On Climate Change - A Visit to an Indonesian Island

"Every day I wake and everything is broken /
Turnin' off my phone just to get out of bed /
Get home every evenin' and history's repeatin' /
Turnin' off my phone 'cause it's hurtin' my chest"
. -John Legend.

Our Earth is dying. That is not meant to be despondent, it's meant to be truthful. I am dying, you are dying, everything that lives is in some sense dying. We each get moments to take advantage of and we also are blessed enough to be able to take actions to improve our chances of prolonging our life as long as possible.
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At the end of my trip to Singapore I wanted to go to a place where I would have little occasion to travel to in the future. Being on a plane for 20 hours just to get to a destination makes you appreciate just how much of the world it will physically be impossible to see no matter how old you become. .

As I picked a relatively random destination, I had time to read only a few travel articles before making my selection. An article described an island not too far from Singapore with beaches, hiking, snorkeling and good local seafood. So I booked my ticket to Karumbesar island, part of Indonesia. Anyone familiar with the region probably would have questioned my choice immediately, as this island is mostly just a fishing village with a few passable hotels and a reputation for questionable nightlife. Whoops. This is why I'm not usually impulsive.

A few days before I left, there was news of Sumatra erupting with severe forest fires. The wind blew smoke particles across the rest of Indonesia toward Malaysia and Singapore. If you weren't paying attention, you would think it was just a foggy day and maybe cough a few more times than usual. But smoke particles cause hazy days and if it gets bad enough, makes it difficult to breathe. In any case, no matter how white the sand or blue the water, it will make it look like there's a film of grey invading your view.

But the Earth is dying - we have populated it without finding balance and just like the nights where we (I?) binge on too much ice cream, there's a hangover effect the next day. At this point we can either choose to keep eating ice cream fueled by fossil fuels and non-renewable energy sources mindlessly but aware of the sickness that will inevitably follow, or we can put down the spoon and look around. .

All of the plastic bottles we use end up somewhere, at best case reused directly as more plastic bottles, at worst case, at the bottom of the ocean.
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The cars we drive get the fuel from somewhere, at best case pulled from the ground in a relatively safe but unsustainable process, at worst case, spilling from tankers or pipelines on the way to be delivered.

There were some spots in Karum Besar that were nice, and admittedly I wasn't able to make it to the nicer beaches toward the north end of the island. But overall, things could be better. Imagine if the mopeds were silent electric versions instead of loud gassy ones. Imagine if when the tide went out, it didn't reveal the waste that had been dropped out of the window on a whim. Imagine how much better the seafood would taste if the animals did not ingest plastic by accident.

Pangung Tua Pek Kong Temple - Karum Besar, Indonesia

The Pangung Tua Pek Kong temple was a Buddhist temple within walking distance from my hotel popular at Chinese new year. I arrived to the temple, and it wasn't very remarkable - I've seen more impressive buildings in Beijing or Vietnam or Singapore. But the long walk there was important to take. It was a reminder that the Earth is dying - but it's up to us if it's a metaphorical death, leading to a rebirth of new environmental ideas and scientific breakthroughs or a literal one, marked by a few more mindless purchases of plastic.

There are plenty of possible steps to take and I know I don't do many of them. For now, maybe seek out funds to help fight forest fires in the Amazon or Indonesia, or learn about more long term future research to make carbon dioxide reuse possible.

Whatever you've had on your mind to improve the environment, do it sooner than later because it's important for you and for your future family.

Scooters on Karum Besar Island, Indonesia

8 Questions to Help Guide Your Fitness Development

Many are told that the best way to begin their fitness journey is to begin with a personal trainer. Like anything, not all personal trainers are built equally. What’s more important is how the personal trainer thinks about addressing the goals you want to achieve.

