211: How Thunder Stays Active Without Forcing It

Scot: So today I wanted to dig into something that can kind of be simple on the surface, but surprisingly complicated in real life, and that's staying active. A lot of men want to feel strong and capable as we age, but sometimes finding movement that fits our lives, our bodies, and even our interests can be really difficult.

And Thunder Jalili, he's been on the show before, he's going to talk about himself a little bit. He's told us he feels a little awkward about talking about himself, but that's okay, because I think we have something to learn from Thunder. He's found a way to make his lifestyle active, and we wanted to kind of find out where that came from, how he keeps it up, what it's meant to him through different phases of his life, so maybe we all could find inspiration in his story.

This is "Who Cares About Men's Health," where we bring you information, inspiration, and a different interpretation of men's health. My name is Scot, I bring the BS. Producer Mitch, he is the "I care about my health" convert.

Mitch: Hey, there.

Scot: And today, Thunder, you're our inspiration. If I could sing, I would sing that song, "You're the Inspiration." It's Thunder Jalili, who you have heard on the show before, talking about nutrition topics. Welcome, Thunder.

Thunder: Thank you. Thanks for having me. I hope I can live up to the expectation.

Scot: You can.

Mitch: Yeah, 100%.

Scot: So you seem deeply passionate about the activities in your life. You mountain bike. You not only do that, but you are a mountain bike guide, a thing I didn't even know existed. So even when you're working a job other than your job at University of Utah Health and the Department of Health and Integrative Physiology.

Thunder: Close. Nutrition and Integrative Physiology.

Scot: Okay. Thank you. You're out active, you're out doing stuff. You competitive ski race still. You are a ski instructor. So I kind of want to take us back to when did becoming active and being active just become such a part of your life?

Thunder: It basically came up to how I was raised because my parents were both fairly active in their own way. My mother was always interested in exercise and sports. I remember her always going to aerobics and the gym and going on walks. And my father was always interested in skiing and walking and hiking, things like that.

So I always had my parents . . . And they also did a ton of work around the house. I can't discount that. They mowed their own yard, they washed their own car, stuff like that. So I guess I always had that example of just doing things and moving and being active.

And then that coupled with finding sports that are fun for me just was the combination. When I was a kid, I discovered, "Oh, riding bikes is pretty fun. I can get away from the house, be on my own, and go places, and that's awesome."

Skiing was the same way. When I was 5 years old, my mom told my dad, "We've got to get the kid outside doing something. There's a ski area 10 minutes away. Take him there." They started doing that. And I discovered at a really early age, "This is great. I have freedom. I can ski. And my mom and dad aren't with me?" This was, I guess, back in the days where you didn't have as much kidnapping or something. So they were just letting me loose at 5, 6 years old.

Scot: Yeah, or nobody wanted Thunder. I don't know which.

Thunder: Yeah, nobody wanted me. But it all kind of clicked. There are things I like to do, and it gave me some freedom, and the movement was fun. It started from there and I just kept up with things like that. I kept up. I did some of the things my parents did. I went on walks and hikes. And that was really the start of it.

Scot: That's interesting. I think that there's probably research, and you've heard people talk that parents could be a good example for their kids for activity, that this is something we need to do.

Mitch, did you have that kind of example early in your life, activity?

Mitch: Yeah, more or less. I mean, physical activity was also related to labor. It was what you were doing on the weekend, what chores you were helping out with, what were you building, etc. And that wasn't nearly as fun. The breaks we got was playing video games inside rather than outside working on stuff, and so it is interesting to hear that going on walks and things like that.

My mom used to be super active. She would go on bike rides with her friends and stuff, but her primary activity was going to the gym. It wasn't going out and doing whatever. I mean, I'm here in my 30s trying to be like, "What's fun?" and sometimes not always finding stuff.

Scot: Yeah, that's great. I want to get to that. I didn't have that kind of role models when I grew up. My mom was a stay-at-home housewife. My dad was a rancher. So, definitely, work was part of his activity. But this idea of the type of activity I have to pursue as somebody that has a sedentary job, having to make up activity and go out and do something, I just never really had that example that exercise was important or that was something we can do.

Thunder, I can say though that I do share your . . . I loved bike riding as a kid, but it kind of faded away for me, and I don't know why. Why didn't it fade away for you riding your bikes? Have you always ridden your bike since you were 5 and to this day, or what?

