Older Bolder Life

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The Older Bolder Life

Our New Older Bolder Fitness Site is Up and Running

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Our new Older Bolder Fitness main site is up and running, though we have a few more “i’s” to dot and “t’s” to cross to make everything fully functional. Our Older Bolder Fitness site is mainly dedicated to our coaching and teaching programs.

As we’ve shared before, we’ll be blogging here on the Older Bolder Life, providing our flow of free content focused upon tasty, healthy recipes and information you can use to make rational, practical decisions about your nutrition plan, your overall approach to fitness with a decided bent toward function, improving your metabolic flexibility, and much more.

As we bring more features online I’ll provide quick updates here on the blog.

Cheers, and get moving today.

Starting a Web Transition Week This Morning

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After this morning’s post, we’ll be starting a web transition week, moving this blog and site to new hosting, updating our software engine, dropping in a new theme, and more. We’ll be intermittently offline during the week, and will not be loading new posts on the blog until everything is settled in – we’re guessing it will take most if not all of the week to get it done.

See you in February!

the Older Bolder 2019 Challenges: An Introduction

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Very shortly we’ll be launching a new blog series looking at challenges related to improving one’s overall health and fitness levels this year. This is in part driven by a flood of questions that friends, family, clients, and potential clients have been throwing my way over the past month in particular.

Pundits and prognosticators have been pontificating about how tumultuous 2019 is likely going to be politically and economically (pending I suppose through what lens you view things of an economic nature, where some see chaos, some see opportunity). Let the soothsayers pontificate and conjecture away, and take care to not get distracted from the much more important matters at hand – improving your health and fitness this year.

For what it’s worth, I’ve very intentionally decided to label these posts as challenges. We like to be challenged around our camp; challenges have the potential to create significant learning and growth opportunities, along with dishing out the occasionally lump or bruise too, though those ouchy lessons are (for most of us anyway) typically the most durable and instructive.

The first of these follows in a few days, and deals with what we’ve come to call the D-word…

Take a Gratitude Day Now and Then

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Through a set of unplanned circumstances beyond my control, today has ended up providing a break from the work routine and time to reflect with family on things we’re truly appreciative of and thankful for.

There’s never a bad time to exercise your gratitude muscles, and the more you do, the more accomplished and able they become.

Image: Copano Bay sunrise out of Rockport, Texas.

Gifts for the Older Bolder Foodie in Your Life

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On Monday, I shared several great gifts ideas for the aspiring or accomplished Older Bolder person (or persons!) in your life as they progress along their health and wellness journey.

We happen to truly enjoy the Christmas and holiday season around our camp, choosing to look up on this time of year as a time of celebration (of friends, family, and spiritual traditions), and taking the opportunity to reach out to those we love to express our appreciation and care. Gift giving is a part of that celebration, but by no means the core value of the experience.

That said, and given our deep appreciation of and interest in preparing varied, interesting, and tasty food at home, here’s a quick rundown of some worthy gifts for the Older Bolder foodie in your life.

Stainless Steel 16-inch Roasting Pan with Rack

While we’ve been tempted with supposed non-stick roasting pan surfaces in the past, this stainless beauty cooks like nothing else, is light, easy enough to clean, and perfectly sized. See it here.

Milo Dutch Oven

There are a number of great Dutch ovens on the market, some of which cost more than my first car. A chef friend (thanks Libby) showed us this one from Milo; it’s reasonably priced, French-inspired, just the right weight, and dishwasher safe. See it here.

GreenPan Venice Pro Nonstick Skillet Set

Coated in a natural ceramic, we keep seeing these GreenPan Venice Pro Skillet sets showing up on recommended lists penned by chef’s and kitchen pros around the world. ‘Nuff said.

Locavore Fermentation Crock

Another recommendation from Chef Libby, the best pickling-pro we know, Luscious Porcelain’s Locavore Fermentation Crock is on our wish list this year. The gallon size is perfect for the home kitchen, it’s styled nicely, and the water seal is a pro-level feature.

Brooklyn Butcher Blocks End Grain Cutting Boards

As a woodworker myself, I stand in awe of these absolutely beautiful end grain cutting boards from Brooklyn Butcher Blocks. The maple is traditional and the best value of the set…

Cole and Mason Granite Mortar and Pestle

After years of using a tiny mortar and pestle to grind fresh spices, this granite beauty from Cole and Mason gets it done. Surprisingly affordable too.

Benriner Mandoline Slicer

Sitting at kitchen-facing counter in one of our favorite restaurants a few months back, I noticed the guy finishing salads using one of these Benriner Mandoline Slicers to make quick work of beets and carrots that day. Chatting with him later, he shared that this nifty tool, standard in commercial kitchens, is available for the home cook as well, and at a bargain price.

Mescolare Salad Bowl Serving Set

Clearly I’m biased given my workworker’s gene, but these Mescolare Salad Bowl sets from Picnic Time are absolutely gorgeous and make any salad look better. You need this one.

