ish calories, so I save my calories for it by eating lighter throughout the day.

Eating a cheeseburger doesn’t make you a bad person. Robbing old people in an alley does. For years I attached my emotional self-worth to the types of food and this mentality made me binge eat out of guilt to punish myself. It’s a vicious cycle.

Short Answer: I roughly count and estimate my calories.

Long Answer: To stay at my weight with my activity level, I know I need about 3000ish calories. It takes some practice, but you get the hang of it. I fast. I also use carbonated drinks like sparkling water to make meals feel more filling without adding excess calories. I try to eat at least 100 grams of protein a day, a few servings of vegetables and fruits, around 30gs of fiber…after that, it’s all good and delicious. I don’t obsess over ingredient labels; I eat sugar, I eat fat, I eat dairy and I eat grains.

And I avoid buying foods I can’t control my consumption of, like ice cream or cookies. If it’s in the house, I’ll eat it all. So, if I want ice cream, I’ll go to a nice ice cream place and get some. If I want a cookie, I’ll find a bakery or a café. Eat it, enjoy it and move on.

DIET LIKE EXERCISE REQUIRES PRACTICE!

Steve: Love it. These are incredibly practical tips, and it sounds like you’ve not only learned a lot about yourself, but also integrated that knowledge into your life and built intelligent habits to boot with a healthy relationship with food

Any particular mindset struggles?

I used to say, “Oh, I’ll start again tomorrow. So, I may as well just eat my face off today.” I did that for literally years. I’m not kidding. YEARS. Every day!

I mean, it’s basically insanity. Doing the same thing and expecting different results.

It’s like I lived the same day every day in some ways like Groundhog Day. I even made several different NF accounts over the years because I’d ‘want to start fresh’. It’s basically like deleting your saved game and starting over and expecting that somehow you’ll make it further the next time because you wished you were a chaotic neutral dwarf, not a chaotic neutral Halfling.

Changing your mindset and attitude is hard. Now I think, “I’ll do the best I can do today with whatever is going on.” If I go out drinking at eat a little too much, I might gain a 1/4th to ½ pound of actual fat. But I know it’ll come off in a week.

I don’t define myself by my mistakes, but my success. And I let myself be human.

Steve: Tell me about how you tracked progress. 

I started out counting calories pretty accurately using an online calculator. But I found it really stressful and counterproductive for the type of personality I have. Which is obsessive-compulsive if I’m not careful. So, I started eyeballing it and felt a lot less stressed.

I believe that estimating your calories works on one condition: you assess yourself some other way too. I weighed myself nearly every day, so I knew if my calorie strategy was on track or needed adjustments. And for some reason, weighing myself daily didn’t stress me out like it does others.

I also kept in mind that if I ate something high in sodium, I’d weigh 2-3 pounds more the next day, even if I ate far less than normal the week before. I got good at not attaching too much emotion to the numbers I saw on a daily basis. It became about the weekly or monthly trend. Did it go up? Did it go down? Did it stay the same?

Clothes were also a great motivator and measurement tool. I used to wear a 4XL and a 56” waist. That is not a lie. Now I wear a medium shirt and a 32” pant size. And in fact, I find the 32” a bit loose these days. Which could suggest I’ve lost a bit of fat while gaining a bit of muscle. OR, they’re just old and worked in, haha.

Steve: What do you feel was the single most important change you made?

Get your head on straight. Take it seriously, but take it easy. Keep moving forward at a pace that works for you. Progress is always progress. And sometimes it may feel like nothing has happened, but you may be down 2 pounds that month. Or maybe you added five pounds or a rep to a lift. That is how progress works. A piece of advice Chris Pratt gave about losing weight, which I’ll always remember is: time moves at the same pace whether you’re doing good or doing bad.

Steve: What would you tell somebody in your situation right now to help them? Somebody who’s tried and failed but ready to try again?

If a 330 lb. high school dropout can do it, then so can you!

If you still keep trying, it means you want it. And eventually, you’ll figure out a way inside your mess of a mind to make it work for you. It’ll click and it’ll groove and a few months down the line, after years of suffering, you’ll be lighter, or stronger, or bigger and go, “Holy Shit! I did it and I’m making progress.”

And it may be cliché but it’s cliché for a reason: success breeds success. And step by step, battle by battle, ledge by ledge, you’ll forge the person you thought you could be on the outside and on the inside. In fact, the confidence gained by doing what I’ve done is more important than how I look. Nobody has every hurt me like I hurt myself, but nobody has ever pulled myself up to reach lofty goals like myself. The same person that made you a fat blob is the same person that’ll make you fit and healthy.

And without any irony, I say this: love yourself.

Steve: Your physical appearance has changed…what else has changed about you?

I like clothes way more. Which seems to be a common theme for people that drop lots of  pounds. I used to hate going clothing shopping. Even when I was in the low 200s, because I’m only 5’9, it was really frustrating to find clothes that fit. But, it’s become a lot easier.

(Editor’s note: if this sounds like you, here’s how to not dress like an idiot!)