Thunder: Yeah, pretty much. It probably faded away a little bit, I would say, when I was a junior and senior in high school because I got a motorcycle. And so for a while, I rode bikes, like BMX, and motorcycles. Then I decided the motorcycle was more fun. I rode that for 11th and 12th grade. And then when I got to college, I went back to the bikes. I needed a way to get around campus. And then I realized, "Oh, yeah. Bikes are fun. I kind of forgot about that for a couple of years." And I've been doing it since.

Scot: So how have you kept up on that? Very early in life, you skied, you rode your bike. What's kept you doing it then? Is it just the love of doing it? Is it that, "Oh, wait, this is just a good activity"? Did you fall in with a group of people? Was there some sort of social influence? How has this continued throughout your whole life into what your retirement plan is, which is to continue to guide mountain bike tours and teach skiing?

Thunder: Everything you mentioned is a factor. And there's one other thing that you didn't mention that I'll just start with first.

When I was in junior high and high school, I did try a lot of sports. I wrestled for a few years, I tried the track team one year, I played soccer for a couple years, I swam. I tried different things, and I kept coming back to, "Those are all kind of fun, but biking and skiing is really fun."

And so I think part of that was important, because I tried different things and I realized I really like being outside and doing biking, skiing, and walking, hiking. So that helped.

And then number two, everything you mentioned, there's a social structure around these activities. You ride bikes with your friends. You go skiing with your friends. There's a structural component to it if you get into the instruction part of it, and that kind of appealed to me too.

I think all those things are important. If you don't try a lot of different things when you're young, sometimes you kind of don't really find what you really like. And just going to the gym is the easy one because that's what everyone thinks about, but not a lot of people like it. And I get it. I go to the gym. That's another thing I do, and I didn't mention that. I go very regularly, but I don't do it because it's the greatest thing in the world. I do it because it keeps me in shape for ski racing and for biking.

Scot: For doing the things you enjoy.

Thunder: So it's a tool. And it's still fun. I go with my wife. I go with my friends. We have a coffee after. We try to make it social. But it's not like I wake up in the morning thinking, "Hot damn, I get to go to the gym." It's a tool to help me enjoy the other things more and just be more able in life.

Mitch: So I'm kind of curious, because you're getting close to retirement, but you've been doing this for most of your life. Were there ever points in time where maybe you didn't do it as much as you wanted or there was maybe a setback or something? Because I think about some of my injuries I've had over the years that have really set me back by years, and it's really hard to kind of get back in.

Thunder: Yeah, absolutely. So two things have given me temporary setbacks throughout this journey. One is education and work. There were obviously times where I didn't get to ski as much, I didn't get to bike as much because I was in grad school, or I was doing my postdoc, or I was very busy with my early career as an assistant professor. So things got dialed back. I was still doing them, but not to the same degree.

And then there are other times where, like you said, injuries. You injured this or that, and you have to take a few months off. So there's been that as well. I've never really had anything more than a few months off, so I guess I'm lucky in that regard. But I have had these periods of my life where I've had to dial it back as I have a career and other obligations.

Scot: So it sounds like the activities you engage in . . . We talk about internal or external drivers. It sounds like a lot of them are just driven by internal drivers. They're fun.

Are there other reasons that you do it? Are there other things you get out of it other than it's just fun? Do you conscientiously think, "Well, I should do this because it is good for my health and my heart or stress or identity or curiosity"?

A competition you kind of alluded to was a thing for you. What are some of your other drivers that keep you doing it? Because riding bikes might be fun, but you've done it for a long time and you continue to do it.

Thunder: Yeah, so there are internal drivers. And part of that fun too is this sense of freedom that I've never really lost. When I'm on a long mountain bike ride or I'm doing a long downhill descent, it's a very free-flowy feeling. And you get to be very single-minded and just focus on what you're doing, handling the bike, looking ahead, following the trail.

That is also stress relief, so that's helped as a driver. Like everyone else, you have a regular job and there are things that you internalize that did upset you and having these stress relievers is good. So that's always been a part of it. I feel good after the activity and I feel recharged and kind of ready to tackle what's next.

And the same thing applies with skiing. The same thing applies with getting outside and going for a walk for an hour or going for a hike somewhere. All that stuff. So yeah, those are important drivers.

Scot: Do you feel that you crave it sometimes for other reasons?