Two 8-inch Chef Knives

The cutlery workhorse of just about any kitchen, large or small, is a chef’s knife, and doing a bit of research it appears an 8-inch model is most commonly used by pros and savvy home cooks. The budget Katom above comes highly rated, and the Mac Knife below is Chef Libby’s favorite…


Cookbooks

I happen to have a vehement bias about cookbooks these days.

Having been a Primal guy now for going on three years and a Keto guy going on ten months, and being a lifelong foodie, I love to cook creative, interesting, and fun meals though do so entirely within a healthy framework now.

My bias mentioned above? Personally I’ve found most ancestrally-oriented cookbooks published over the past few years to be somewhat limited (read bland and repetitive for lack of a better word right now) from a culinary-interest standpoint, though that game is changing.

Cookbooks are a great gift; choose wisely targeting your recipient’s interests, palate, and skills. More on cookbooks to come…

Gifts for the Aspiring or Accomplished Older Bolder Person in Your Life

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Christmas is a wonderful time of year, and a perfect time to encourage the aspiring or accomplished Older Bolder person (or persons!) in your life with a thoughtful and useful gift as they progress along their health and wellness journey.

This is meant to be a fairly diverse gift list, and includes a few nifty things for the kitchen (hey, I’m a foodie at heart), though we’ll be posting an Older Bolder foodie gift list later this week with more.

And it doesn’t matter what particular pathway your friend or loved one is taking to improve their health and function – whether it’s Primal, Paleo, or whatever, they’ll need something on this list if you’re still shopping. Note that we’ve not shopped around and found the most expensive versions of items suggested below, but we’ve tried to find great products at prices representing the best value…

A Big Stainless Stock Pot for Soups, Bone Broth, and More

This is one of those essential kitchen items, used for so many things. You’re probably thinking stock and bone broth (so am I), though I can’t even begin to recall how many big event recipes of soup, chili, and gumbo we’ve made in ours.

The decision point here is how big do you really want to go, keeping in mind the bigger sizes must be hand-washed and they’re a bit of a chore to store pending your space available.

Check out these stainless stockpot options from the Webstaurant Store.

Up Your Sausage Game: Home Kitchen Electric Food Grinder

I’m old enough to remember my grandmothers bolting big, cast-iron grinders to a table edge and grinding their own beef and pork for burgers, sausage, and more. I’d give just about anything to have one of those older, classically-made hand-crank grinders as a memory piece…

Grinding your own ground meat at home is a cinch, and you retain absolute control over what goes in your grass fed burgers and sausage. It’s quite easy to spend hundreds on a home meat grinder, though here are a couple of entry level grinders (the Galaxy 400 above and a smallish Weston) that will let you get in the grinding game without investing much.

Worth it to upgrade your home sausage game in particular.

Jump into Sous Vide with the Joule

For a variety of reasons we were a little slow to jump on the home sous vide movement, though chef friends have been wowing us for years with their perfectly cooked steaks, prime rib, chicken, pork roasts and tenderloins (and more) prepped via their commercial sous vide units.

If you’re not familiar, sous vide cooking is done by immersing a sealed bag with the food of your choice in a water bath that’s controlled at a very consistent and low temperature; proteins are then usually quickly browned over fire, under a broiler, or on a hot cast iron pan (or griddle).

Check out the Joule home sous vide unit here.

YETI Panga Duffel

Our family are die-hard outdoor folks – we’ve hiked, backpacked, skied, climbed, cycled, rafted, hunted, and fly fished for decades, and run through a tremendous amount of gear during that time.

One thing we continue to reach for, no matter what we’re doing it seems, are quality duffels, and the YETI Panga Duffel line is near indestructible and has taken whatever we’ve thrown at them.

See their Panga Duffel line here.

The Body Package: Massage, Spa Day, Yoga, and More

One gift that never fails to please is something your loved one or friend can use to pamper themselves a bit, maybe even something that feels like a bit of an indulgence.

You’ll want to personalize this one as best you can, but consider a special massage, a spa day or spa package, special yoga sessions or a yoga retreat for example.

Use your imagination; this one can be really fun to put together.

The Mind Package: Give a Digital Course

There are so many great digital learning packages around these days in the health and wellness arena, we’re not going to bore you with a list here today. The vast array of topics and “teachers” available today duly noted , I like the digital course concept a lot as “the student” can progress at their own pace and rehash material they find particularly compelling, inspirational, or even perhaps confusing.

Digital courses, at least most of them, are multimedia bonanzas, using print, images, video, and more to convey their offerings.

The best I’ve taken personally this year? The Keto Reset Mastery course from our friends at the Primal Blueprint. Worth every penny, and has contributed greatly to making my own keto journey a joy.

Give the Gift of Organization

As I’ve shared before, for decades I’ve personally tried a host of different tools to help organize and structure my time, thinking, effort, and schedule, finally adopting (very happily and successfully I might add) David Allen’s Getting Things Done approach.

There’s a wonderful software program that’s been cobbled together that facilitates this approach greatly – read about Omnifocus here.