Steve: As someone studying Library and Information Science and atmospheric and meteorological sciences, I don’t think you actually NEED more nerd cred. But, we still need to know: Star Wars or Lord of the Rings?
Indian Jones. Yeah, you heard me!

Steve: Ha. I will allow it. Favorite video game of all time?
Bushido Blade for Playstation. Best fighting game ever. I can’t figure out why they only made two (other than the rights being sold off by Square at some point). If there are any game developers reading this. Please, for the love of God and all things Holy (or for the love of Satan and all things unholy) make a realistic, one-hit-kill sword fighting game with three planes of movement.

Why Joe Was Successful

The changes in Joe’s life are unbelievably epic, and hopefully can help inspire many of us needing to make daunting changes in our own lives.

Remember, no matter how bad things seem: There is always hope. But so many of us fail to translate this flicker of hope into real life… So, how did Joe do it?

• Joe took imperfect action. He did something right now. He had the courage to step forward even when his world seemed to be in its darkest hour. When everything in the world seemed against him (he was a dropout, living at home, overweight, and mentally down), he still got started anyway. He did what he could. He walked. It wasn’t the end all be all solution to all of his problems. But it was something. Something that eventually led him to a complete transformation.
• He experimented. When he tried new workouts, diet, or made changes in his life, he wasn’t satisfied with “good enough.” Instead, he kept trying new things. Kept tweaking. It was this experimentation and openess that helped him learn about himself and what his deepest habits and challenges were. He kept respawning and trying and failing differently.
• He made his diet work for him, not the other way around. In the course of learning about himself, he understood that he couldn’t change everything at once. So he used intermittent fasting and other flexible diet strategies to go with the flow, rather than oppose one of his most powerful habit patterns. He knew he liked eating a lot of calories at once, so he used intermittent fasting. He knew he struggled with the stress of always making perfect diet choices, so instead trying to eat only kale and chicken breasts for 6 months, he gave himself a break through flexible dieting. He aimed to eat healthy generally, but let himself be human.
• Joe understand the importance of mindset. Our mental well-being is so incredibly important. Whether we need to give ourselves a smarter framework to think about our health, or whether we need to address an underlying issue, we can’t change our lives if we are still stuck in a mental rut. If we are still doing and trying the same things over and over and never spend the time to critically examine our lives and try something different, it’s no wonder we wouldn’t see results.It’s scary to look at the world a different way. But sometimes if we want to achieve our goals, there isn’t any other way. We have to do shit that scares us. Changes requires something different to occur. It happens “at our limits,” whether we like it or not. Whether you are eating the same things month after month and wondering why you aren’t losing weight, or dieting over and over and regaining weight every year, or working your ass off on a treadmill and never seeing progress: be aware when you need to make a change.

Nerd Fitness Success Stories come in all different shapes and sizes. Everyone takes a slightly different path to getting healthy, but every success has one thing in common: They finally hit the start button and did their best once the game started. When things didn’t go right, they respawned. They made tweaks, they kept moving right. 

Whether you start with the free Beginner Bodyweight Workout, the Playground Workout, or Hotel Workout, or need a little extra help and dive into the Nerd Fitness Academy, you need to start now.

-Steve

PS – Looking for more success stories? Learn how Ron the Lay Pastor lost 100 lbs (and counting) with the NF Academy, or how Maya the aspiring aerialist transformed her body and started trying new things.

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source https://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2016/09/28/how-a-330-lb-high-school-dropout-lost-140-lbs-and-turned-his-life-around/

A Degenerate Gambler’s Guide to Effortless Weight Loss

Have you heard the story about the MIT Blackjack Team?

Made famous in the book, Bringing Down the House, it’s the story of an unlikely group of nerds who took casinos throughout the United States for millions upon millions of dollars back in the 90s by doing the unthinkable: they “beat the House” by playing perfect blackjack, counting cards, and knowing when to bet big and when to bet small. This story was then further immortalized in the Kevin Spacey flick, 21, and they will forever be remembered as “the group of kids who crushed the casinos.”

That… wasn’t supposed to happen.

Hence the expression “The House always wins.” You see, if you were supposed to have an advantage in Blackjack, the game wouldn’t exist in a casino! In reality, there is a series of small and seemingly insignificant rules that casinos employ to give the House a teeny tiny advantage (say 50.1% to 49.9%) in the game of Blackjack. They know that if you play long enough, statistics eventually kick in and they will take all of your money.

Just as the tiny percent “house edge” advantage results in enormous and consistent long-term profits for the Casino, a few “house edge” decisions we make on a daily basis result in long-term weight gain over the years.

It’s why we wake up a decade later, look down, and say “where the Hell did this gut come from?” Like a casino slowly bleeding us out of our chips, our weight slowly creeps up until we realize, “The house won. I’m fat.”

Today, we turn the tables and move that slight edge back in our favor.

Addicted to gambling, video games, and food?

I love gambling.

I’m also dangerously close to being a fat and lazy slob.