Thunder: Yeah. Sometimes I crave it because I know the experience of ski conditions being really good. I know this part of the mountain is going to be really great today and I know that that's going to be a cool thing, and it drives and motivates me to get out there and do it.

Back in December when it was raining a lot and it was 55 degrees and there was no skiing, I had less motivation to ski, but I tried to fill it in with other things. I tried to get outside and I tried to go to the gym a little bit more in anticipation of keeping my fitness for when we can go skiing.

And I think that synergy helps, because in the back of my mind, I also realize that I'm getting older, and if I continue to do ski racing, you just can't launch it down the hill anymore. You've got to have some physical abilities and strength and balance and flexibility, and that kind of is where the gym comes in more. I want to make sure all those tools are there so I can maximize my enjoyment in those sports.

Mitch: How have your, I guess, goals and why you do it changed over time? Because I think of my own life, and in my 20s and 30s I was trying really hard. I wanted to be riggity ripped and look like I was on the cover of a magazine. That was my fitness "goal." And then as I'm entering my 30s about to be 40s in a couple years, it's all about mobility.

I'm just wondering, have you found that your whys, your approaches have changed throughout your life? And how does it compare today than it did when you first started?

Thunder: I think in the last probably 15 years or so, maybe even 20 years, the understanding that there is this component of gym work and regular exercise that's important for you to be able to participate and excel in other things you really like. I think that's been more of a thing the last 15 or 20 years.

So my motivation of going to the gym is not that I want to look a certain way. I mean, it's a happy bonus, right? But that's not my motivation. My motivation is I don't want to kill myself when I'm going 70 miles an hour in a speed course.

Mitch: That's a good motivator. Yeah.

Scot: A full-body cast is not something you envision yourself in.

Thunder: Right. And it does have its own reward too because when you can do those things and you can maintain a certain level of fitness, it's gratifying because you're like, "Oh, I'm so happy I can still do this stuff. I can bend over and tie my shoes and I can do things like that."

It sounds stupid, right? But sometimes people lose their balance. They stumble. As you get older, things like that happen. And the fact that you can still do these normal life activities, in addition to the activities you like, that's also kind of a motivating thing. Of course, that wasn't present when I was 25, 30 years old, but that's something I do think about more now.

Scot: Do you schedule this stuff to happen or do you just . . . I mean, do you have to make an effort to work activity into your schedule or do you find that it just kind of naturally falls into your schedule?

Thunder: No, totally scheduled. I got a calendar and I have things going on from 7 a.m. until 9:00 at night every day.

Mitch: Wow.

Thunder: So work and then these other activities and just other stuff I have to do. Everything is scheduled and I find if I don't schedule it, it's easy for that to fall by the wayside.

Scot: Do you kind of have a minimum that you're trying to accomplish each week? I mean, you're kind of brilliant in a way. You took two of the activities that are good physical activities that you actually enjoy and you turned them into jobs, because right there you have to show up for it, right?

Thunder: That's part of the schedule, Scot. Yeah.

Scot: That's freaking brilliant, is what that is. I wish I had something that I was good enough at that I could make it part of my job.

Thunder: It does help.

Scot: Yeah, because if you think about how us humans were long, long ago, daily life was the exercise.

Thunder: Oh, absolutely. I think we actually talked about this before on a podcast where 15,000 years ago your job was spending 16 hours a day finding food. You probably expended more calories than you found half the time.

Scot: You walked long distances. You had to actually gather that food. Even lesser, 300 or 400 years ago, there wasn't a lot of knowledge jobs. People weren't sitting at desks a lot.

Thunder: Yeah. Everything was some form of manual labor unless you were a king or something like that.

Scot: Right. That's who the StairMaster was invented for, were those big fat kings, because they had to artificially get their exercise.

So how does this look when you schedule stuff? Do you sit down at the beginning of the week and do you just lay it all in, or do you just have, "Every Wednesday I'm going to go on a bike ride and it's hard-scheduled and I'm going to do it"? How does that look?

Thunder: Yeah, it's just kind of an ongoing weekly schedule. Sometimes I schedule things a week in advance, sometimes four days in advance, sometimes two or three weeks in advance. But it's ongoing. It's constant. There's never a start and a stop. The schedule is continual, if that makes sense.

So I have to work it around my regular job, my other responsibilities. For example, it's winter, so maybe I have a morning ski race training session. It's 9:00 to 11:30 or something like that.

