As many veterans know, it’s not always easy to control what we put in our bodies. A high-speed operational tempo can sometimes lead to skipped meals and growling stomachs. This, coupled with rigorous exercise can lead to much active duty personnel and post-service veterans feeling weak, or fatigued. Constant, long-lasting exhaustion leads to basic mistakes that can cost someone their life. This is why it is absolutely crucial to create and maintain a proper diet—even when it’s not convenient.
If you’re a weight lifter, you know the phrase “abs are made in the kitchen”, that’s because your diet controls nearly every bodily function you have. During my time in the Marines, I ate at the chow hall (other names include the mess hall, gut truck, dining facility, etc). As I’m many of you know, they don’t always have the most appetizing food or the healthiest; this can make it difficult to maintain a good balance of daily nutrients.
It is for these reasons that supplements exist. The only issue with supplements resides in the fact that the supplement market is severely under-regulated. Companies sneak by marketing their products, hiding their ingredients, and making a fortune off of potentially illegal supplements. This can prove to be an especially troublesome obstacle for military personnel to navigate, as many supplemental ingredients are listed on various “ban lists” throughout our vast array of regulations we swear to uphold.
The UCMJ, federal, state, and even some county and city laws can further muddy the water when it comes to what is, and more importantly, is not authorized. Our supplements here at Healthy Male contain natural ingredients and the contents are clearly stated on our website. Many active duty personnel order our supplements as a cheaper alternative to their local GNC. We sell quite a robust variety of supplements ranging from immune boosters to natural green tea weight loss extracts. These are taken daily as a maintainer and, when coupled with proper exercise and diet, can help to increase the body’s ability to function properly. Let’s face it: when it comes to promotions, responsibilities, and compensation, the accolades are always given to the person who performs the best; give yourself an edge with our supplements, and let the results speak for us.
Exercise
Working out in the military has always been a polarized subject for many active duty members. Some complain that it’s too hard, some complain that it’s too easy, and the rest of us just do what we’re told. If you were in the third category, like me, you can probably relate when I say “who cares, let’s just get started so we can get done quicker and I can go do what I want”. The sooner we could finish whatever workout was planned for the day, the sooner I could move onto whatever I had planned for myself. Often times, mandated physical training, or PT as it’s referred to, can lead to a lower morale when it is comprised of the same repeated workouts over and over. This is why I enjoyed some of the routines we came up with. It’s unlikely to get through even one full term of enlistment in the military without doing the “Deck of Cards” PT. This entails using a standard deck of cards by selecting muscle-group specific exercises for each suit in the deck. One shuffles and places the deck face down. You gather in a circle with your fellow workout buddies and each draw a card in order, one person at a time. Once a card is drawn, you then proceed to complete the associated workout—until the deck is completed.
A good example of this:
Hearts = Burpees
Diamonds = Diamond pushups
Clubs = Leg lifts
Spades = Russian twists
The corresponding value of the card would denote how many repetitions would need to be completed, with jacks, kings, and queens all being equal to 10 repetitions. As an example: I would draw a 6 of hearts; we would all need to complete 6 burpees. This would continue until all 52 cards had been exhausted. The Jokers in the deck would usually consist of a 1 mile run around a track. This was just one of the many PT sessions we did. Other sessions could include a pyramid-style workout. Each exercise would increase in repetitions to a zenith (say about 15), at which point it would step down again one at a time down to a single repetition. Exercises like these are designed to strengthen your body’s endurance and stamina levels—which are crucial to promote lifelong cardiovascular health. Of course, if you’re willing to push it, you can increase your body’s ability to burn fat in literally about 15 minutes of exercise. This type of training is known as HITT.
HITT stands for High Intensity Tactical Training, and consists primarily of full-body exercises. The point is to engage every possible muscle group into the exercise as possible to force your body to burn calories at an elevated rate. This can actually leave your body in a higher fat-burning state even 24 hours after the session has ended. Agility ladders, snatching, pull-ups, suicides, dumbbell squats, Spiderman crawls, 8-count bodybuilders, muscle-ups, and rope pulls are just a few examples of some of the engaging exercises one can do to strengthen their bodies and promote overall well-being and health through HITT. Regardless of what you choose to do, simply making the choice to exercise at all is always a good step in the right direction, even if that consists of daily walk. It’s typically a good goal to aim for nearly 10,000 steps per day to achieve a good level of physical exertion through walking; this amounts to just around 20 minutes of walking daily. Try to devote a solid 30 minutes each day to your physical development to help create and maintain a good, healthy routine that will benefit you for years to come. Always remember, life is about consistency—your health is a reflection of that.
