Kevin Hodges, CPT MACP

I turned 50 earlier this June and one of my bucket list items was to run 50 miles. I accomplished it last Friday. It was as hard as I imagined. I am incredibly grateful to Natalie, Henry and Hudson for their support, not just on race day but throughout the months leading up to the big day.

Special shoutout to my friend/neighbor Matt for being such a huge encouragement during the run. Matt was attempting the 100-mile course and asked me to pace him for part of it. It was that invitation that led me to sign up for this particular race.

Thanks to for a great track and awesome aid stations and volunteers. There is so much that goes into a race like this and I am so appreciative that they make everything work smoothly.

I’ll share more about my training and mindset in another post and on my Substack.

#50@50

Are you familiar with your anterior cingulate cortex? (You actually have two!) It is the part of the brain that helps with willpower and social interaction. Even more insightful, Dr. Huberman describes it as the place where our will to live is most concentrated. In this episode of the with David Goggens they discuss doing hard things each day, and how our willingness to do things we don’t really want to do can help our ACCs grow. They can also shrink if we don’t consistently challenge ourselves and get out of our comfort zones.

I really appreciate learning from pods (books, too, although the interview format seems to resonate with my brain when I’m active, versus audiobooks). Get out for a walk and give it a listen.

How are your goals shaping up now that January is half way through? Read this expert from an article in Yahoo Finance:

“A 2018 study of 108 million American activities by fitness app Strava found that Jan. 17 was the most likely day for resolutions to be tossed out the window.”

A lot of people are starting to lose steam. It’s a marathon, and so many people set goals that forced them to sprint out of the gate.

If there’s one thing I’d encourage people to remember - you can always start again. Each day is an opportunity to start a new streak, pick up where you left off, or begin again.

I’m not a New Year’s resolution person, although I appreciate people that are. It makes sense to create goals and raise expectations for ourselves at the beginning of new time period. It’s easy to remember our starting date, we are surrounded by so many likeminded people and the year ahead feels like a clean slate.

As a coach, I feel like so much of the work I do is helping people find this “clean slate” state of mind each day, each week, each month.

Here’s to all of you making resolutions. Below is a little research on this topic; it isn’t intended to be discouraging, so please find yourself in the much smaller percentage of successful people as you read it. And if you already broken a resolution on day 2 of 366 (it’s a Leap Year), remember that each day can be the start of your progress.

A study by Norcross and Vangarelli followed 200 resolvers, finding that 77% maintained their resolutions one week into the new year, but this number decreased to 55% after one month, 43% after three months, 40% after six months, and 19% at the two-year follow-up. Success was higher among those who employed strategies like stimulus control, willpower, and self-reward. Another study emphasized the effectiveness of approach-oriented goals, with 58.9% considering themselves successful, compared to 47.1% with avoidance-oriented goals.

📷: peek-a-boo view of Lake Washington

You are a machine. A very complex machine, although it may not feel great to consider yourself something so industrious. The caveat is that you are a wholly unique machine (thanks to genetics) and truly exceptional.

I use the machine analogy with clients as a way to help them understand the connection between their health behaviors and the quality of the engines that power their existence each day. These engines also never shut off, so it’s vital to care for them all the time.

The brain, heart and all-encompassing central nervous system are always at work. If any of them cease to function for a prolonged period of time, so does the machine. If they don’t function at ideal capacity, it will show up in your health.

Our goal each day is to give our engines fuel (diet), rev them up (exercise), help them discharge unnecessary additives (digestion), occasionally use cruise control (breathwork/meditation/non-sleep deep rest), and at the end of the day we want them to idle at very low RPM, preferably in the dark (sleep).

You are a complex machine. You are also incredibly fortunate to have agency over your lifestyle and can prioritize keeping your engines running as healthy as possible.



*images produced by DALL-E

I’m a sucker for conversations between curious, passionate and scientific folks that challenge my thinking. Highly recommend this podcast episode between Adam Grant and Andrew Huberman on the pod.

One of my big takeaways from this pod and listening to the latest book (Hidden Potential) is his insights into how we show up in personal and professional relationships.

He discusses his theory that we often come through as a critic, a cheerleader or a coach.

A cheerleader is trying to provide unconditional enthusiasm. It doesn’t matter the score of the game or if a player or team is underperforming; the cheerleader is there to provide morale and enthusiasm.