It all started when I was 5 and my dad taught my brother, sister, and me to play Poker with Duplos – giant legos – as our gambling chips (thanks dad!). In college, I made most of my spending money by playing 6 tables of online poker every night (sorry mom!). There was even that one time when I lived like James Bond in Monaco, tux and all, and MADE money on the weekend.

In addition to a love of gambling, I also have a very addictive personality for pretty much everything and struggle to stop anything that I start. One episode of Daredevil becomes 10. Eating one Sour Patch Kid means I eat a family sized bag until my tastebuds fall off. I could eat a Costco-sized tub of Animal Crackers without batting an eye.

Video games? Yikes. “The Witness” on PS4 resulted in a 4-day, 40+ hour marathon. I’m currently hooked on Witcher 3. In fact, I almost never started this website because I was hopelessly addicted on Everquest 2 until my computer blew up.

So, how did I get in good shape and not let Life get the best of me? After all, I SHOULD be the guy who loses my shirt in the Life Casino. I SHOULD be the guy you find in a gutter the next day complaining about the “bad string of cards.”

Instead, I’ve learned to beat the House: I’ve packed on 20+ pounds of muscle, begun practicing gymnastics daily, learned to play the violin, built a company out of thin air while traveling the world, and even wrote a book about helping others do the same.

Not bad for a lazy addictive slob!

How? By learning the system, “counting cards,” and putting a “Life Casino” strategy in place.

Life Casino Wants You Badly

Right now, imagine you are wandering around gigantic Life Casino – the game is rigged. You might not get seduced with free rooms and free booze like you do in a regular casino (which is done so you play longer and lose more money), but there are plenty of parts of Life Casino that are designed to subvert your best intentions.

If you are trying to get healthy, hit the gym regularly, eat nutritious food, get enough sleep, and work on something that’s interesting to you (reading more books, learning a language, etc.), it’s a bit like trying to win in a casino where everything is designed to take your money.

Learning a strategy to live healthy is the equivalent of counting cards. Casinos don’t like it and they want you to subconsciously make bad decisions (and thus give them your money instead). They’re really good at what they do.

Casinos battle each other with brighter lights or better seeming odds (but still in their favor) to get you to gamble at their casino instead of a rival one.

Life Casino has fast food restaurants locked in an arms race to see who can offer more calorie bombs for less and less money. Why eat a healthy nutritious meal at home when you can drive through a window and get 5 delicious cheeseburgers with fries for 6 bucks?

Casinos offer you the convenience of an automatic card shuffler so you can play more hands faster and thus lose more hands per hour!

Life Casino offers you the “convenience” of Netflix autoplaying the next episode so your default behavior is to “watch just one more” episode. Ugh. I’m currently doing this with Daredevil.

Casinos pride themselves on debaucherous behavior. They champion the big gamblers, encourage you to make big bets, and tell you that having some fun is worth it. You always want to say “one more hand” and they’re willing to accommodate it.

Life Casino comes with coworkers and friends who often tell you “come on, one more drink” at happy hour, or stay out one hour later, or to join them in eating just one slice (“Live a little!” and “We need you for one more round!”).

Life Casino knows that most of the decisions we make every day are close to 50-50 odds, with the odds tipped SLIGHTLY in their favor.

“I’m so tired, meh I’ll order out tonight” and “I’m gonna skip this workout, but I’ll probably go tomorrow” are how the casino gets its edge. It doesn’t seem like much in the moment, but over time, one decision here and there you’ve lost all your money (aka, become out of shape).

But there’s nobody telling us in Life Casino, “sir, you have played enough and you’ve lost too much money.”

I don’t know about you, but my brain would much rather play video games all day, eat pizza, and watch every TV show. And the pull to do those things is real. As is the struggle.

Once you realize these 50-50 decisions (“I SHOULD do this” or “I really want to do that”) can go either way, you need to put a system in place to beat the house and come out ahead.

Create a Life Casino Strategy

Read any book on gambling and they’ll tell you the same thing: avoid games with terrible odds (read: slot machines). If you are going to gamble, play perfect blackjack, bet in a certain way, and set strict limits on how much you’re betting with and when you will walk away from the table. You’re trying to move the needle as close to 50/50 or slightly in your favor (if you can count cards properly).

Casinos hate people like that.

Instead, they prefer the clueless folk: ones who bet based on superstition (I have a feeling about this one!), who aren’t aware of “gambler’s fallacy” (the last 9 spins were red, so this one HAS to be black), who try to get rich quick (betting the numbers in the middle of the craps table) or who just like the pretty lights and sounds of a slot machine.

So, how can you beat the Life Casino?

1) Know what you’re walking into, what game you’re playing, and take back control ahead of time! I know when I walk into a normal casino, everything is designed to keep me trapped and take my money. I know Life Casino isn’t much different: my week will be a disaster if I don’t go in expecting this. It will be a disaster if I don’t plan ahead for what I’m going to eat and exactly when I’m going to work out. So I plan ahead and don’t let emotion (read: my hangry stomach or the convenience of the snooze button) get in the way.

