The First Steps in Preparedness

Now that you have decided to become more prepared, you need to make the first steps in the transition from the way you are now to the way you want to be. The gulf between these two things often intimidates people into doing nothing. Don't let that happen.

Take some baby steps and be satisfied with them. Understand that you will never be truly prepared for anything in life, only more prepared than you were before.

There are three key areas in which you should begin to advance in this endeavor.

• Developing a Physical Skill
• Learning a Mental Skill
• Becoming Physically Fit
• Saving Money

Developing a Physical Skill

Many men today, those that are actually working at all, find themselves sitting behind keyboards or cash registers all day. These jobs are not similar in any way to the trades in which many of our recent ancestors worked. 

There is some good to this. You would probably not trade your office gig for a short-lived and miserable stint in a coal mine before you died of black lung.

However, we have definitely lost something in this transition to a safer and more sedentary lifestyle. We have lost the muscular challenge to our bodies. Consequently, our bodies are no longer prepared for anything but riding in buses and cars and having robots do most of our heavy lifting. 

Furthermore, many of us realize that we do not know how to do anything besides punch keys on a keyboard. This can be a depressing and debilitating realization when you have already reached the age of full manhood. 

This is why prepping goals are valuable outside of any concern about doomsday. Achieving a lot of prepping goals is simply good for rounding out your character and your skill set. 

If you are presently in a job that requires a serious physical commitment (landscaping, construction, carpentry, etc), then this area of preparedness is of less concern for you. Understand also that this is not simply about physical strength but about knowing how to do something with your hands or something that has a real physical impact. 

An engineer or a medical doctor is already a master in this area because his actions and recommendations have a real impact, even in a world deprived of technology. A lawyer cannot say the same. Hopefully, you get the idea.

If you think that you have not acquired any such physical skills, find a way to learn and incorporate them into your life. Robert left the teaching field and became an ER nurse. I am learning how to handle and maintain weapons. You could learn to hunt, study car repair or go to HVAC school. Any such move in life will not only "prepare" you but will also be a big boost to self-esteem.

Learning a Mental Skill

If you are already learned in some crucial physical skill, then you may want to cross train yourself in something more cerebral. It depends on what your other skill set is. 

If you are truly prepping for TEOTWAWKI, then you should know that it is not enough to be a tough guy with a gun. You would need to be able to think clearly and analytically. You would also need some valuable knowledge beyond the details involved in camping and shooting guns.

Branching out into a different field is valuable as well to those who simply want to become better men. 

Either way, if you are already competent in some physical skill outlined above, you should try to acquire some skill in a more cerebral area. This could be as simple as learning how to play chess well. Or you might study calculus. 

Perhaps the best route to take with this endeavor is to learn code. Too many people on this side of the culture war are ignorant about the basic processes involved in using computers.You can do this for free online with your spare time. Try the Code Academy or some other resource on the Internet.

Becoming Physically Fit

Physical fitness is a crucial part of overall health. Not only do you become physically stronger, you increase your lifespan and reduce your recovery time from illness. You can find out more about becoming physically fit at our Preparing the Body page.

Saving Money

It is unmanly to be financially unstable. Robert and I can say that because we have both been financially insolvent and suffered the indignities of debt slavery. Poverty is not shameful but a man does not live beyond his means. 

You can learn more about money saving at our Financing a Christian Life page.

Acquiring new skills and strengthening your own independence are the proper foundations of true preparedness. These things have priority over buying a year's worth of peanut butter or amassing a small mountain of ammunition.

What Is Happening to Our Testosterone Levels?

Multiple studies suggest that testosterone levels in Western males have been decreasing for at least a few decades. Some suggest that this has been going on for much longer. The impact of this hormonal loss on men's health and on the society in which we live is significant.

What Testosterone Does

You may already know that testosterone is the hormone that is responsible for many masculine traits. Increases in testosterone during puberty spur the growth of muscles and body hair. Testosterone also assists in causing aggressive activity and in supporting a strong libido.

Women also have testosterone in their systems but typically at lower levels.

