rawlife’s BodyBlog

  I have always felt as though my bodybuilding and health centered lifestyle has been a big hindrance to my sense of adventure.  This evening, as I was taking a walk around Hornstull, my little part of Stockholm, I was thinking about all the places that I would love to travel too.  I was thinking about how easily I could too, if I just didn’t have to come up with money for such large amounts of food, and raw food no less.  In addition to that, I got down because of how much it would cost me to workout on the road as well.  The whole self conversation really made me feel like this health and fitness stuff really isn’t all that it is cracked up to be.  And now as I write this very entry, I have become convinced that if your health and fitness lifestyle keeps you from doing the things you really and truly would love to do, the things you deeply desire and pine after…then it’s not a health and fitness lifestyle! 

    But here’s the problem…I/we really like something about this lifestyle.  That’s why we keep doing it.  When I think about running off to Africa for a while and just eating fresh fruits and small animals here and there and catching fish while I roam wherever I may, meeting whoever I may meet, and doing whatever I feel most inclined to do, I am both turned on and turned off.  On the one hand, it sounds like a damn great adventure, which in my mind just kind of equates to a great story to tell.  In addition to that, the idea of just letting of all this go appeals to me-just being free of my percieved confines of the bodybuilding lifestyle.  On the other hand, I want to keep going with what I’ve been doing, I want to pursue this path as far as I can take it-I know, logically, that the body is only as confining as it has been made, same with the mind.  Trouble is, I’ve made it very confining.  I’ve given myself a debilitating back injury; I’ve defined my happiness by my success or lack thereof in bodybuilding; and I’ve developed a fitness regime that is totally centered around lifting weights.  The last one is actually something I never thought I’d be able to really get around, but now I’m not so sure.  I don’t know that I’d ever be able to be a huge bber without real barbells and dumbells, but I’m pretty convinced now that I could develop or at least keep a pretty good physique doing a wide variety of bodyweight exercises as well as some weight bearing exercises using whatever I could find-rocks, buckets with water…whatever.  This opens up a whole new world to me.  This idea that you have to be in a gym to get a good workout is kind of goofy, now that I think about it.  What you have to have to get a good workout is a creative mind.  Food is another issue, but to be honest, I really feel like I am being taken care-that it’s going to be ok, that I just don’t need to worry so much about starving or not meeting all my goals.  In fact, I think that most of my problems in life can be traced back to me obcessing over meeting my goals or fufilling my physical needs-hunger, shelter…etc.  So anyway, I think I’m going to be a bit more open minded about these goals of mine and how I go about fufilling them.  I also think I’m going to be a bit more daring when it comes to any adventures I may take.  I realized that an adventure really isn’t as good if you’re not that daring.  I think my big adenventure goal right now is to go somewhere with little to no supplies-sleeping bag, tent, fishing pole, and just see what happens.  I wrote in my journal, a long time ago, before the big Svalbard trip, that as long as I make it back in one piece, the adventure was a success.  That’s the only requirement!-that I don’t die or end up paralyzed.  If I can really infuse that thought in my mind, I think I’ll soon R-E-A-Lize that I really have a ton of le-way in regards to the adventures I can have.  And if I’m willing to temporarily lose some muscle, then I can really do pretty much anything!  Awesoooome!

    Moving on, flexibility=not my strong suit.  I was checking out pictures of some yogis online with my on again/off again girlfriend Kristina, the other day, and i have to say, I was impressed.  I’ve never been impressed by that before, but now I am.  I think I’d like to be able to do some of the stuff that they do.  I’d really really like to be a lot more flexible than I am now, which is not at all.  And that would also open up a whole new world when it comes to exercises as well: I could have a literal BONANZA of new bodyweight exercises right at my fingertips-that I could do anytime and anywhere!  Awesoooooome!  This is going to become a new goal of mine. 

   How about this: what I’d really like to do is to be able to make a living just being me.  Just having adventures and living raw and healthy.  That’s my dream.  This sounds so weird, but I don’t want to have to do anything outside of my regular lifestyle to make money.  Now, there are times when my life demands that I go out and teach and help people: then I might want to train a few clients or hold a seminar or something, but other than that, I’d like to just make money being me.  And for some reason, I feel like it’s the direction I’m going in.  It’s a thought I just can’t shake, I’ve had it for several years now.  Most people, and definitely everyone in my family, would say it’s a lazy, kind of silly idea.  I guess I don’t care so much.

   This blog has really become a detox for me.  I’m very thankful to have started it, I’m thankful to my friend Robin for suggesting it.  It’s great to see the hits increase everyday, thanks so much for reading-I hope you get something out of it as well.  Much love/Paul.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 24th, 2008 at 11:52 am and is filed under Training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.