My Blog

My Blog

Welcome to my blog.  I cover a number of topics here, so depending on your needs and goals, some of the things I talk about may be more or less useful to you.  I try to keep everything neatly categorized, so if one topic area is particularly more useful to you, please click on the category link to see just those posts.

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Most Recent Posts

Me running the Disney Marathon
How To Exercise

Why Am I Not Losing Weight From Running And Exercise?

I’ve been absolutely shocked over the years how many times before races and events that I’ve heard someone around me say to their friends, “I’m ready for this, but I’ve been working out so hard but I’m not losing weight! I don’t understand!”. Before I started studying exercise physiology, I’d be sitting there waiting for the events to start and be thinking “huh, that is weird”. After doing a lot of studying, the answer wasn’t

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August 29, 2019 10:15 PM
goruck htl bolts patch
How To Exercise

My Packing List and Logistics for the GORUCK HTL

I wanted to share this out because a lot of people have asked me how they can even start to think about tackling a GORUCK HTL. If you’re not familiar, an HTL is a Heavy, a Tough, and a Light back to back to back, making for a nearly 48 hour event. In my opinion, if you can complete a Tough event and not feel completely broken afterward, you can probably already do an HTL,

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July 14, 2019 9:55 PM
my event finisher patches
How To Exercise

My Background In Exercise and Travel Fitness

In my last post, Introducing the How To Exercise Category, I promised to describe my background in exercise to show you that I’m not just some fitness hack spreading the latest workout trend. Yes, I did become a certified Spartan SGX coach, but no, I am not a professional trainer by day or even as a side gig. The TL:DR here is that I’ve completed three 48+ hour special operations inspired endurance events and have

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July 8, 2019 10:34 PM
exercising brain with flexing arms
How To Exercise

Introducing the How To Exercise Category

While 80/20 Life is arguably primarily a travel business, the reason why it has that focus is because traveling around and seeing the world is very easily one of the hardest things you can do in your life. It requires a lot of planning, a lot of research, and a lot of bravery to finally pull the trigger, spend the money, and start traveling. But, while travel is a common main dream for many people,

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June 23, 2019 10:18 PM
me pinching my nose
How To Travel

How To Clean Your Smelly Travel Shoes

During the course of my travels through 50+ countries, I’ve gone through a lot of pairs of shoes. In the beginning, I used fairly heavy hiking boots, but over time I’ve switched to wearing running shoes. One thing has stayed consistent though: after only a month or two, my shoes start to stink! I develop really bad, smelly shoes. What’s worse, is that this smell is really hard to deal with. It just doesn’t seem

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June 6, 2019 8:40 PM
lock shackle with small metal piece sticking out
How To Travel

Choosing The Right Locker Lock (Travel Locks Part 3 of 3)

For the last part of the Travel Locks series, let’s talk about locker locks. For any traveler staying in hostels, you will absolutely need a locker lock. However, for those staying in hotels, a locker lock might not be quite as important. Why? Because hotels rarely have lockers. However, even if you’re a hotel traveler, you may still run across lockers in train stations and at tourist sites, so this post still applies to you.

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May 23, 2019 8:36 PM
tsa lock master keys
How To Travel

When And Why To Use TSA Locks (Travel Locks Part 2 of 3)

In the first part of this lock series, which you can read here, I talked about locks in general and more specifically I talked about luggage locks since those are the most important locks you’ll be using during your travels. Unfortunately, most first world countries do not allow regular locks on checked luggage on airplanes. Because any traveler is almost certainly going to get on a plane at some point, you’ll want to use approved

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May 8, 2019 11:45 PM
picture of travel locks
How To Travel

Why You Should Always Use Bag Locks (Travel Locks Part 1 of 3)

To start things off in the new How To Travel category, I wanted to talk about bag locks and travel locks in general. This is an area that seems straight forward when you initially start traveling, but there’s some “gotchas” that catch a lot of people pretty early on in their travels. I’m going to break this down into three different posts, so lets talk about bag locks first. Your bag locks (pictured center) are

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April 24, 2019 10:44 PM
many doors for many decisions
How To Travel

Introducing The “How To Travel” Category

I wanted to introduce the “How To Travel” category on my blog here by explaining what/who this category is for.  While I’m currently (as of writing this) trying to publish my book on how to travel, the topic area itself is just monumentally huge.  There’s simply no way that I can cover all the things I’ve learned in my travels in one normal length book. If you think about it a little, the act of

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February 22, 2019 3:19 PM