Of note, it’s confined to use in the Apple ecosystem currently; we use Outlook otherwise…

Give the Gift of Coaching

I’ve been very surprised this year at the number of inquiries we’ve had about giving the gift of health coaching to friends and family who’ve expressed an interest in being shepherded along in their respective health and wellness journeys.

Particularly useful when someone has told you they’re ready to improve their life but aren’t sure where to start or how to proceed, help them find a coach with similar interests and the necessary expertise and experience. Coaches don’t have to be local with communication tools available today, though sometimes face to face interaction works best of all.

Have questions about our coaching programs? Fire us an email here.

Give Part of Yourself: Become a Mentor

Consider becoming a mentor to a friend or acquaintance hungry for knowledge about something you’re good at (you may even be great at it).

Mentorship is a lost skill these days, and don’t forget not everyone pestering you for insights is ready to be, or interested in being mentored. It takes time, some thought, creativity, and communication skills; you can develop along the way if you feel you’re not quite ready. And the results are often life changing – for both of you.

Be ready when the opportunity arises…

Books, Books, and More Books

One of my family’s favorite gifts to give every year has always been books. We’re voracious readers, reading in what some might call eclectically diverse topic areas, from a wide spectrum of authors, and ranging from just-published to obscure classics. (Between my wife and I, we typically read 100-120 books or more per year.)

Thinking about it just now, I’d have to say the most impactful health and wellness read for me this year has been Steven Gundry’s The Plant Paradox, and I’ve just laughed my way through Rick Bragg’s My Southern Journey – True Stories from the Heart of the South.

Cookbook recommendations in the upcoming foodie gift post…

Older Bolder Foundation Series Topics Summer (and Fall) 2018

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Here’s the first few months of Foundation Series post topics we’ll be serving up over the summer (and into early fall). The list is of course subject to change (what I really meant to say there is expand) as new and interesting information comes around, but this will serve as our likely roadmap for the summer…

  • Optimizing Lean Body Mass, Not Weight Loss, is Priority One
  • Excessive Body Fat Isn’t Your Friend
  • Can You Exercise Your Way to the Body You Want? Probably Not.
  • There is a Far, Far Better Way to Eat (and Live)
  • The Less Insulin, The Better
  • Almost Everything You’ve Been Taught About Macronutrients is Wrong
  • Carbs: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (Part 1)
  • Carbs: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (Part 2)
  • Carbs: Additional Thoughts on Grains
  • Proteins: Building Blocks of Champions, with a Catch
  • Fats: The Stunning Deception that Persists Today
  • Fats: The Good Guys
  • Fats: The Bad Guys
  • Exercise and Fitness: Functional is Where It’s At
  • Exercise and Fitness: Less is More (Really)
  • Exercise and Fitness No So Secretion Weapon No. 1: Fat Adaption
  • Exercise and Fitness No So Secretion Weapon No. 2: Move, Move, Move
  • Body Composition: Food, Exercise, and the Two Everybody Forgets
  • Stress: Some Unconventional Suggestions
  • Stress: Orthorexia and Health Data Obsessions
  • Stress: Get Thyself Organized
  • Sleep, O’ Sleep, Where Art Thou? (Part 1)
  • Sleep, O’ Sleep, Where Art Thou? (Part 2)
  • Nutritional Ketosis: A Look Back at History (Jimmy Moore’s Book in literature section)
  • Nutritional Ketosis: Why Even Go There?
  • Nutritional Ketosis: The Pregame
  • Nutritional Ketosis: Jumping in With Both Feet
  • Nutritional Ketosis: Staying in for the Long Haul

Starting Tomorrow: Older Bolder Foundation Series

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Beginning tomorrow, and running once or twice per week through the summer (and probably into the early fall), we’ll begin posting key topics in a Foundation Series, geared to outline a core set of principles for anyone of any age to live by, but particularly geared toward those over 30 who have drifted away from a healthy, fit, and above all – optimally functional lifestyle.

I’ll never forget the first time, in a recreational setting, when a guy two years younger (I was 31 at the time ) said, “you know, once you hit 30, you begin to lose a step, and it’s all downhill from there”.

We happened to be playing frisbee golf in one of the beautiful parks in Salt Lake City at the time; despite the fact that I soundly beat him, I remember as it it were yesterday feeling pudgy and bit out of shape that day, my weight have crept up slowly during my residency as the time and stress demands of medicine and a young family slowly and inexorably pushed fitness to a back burner.

Fast forward a few years, and like so many in our busy world, I was packing on the weight and slowly deconditioning, my physiological and functional ages ‘maturing’ faster than my chronological age.

The principles upon which a much healthier life should and could be built – the critical foundation of healthy living – were beginning to evolve in earnest back then (this was the early ‘80s).

Now there’s a flood of information available, much of which has been and still is antithetical to what’s been served up as conventional and medical wisdom for several decades, new information that’s changing the very core of human potential – not just for the highest tiers of professional and recreational athletes, but for the rest of us “mere mortals” living and working everyday lives.

Tomorrow we’ll outline the first bundle of topics to cover in our upcoming foundation posts.