A critic is looking for perfection.
The critic’s role is to evaluate the work or performance and test if it is authentic, honest and worthwhile. The critic is trying to find faults and flaws.

A coach is looking for excellence. A coach is working with the player and/or team to understand what success looks like in their shared endeavor, setting realistic expectations and working towards accomplishing as much as possible together.

How do you show up in your relationships? My guess is that we all where these hats at different times. I’d also guess we feel comfortable in a particular role, uncomfortable in another, and occasionally (or too often) show up in the wrong role for a particular situation.

The artwork for pics 3 & 4 was generated by DALL-E.

My two favorite questions to start conversations with clients are:
“How’s your health?” and
“How do you know?”

Those are usually broad enough to get the conversation started. As we begin to get deeper into specifics about health, those questions can be modified to talk about particular topics.

“How’d you sleep last night?” Followed up with, “How do you know?”

I’m a big fan of the Oura ring (I’ve been wearing mine since 2021) and it’s been helpful to understand my sleep and to motivate me to make asleep a priority. There are many other worthy products out there (8Sleep, Whoop, Apple Watch, Fitbit, etc), I’ve just preferred the ring design over devices that attach to my workstation or aren’t on my person.

I’m curious how other people measure their health. I’m also curious if devices, data and information are motivational or do people feel confident in gauging their health by feel.

So… how’s your health? How do you know?

I was listening to an interview with Dr. Huberman and he said the most remarkable thing - reading can act as a form of meditation. I’ve been a believer that sitting down to read each day can be an act of self-care, so his words resonated deeply with me.

The books pictured have been my attempt to read something a) non-academic and b) new to me but familiar to lots of other people.

Do you still read books? I have a few friends that do, but so many people I talk to don’t read books anymore. The most common theme for most people is reading short articles on their phone or tablet, or listening to books. No judgement here. I’m always happy to hear people are reading/listening. Just curious how many people still engage with actual books.

And does anyone else feel like reading is sometimes a bit like meditation? I know I feel relaxed and more at peace when I’m reading.

She’s 💯 whispering, “Let’s go play!” And she definitely licked my ear right after I snapped this.

It doesn’t take a lot for me to get motivated to get out. However, I do think having a puppy/toddler 🐕 is a good example of certain seasons in our lives that lend themselves to specific periods of motivation. Laila will only be this playful, energetic girl for so long (although I’ve been told by other boxer owners that it could last quite a few more years 😬).

The bigger takeaway is that with a bit of introspection, we can all zoom out to see what’s happening in this season of our lives and how can we foster easier wins for each day.

Maybe an injury is preventing you from getting in as many steps or exercising as much as you want. It could also be a good time for you to shift your focus to other ways to improve yourself or accomplish things you’ve been putting off. The temporary setbacks can actually be opportunities to grow elsewhere.

It’s a rainy day here in the PNW and it has me thinking about motivation. The fall is a difficult time for so many people because of our limited sunlight and constant cloud cover. It’s made worse on rainy, cold mornings. It takes a bit of extra effort to get the kids moving, to stick with routines and to find time to get out (or even stay in and remain productive).

I don’t have any secrets to share about motivation, other than building habits around being intentional each day, rain or shine.

My wife did not want to get up early to meet her friends to run this morning. It was raining really hard and one friend had already bailed. She has been running each week for a long time, so her commitment to this habit helped push her up and out. And she’s fortunate to have a friend that also motivated her this week.

Our dog (Laila) is not a fan of the rain. She would prefer the cozy confines of our house. However, she needs to move her body or she’s a nuisance all day. So I grab my rain gear and force the two of us to get out, rain or shine.

There will always be reasons to bail on your routine. Once in a while it’s absolutely fine to do it. I’d encourage you to try to push through as often as possible though. Find companions (human or furry) that help motivate you.

And even though we didn’t go too far for too long today, we got out.

Laila also believes that she gets exercise by osmosis. I usually have to turn up the volume on the Pelo to drown out her 💤.

Movement and sleep, two of the key pillars for optimal health, are also important ways to get feedback on lifestyle. If the numbers aren’t there, it’s on me. I used to obsess a bit about the actual numbers, but I’ve been wearing my Oura ring and running enough to know what the data means.

Wearables and data can be intimidating, although I don’t think they need to be. Setting realistic goals and creating mini goals inside of a larger plan can help alleviate some of the anxiety that comes with goal setting.