In addition to initiating certain certain secondary sexual traits and behaviors, testosterone is also linked to supporting health in men. Men with appropriately higher levels of this hormone tend to avoid mood problems in life. They also have an easier time avoiding obesity and perform better sexually. Overall, they live longer, happier lives.

Why Are Testosterone Levels Decreasing?

At this point, researchers can only speculate as to why this is happening. Theories abound. One
suspicion is that decreasing levels of physical challenge in male lives has failed to stimulate testosterone levels. Some have said that the lowered status of men in modern Western society compared with that of the recent past, along with soft living, have brought about this testosterone deficit.

What You Can Do About Your Own Testosterone Levels

You can improve your testosterone levels with exercise. If you do not have a physically demanding job, you need to take time outside of work to challenge yourself physically.

You may say that you do not have time with your busy schedule but you are not fooling anyone. Its time to set down the laptop or put away the phone and do some pushups or go for a run. Video games and porn have stolen away our manhood. Stow that crap and start punishing your body. You will not be dissatisfied with the results after a few weeks.

Take note that it is not sufficient to go jogging every once in a while. The best types of exercises for men include a great deal of strength training. Lift weights. When you run, do sprints with intervals of walking. Build muscle.

Expected Results

Raising your testosterone levels through exercise will have quick results that you will appreciate. The first few days may be rough and you may lament the sore muscles. However, anyone who has begun a rigorous exercise regimen will tell you that they felt better quickly.

You will feel more confident about your self. You may feel an increase in libido which all men need in order to maintain good mental health. The natural rise in assertiveness and aggression will help you succeed more in your work and in your personal life.

Get fit.

Get angry.

Don't Go On a Diet!

Now that you have made a decision to lose weight, I have one major piece of advice for you. Don't go on a diet!

As a man, your primary goal is becoming stronger. This may entail weight loss, depending on your starting point and how you proceed, but only a woman really benefits from "losing weight." You can see this all around you: women who have a certain underlying beauty that is marred very simply by their obesity. Subtract the weight and you have a beautiful woman again.

But you are a man and, hopefully, you are not looking for physical beauty. Instead, you should want to become physically and mentally stronger and tougher. This is not achieved through weight loss.

Instead, you are going to begin training your body for war. Take a look at how soldiers train and eat to
get and idea of what you want to do.

Easy Choices

While we warn you to avoid diets, it is still important to discuss diet - by which I mean the food that you eat. The knight do not recommend as specific formula for eating. However, there are some ways for you to make easy choices about food that will have a beneficial impact on your health.

In my own case, I made a decision some years back to drop soda entirely from my diet. I had not been a major soda drinker but I had seen in my work with patients in a rehab hospital how many of the had brought on their problems through a lot of bad diet choices in life, soda being a significant factor in many cases.

I dropped soda entirely for about six months, without making any other real changes to my routine. Eventually, what I saw in my work would cause me to start exercising and making more significant changes ot how I ate but, for the time being, I was just duping soda.

I lost about ten pounds in a matter of a few weeks. The weight loss basically stopped there and has since turned around (that's another article), but it was evidence enough for me to recommend it. When you subtract that input of pure, liquid sugar into your system, it has an instant impact on weight.

These days, I occasionally quaff a can of Coke, but I still don't keep it around and drink it as if it were a rare glass of wine at a celebration.

Anyway, there are any ways that you can make similar choices to kickstart your conversion to knighthood. Maybe you will stop eating potato chips (a really good idea) or candy bars. Either way, this is a good way to make the first break from a world that is eating itself to death - a death both physical and spiritual.

If You Insist on Dieting

Some people do not want the burden of coming up with their own system. We get this and respect it. People join monasteries and brotherhoods (like this one!) because they want some guidance.

So if you must adhere to a specific diet, we recommend something along the lines of Paleo or Atkins. The reason for this recommendation is the emphasis on protein. You are going to need it to build muscle after lifting weights and doing sprints (more on that on the exercise page: Preparing the Body).

Foods That You Must Plan to Drop at Some Point

However you approach this issue, there are some things that you absolutely must stop eating at some point in your journey to full knighthood. These include candy, cupcakes and al that trash they sell in the grocery store isle and in gas stations. There are exceptions and we will get into this later. In the meantime, start dropping whatever you can manage from your diet. Your oppressors are using that crap to keep you complacent.