• Start by pre-cooking your meals for the week on Sunday. Read up on our two-part series on how to prepare batch meals and what specifically to cook here. Pre-cooking not in the cards? Try one of our easy recipes, or simply put fitness first and let yourself buy something healthy when you need the power up.
• Put your workouts in your Google Calendar and set up alerts to remind you when specifically you’re going to work out. No more iffy workouts.
• Make changes as you learn yourself. If you are somebody who gets so emotionally drained after work that you often skip your workout, change your strategy. Try working out in the morning and getting it out of the way before going to work or before your kids get up. If life jabs right, duck and give it a left hook.

2) Have an “If this then that” strategy. In Blackjack, there is a specific set of rules you can follow for perfect blackjack: “If I get dealt an 11, I double down. I split 8s. When dealer shows a 4, 5, 6 and I have a 12 or above, I stay.” I can play blackjack blindfolded because there’s no emotion attached to my decisions. If I get this and the dealer has that, I do this. Done!

You need the same for life:

• “If I eat out at a restaurant, I will get the salad with chicken.” Check the menu ahead of time and decide before you get there.
• “If I get hungry in the middle of the day, I will eat the healthy snack I brought rather than the vending machine.”
• “If I want to skip my workout, I will call my friend Paul who will remind me that I have to go or he will donate my money to the political candidate I despise.”

I gamble like a Robot so I can do it effortlessly. In short, I live many elements of my life like a Robot too so I don’t have to involve emotion! Try our article on living like a robot for more.

3) Set your limits.

When I walk into a casino, I know I am able to lose $200 per session and no more. So I don’t bring more than that with me! I put these rules in place so I don’t go “just one more hand” when I’m losing and keep digging myself in deeper.

Life is no different.

If I can’t afford to lose it, I don’t bring it with me to the casino. If I can’t afford to eat a lot, I don’t bring it with me to my house! This means I’m only buying small amounts or skipping certain foods entirely at the grocery store. When I buy junk food for friends when I’m throwing a party, I throw it all in the trash right after they leave so I’m not tempted to eat all day.

If it’s easy to get, I know I’ll eat it… so I don’t let the house have that advantage on me.

You don’t have to win every hand

If you play flawless blackjack, you will still lose many, many hands. Even if you are counting cards and have the edge, one hand here and there might go REALLY badly for you.

That’s called gambling, sucka. If you don’t want to ride the rollercoaster, get off. Unfortunately, this isn’t an option in Life Casino, but the adage still applies.

In both life and Blackjack, stop expecting to win every hand. You don’t need to eat perfectly every day. You don’t need to exercise every day either. Sometimes you’ll be stuck in an airport and the only option is eating shitty food. Or you’ll be on vacation and you can’t work out because you want to spend more time with your grandparents or kids.

THAT’S OKAY.

Losing one hand isn’t an excuse to go on tilt and throw all your money away. It’s just a part of the long term odds.

So if you have a bad day, don’t freak out. Instead, see the big picture… it’s just a part of the long term ups and downs. Have a great day tomorrow. And the day after. Remember: 51% to 49% is what wins in the long run.

If you’re just getting started on your fitness journey, I want you to think up the average number of “hands” you play a day: meals, snacks, beers after work, hours of video games, etc.

Moving forward, I want you to win just one more hand than you lose normally:

• Make your breakfast be healthy every day, and don’t change up your lunch or dinner.
• Swap out 1 mountain dew for water, but still drink the other 5.
• Go for a 5 minute walk before you start playing video games, and then play for 4 hours.

Just like a one hand advantage can make all the difference in the long run with blackjack, making one healthier decision daily can make all the difference in the long run, too.

Make more healthy decisions than bad decisions on average, and be okay with that. It’s how my friend Leo lost 60 pounds effortlessly, by winning a few more hands over many months than he lost. Read the article, and you’ll see that he really nerded out over the stats, like counting cards and studying blackjack strategy before sitting down at the table.

Shuffle up and deal

It’s a tough world out there in this Casino of Life.

It’s time to put the odds back in your favor. When you walk into any situation where the odds are stacked against you, you need to know yourself and go in with a strategy.

Start today: Every day, when you have a chance to “win” a hand (make a healthy food decision, get to the gym, get a full night’s sleep), put a check in the win column. When you “lose” a hand (skip your workout, eat poorly, watch more TV than allotted), put a minus. After a week, add up the number of wins and losses. If it’s positive, you’re winning. Negative? Time to study more blackjack!

I’d love to hear from you.

How can you leverage what you’ve learned today in this strategy to move the odds so that they’re now in your favor?

What’s one small change that can shift the balance?

Be VERY specific below, and leave a comment.

Good luck!

-Steve

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photo: Lego casino

source https://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2016/09/06/a-degenerate-gamblers-guide-to-effortless-weight-loss/

Stop Foot Pain: A Nerd’s Guide to Healthy Feet

This is a guest post from Camp NF Headmaster, Kate Galliett of FitForRealLife.com.

