Physical fitness for preppers

The PreparedStaff - May 25, 2018

Fitness experts (who’re also preppers) put together this one-page guide for any average person to become “survival fit.”

[See the full post at: Physical fitness for preppers]

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I would like to add, for anyone looking into free bodyweight only routines go check out r/bodyweightfitness , there’s plenty of information for beginners and specially teaches progressions to be able to achieve some particular skills. Most are skills for show and not needed for preppers, but being able to do something like a pull-up can help in dangerous situations

 

That’s an excellent recommendation. I joined it in the early days of the pandemic when my gym closed, and it’s been great to see how resourceful people are. Reddit is magic. 

 

[This is a modified version of the comment I posted on prepping for people with disabilities and physical limitations — on the forum]

This article is a good start, but leaves out a big portion of the population. My biggest gripe about it is that, while it pays some lip service of being for everyone, it really seems customized for people who are young, have no physical limitations, joint problems, or whatever and who just happen to be out of shape.

Also the advice on losing weight is outdated and simplistic. The fact is that it’s NOT a matter of calories in minus calories out. The body uses energy in a much more nuanced and complex way. AND it has powerful, built-in mechanisms to make sure you don’t starve, so losing weight by depriving yourself of calories almost always backfires and causes you to gain more weight than you lost later.

It seems to me that we need realistic ideas for improving physical fitness for seniors, people with physical disabilities and others in a similar boat. Yeah, it would be great if I could complete all these tasks that this page uses to measure prepping survival, but that’s not a realistic goal for me right now. So, it’s important to have a plan B.

 

Hey Jonnie! Thank you for bringing up the point that losing weight is not just about lowering your caloric intake. The more I look into health and fitness the more I am realizing how complex the body is just like you said.

I am wanting to lose maybe 5 pounds, not much, but i’m still trying to figure out the best way to do so. Lately I have just been eating slightly smaller portions than I normally would have. I’ve been just going off that easy and old method of lowering calories. I’m thinking that this method of eating slightly smaller portions could work, because it isn’t too big of a change and isn’t causing my body to go into a energy conservation starvation mode like fasting could cause. 

Do you know of a better solution or method that I could use and The Prepared could add to their article

 

A little bit of science-backed nutrition to add on.

Nutrition:

1. Our health is declining as a nation and a global community due to the rapid nutritional dynamic shift towards processed, high-fat, low-fiber diets – and it is killing us.
2. There are hot spots around the the world where individuals tend to be healthier, live longer, and have much lower rates of non-communicable diseases (e.g. cardiovascular disease, type-2 diabetes). The island of Okinawa represents one such area. Some identified factors attributed to population health are as follows: physical activity, strong community connection, predominately plant-based diet (high-fiber, high-carb). Keep in mind these are epidemiological studies.
3. Personal Anecdote: I personally promote a “Whole-Foods Plant-Based Diet.” Growing up on a traditional American diet, I was always wondering why I felt constantly fatigued, tired, constipated, etc.” A while back I began researching nutrition, and have since put 100+ hours of time into the subject. Following the science, I recently removed all meat, dairy, eggs, processed foods, etc. from my diet – and loaded up on fruits, veggies, whole grains, beans, nuts, and seeds. While I took a bit of an extreme approach, the results were definitely worth it. I do intensive yoga asana every morning for an hour, followed by a day of arduous physical labor at work. In addition, I train 3 times a week a combination of Muay Thai and BJJ.

 

I agree with your first two points and want to congratulate you for finding a good solution that works for you in your third point.

I was watching a recommended YouTube video the other day on why it’s so easy to be thin in Japan (probably Google’s algorithm trying to give me a hint to lose weight) and it made sense. For those that don’t want to watch it, it pretty much just says that it’s hard to find an obese person in Japan and could be due to the fact that there isn’t as many heavily processed and high fat food. They have more convenience stores (like a gas station store) than fast food restaurants, but they have not necessarily healthy options, but not directly bad like we have here in the States. Fish, rice and some vegetable soup are common meals that they have there. Compare that to a quick American meal of a hamburger, fries, and a large sugary drink.