Remember: Get Angry.

Foods to Seek and Eat with No Shame

Having dictated all those food choices, it is time to let you know that there is plenty of food which you can eat with no shame and, indeed, should seek out. These include beef, poultry, pork, fish, nuts, cheese, whole milk, cottage cheese, raw fruits and more.

There is little more depressing for a man than to hear how he has to tailor his diet and reduce himself to eating a lot of shade-grown, hippie crap. The knights don't do that.

Eat with gusto but remember to train for war.

Food is energy for victory.

Am I Overweight?

A few years ago, I watched a video on Youtube that showed Americans walking around a shopping mall in the 1980s. I can't remember the purpose of the video. I just remember my initial reaction: Holy crap, these people are skinny!

They weren't just thinner than we are now. They seemed so thin that I feared for their health. They seemed anorexic.

But it sank in. This is how people are supposed to look. I had recently had someone call me "a thin guy". I am 5'11 and I weighed 185 at the time. Now, 185 pounds is not thin for a 5'11" man. In fact, there is no excuse for a man to weigh that much at that height unless he is totally ripped and I was not totally ripped.

However, I seemed thin to the commenter because of our human environment. We all weigh so much now. I had always known that I was a "little" over weight with some love handles carrying around. But I stopped and did the BMI at that point. Turned out that I was actually pretty overweight.

The Art Study

Not long after that, I read a report about an art study regarding meal portion sizes. It sounds strange, but meals have been portrayed in paintings and other media all through human history. Last Supper, anyone?

So this study looked at meal portions as portrayed in media past and present. Their discovery: meal portions, in art anyway, were seven times bigger today than in the middle ages. While you might take some exception to the accuracy of this in portraying reality, you probably get the point. We are eating a whole hell of a lot more now than we did then.

Now some increased consumption is justified. First, people did not exactly get all the nutrition they needed back then and it is good that we have more variety and abundance of food. Also, this increased abundance has given us greater height and bigger bodies need more nutrition.

But seven times more food? No. And I think that it is obvious to anyone that we eat way too much, whether they agree with the study or not.

How Did This Happen?.

We live in a post-scarcity world. While you have the usual liberal lunatics running around crying about hunger, the fact is that the hunger problem was technically conquered long ago. There is plenty of food in the world for everyone and we could feed a whole lot more. When people starve today it is almost always due to to war. This is the situation in many places in Africa.

Not only do we have more, we have a greater variety of food thanks to transportation technology. On any given day, I can go to the store and buy fresh fruits and vegetables from all over the globe. It is a wonderful thing, really.

So it is natural that we should eat a little more. But why do we overeat? Why do we eat so damn much?

You can blame it on a moral decline if you want. When was the last time the capital sin of gluttony was taught to a child? The only sins taught today to children are racism and sexism.

You can also blame it on the agricultural industry. They pushed this idea of three meals every day, loaded with carbs, all through the 20th century. Again, probably not necessary. It wouldn't hurt you if the meals were properly proportioned and contained a balance of protein, carbs and fat. But this is not the case.

Go out to a Mexican restaurant and order a chicken chimichanga. When the plate arrives. ask yourself if any living man needs that much food in a day, let alone at a single meal.

What Is the Right Weight for Me?

You can use the BMI algorithm to figure this out. It turns out that a man my height really has no reason to weigh much more than 150 pounds. This shocked me to learn at 185 pounds.

You might be tempted to scoff at your own results but you may not be taking very seriously all the belly fat that you have. Most of us moderns just have tons of belly fat wrapped around our internal organs, threatening us with a variety of metabolic diseases and cancer as well.

Take this with a grain of salt. As a man, you will probably use a combination of diet and exercise to lose weight. If this exercise involves a lot of lifting, as I recommend it do, then you will probably always have a high BMI because all that muscle you gain will weigh a lot more than fat. However, you should still get a lot closer to your appropriate number.

Whatever you do, stop kidding yourself. You need to lose weight. There are some other articles on this website to help you start down that road. Just don't remain in denial. All that fat is making you complacent and lowering your T levels.

Lose weight, get thin, get angry.