Living with foot pain? Think you’ll be wearing orthotics your whole life? Ack!

You fell victim to one of the classic blunders. The most famous is to “never get involved in a land war in Asia.” But only slightly less well-known is: “do not believe that you are stuck with weak, flat, bunion’d, or heel-spur’d feet.”

Ok, so Vizzini the Sicilian didn’t say it quite like that.

But this statement is no less true than his original one.

I’ve had the pleasure of helping a lot of people fix their feet up to be super strong, pain-free, orthotic-free, and awesome, and I’m going to teach you what I taught them.

Given that your feet are your base of support, they influence your power output of your hips and glutes, and they carry you off to every adventure you go on – it’s crucial they function well.

Your feet have a lot of working parts: bones, joints, muscles, tendons, connective tissue, and nerves that all need to work together properly. When this anatomy doesn’t get to express itself well, any number of things can go wrong. From developing “flat feet” to the more scary stress fracture, and everything in between.

Sometimes our shoes make this a real challenge. But do not fear! Today I’m going to fix your feet and make sure you can walk all the way to Mordor.

Are shoes the worst?

In short, constrictive “modern” shoes make it difficult for your foot anatomy to express itself well. From moving as it was built to move. 

A healthy foot doesn’t just have one arch shape in it. It has three arch shapes. There is the main ‘arch’ on the inside of the foot, an arch that runs parallel to it on the outside edge of your foot, and an arch running across the metatarsal heads (you may know these as the “balls of your feet”).

Most feet have lost the two less famous arches (or possibly even all three!), and this is in part because the foot muscles have not been able to maintain strength and tone while inside modern shoes.

Yes, shoes do provide support. But, like anywhere else on your body, if an external object is providing support for your body, your body won’t need to to provide that support itself. Like a cast on your arm that supports the bones while they heal, your muscle tissue in that area is not providing that support, and thus it atrophies from disuse (this is the theory behind “fragile vs antifragile“).

Shoes do the same thing for your feet.

But it’s not all bad, the right shoes provide plenty of benefit: for starters, they protect your feet from things on the ground that might impale into your foot if you didn’t have the shoe material between you and the ground. This is less important if you are a Hobbit.

Shoes also provide a dampening effect, making the hard ground easier on your feet, and lessening any thermal energy that would otherwise come up from the hot ground and burn your feet. The same applies for taking your feet out onto a freezing ground.

[Note from Steve: I actually developed Plantar Fasciitis last summer when I moved to New York City from suddenly walking 10+ miles a day on hard concrete in minimal shoes. Too much, too soon, on hard ground = gonna have a bad time.]

Shoes are not meant to replace what your feet should be capable of doing on their own, but rather enhance what your feet can already do and keep them safe.  Many people think if they have sore feet or foot problems that they solution is MORE support, MORE padding, MORE arch support. The reality might be that your feet have been ‘coddled’ and need to be rebuilt and restrengthened so they can support themselves!

Let’s get after it. For starters, shoes should not squeeze or scrunch or limit your feet from expressing their anatomy fully:

So what should you look for in a ‘better’ shoe?

Find a Better Shoe

There are four components to look for in a shoe.

If the shoe doesn’t meet these four criteria, then your foot is going to be compromised.

A good shoe has:

• No heel lift of any kind.
• A wide toe box that allows your foot to spread as it lands on the ground with each step.
• A pliable bottom that allows your toes to bend to a full ninety degrees of flexion as you step.
• Something to attach it to your ankle area.

Let’s look at each in a bit more detail:

1. No heel lift of any kind. When your shoe raises your heel higher than your forefoot (aka heel lift), your ankle and lower leg are being positioned in a slightly shortened position for the duration that you’re wearing the shoes.

When your leg muscles are thrown into a slightly unnatural position, it means your mobility of your ankle will suffer… and this will limit all sorts of things: your squatting ability, interfering with your running gait, etc.

This doesn’t just mean high-heels either! This includes most regular shoes which have a bulky heel and lower toe. In many shoes you’ll see this difference between heel and forefoot referred to as a “drop,” so “zero-drop” shoes are shoes where heel and forefoot are at the same height.

2. A wide toe box that allows your foot to spread as it lands on the ground with each step. With each step you take, your foot actually spreads wider upon landing. This is impossible for your foot to do when it’s in a shoe that is too narrow.

If the toe box is not at least as wide as your foot when you’re standing on your foot, while it’s bearing your weight, that’s a problem for your foot. Know that as your foot becomes more ‘natural’ it’s possible it will widen further, as the muscles and bones reposition themselves.

Feet crammed into a shoe is like putting a leash on Sonic the Hedgehog: they want to be free!

3. A pliable bottom that allows your toes to bend fully as you step. Your great toe is meant to flex to ninety degrees as you move through the gait cycle. See below:

If your shoe does not allow this due to a hard sole, your feet won’t be able to move as well, and the soft tissues of your foot will get weaker from not being used fully. PLUS, when you aren’t flexing your big toe regularly, your body will start to lose the ability to use that joint fully. This can lead to all sorts of problems. Doh!