I do that, I come back, I have lunch, and then I go to my computer and start catching up with my work from university and things I have to do. And then maybe I break for something else.

And then I come back and maybe I'm working again until 8:00 or 9:00 at night. Sometimes that happens because, obviously, since I'm doing stuff in the day, I can't always get the stuff in that specific hour. So I have to circle back like four or five hours later to get that thing done.

This necessitates a schedule, and it works out. I think it does make me efficient. Sometimes it drives me crazy, but it makes me efficient. And I can most of the time get everything done.

Scot: So if the exercise is on your schedule, how likely is it going to get bumped for something else? Or do other things get bumped? What kind of a priority does it have on your schedule?

Thunder: It doesn't get bumped because I schedule it far enough in advance that I can work out the other stuff. The exercise, the training is predictable. The work stuff is unpredictable.

So every day, something will come up that I have to deal with at work. I didn't know about it yesterday. It just comes up and I just deal with that in the off hours that I don't have a bike tour or skiing or whatever.

Now, the spur-of-the-moment exercise, like I've got to go to the gym or I want to go on a hike with my wife or whatever, obviously that's a lot more flexible. Maybe I want to go to the gym at 8:00 tomorrow morning. But tomorrow morning I wake up, I check my emails and everything at 7:00, and I realize, "Oh, I've got to take care of this. I can't go to the gym until 11:00."

Scot: But that gym trip is going to happen though at some point in that day.

Thunder: Yeah, it is going to happen. But the other stuff that's fixed, like the bike tours, if I have clients scheduled, obviously I can't change it. But that's why those things are scheduled a week or more in advance so I can then work around that.

Scot: What goes through Thunder's head when Thunder doesn't want to show up to do something?

Mitch: Yeah. That's a lot of motivation that you seem to have. I want to know what happens.

Scot: Does it happen? I mean, it has to happen.

Thunder: Sometimes it happens with skiing if it's not a specific training session that I'm supposed to work, but I just want to ski for fun. Maybe I'm tired or something is sore that day and I just say, "It's okay to skip it and do something else."

Scot: But you do something else is the thing. So is there ever a day where you're just like, "I don't really feel like doing this," or, "I've got too many other things to do. I'm just not going to do these things today"?

Thunder: Yep, absolutely.

Scot: Okay, thank you. I'm glad you're human.

Thunder: Yeah. And that's just the way it is, especially when you're juggling multiple responsibilities in your life. You've got to give yourself a pass for doing that. But maybe it's like 10% of the time for me.

Scot: How do you guarantee it's not going to snowball into now all of a sudden you're not doing any of it?

Thunder: Because I like these activities. I don't want to miss them too long. It's like if you forget to brush your teeth one night, you're not going to forget the next five or six nights. Your mouth is going to feel gunky and you're like, "Where's that toothbrush?"

Scot: So exercise is like brushing your teeth.

Thunder: It's incorporated into a regular part of your life. And then once it's like that, it becomes easier to not just let it go away completely.

Mitch: Yeah, activity as hygiene rather than a chore.

Scot: That's an interesting reframing.

Thunder: And it makes you feel good when you're done. I mean, you feel good when you're done, especially if it's something you enjoy doing. So that's very motivational too because you remember and recognize how you feel when you're done with that activity. You're like, "That's cool. I want to feel that again."

Scot: So it sounds like on those days you're not motivated, sometimes you pull down and you just think, "You know what? I always feel better after I do this. So I like that feeling. I'm going to make it happen."

Thunder: Or maybe I just need a rest day. That's okay too. I mean, you can't do something seven days a week. And I don't. I always take one day pretty easy with either nothing or maybe just something really light. Maybe just go for a walk for like half an hour.

Scot: I've got to say the other thing I'm a little jealous about is that you found things that you enjoy doing that aren't going to the gym, which has always been my default. It's been hard for me not to do that.

When I was younger, I played roller hockey. But it's always a shame because in school you have all these different options if you want for activity. You talked about you tried a lot of stuff, wrestling, baseball, basketball. But then as we start to get older, we drop a lot of these things. A lot of us do, anyway.

I don't know why and I don't know how, as an older person that maybe used to do that, you get back at it or somebody who's never really . . . I was in debate, so I wasn't in sports.

Thunder: Is that an activity?

