If you want to improve or change in some area of your life, one of the most effective and powerful things you can do is alter your structure.  What this means is that we need to change the way we organize things, the structure or design, in order for change to happen automatically. 
 
Automatic is the key with positive structure.
 
Here are some examples of using structure to change:

• Your goal is to lose weight, so you create the structure of keeping a dietary log daily, and it forces you to eat better.
• Your goal is to exercise daily, so you make a commitment to meet a friend in a structured way every morning at 6 to work out together.  You improve your fitness automatically.
• You want to pray more, so you commit to saying the Lord’s prayer every morning and evening on the way to and from work.  You get in the habit of doing this automatically.
• You want to learn to play an instrument, so you sign up and pay in advance for 6 months of lessons every Wednesday at 6pm.  You automatically get better.
• You want to improve your career options, so you sign up for 3 continuing education classes, and gain news skills automatically.
• You want to be less stressed, so you commit to not buying anything for one year, and not drinking during the week, and you automatically spend less money and are less stressed.
• You want to get out and do more things, so you sign up for a dance class that automatically forces you to socialize.
• You want to save more money, so you create a budget, and every time you get a paycheck you automatically pay yourself first. 

 
Put the structure in place for success.  One reason the military is a great option for a lot of directionless young people is that It at least forces them to be in a structured environment.   Left to our own devices, we are not good at getting things done.  We are products of our environment, structure your environment so that it helps you instead of hurting you.
 
P.S. One structure that I’ve done to write more blog posts is putting a physical piece of paper out in early 2023 with my list of posts for me to see every day.  This is positive structure. 

Like the blog? Pass it on and sign up.  Drop me an email if you have any questions.
Scott

2022 was a great year for reading.
I learned a ton, and really grew as a person.  Some key things I learned this year:

• The way Americans eat is totally backward, unhealthy, and not good for the environment.
• The people running America (often called the "elites") have long given up on trying to do what's right for Americans, the people they ostensibly represent and should be leading.  Instead, they are actually profiting from the decline and demoralization of the populace through the spreading of vice and disenfranchisement in many arenas.  Consider the growing profligacy of drugs, gambling, prostitution, anti-family policies, collapse of institutional trust and authority, the normalization of sexual grooming, and the efforts to keep wages down through open borders and more. They are benefiting from society's decline. 
• For the USA to ever move forward as a nation, we will need a new elite of virtue, which we currently don't have.  If people can't look up, they look down.
• The good news is that a new and small but more virtuous Vanguard is emerging centered around local communities of faith and work.
• I'm fascinated by the synthesis that the early Church fathers did with the work of Plato, I read several books about this and I think it's a missing piece of culture and theology today. 
• Christian Platonism, with it's stress on the "highest goodness, truth, and beauty" has ultimate importance even for health reasons and as such should be re-emphasized. 

My Favorite Health Book of 2022- Folks this Ain't Normal by Joel Salatin, a true genius

2022

2022 Books
-(They are all worth reading but my favorites are in BOLD)
- FYI some of these are re-reads.

Culture, History, Novels, Politics, Religion

The Southern Essays of Richard Weaver
Tales from Shakespeare by Mary Lamb
Plain folk of the Old South by Frank Loyd Owsley
Shouting Softly: Lines on Law, Literature and culture by Allen Mendenhall
A Southern Vanguard 1942 by Various Authors
Bronze Age Mindset by Bronze Age Pervert
An English Christmas by Julian Norwich
A Gentleman’s Guide by Stephen Baskerville
The Reactionary Mind: Why Conservative is not Enough by Michael Warren Davis
The Next Millionaire Next Door by Thomas Stanley
The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution by Carl Truman
The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy by Christopher Lasch
From Plato to Christ: How Platonic Thought Shaped the Christian Faith by Louis Markos
Patriarch Mindset: Christian Masculinity for the 21st Century by Mathew Sebastian
No Apologies: Why Civilization Depends on the Strength of Men by Anthony Esolen
Sex and The Unreal City: the Demolition of the Western Mind by Anthony Esolen
The Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell
The Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Why We Drive: Towards a Philosophy of the Open Road by Mathew Crawford
A History of the Jews by Paul Johnson
Predictive analytics by Eric Seigel
Nathan Bedford Forest by Jack Hurst
Folks this Ain’t Normal by Joel Salatin
Paul by NT Wright
In Defense of Tradition by Richard Weaver
Resisting Amazon: How to Do it and Why
Augustine: Philosopher and Saint by The Great Courses
The Politically Incorrect Guide to Western Civilization by Anthony Esolen
The Machiavellians by James Burnham
On Christian Doctrine by St. Augustine
The 15 Most Critical Moments of the Civil War by Robert C. Jones
A Wake for the Living by Andrew Lytle
Song of the South (A Book of Poems) Intro by Joel Chandler Harris published 1912

