Life Outside the Box

Life Outside the Box Life Outside the Box provides the best health program in the world. Streaming live classes daily.
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10/09/2025

More isn’t better, it’s burnout. Stop “beating” yourself into shape. Discipline is not self-destruction.

It’s a common misconception that improving your health means depriving your body, nothing could be further from the trut...
10/09/2025

It’s a common misconception that improving your health means depriving your body, nothing could be further from the truth. Somewhere along the way, we started believing that restriction equals discipline.

That’s not discipline, that’s disconnection.

Whole foods didn’t get you into poor health.
Junk food, alcohol, lack of sleep, and inactivity did. Muscle is medicine and as far as deprivation goes, muscle requires nutrients. It requires balanced, complete meals.

Enjoy eating those healthy meals.

Don’t restrict yourself unnecessarily.

The healthier options you eat won’t enable you to overconsume the way junk food did. Those processed foods might have tasted good, but they never truly satisfied you. Whole foods will.

Listen to your body, it knows what it needs when you finally start giving it the right things. So eat up. Enjoy what you eat. Don’t obsess over quantity, focus on quality.

Most people feel tightness and immediately start stretching, but static stretching is rarely the answer. A lot of back p...
10/07/2025

Most people feel tightness and immediately start stretching, but static stretching is rarely the answer. A lot of back pain stems from muscle imbalances, not flexibility issues. When we sit for long hours or sleep in awkward positions, the glute medius, the muscle that stabilizes your hips goes offline. Over time, it weakens and stops doing its job, leaving your lower back and hip flexors to overwork and ache.

The banded clamshell is one of the simplest and most effective drills to turn that pattern around. It reactivates your glutes, stabilizes your hips, and relieves stress on your lower back, often within minutes.

✅ How to do it right:

🔹Lie on your side with hips and knees stacked, knees bent to 90°, and in line with your hips.

🔹Keep your feet together and dorsiflexed (toes pulled toward your shins). Slowly open your knees like a clamshell while keeping your feet together and your core stable.

🔹 Control the movement up and down, and don’t let your knees touch at the bottom, this keeps constant tension on the glutes.

No band? No problem. Focus on control and activation, not resistance. 🔥 Expect a burn on the outside of your butt, that’s your glute medius firing. Stay with it and you’ll often feel relief almost immediately. Simple, intentional movements like this are powerful self-care tools that help you fix pain at the source, not just mask it.

People don’t fall off because they’re lazy. They fall off because their why isn’t worth the effort. Anchor your efforts ...
10/05/2025

People don’t fall off because they’re lazy. They fall off because their why isn’t worth the effort. Anchor your efforts to what truly matters, and nothing can stop you.

Outside the box, inside the ring, same rules apply. Pressure reveals who’s prepared.
10/03/2025

Outside the box, inside the ring, same rules apply. Pressure reveals who’s prepared.

Most people worry about rounding their backs when they lift, but in real life, you bend over and pick things up with a r...
10/01/2025

Most people worry about rounding their backs when they lift, but in real life, you bend over and pick things up with a rounded back all the time. You’re not bracing and arching perfectly to grab a grocery bag, a box off the floor, shoes, or your kid when they fall asleep in the car. Rounding your back isn’t inherently bad. A healthy spine is made of vertebrae, it’s designed to bend, extend, rotate, flex, and yes, round. That’s not dysfunction, that’s function.

The real problem comes from avoiding these positions out of fear. Over time, that avoidance leads to stiffness, weakness, and a loss of mobility. Movements that should be natural and safe start to feel risky, not because the body is “broken,” but because it’s untrained and weak. That’s why the Zercher Deadlift is so valuable. Instead of pretending life happens only with a perfect flat back, this lift trains you to be strong and resilient in the very positions real life puts you in.

✔️ It strengthens the core and upper back under load.
✔️ It builds leg drive and hip power.
✔️ It teaches your body how to manage and tolerate spinal flexion safely.

A spine that can brace, flex, extend, rotate, and stabilize across a variety of positions is resilient. The key isn’t the tool, it’s the adaptation. Whether it’s a barbell, a sandbag, or even just your body, teach your body to be strong in ways that life actually tests it.

Strength and Style. When it’s your 45th high school reunion and you’re walking in stronger and fitter than you were at g...
09/30/2025

Strength and Style.

When it’s your 45th high school reunion and you’re walking in stronger and fitter than you were at graduation 🔥

Here’s to showing up strong at every reunion!

Paula DeVantier 👏 🙌

CT scans are one of the most important tools in modern medicine. They can detect strokes, blood clots, cancers, trauma, ...
09/29/2025

CT scans are one of the most important tools in modern medicine. They can detect strokes, blood clots, cancers, trauma, and infections long before symptoms become severe. In emergencies, a CT can literally be the difference between life and death.

But like any medical tool, CT scans come with risks. Unlike X-rays, CTs deliver higher doses of radiation. A 2025 study in JAMA Internal Medicine estimated that current CT use in the U.S. could lead to nearly 103,000 future cancers, accounting for about 5% of new cancer diagnoses annually. That doesn’t mean every scan is dangerous, for most people, the individual risk is very small, but across millions of scans, the numbers add up.