Scot: Yeah. Well, I got a letter in it.

Mitch: Hell yeah.

Thunder: Sweet. Remind me never to get in an argument with you.

Scot: Okay. I think you'd still win, which is the sad part. You're getting out and ski racing and bike racing and you'd still beat me in an argument.

Do you have any thoughts or tips? If somebody was to come to you and say, "Hey, gosh, I really wish I could just find something that I loved like you love biking and skiing," and they're a little bit older and it's harder to explore that kind of stuff, how could I approach that? What do you think? Do you have any thoughts for me?

Thunder: I find as you're older, if there's a social component to it, that's really motivational. You meet new friends and get a new social dynamic. I would look for that.

I'll give you an example. We have a new guy in our ski club who has always been a skier and done a little racing, but he's kind of interested in getting better at racing and he's also relatively new to the area, moved in here from somewhere else.

For him, finding a club of other like-minded people who were interested in skiing was perfect because not only is this an exercise activity part, but now he has motivation because he's made a lot of new friends in the club, people that he enjoys talking to and hanging out with.

So that's one piece of advice I would give, if you could find something you're kind of interested in that also has a social component.

Scot: Yeah. Let me jump in. Maybe even talk to some friends and see if they have things they do that is a social. Pickleball came to mind for some reason because . . .

Thunder: Yeah, that came to my mind too. I was going to mention it. Yes, perfect. I mean, some people make fun of pickleball. I don't really play it myself, but I have a ton of respect for and I'm glad it's really taken off because there's a huge social component to it and people love it. They hang out with their friends, they run around the court, they socialize after.

So you've got this great physical benefit and you've got this great mental benefit because that sense of belonging and then blowing off some stress, and you feel relaxed afterwards.

I would look for that. That is my advice, some kind of social motivational thing that you can get involved in that also has exercise.

Scot: Mitch, what do you do? Mitch is like, "How come the spotlight got turned on me?"

Mitch: I was about to say, "No, this isn't a Mitch episode."

Scot: As you're listening to this conversation, Mitch, are you happy with the activities you have, or have you had a longing kind of like I have, thinking, "Gosh, I just wish there was something I was as passionate as Thunder is about so I could hard bake it in," or, "I wish there was a job I could do and I could hard bake it in"?

Mitch: But at the same time, it's also giving me some ideas on where to go next. A big part of being on this podcast and being the health convert, etc., is finding what works for you forever.

Fitness, activity, etc., was a chore. It was you go to the gym, you do this thing, right? And as I'm getting older, it's sometimes walks with Jonathan in the park on a Saturday morning if we're both kind of tired or whatever. Every Friday, or at least once a week, I meet up with my buddy, Rob, and we go work out. And some days I'm not interested in working out at all, but I'll go and hang out with my buddy.

And so I'm kind of thinking maybe it's time to start branching out, trying some new things, trying some things that I've maybe always been curious about and wanting to try and never really kind of went for it.

Again, you did debate. I was the creative writer. I was moody and in the corner. But in my undergrad, one of my gen eds I took was a fencing class. And I was really good at fencing. I was surprisingly like, "What the hell? I'm really good at this thing?" And just kind of once the course was done, I was done.

Thunder: Such a dashing sport. I love that.

Scot: It is. I mean, I think Mitch should take it up again just because the legend of Mitch, it's like a plus-two boost. Here's this guy that fences. Who does that?

Mitch: Yeah. I did sabers because I could like cling, cling, cling.

Thunder: Nice.

Mitch: And the instructor with a ponytail said that with my shape I would never quite be super competitive, and that kind of also put me on the side. But hey, maybe I can . . .

Thunder: He's coach of the year.

Scot: Yeah. There's a motivator. Thanks for that.

Mitch: But yeah, being curious about that stuff again and kind of . . . I mean, we have a pickleball court here they just installed. They converted the old tennis court into a pair of pickleball courts at the condo. Why not see if some friends would like to try it out and get into it?

Scot: Right. Just play with Jonathan at a low level and see if some friends would come over. I'd probably come over and play pickleball.

Mitch: Yeah?

Scot: Yeah, I probably would.

Thunder: Hey, you guys, can we take a minute to brainstorm on activities that could have a social group component that could help with motivation? And we can use pickleball as our first example.

Scot: Yeah. I guess I'm going to take the easy way out. Tennis or racquetball.