Health / Fitness / Nutrition / Motivation / Continuing Education Podcasts:

Wise Traditions
Jocko Podcast
The Uberman Lab
The Art of Manliness

If you like my blog, pass it on or send me an email.  I'd love to hear from you. 
Scott

P.S. Here are some other various Free E-Books I made. Enjoy:
https://www.scottgodwin.net/free-e-books.html

Grapes, or Grape Juice?  That is the question.

I get asked a lot about fruits and juices.
Picking between them, or refusing both, is an important discussion.

Overall though, rule 1 is this: Choose the food which will cause the lowest blood sugar response, so choose fruits over fruit juices, grapes over grape juice. Fruit juice is much better than soda, because it at least has vitamins and some phytonutrients.   But it also has a lot of simple sugar, which is not good. 

Always consider a) the Glycemic Response (how high it raises your blood sugar) of a certain food and b) the ratio of fiber to carbohydrate.  Both of these factors will affect your energy and your weight control.

You may actually get more vitamins and minerals by cooking fruits and vegetables, so I'm not saying to not ever do that.  But fruit has a good bit of sugar to begin with, and by cooking a fruit or making it a juice it will raise the sugar response even more.  Eating a whole fruit causes a lower insulin spike and is much better for you metabolically, and with better control of insulin, your whole health will be so much better. 

Higher insulin responses lead to greater fat storage.  So more juice will usually lead to more insulin and more fat. 

Vegetables are different because they're starchy to an extent and have much less, if any sugar.

If the choice comes down to grapes or grape juice, always choose grapes!
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I enjoy writing and helping people, and write on all sorts of health, wellness, nutrition, and fitness topics.  
 
Read Next: 8 Simple Cardio Workouts
 
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"What Gets Measured Gets Managed." - Peter Drucker

e of my biggest food weaknesses is salty carbs.  Some people may go for the sweets, the fast food, or the big greasy meats, and I can certainly understand the addictive possibilities there.  But with me,  it's all about salty snack foods. I have to use some self control on those, or the next thing you know I've eaten half a bag of Blue Corn Chips- I thought "Blue Corn" meant it was good for you!  

Chips and other things that satiate the salt, fat, and sugar cravings are ok in moderation, or on rare occasions.  But the emphasis on fresh fruits and veggies, whole grains, fish, nuts, legumes, dairy, and lean meats is the best way to go.  Smart snacking is also important.  Sometimes when you're really hungry you need to have something you can go to that's not gonna pack on the weight.  

Things like chips and cereals and granola aren't really that bad either, with one major caveat.  We need to measure how much of that stuff we're eating.  What gets me in trouble is not pouring out an actual serving size. It may say 200 calories  and 10 grams of fat on the label, which is a fairly moderate-calorie snack, but if you eat 3 times that much without knowing it then it doesn't matter.

What gets measured gets managed.  The late great Peter Drucker said that about business, but it also applies to eating well. I touched on this in "3.0 Nutrition" but I wanted to be more explicit about it.  Measure your portion sizes in teaspoons, tablespoons, and cups.  That way you will know exactly how much you're eating.  You may not have to do it your whole life, but if we are in a weight loss phase we definitely need to be very objective about measuring.  

Once you achieve your weight goal, you can scale it back a bit and relax.  At that point, simply pouring out your portion sizes in a bowl may be sufficient.  Just remember, the portion sizes we're taking in may not match the portion sizes on the label.  It's not a good idea to eat out of the container so take a few seconds to grab something to put your food in.  

What gets measured gets managed. So if we want manage weight and body fat, we better start measuring!

Read Next: Powerful Anti-Oxidants 

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And remember...there's never been a better day than TODAY to make it happen!
 
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