As I mentioned in the email earlier this week, I started Nerd Fitness 15 years ago this month.
It started as a fun blog to help other nerds get fit and avoid all the mistakes I made when I started my journey getting healthy.
It was a “ready, FIRE, aim” launch.
I just started writing with no plan. Nobody was reading for months, except my mom. Hi mom!
Over time, more and more people stumbled across my little blog. Soon, people started following it regularly, and I saw familiar faces in the comments. I then realized it was so much bigger than just me writing stuff. It was nerds helping other nerds, all over the globe.
I wasn’t sure what to call our community.
I remember thinking we could say we were building a Nerd Empire together. But then I thought, Rebellions are cool too.
So I asked the community: Are we starting a rebellion or are we building an empire?
The response was overwhelming: We are The Rebellion!
Done.
Now that we had a name, we needed an identity.
The Rules of the Rebellion
I crafted 10 rules that told us what we stood for, what we stood against, and how people could decide if they were in the right place or not.
I wrote these rules 14 years ago (a year or so in), and so much has changed.
I recently reacquired the publishing rights to my book, Level Up Your Life, which came out 8 years ago this week! My goal is to put out a 2nd edition of this book later this year.
(I’m also working on a secret-book-shaped-project that I can’t talk about until late 2024)
So as I reread my book, and reread these rules, I realized that they no longer reflected the totality of the Nerd Fitness experience.
There’s two old rules in particular that I wanted to draw a bit more attention to:
“We train as naturally as possible.” By that, I meant we shouldn’t use weight machines, and prioritize bodyweight training and barbells.
I committed a cardinal sin with this rule: I was “gatekeeping” fitness!
There’s too much gatekeeping in the world today:
- “Real women have curves!” What about women who don’t have curves? They’re still women!
- “Strong is the new skinny!” What about people who are neither strong nor skinny? That doesn’t make them bad people unworthy of kindness.
- “You aren’t a man unless you can deadlift XYZ!” This is just dumb for a thousand different reasons.
Machines. Cables, Kettlebells. Barbells. Bodyweight. It all counts! Any type of movement counts. Fixed!
I also updated my thoughts on Nerd Fitness’s nutritional philosophy. There was a rule about personal responsibility that was definitely written by a far less experienced, far less empathetic 24-year-old.
Both these rules were lacking the extra 14 years of experience I now have in understanding the problems many Rebels face today.
OF COURSE nutrition is the most important lever to pull when it comes to the number on the scale, but I’d like to prioritize this less.
I hope to help people build the habit of exercise, and educate on how our environment and our relationship with food can affect our challenges with our diet.
And as we know…
Unsurprisingly, my “I’ll just update these rules quickly” became a 4-hour, top-to-bottom rewrite of the NF Rules of the Rebellion!
I’d love for you to read these Rules and let me know your thoughts!
[The 10 Rules of the NF Rebellion]
-Steve
