Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
There is no strength like dad strength. It is quiet, patient, and persistent. Some would say stubborn, dammit. Dad strength rarely makes the highlight reel. It exists in the in-between spaces....The times when nobody—except maybe your kid—is watching.
The Dad Strength Podcast was created to support and encourage the best in dads like you. Authors, entrepreneurs, artists, and experts from all over share their wisdom with us. We discuss 360º health, doing work that matters, and—of course—fatherhood. These conversations are fun, informative, and always emphasize action and understanding.
The Dad Strength Podcast is hosted by Geoff Girvitz. Geoff is a father, fitness expert, and curious fellow. Based in Toronto, he has been featured in Vice, GQ, and multiple exercise publications. He is known for innovation and real-world success in the fitness industry. Now, Geoff is pointing a wide-angle lens at health and parenthood. Workouts and nutrition are just part of the program. He will be looking at relationships, critical thinking, motivation, and discipline. In short, anything you need to earn the mug that says “*World’s Greatest Dad.”*
“I want to be Mr. Rogers for men over 30,” says Geoff. “There is so much noise and confusion out there.” We *all* need a community devoted to the best we have inside of us. The Dad Strength Podcast is here to make the world a better place through our roles as fathers and as men.
Welcome to Dad's Strength, helping you earn the mug that says world's greatest dad. My name is Jeff Gerwitz, and today we are going to talk about transforming your eating habits with a very specific skill. We are going to look at nihilism as an inverted map. We're going to talk about a year, a decade and a lifetime. And of course, we've got a book, a quote, and a dad joke.
Geoff Girvitz:Let's get into it. You can transform your eating habits with friction, not restriction. Let me explain what that means. Rigid rules feel strong until they break, and that is the nature of brittle things. It is also why the only hard and fast rule that I have for nutrition is not to make it weird for yourself.
Geoff Girvitz:That and maybe don't eat the foam in the couch cushions. But restrictive eating can make things weird. So if there's something that you wanna turn the volume down on, and that could be total calories, saturated fat, whatever it is, my advice is to add friction instead of restriction. Let's say, for example, that you wanna stop snacking after 8 PM. Rather than screaming no into the fridge at 11, you can add the following layers of friction.
Geoff Girvitz:After you notice here's the prompt. After you notice that you're feeling snacky, you can do any or all of the following. You can make a cup of tea. You can drink that tea. You can eat fermented foods like pickles, kimchi, or sauerkraut.
Geoff Girvitz:You can move around for a few minutes, a little bit of light exercise. You can sit silently for a moment. You can check-in with how you feel and whether it's truly hunger. You can eat filling nutrient dense foods like lean protein, veggies, or fruit. You can get completely prepared for bed, including brushing your teeth, or you can just go to sleep, man.
Geoff Girvitz:You may wind up snacking. You may even wind up making some imperfect eating decisions. However, each layer of action and decision making makes a difference. They increase the likelihood of feeling good both in the moment and in the days that follow. So these are all layers that you can put in between that initial prompt, that desire to eat, and the actions that you ultimately take.
Geoff Girvitz:Alright. Let's talk about the idea of an inverted map. As a Canadian who watched the US elections in action this past week, here's what I find myself most curious about. It is the expected outcomes over the next term for Trump supporters. As the very American commanding officer in GI Jane says, you're gonna get everything you want.
Geoff Girvitz:I just wonder if you want what you're gonna get. That is my way of saying that there is a deep human desire for fairness, progress, and health. That's bipartisan stuff, at least until we get into the hows. So here's what I would love to know. What are the measurable metrics of success that folks have in mind for the end of Trump's next 4 years?
Geoff Girvitz:What data, and I don't mean feelings, I mean, what data will point to success? And on the other hand, what data, what numbers would force you to conclude this didn't go well? Speaking of feelings, the dominant one that I've picked up on is not what people want, but what they don't want. This is what SAS James Davidson Hunter describes as a nihilistic drive. He says, nihilism, according to the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, is not only the belief that everything deserves to perish, but one actually puts one shoulder to the plow.