Based on my experience working with fitness clients for the past five years and more, people’s goals with fitness are most commonly:

• Improve body composition (look better naked or more often, in a bathing suit)

• Improve self confidence

• Overcome an injury

With the last of the above goals, that is more readily dealt with by a physical therapist who is open to strength training once the injury recovers. For the other two areas, there are a handful of questions that will quickly get to an understanding of what to include in your personal training regimen or if it’s just as good to jump into a group class that you’re excited about continuing wit a lot of frequency and consistency such as CrossFit, spinning, yoga, or other boutique fitness classes that provide some instruction and method of progression.

1. As a kid, did you do martial arts, gymnastics, or dance?

This question is meant to help understand how quickly you can learn something new. If you learned how to use your body as a kid, your “body awareness” is high and you can adapt to instruction easily. People without this background could also learn quickly, but this is often associated with a good ability to understand and apply instructions quickly.

2. Do you struggle with self confidence?

Embarking on a fitness journey is as much mental as it is physical. If you are not certain of your abilities or judge your worth by what you see in the mirror, it will be important for your training plan to give measurable progress areas so that you can see progress and keep motivated before it shows up on the scale or in the mirror.

3. Can you do a pistol (squat on one leg)?

4. Can you hold an L-sit for 10 seconds & deadlift your body weight?

5. Can you do a squat clean or have experience with Olympic lifting?

6. Can you do a pull-up?

7. Can you run or row 1600m in under 9 minutes?

8. Can you do a overhead squat holding fifteen pounds overhead?

Travel Workout Tips

For better or worse, I’m getting to travel for work more and more these days. Here are a few tips for making the most of your hotel gym away from home.

1. Set a time limit

Decide before you walk in the gym how long you have to work out. It’s easy to wander in circles wondering which of the broken equipment you should avoid or which of the novel equipment you should include in your workout.

2. If there's a pool, you better swim

This is more of a philosophy than making sure you swim. Use the opportunity to work on a weakness. For a lot of people, swimming is a weakness because they just don’t get to do it often. Working on swimming away from home is something to keep in mind, because although it will be difficult to lift heavy or do the workouts you’re used to, by focusing on a weakness you can still make progress.

3. Use the "weird" equipment

Your workout is meant to be fun. Fun often means not having an expectation of what score you’re “supposed” to get. So hop on that recumbent bike, do some bicep curls, jump on that weird Bosu ball thing that’s been sitting there for 10 years. Have fun, and do something weird.

4. On the third day, see the sun

You’re on a trip. See the surroundings. Get outside on a run, or just go for a walk. If you’re on a work trip grinding, most likely you won’t get too much chance to wander. If after 3 days, you haven’t been outside, revise your workout plans to include a run or just bring the dumbbell outside.

5. One more round? One more burpee.

If you don’t know what to do, do a burpee. You can do a burpee in your hotel room without workout gear. You can do a burpee on the sand without equipment. You can do a complicated burpee variation that includes whatever’s around you. Be creative, but don’t make paralyze yourself with choices.

The other side of this is nutrition - ask yourself if you would do a burpee if you had one more drink or one last handful of fries. If you wouldn’t want to do a burpee after one more round, probably a good idea to call it quits. Enjoy yourself, but don’t get out of control.

6. The clock is your competition

It’s hard to stay motivated by yourself. If you don’t know how long a workout should take, time your first round and try to beat it on the next one. Set a goal for every minute or every five minutes. Look at your past results, and try to beat those. The clock can be your friend, if that’s what you need.

7. Athletes warm up, injuries lock up

You’re still an athlete, even though the heaviest weight in the room is 12.5 pounds. Athletes are smart and warm up, no matter what they’re doing. Getting injured using a light weight is still possible, so be smart and still warm up, even though no one’s watching.

8. Save 10% for tomorrow

You made it to the gym. Congrats! But it’s still day 2 of a 4-day trip. You can crank up the intensity if you want to using the steps above, but your overall goal with travel workouts is to maintain your fitness level and return home without a major setback. So save a little bit for tomorrow.