Calm Yourself...With Meat

According to one McGill University study, "seeing meat makes people significantly less aggressive."

Frank Kachanoff, who studies evolution at the university’s department of psychology, had initially thought the presence of meat would provoke bloodlust, believing the response would have helped our primate ancestors hunt. But in fact, his research showed the reverse is true.

I'm doing my part to help keep everyone around me stress-free by wearing my favorite meat-tastic Nom Nom Paleo shirt.

There is, of course, a less pricey way to help your friends and neighbors lower their cortisol levels. Just print out this photo and Scotch-tape it to your chest:

Works wonders.

Stand in the Place Where You Work (Part Deux)

Earlier this month, I posted (again) about the importance of throwing out your office chair, and put up some snapshots of how a few of my buddies from CrossFit Palo Alto have configured their workstations in order to stay off their butts during the day.

In that post, I also invited readers to submit photos of their own. I half-expected to only get a picture or two of specially-manufactured standing desks, but was happy to see that many of the folks who sent in photos had jerry-rigged their own set-ups. We stand-up types are thrifty AND creative.

Want examples? I got plenty -- after the jump...

Stand in the Place Where You Work

You really need to get rid of your office chair.

I don't know how many times I've written about this subject, but I'm sure it's gotta be at least three times, including here, here, and here. Recently, the New York Times Magazine published a long piece on the perils of staying planted on your butt all day. And if that weren't enough to get you on your feet, this infographic made the rounds last month, too:

This stuff's important, yo.

I've been using a standing desk at work for a little over a year. Rather than waiting for my employer to provide an adjustable-height desk (which would've required an ergonomic assessment first), I bought thirty bucks worth of stuff at IKEA and Home Depot and cobbled together a little platform to elevate my keyboard and monitor.

Here's my set-up:

Plenty of other CrossFit Palo Alto members have standing desks, too.

This one belongs to the Terminator:

Don't let the family photo fool you; he's still a relentless cyborg killer from the future.

The Terminator and me aren't the only 5 a.m. nutjobs with a standing desk. J-Ho's looks like this:

He works with the Terminator -- hence the similar style of standing desks. But J-Ho rocks TWO computer monitors simultaneously AND a CrossFit-style whiteboard. Take that, robot!

Blake's spending the summer in SoCal, but even though his office is temporary, he's already put together his own makeshift standing desk:

Clearly, it ain't hard to ditch your chair in favor of a standing desk. You can MacGyver one together pretty easily. Looks like Blake used letter trays, but you could just as easily use a stack of phone books, a cardboard box or a milk crate.

Anyone else got photos of standing desks to share? Send 'em to me by the end of the month and I'll post them up. (Yes, I'm blatantly ripping off John Durant's Upright Citizen feature, only I'm putting a whole lot less effort into it.)

Plus, if I manage to get my shit together, I'll even randomly select one of you for a prize of some kind. Maybe a shirt? Still working on a design for a "FITBOMB" tee so that I can wear it around the house and bask in my own glory, but it'll probably look something like this:

What do you say? Get a standing desk already!

"It's Not That Hard" Shirts

By popular demand, the "It's Not That Hard" shirts are now available. They're not printed in fuzzy flock like the other tees offered at the Nom Nom Paleo shop; instead, they're digitally printed on fabric, which allows us to use more colors (and charge less!).

Check 'em out here.

Eat Clean, Lift Heavy, Give Us Your Money

This is the blog post in which I shamelessly plug the new t-shirts that my wife is selling on her Paleo food porn site.

Check 'em out. That is all.

Wednesday's Workout: Rope-a-Dope

I don't know why I can't bring myself to hit the sheets. Last night, after putting the kids to bed and hanging out with M as she practiced her deadlifts in the garage, I spent a couple of hours fumbling around with Illustrator and Photoshop. Trial-and-error ain't the most time-efficient way to cobble together T-shirt designs for my enterprising wife's website -- but if all goes well, they'll look something like this and this.

Finally, at 11 p.m., my phone buzzed with a Twitter message from Tim: "Go to bed. Got a good one tomorrow."

Don't we always?

The 5 a.m. workout, after the jump.