Geoff Girvitz:One destroys. A nihilistic culture is defined by the drive to destroy it, by the will to power. So here the question is, will success only be measured by what is destroyed? As a parent, I have thoughts. My question is this, when you talk to your kids about politics, about right and wrong, do they know more about what you stand for, or what you stand against?
Geoff Girvitz:An age appropriate argument can, of course, be made for both. However, when you chart a ship's course, the map cannot be exclusively made up of icebergs and shallows. That is an inverted map, one that only tells you where not to go, but offers no guidance about a real destination. So all those politics aside, what I'm really thinking about is the question of what course we are helping our kids chart. This stuff can be tricky.
Geoff Girvitz:It is tricky. That's why we talk it out every Tuesday as a community coming up next week. We're gonna do a Skillshare. We are going to take one thing that each of us knows well, has some expertise in, and share it with the group. If you are curious about how this all works, you can go to dadstrength.com/calls.
Geoff Girvitz:Alright. A year, a decade, a lifetime. You've undoubtedly heard about the human tendency to overestimate what you can do in a year, but then underestimate what you can do in 10. So here's a question for you. If you could take away all the pressure for early success right away, if you were gifted with a huge amount of time and the patience to truly leverage it, what skills would you invest in?
Geoff Girvitz:What would you change? What I am reading. Now I have been meaning to read more fiction for a while now. One of my favorite fiction authors, I guess I could say science fiction or maybe historical fiction, is Neal Stephenson. I think he's best known for Snow Crash.
Geoff Girvitz:I remember reading his book, Cryptonomicon, which jumps through different decades and talks about money in a very modern way, well ahead of crypto, looked at all of these things as sort of, resources. And so he's got a new one out called Polistan, and I'm gonna read you the, description here. The first installment in Neal Stephenson's bomb light cycle, Polistan feels the early life of the enigmatic Don Ray Buremberg. Born in the American West to a clan of cowboy anarchists, Don is raised in Leningrad after the Russian revolution by her Russian father, a party line Leninist who rechristens her Aurora. She spends her early years in Russia, but then grows up as a teenager in Montana before being drawn into gun running and revolution in the streets of Washington DC during the depths of the great depression.
Geoff Girvitz:When a surprising revelation about her past puts her in the crosshairs of US authorities, Dawn returns to Russia where she is groomed as a spy by the organization that later becomes the KGB. So here's what I love about Stevenson. Not only does he have this incredibly nuanced perspective on history with tons of expert detail, He also manages to integrate it into something really action packed and fun. And in fact, I wish somebody it would take a lot of brainpower and resources, but, I would love to see one of his movies, maybe Reem Dee or Cryptonomicon, maybe even this one made into a movie. It would be incredible.
Geoff Girvitz:I'll tell you one other thing about Stevenson. He is famously unavailable for email, and he says that, look, you can get a guy that has quick responses to you, maybe post on social media, or you can get a guy that writes novels like I do. I can't be both. So he's made a decision and stuck to it, and it's worked out pretty well at least for readers like me. This is not a paid announcement, by the way.
Geoff Girvitz:I guess I'm just feeling pretty enthusiastic about this book. Let's grab a quote from Voltaire. He says, it is better to risk saving a guilty person than to condemn an innocent one. Opinions may vary, but this reminds me of false positives versus false negatives in disease testing. You want your tests to be overly sensitive to catch some things where you're like, oh, sorry for the scare.
Geoff Girvitz:Turns out you're fine. That's a lot better than testing negative and finding the opposite. When it comes to humanity, though, we often seem so afraid of someone gaming the system that we eliminate opportunities for other people where we would really have a net gain. Sometimes you have to eat it a bit. One final thought here.
Geoff Girvitz:You know, whenever I start to worry, I just think about my fingers. I can always count on them. All right. That's it for today's edition of dad strength. Thanks for hanging out with me.
Geoff Girvitz:Title music by Daniel Ross, additional music by Mike Ford. We'll see you next time until then take care of yourself, man.