Survival of the Fittest!

When I started Fire team Whiskey 3 years ago, my mission was to help military members, first responders, and law enforcement get in peak shape and health in order to be able to do their jobs better. Major emphasis on the point of the fact that in these jobs, any given day your life can be on the line and your personal health and fitness can be the factor that makes a difference between you living or dying that day. How many times have I repeated this mantra to our participants and the general public, trying to convince the unconvinced that we are not just talking about looking hot in a bathing suit, we are talking about freaking LIFE OR DEATH.

We provide our participants with online fitness videos that they can do anywhere even with no equipment. Done for you nutrition plans and grocery lists. Warrior Wellness health education videos teaching you the things you need to know about reading nutrition labels, staying motivated and the importance of many other factors like sleep and stress management. The accountability and expertise of our online virtual personal trainers to help motivate you and hold you accountable. Personalized plans with our virtual personal trainers to help make sure you are on the right plan that works with you and your lifestyle. Group incentives such as challenges and contests and rewards, pushing and encouraging each other to do better, keep progressing and to not give up. All of this. For three years Fire Team Whiskey has been providing these invaluable, life changing services to our participants. We have struggled to get the word out. We have struggled against cheap box gyms that people convince themselves they need access to (but never use). We have struggled against convincing people that you have to set up your LIFESTYLE as one focused on health and fitness EVERY DAY not just a crash diet to lose a few pounds to make tape or to pass your fitness test. We have struggled to convince people that it’s worth investing the time and the money up front to GET RESULTS and get on a good trajectory, rather than focusing on saving money and doing nothing to make progress. We have struggled against a society that is becoming more sick, more fat and more unhealthy by the minute and this being the majority now, a perfectly acceptable “lifestyle choice”.

What is infuriating is that our Veterans, Military Members and First Responders are SUFFERING and DYING IN DROVES. Chronic diseases linked to poor lifestyle choices like Type 2 Diabetes (1 in 3 Veterans), cancer, heart disease and stroke. Lifelong suffering from these diseases, amputated limbs, loss of eyesight and a lifelong need of daily dialysis, ever increasing pills and medical procedures and the gradual debilitating conditions that all these things come with. The inability to respond quickly to a threat, to move your body and to get yourself and others to safety. The brain fog of a high carb diet and blood sugar swings causing slow alertness and poor decision-making ability leading to extremely poor judgment and decisions when otherwise training and experience would dictate otherwise.

THIS IS A CRISIS.

BUT NO ONE IS TALKING ABOUT IT.

One week ago, I found myself in the VERY SITUATION that I had been preaching about for 3 years. My own life was threatened. I was lost in the woods, by myself, with a decent amount of equipment, but still lacking in some key items. The sheer physicality of what I endured, the climbing, the hiking, the sliding, the bouldering the pacing ALL NIGHT LONG. No sleep or no food for 3 days. The mental stressors and key decision points that I had to make to survive this situation. Everything I have talked about happened to me.

The fact that I am here today writing this post means that I beat all odds. If you sent 100 average American people out there, maybe 2 would have survived. I bet the odds. Not out of luck. Not out of a heroic intervention by someone else. The fact that I am at peak physical, metabolic and mental shape saved my life. The fact that I have no need to consume sugar and never become hypoglycemic. My body did not miss a beat and fueled 3 days of physical and mental stress with body fat. Most would have had to lay down in a few hours due to low blood sugar, thus giving in to the low temperatures and leading to death by hypothermia. I had the energy and stamina to stay awake for 3 days and pace all night and move all day. I bouldered, climbed, hiked, jumped, balanced, reacted and powered my way through dense rain forest, up ridges, down a mountain face, across raging rivers and along boulder faces. I maintained a super focused sharp mind to be constantly aware of my situation, spot danger and make extremely smart decisions.

Does this sound like I am bragging? I am not. God, I wish this never happened to me. But it did. How many people who experience a threat to their life and survive say they wish it happened? No one. It was the scariest thing that has ever happened. It rocked me mentally and my family and friends suffered tremendously during the 3 days I was missing. I am writing this to say that everything I have said in the past 3 years WAS RIGHT. This isn’t about looking hot in a bathing suit. this isn’t about passing your fitness test. This isn’t about making weight and tape this time around. This isn’t about losing a few pounds for the high school reunion.