4. It’s strapped to your foot. If the shoe isn’t strapped around your ankle, your toes are going to grab at the shoe to keep it on with every step you take. This makes some of your foot bones push down and some of your foot bones lift up. That shift means you change the amount of forces on each bone. Over time, this can lead to stress fractures and tissue injuries.

“But Kate, it’s summer! sandals! Is this really a big deal?” Yes, it’s a big deal. If you’re looking for more, check out the below video from movement specialist Kelly Starret.

I understand that it’s now possible you’re very upset with me because I’ve just told you every shoe you own is causing a problem. The answer is not to immediately toss out whatever shoes you’re wearing for something that is fully ‘minimal’ in nature.

Also, this isn’t an “all or nothing” scenario. Similar to your nutrition, do the best you can when you can, and if you occasionally wear heels/flip flops for whatever reason, it’s certainly better than nothing.

There is a healthy and safe progression to take when it comes to moving towards a minimal shoe, and I’ll cover that at the end of the post.

Here’s how you can begin fighting for your feet…

For starters, determine how far you are from the ‘ideal’ shoe that meets all four criteria above. If you’re wearing a very cushion-y and/or very supportive shoe, or you live your life in high heels, know that there will be several iterations of a “better shoe” for you to go through.

And if you’re already wearing something you’d call ‘fairly minimal’, then your journey may be a bit shorter.

It doesn’t matter where begin your foot journey. What matters is that you can see a place you’d like to get to: your feet are more functional, stronger, and better supported, and happier.

Who doesn’t want happy feet?!

FIRST THINGS FIRST, I’m the realest you will want to immediately start improving the mobility and strength of your foot. Having better foot mobility means every tissue and joint can play it’s part in flexing, extending, and stabilizing. Developing foot strength means you start developing your arches back into your foot, and your feet will be better aligned to actually take advantage of all the muscles in your body which holds itself up. The more strength and mobility you have, the less support you’ll need from your shoe. In addition, having proper foot and ankle mobility is crucial in performing a proper (below parallel) bodyweight squat.

Perform the mobility work daily, and start with the strength drills every other day. Work gently, and go slow. For some, the foot hasn’t been well-attended to in decades. Try the following while you’re watching TV, or sitting at your desk, or whenever you can.

Do what you can, when you can:

• Rolling Out The Lower Leg A
• Rolling Out The Lower Leg B
• Toe Stretching Drill
• Seven Drills To Strengthen Your Foot

Transition to a Better Shoe

Since it’s not realistic to be barefoot all day in the modern world, we need a transition strategy.

1) The first and easiest way to start making this footwear change to make is to start wearing your shoes less total time during your day.

The more time your foot gets to be free from the restrictions of shoes, the more your anatomy gets to learn new signals and create new responses. It’s the equivalent of letting your dog run around the dog park regularly instead of having to stay cooped up inside an apartment.

Our feet were born free, and they deserve to be reminded daily what life is like on the outside (of a shoe!).

2) Begin strengthening and stretching. The drills above will get you started on a path to healthier feet. 

3) Start the shoe transition process. Now, while you’re spending a little less time in shoes during your day, start taking a look at what options exist for a better version of the footwear you have currently.

• If you spend your day in flip-flops, take a look at brands like Unshoes, who makes sandals that strap to your ankle.
• If you spend your day in dress shoes, determine what freedom you have at the office to adjust your shoes to something less restrictive but still professional. Can you begin by buying a new dress shoe but one without a slight heel? Or, can you switch to a soft bottom shoe that is still dressy looking on the top of it? (Soft Star Shoes is great for this)
• If you’re wearing athletic shoes all day, what about them can you change? You could try a wider toe box, a more bendy bottom, or a reduced heel (many athletic shoes still have a heel on them, so take a look to see if yours does too). See our favorites below.

As much as I’d like to recommend some specific shoes, every person and every foot is different. For example:

• Steve trains in the Merrel Vapor Glove 2
• NF Rebel Ops Leader Staci rocks the Reebok Nano 6.
• Head NF Trainer Jim prefers to walk around in Daytona sandals.

Remember: no heel lift (aka “Zero drop”), wide toe box, pliable bottom, and strapped to your foot. The perfect shoe for someone may be lacking for one person may be lacking for someone else.

That said, here are some brands that tend to make shoes that jive with these requirements:

• Unshoes
• Otz
• Vivobarefoot
• Vibram
• Xero Shoes
• Sanuk
• New Balance Minimus

Make it a Priority, But Go Slow

What you absolutely do not want to do is jump ahead to straight minimal shoes and go run a marathon – your feet will let you know quickly that they are not happy.

There is a real risk of injuring yourself if you make too big a transition in your footwear too quickly and then do too much. So if you are wearing a heavily supported, cushion-y shoe, you should not immediately begin wearing a Vibram five-finger shoe.