Thunder: Yeah. Good one.

Scot: There are social components to that. A lot of times there are racquetball clubs.

Thunder: How about golf? Don't take the cart. Walk.

Scot: Sure.

Thunder: That could be one.

Scot: That could make it an exercise.

Thunder: You guys ever heard of master swimming?

Mitch: No.

Scot: No.

Thunder: We have that at our local place, Basin Rec, at our gym. They have a swimming pool. People who are not college competitive swimmers but they like to swim, like regular older adults, they go and they get together and they swim train. There's a whole practice sequence of what you're doing that day and you're with a bunch of other people.

Scot: Yeah. Swimming feels like kind of a solo sport, but then I'm thinking back to your example, Thunder, that afterwards you all go out and do something. You all go out and have lunch or something like that. So hard bake.

Habit stack. We've talked about habit stacking before. That way, even if you're not into the activity as much, just like even with Mitch with his buddy Rob, you're like, "Well, I have to do this to get to that."

Thunder: Yeah. And don't forget there's physical health and there's mental health. And you do these social sports, the mental health part of when you're done, you're socializing, you belong to a group, and people are kind of doing the same thing you're doing, I think that's very healthy and empowering too.

Mitch: So the other thing that I've been finding lately is that if you go deep into the internet and you go to places like Reddit and go to the Salt Lake Reddit, if you're in Salt Lake or whatever your town is, there are specialty groups that can sometimes be physical.

For example, I would like to get into yoga. I would like to be able to have some more balance. But I am not a kind of crystal healing, woo-wee-woo-wee type person. And the couple of places that I've gone to, I didn't really jive. But on the Salt Lake Reddit, someone was posting that they're starting a heavy metal yoga down on Main Street. It's this little center.

Thunder: Nice.

Mitch: And it's a bunch of goth kids. I think this summer I would like to try . . . And maybe earlier than that. I just think that's when their next thing is. But why not? Why not go try that a little different? Maybe the singing bowls and whatever was not my jam, but maybe there's another group of people out there. And if I prioritize the people and the activity, yeah, maybe I can find something.

Thunder: Yeah, there you go. How about this as another social activity? Martial arts. I didn't mention I did martial arts for 10, 12 years.

Mitch: What?

Scot: And then the rest of the dojo said you had to leave because you were kicking everybody's butts. They kicked you out.

Thunder: Well, I moved. I did it when I was young and I did it through college, and then I left to start my career and I could never find a place. I got into other sports more. I got into biking and skiing even more because it's better to do that in Utah, and the martial arts kind of fell by the wayside. But that's okay. It was a trade-off.

But it was a very social activity. You know all the people you train with, you support each other, you teach each other, and you work out hard, but again, you have that whole social motivational thing where you're with other people and they kind of have your back. So that's another great example. It's like pickleball, but with punching and kicking.

Scot: Pickleball with punching. I know some individuals in my life that do martial arts and much like you with your activities, they exercise, they strength train, and do aerobic train so they can be better at their martial arts.

Thunder: Yeah, absolutely.

Scot: So one thing kind of feeds the other. I'm going to throw out something absolutely crazy. It's been something that a friend of mine and I have threatened to do for a while. Habitat for Humanity, helping to build a house.

Thunder: I think that's fantastic. Yeah, that's physical labor.

Scot: And it's kind of a non-traditional . . . you wouldn't think of that as exercise, but there's the social component, you are getting activity, and you're also doing something that you could feel really good about. You create something at the end that you could feel good about.

Thunder: Mental health. So you've got physical and mental health in that. And it can be one of two or three or four things you do, right? It doesn't have to be your only activity. I mean, it's a great addition, for sure.

Scot: All right. Well, now I'm inspired with some ideas. Just finding the time to make it happen, I think. To take a tip out of Thunder's book, you just have to schedule it and you just have to say it's going to happen.

Thunder: Yeah. If you schedule something regularly enough, it does become habitual. You just have to give it a chance to get to that point.

Scot: All right. Well, I think we're going to wrap this up. Thunder, thank you so much for sharing. It sounds like you've been kind of . . . Are you grateful for the fact that you've found some activities that you love doing and they're just so intrinsically rewarding for you that you want to do them? You don't have to struggle with, "Oh, how am I going to get my activity today?" It seems like you kind of got lucky that way. You're kind of wired for it. I mean, do you consider that a blessing? I would if I were you.