THIS IS ABOUT SURVIVAL. A BATTLE FOR YOUR LIFE ENSUES EACH DAY. Every day you open your eyes and wake from sleep starts another battle. Will you do the easy thing? Will you eat processed convenience foods because it’s “faster, cheaper and easier”? Will you skip your workout because you are “tired” or “don’t have time”. Will you get home from work and veg in front of a screen for hours because you are “exhausted”. Will you keep consuming sugar “for energy”. Will you drink every night because it “helps my stress”. If you said yes to any of these, you are losing. You lose every day in this battle for your life. Once day, the war will end. A heart attack. A stroke. A simple virus that you should be healthy enough to fight with your immune system. War is over. You lose. You die.

I recall reading a research article that followed long term people who had heart attacks. One group had open heart surgery and had a large scar on their chest. The others had stints placed through incisions under the arm or naval, thus making the scars hidden. They followed these two groups over many years to see if the lifestyle changes that needed to be made within these heart attack survivors continued with time and thus improved the rate of survival. The results were surprising. We all assume that the people with such a traumatic surgery such as open-heart surgery would be more likely to die. In fact, they found the opposite. The open-heart surgery group lived longer, had less reoccurrence of heart attacks and maintained more lifestyle changes than the less traumatic surgery group. Why? We can postulate it comes down to scars. Each day, a person who has had open heart surgery is reminded how close they came to death. That visible scar is a beacon. A beacon of how close they came to losing the war. Those without a scar could easily pretend nothing ever happened, forget it, and just trudge along getting right back into old routines and habits. No daily reminder of the war almost lost.

Are you losing the battle every day? Are you so frustrated with not being able to make long term behavior changes? Have you given up hope in ever having a healthy and fit ever again in this lifetime? I am here to tell you that if you are reading this, you still have time. DON’T GIVE UP. Just like I didn’t give up out there in the woods, don’t give up. Your purpose has to be greater than your fear. What is the worst that can happen? You try our program and you fail. Ok, big deal. You are out a few dollars, but at least you tried and you are right back where you started. But what if, what if you try our program and succeed? What if this is the thing that started your journey to healing, health and physical freedom? If I would have just sat down out there in the woods and said to myself, “I am not even going to try because I might fail anyways”, I would have died the first night. But no, I made the choice to take a risk. It was a risk to try and save my life. But what did I have to lose? My life? Yes! This is the choice you have. If you choose to give up, you are choosing an earlier death. That is how serious this is. Of course, the whole belief is “not in my back yard”. “I couldn’t possibly die of a heart attack, stroke or cancer. It’s not going to happen to me. Now pass the chips and cookies.” WAKE UP. Find your purpose. If you are in a place in your life right now where you are overweight and our of shape and suffering and not even trying anymore, you are a fearful coward. Yep, I said it. Send hate email to info@fireteamwhiskey.com How about seeing it this way? Your purpose is out there waiting for you to find it. Get your ass up and find it! Get one of our virtual personal trainers to work one on one with you to help figure out what that is, then you can do some work. It’s gonna suck. It’s gonna be painful. It’s gonna hurt physically, mentally and emotionally to give up junk food, move your body and to commit the money and time to this process. But that, I believe, is well worth the price of a life long lived, and free of chronic disease, pain and suffering. If I were to guarantee you that, you would dump the contents of your 401k in my lap. But I can’t, because YOU HAVE TO DO THE WORK. I can’t operate you like a puppet on strings and sew you mouth shut every time you reach for another french fry. You have to do the mental work to beat your own enemy, yourself. But, our expert online virtual personal trainers are all military veterans. So guess what. We leave no one behind. We are going to walk beside you on this journey, motivate you, encourage you and yes, even give you a boot up your ass when you need it. But what we won’t do is abandon you. When you join our Fire Team, you are now family. We are going to walk this journey along side you, catch you when you stumble, brush you off and push you back in the right direction. We will make progress, I can promise you that.

I know what your thinking. “She is right, I’ll sign up later, maybe this weekend, or Monday or maybe…”

Coward.

Do it now.

When you click below and sign up TODAY, THIS MINUTE, NOW, you will win your first battle in a long series of battles you are about to face. You will WIN! Don’t let the enemy defeat you again by waiting until “tomorrow, the next day, of maybe next week, etc”. DO IT NOW. Win this battle. I want you on my Fire Team.

One thing I got from my battle for my life was a renewed vigor to freaking FIGHT EVERY DAY for my clients and with my clients. Go choose your trainer, and get to work fighting this war. We can’t wait to be on the front lines with you. We brought a lot of awesome ammo!

My Facebook Live video with an account of my story to include a review of the equipment I had on hand.