You wouldn’t jump right into a powerlifting meet on your first day ever of weightlifting, right? Don’t do something similar to your feet: slowly build up arch strength, flexibility, and insurance by introducing your feet to a slightly greater challenge regularly.

I took a full year to transition to traditional footwear to minimalist options. For many, the transition will be longer. I started in a basic running shoe that had some support, and slowly started reconditioning my feet to be more mobile, have healthier soft tissue, and to be stronger.

I introduced a new stimulus to my feet every few months by wearing a slightly less supportive pair of shoes. From the classic running shoe, moving down in cushion and support through the Nike Frees, to eventually get to the Vibram five-finger (the shoe of choice for me, but it doesn’t have to be your shoe of choice!).

I now spend as much time barefoot as I can, donning shoes only for the fact that they are required for places of business. If I’m not in a place that requires shoes by law, I prefer to be barefoot. (this doesn’t have to be how far you want to take it, it’s simply what feels best for me and my feet).

But don’t spend too much time stressing about achieving level 50 foot progress. 

In fact, it’s a Rule of the Rebellion: We don’t care where you came from, only where you’re going. Simply make a commitment to give your feet the attention they deserve.

Whether you want to transition to minimal footwear, barefoot living, or simply want to make your feet function better and support your athletic endeavors, make an effort to improve your feet: it’s worth it.

You are not stuck with feet and ankles that hurt or are chronically injured!

Change the signals in and you’ll start to see a change: you’ll get stronger, better, more functional feet.

Do you have a feet horror story to share?

A Foot Redemption story?

Questions for me?

Let me know in the comments below!

-Kate

Kate Galliett brings together body, mind, and movement to help people become pain-free, highly-charged, and ready for anything at her site, Fit For Real Life. She coaches clients in-person, online, and through her foundational strength & mobility program, The Unbreakable Body. She holds a BS in Exercise Science and has worked as a coach for 14 years. She is House Gryffindor.

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Kristina Alexanderson: Lego in Shoe, Jay Galvin: Different Shoes, Reiterlied: Walking Lego, DocChewbacca: Clean Shoe

source https://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2016/08/30/stop-foot-pain-a-nerds-guide-to-healthy-feet/

How to Make Chicken Satay

Raise your hand if you’ve ever get inspired to cook (or eat) by a work of fiction.

Maybe you’re revisiting those Redwall books after ten years or more, and you come to a chapter dedicated to a feast. Or maybe you get to book 3 of Harry Potter and it’s not even cold outside, but darn it, you’re pining over a hot mug of Butterbeer. Oh yeah. We’ve all been there.

Recipes on Nerd Fitness are often inspired by travel or favorite foods re-imagined as paleo dishes.

Today’s recipe doesn’t come from a great work of fiction or a chapter in a novel about a feast… it comes from a memory of one line in a ridiculous television show and an old love for a sauce that I just can’t have any more… not because I’m a hard core paleo person, but because I developed a peanut allergy in my 20’s.

This one goes out to all you people who love ridiculous television and also to those of us who cannot eat peanuts. For those of you who don’t give a crap about TV and can eat peanut butter, just consider this a cooking adventure on easy mode.

Now, if you don’t know what Chicken Satay is, it’s a Southeast Asian dish made of marinated pieces of chicken that are skewered, barbecued, and served with a dipping sauce (usually a tasty peanut concoction).

This recipe is about as complex as the Fajitas we made last time. We’re going to cut up some chicken and veggies and then mix a few ingredients together for our tasty sauce. After our chicken marinates, we’ll put our chicken on sticks (if you want), or just toss it in a pan to cook and enjoy!

Sound like something you can manage? Heck yeah it does. Let’s get at it!

Ingredients:

For the chicken:

• 1 lb (.45Kg) chicken or meat of your choice. I usually prefer chicken breast, but thighs work great too.
• Juice from 1 lime (approx. 2 Tbsp or 30mL)
• 1 tbsp (15 mL) olive oil
• 1 tsp (5 mL) curry powder
• 1/4 (1 mL) tsp salt

For the sauce:

• Juice from 1 lime (approx. 2 Tbsp or 30mL)
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 cup (120 mL) coconut milk from a can or box (none of that pretend milk in the dairy aisle)
• 1/2 cup (120 mL) cashew or almond butter (or, for you traditional non-paleo folks, peanut butter)
• 1/2 Tbsp (15 mL) coconut aminos (paleo) or soy sauce (if not paleo)
• 2 tsp (10mL) red curry paste or Sriracha sauce – For the red curry paste, Thai Kitchen is an easy and fairly cheap brand to find. If you’ve made our Thai Pineapple Coconut Curry recently, you might have some left over! It’s the same stuff. If you prefer Sriracha, Michelle over at Nom Nom Paleo has a great recipe for a paleo version of this favorite spicy sauce! As always, if you’re a fan of spicier dishes, you can add both of these or more of them to your sauce to turn up the heat.

