A Whole Man’s Perspective

Sometimes we get sick of our own voices, so we introduce people we love who are willing to share their experiences with Prescribe Nutrition. As you know, whole is our theme this month. Meet Will Spurzem. He's an architect, a designer, a bourgeoning chef, a smoothie aficionado, builder of terrariums, and a health nut, ALL while being a manly man. He's talking about his experience on the road to health - a road which is all too often paved with Muscle Milk. 
At least for men.

All too often in the nineties I saw advanced nutrition, health foods, super-foods, and the concept of ‘well-being’ associated with women. This is changing but despite men and women requiring relatively similar general nutrition there is still a significant discrepancy. The popular concept of a whole woman has closely related health, wellness, and general happiness for some time. By contrast, the popular concept of a whole man is someone who hits the gym, does some crunches, and slams muscle milk afterwards. The inextricable link between overall health and happiness hasn’t always been a big part of the discussion for men, but it should be. We are all striving for the same goals, and we should use most of the same tools.

Hi. I'm Will.

Over the course of the last two years I actively discussed my new long term health goals with many friends. I wanted to get down to a specific weight range, take the edge off creeping cholesterol with long term diet changes, eliminate some nagging digestive issues, and get serious about life-long activities/sports. This was a whole health and wellness life track.

I make pesto manly.

My female friends were supportive and immediately wanted to talk about how much better I would feel, what foods I was changing, and how my general health would improve. The majority of my male friends wanted to know how many pounds I wanted to lose, and which sports I was going to take on.

It took more than a few months to feel real change but I slowly changed my routines, gradually replaced more cheese with hummus, and reintroduced swimming to my life. As I got more dialed in I still had enormous fatty burgers and fries periodically, and I didn’t change my drinking habits, but I started to feel the effects of those events much more clearly. I began to notice that if I was hitting the right balance of nutrition, exercise, and outdoor sports that I was in a significantly happier state of mind than I was if I let one of those go. I’ve started talking about this with my male friends and I can feel the tide turning. We swap manly smoothie recipes, debate kale vs. spinach, talk about eating meat less frequently, and instead of bragging about moving weights we talk about how many different kinds of workouts we had in a week.

I love the snow.

Most of this probably old news for the typical reader of this blog but it is new for some, especially men. Gender roles are for a different blog but I feel pretty confident in my masculinity despite embracing the more personal side of my whole-ness. I was on a date recently and mentioned biking to work with a kale smoothie, and she smirked. Then she laughed and asked if it was in a mason jar, and if I was also wearing yoga pants.

I wasn’t wearing yoga pants, but the smoothie was in a mason jar, wide mouth, the good kind.

Cheers