Children and young adults are most vulnerable because their tissues are more sensitive and they have more years ahead for potential effects. Another concern is variation in radiation dose because some hospitals use much higher doses than others for the same type of scan. Still, it’s important to keep perspective. CT scans also prevent far more deaths than they might ever cause. Detecting a cancer early, identifying a life-threatening clot, or guiding a surgery accurately can save lives in ways that far outweigh the potential long-term risks of radiation.

The key issue isn’t whether CT scans are good or bad, it’s whether they’re used appropriately. Many are absolutely necessary. Others may not be. That’s why it’s worth asking your doctor:

❓Is this scan essential?
❓Will it change my treatment plan?
❓Could MRI or ultrasound work instead?

CT scans save lives every day. Being aware of their risks simply helps ensure they’re used wisely so patients get the benefits while keeping unnecessary exposure to a minimum.

🥩 Thinking of going carnivore?Many try the carnivore diet expecting rapid weight loss and “miracle” results from nothing...
09/27/2025

🥩 Thinking of going carnivore?

Many try the carnivore diet expecting rapid weight loss and “miracle” results from nothing but meat, butter, and bacon. And yes, initial weight loss can happen, but that’s often just short-term water weight and calorie reduction. The real early benefit usually comes from cutting out processed foods and refined carbs, not from eating unlimited ribeyes, bacon, and sticks of butter. Yet many online shills have convinced people it’s perfectly safe, even healthy, to eat this way daily. Just because some people are now eating meat and sticks of butter straight off a cutting board doesn’t make it right.

The longer term reality? Blood work tells a very different story. LDL (“bad”) cholesterol almost always rises, sometimes dramatically. Cardiology groups worldwide agree that high LDL drives plaque buildup.
Triglycerides can rise too, especially with excess fat intake. High HDL doesn’t cancel out high LDL. Saturated fat raises LDL, and multiple clinical trials and meta-analyses confirm this. Persistent high LDL, even with high HDL and elevated triglycerides are strongly linked to increased risk of atherosclerosis and heart disease.

⚠️ Other risks: Carnivore diets often lack fiber, vitamin C, potassium, antioxidants, nutrients essential for the gut, heart, and overall health.

Think of it this way, eating only meat and butter long-term is like driving a car without ever changing the oil, it may run fine for a short trip, but damage is inevitable.

👉 Don’t confuse “feeling better than when you ate junk food” with “feeling better because of eating carnivore.”

👉 Don’t fall for influencer hype claiming unlimited butter and bacon is harmless.

👉 If heart disease runs in your family, extreme diets are especially risky.

Instead of extremes like carnivore, or any kind of fad diet, focus on a balanced, whole-food approach: plenty of vegetables, seasonal fruits (mainly berries) for fiber, vitamins, and antioxidants, moderate amounts of high-quality protein and healthy fats, and eliminate processed foods and added sugars. This way, you can still improve body composition and feel good without risking longterm health.

Banded Quadruped Plank to Pike✅ Start in a quadruped plank (hands under shoulders, knees hovering). Band is looped behin...
09/25/2025

Banded Quadruped Plank to Pike

✅ Start in a quadruped plank (hands under shoulders, knees hovering). Band is looped behind the knees and anchored in your hands.

✅ Keep your arms straight, think of sliding the floor forward as you drive your hips up.

✅ Pike into a down-dog position, fully extending your knees against the resistance of the band, pushing your head through your arms.

✅ Push your head through your arms while attempting to press your heels flat to the ground for a deep calf stretch.

✅ Return with control to the plank start.

Even without a band, this drill is effective.

Reps & Sets: 3–5 sets x 15–20
Flow with control, not speed.

Benefits Include:
✔️ Overhead mobility and stability as you press through the floor.

✔️ Hamstrings & Calves: Lengthens while strengthening the posterior chain under tension.

✔️ Upper Back & Thoracic Mobility: Encourages T-Spine extension, improving posture.

✔️ Core Stability: Plank-to-pike transitions demand control through the midline.

“In a few days, I will celebrate my 44th birthday. I am proud to say it will be my healthiest yet.”This is what it’s all...
09/24/2025

“In a few days, I will celebrate my 44th birthday. I am proud to say it will be my healthiest yet.”

This is what it’s all about. Not just adding years to your life, but adding life to your years. Some people blow out their candles each year and lose more of their fire. Others only heat up with time and thrive.

The payoff isn’t just how you look. It’s how you feel, it’s how you LIVE.

Full-body strength & stability with two dumbbells. Weighted quadruped crawls are great as a stand-alone exercise, warm-u...
09/23/2025

Full-body strength & stability with two dumbbells. Weighted quadruped crawls are great as a stand-alone exercise, warm-up, or cash-out. Each pace, drive the dumbbell forward so it passes beyond the opposite bell, no short steps. Don’t worry about being pretty on a movement like this, the point is load, intensity, and control under fatigue.

Make it heavy.

✔️ Keep hips below shoulders
✔️Don’t drag or swing the bells.
✔️Raise them cleanly and set them down
✔️Each dumbbell must clear the opposite
↔️ Try it both forwards and backwards.

Suggested rep counts: go for a total (like 100) or multiple rounds using a weight that allows for at least 10–20 reps unbroken.

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