For veggie skewers: use your favorite grilling veggies. Mine are…

• 1 zucchini slice into medallions
• 1 yellow squash slice into medallions
• 1/2 red onion cut into large chunks
• 1 bell pepper cut into 8th’s
• 6 whole button mushrooms, halved
• 2 Tbsp (30 mL) olive oil
• 1 tsp (5mL) salt

Equipment:

• tongs
• cutting board
• knife
• 2 mixing bowls
• skewers (if you’re skewering your food)

*Note: If you don’t have skewers or a grill, don’t sweat it! You can still make this recipe in the oven or in a pan on the stove top.

• If you’re making it in the oven, follow the cooking directions from step 2 and 3 here.
• If you’re making it on the stove top, follow the cooking directions from here.

Instructions:

1. Combine lime juice, curry powder, olive oil, and salt in one of your mixing bowls. Mix it up with a fork and set aside.

2. Grab your chicken, knife, and your cutting board. Cut those bits of chicken into one or two bites big in size (about 2in by 2in chunks). You don’t have to be 100% accurate with the measurements here.

3. Place the cut-up chicken in the sauce you made a little earlier, and mix it up to coat the chicken with the sauce. Don’t be shy!

4. Wash the chicken muck off of your hands, and set that bowl in the fridge. Cover it with something to prevent disaster (like a stick of butter falling into it next time you open the fridge).

5. IMPORTANT: Wash your knife and cutting board with hot soapy water or grab new ones.

Also If you’re using wooden or bamboo skewers, now is a great time to soak those in water so they don’t burn. Grab a shallow dish, pan, or whatever will fit your sticks, put some tap water in it, and place your sticks in the water. Move on with your life.

6. Cut your veggies so that they’re easy to put on skewers. Need a reminder of how to cut something? Kapow!. And more skewering tips here.

• 1 zucchini and yellow squash slice into medallions
• 1/2 red onion cut into large chunks
• 1 bell pepper cut into 8th’s

7. Toss your veggies into another mixing bowl (or a soup pot if you don’t have another big bowl – it is okay to improvise) with olive oil and salt. Mix them around to coat and set aside.

8. Now for the final preparation piece: the sauce! If you haven’t yet, mince your garlic cloves.

9. Grab yet another bowl (a cereal bowl sized one is fine this time) and mix together your coconut milk, cashew butter, lime, minced garlic, coconut amigos, and curry paste or sriracha.

If it all mixes well, great! Mix it up with a fork and set it in the fridge (you should probably cover this one too). If it’s not mixing well (i.e. if your coconut milk is a little cold and therefore won’t incorporate into the sauce), you’ll want to put all your ingredients on the stove and heat them up until they mix together. Then you can transfer it to a bowl and stick it in the fridge.

10. Light your grill, or if you’re not in the grillin’ mood, start heating up your pan or pre-heating your oven.

11. Pull your chicken out of the fridge. It’s time to skewer! Skewer all your chicken together on their own sticks and skewer veggies together on separate sticks.

Five to six pieces of chicken together should be good (depending on the length of your skewers). Or you can alternate chicken and veggies on the sticks. Whatever. Take those beautiful suckas out to the grill and place them on the heat.

If you’re cooking in the oven, check out steps 2 and 3 here.

If you’re cooking on a stovetop, do this.

12. Cook your chicken skewers on the grill with the lid closed for approximately 10 minutes. Crack open a beer, a coconut La Croix (oh yeah, I went there), or pour yourself a glass of ice water with lemon. So fresh!

13. After 10 minutes has passed, it’s time to flip your skewers! Flip them, close the grill, and wait for another 10 minutes. To check if the chicken is done, you can test it with a food thermometer or take one of the skewers off the grill and cut open to make sure it’s no longer pink inside. I know, this isn’t a pretty way to do it, but you gotta do what you gotta do to stay food bourn illness free.

14. When your food is cooked, remove it from the grill. Take your sauce out of the fridge, mix it up, and serve! You can drizzle the sauce on top of the skewers or dip them. Serve along side cauliflower (or regular) rice.

15. Pat yourself on the back because you rock.

Done like dinner!

There you have it. A fairly simple chicken and veggie dish with a tasty sauce that you can make for one or many people. Almost everyone loves kabobs, and they’re easy to make. Chop up your ingredients, let them soak in a marinade for a few minutes, mix together an easy sauce, cook, and dip.

The sauce will keep in the fridge for approximately 2 weeks. Pour it in a jar and stick it in the fridge when you’re done eating. If you’re one of those people who meal preps or thinks ahead, you can make this sauce ahead of time for the week and put it on just about anything you want.

If you choose to make this sauce with peanut butter instead of almond or cashew butter, I won’t judge you. Peanut butter is WAY less expensive than other nut butters (but, not Paleo).

Any fictional feasts you want to recreate?

Have you ever tried to make a food or drink inspired by a story? How did it turn out?

Let us know in the comments!

-Noel

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Scott Smith: Late Night Sweet Tooth, DANNY CHIAM: Satay

source https://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2016/08/25/how-to-make-chicken-satay/