Thunder: Oh, 100% I do. I'm lucky I landed on things I really like and I still like. And I'm also, I feel, so lucky that I can still do these things at a fairly decent level. I never thought that would be the case. I'm 58 years old this year, and 30 years ago, I thought 58 I basically have one foot in the grave. And now I'm realizing, man, I can still do this stuff kind of like the way I did 30 years ago. I'm so grateful for that. And that's actually motivational to try to continue to participate and keep doing that.

Scot: There are plenty of people that it's a struggle to want to do physical activity. There are too many other things that we would rather be doing than physical activity. So I hear your story and I just think that's incredibly awesome that . . . You've worked at it, don't get me wrong, but there's a lot of intrinsic motivation.

Mitch, what did you get out of this conversation? I want to tell you one thing you gave me, was this idea of fitness is hygiene. I think that's brilliant.

Mitch: I just came up with it. So we've got to develop it more, but I'm glad it excited you.

Thunder: It is brilliant. Yeah.

Scot: It is because sometimes it might not be something we want to do. It might not be like it is for Thunder, but really, it's just like brushing your teeth, washing your face, taking a shower. If you want to live well, age well, be on this earth well, you have to engage in the hygiene of fitness in order to achieve that. Otherwise, your body will atrophy and you won't be able to move as much or do the things you want to do.

Mitch, any takeaways?

Mitch: So, for me, the thing that kind of caught me off guard was how quickly we all were able to come up with some activities that were not going to the gym and not the things that you see dude bros on TikTok tell us that we should be going and doing, right? There was a different emphasis on it, and all it took was just sitting down and thinking about it for a minute, and maybe looking online a little bit.

It's got me back thinking about, "How do I stay curious about my health? How do I keep finding ways and things that work for me?" And so, yeah, while we're talking, I'm pulling up all sorts of fencing classes and whatever and trying to see if there's anything that would fit with me.

Scot: One of the things Thunder said that really resonated and I need to get back to is it sounds like when he engages, especially he was talking about his bike riding, how he opens up his other senses during the experience. He's mindful. He's in the moment. He's in his environment. He's paying attention to his breathing. He's paying attention to his cadence. He's looking around to make sure everything's safe. He's checking out what's going on around him, not only just to be safe, but also I think just being in the moment.

There was a time where I opened up my other senses when I would strength train just because . . . And it felt great being aware of your muscles and when they were starting to hurt and just the joy of movement. I'm going to try to bring that to some of my other activities and look for activities where maybe I can open up my senses and not just be out there like, "I'm on a stupid health walk for my mental health."

Get out and move and open up your other senses and let some other experiences come in and maybe you'll find enjoyment in that. Maybe you don't find as much enjoyment in doing the thing as being out in the place and being aware, but that might be enough to drag you out there, right?

Thunder: Yeah. And Scot, you hit the nail on the head with exercise is stress reduction. Why is it stress reduction? Because whatever is bothering us, we're not thinking about that when we're trying to keep the bike on the trail or lift the weight over our head so it doesn't fall on us, right?

I mean, like you said, the single-minded focus, the exploring other senses, it makes you forget about the stuff that's bothering you and that's why you feel good when you're done.

Scot: Yeah. I would even say with running for a while, I loved the feeling of hearing the rhythm of my breath and the cadence of my footsteps.

Thunder: Yeah. It's mesmerizing kind of.

Scot: It is kind of mesmerizing. And you talked about that with biking a little bit as well. It's kind of that flow state that you hear about.

All right. Well, let's wrap this up. Thank you very much for sharing your experience, Thunder. I hope you feel okay about it now.

Thunder: Yeah, I feel better about it and I really enjoy hearing your thoughts on it as well, both you guys, and kind of some exploration and discovery. That's cool.

Scot: Yeah. If you have some thoughts on some activities that maybe you might want to explore, maybe you came up with an idea while we were brainstorming that you're like, "Wow, this actually could be legit. Maybe that's something that they would be interested in," because I'd be interested in it, you can email us, and you can tell us your stories too, at hello@thescoperadio.com.

And our challenge to you, if you tend not to have a very active life, is to try to find that one thing that maybe you could do a few times and see what you think. Incorporate some social aspect into it, try to be in the moment while you're doing it, and see how it works out for you.

Thanks for listening. Thanks for caring about men's health.