How To Retire at 30

Note: Just discovered this in my archives - it's ~15 years old. I worked on it for a long time, super hard with back n forth edits - I was trying to get it into Men's Fitness where you earn a few grand for a short article, but it never made it in. So it makes the blog instead!

How To Retire At 30

By Brad Kearns

My first real job after college graduation was as a lowly staff auditor for the world’s largest accounting firm. Ten years later, I was retired. Not as a big shot CPA, but as a professional triathlete. What was it like to trade security, salary, and a business suit for a bathing suit? Well, when I went fast, it was great. I got to travel around the world and stay in beautiful resorts for free. There was substantial prize money and notoriety for winning races. Companies actually paid me to use their cool stuff. I could scoff at my miserable peers, slaving away for corporate America, making less money in a month than I made in 1 hour and 50 minutes of doing something I loved while people cheered.

Of course that was when I went fast. Sometimes I went slow. Or got disqualified from a eight hour race (that I won by 15 minutes) for running a stop sign. Or broke a pedal while leading another race. Or got sick, tired, or injured and had to watch someone else win. After nine years of piling up memories like those I realized it was time to hang it up. Of course it wasn’t that easy. I had to have the concept of the “R” word beaten into my head from all sides for me to take notice and do something about it.

Looking back, it's hard to blame myself. Winning is intoxicating; the confidence and sense of well-being I got from reaching the top of my profession clouded my view of reality. But gazing into the mirror and accepting my own athletic mortality was perhaps a more valuable lesson than anything I learned when I was victorious. When I was finally able to embrace the end of my career, I felt as ready for the real world as anyone who had slaved in it for the entire ten years I was avoiding it.

The second level of sell that kept me swimming, pedaling and running for ten years was my brief exposure to the real world after college graduation. Call me strange, but as a kid I dreamt of becoming a professional quarterback, not a Certified Public Accountant. The quarterback dream lasted until I was 12, when I got my first crack at tackle football. My 77-pound frame got crushed repeatedly in practice and rarely saw game time. My NFL dreams were soon replaced by delusions of running in the Olympics.

However deluded, I still hadn’t found anything to replace the power and allure of the career goal I’d had in some form since age seven. I decided to get my CPA, then go to law school, bribing the dream out of my consciousness with big bucks. What was I thinking? By the time I got my college diploma I had no idea. I decided to shun the CPA scene, especially after not impressing the on-campus recruiters enough to get a single job offer. I think it was those darn first impressions. I didn’t see the need to wear the strongly recommended business suit just for an interview; I’ll buy a suit after you hire me buddy!

So I sold frozen yogurt machines. More accurately, I drove for three months in heat, smog and traffic all over the Los Angeles basin trying to sell a frozen soft serve non-dairy dessert called Yodolo and the accompanying machine. Even though this was the ‘80's - the heyday of frozen yogurt - I didn’t sell a single unit. Motivation flagging, my boss set up a meeting with a star associate of his who was averaging 2.3 Yodolo sales a week. After a brilliant and inspiring pep talk, he then explained that his 2.3 sales per week at a thousand bucks a pop were barely enough to live on, due to the high cost of “babes and blow, man; the money’s gone before you know it.”

Soon after the pep talk, I bought a suit, crawled back to the accounting firms with my tail between my legs and secured the auditor position in downtown Los Angeles. I knew I was in trouble on the first day. Orientation was so boring that I could barely keep my eyes open; my fellow recruits were taking copious notes on riveting subjects like the firm’s retirement plan. Retirement plan....No, don’t go gently into that good night! I raged by getting serious with my triathlon training, waking at 5 AM to run before work and then swimming after work. As I pondered my future in gridlock traffic for two hours every day, my fantasy of a professional triathlon career appeared less and less ludicrous.

Intoxicated by 8 AM from freeway carbon monoxide, I spent workdays performing legendary tasks like photo copying for eight straight hours, double-checking a computer printout of bank account balances for 20 hours (somebody’s got to do it, he’s an auditor), and running errands for my superiors. I think the only reason that I had to wear a suit instead of a cap and overalls was that they were billing my time out at $65 per hour.

The last straw came on a Friday evening of Valentines Day. My two female superiors and I were working like crazy to finish a two-week audit job at a bank. My girlfriend arranged for a delivery of balloons to the bank, an event that distressed my bosses on seemingly too many levels. Highly motivated by sympathy, I brought them a small Valentine’s gift after lunch. One of them said, “Thanks, but bear in mind that this will have no affect whatsoever on your P-66 (employee evaluation).” The two Chips-On-Their-Shoulders and I finally finished around 9 PM. Dinner plans with my girlfriend were shot when the Chips ordered me to drop off a dozen file boxes at the firm’s downtown offices. The Chips rushed out and I was left , in the pouring rain, to stuff every inch of my car with these boxes.

The six-mile trip took 45 minutes. Our firm’s temporary parking garage was a quarter-mile away from our new offices. Each trip along the outdoor walkway to the office building left me and the cardboard boxes drenched. On my final trip, the dolly hit a bump and the boxes and contents went flying all over the puddle-filled sidewalk. Cramming everything into what was left of the rain-soaked, tattered boxes, I headed straight for the office of one of the Chips, dumped the soaking boxes and headed back out into the rain.

Monday I called my boss to give him two-weeks notice. He couldn’t schedule me for a week and a half, so when the meeting came I announced: “I’m quitting Friday.” “Friday the uh, fourth of April?” “No, Friday.”

Eight months later, as a struggling, unknown rookie pro, I upset #1-ranked duathlete (Kenny Souza) and #1 ranked triathlete in the world (Scott Molina) in the same race for my first pro victory. That and other highlights surpassed anything I had ever imagined. So did the financial, physical and emotional hardships I endured over the course of my career. Dreams may not always end up as you want them to, but that isn't the point. What’s important is to chase them with all your might.

November 1986 Desert Princess World Championship Duathlon Series race #1: No clothes, no sponsors, no competition on this particular day...

Runnin' in the 50's at 50!

You may know I turned the big 5-0 back in Feb, so I want to challenge the aging process with some track&field efforts. Placer High School just installed a brand new track, which I broke in today with a 400-meter effort in 59.8 seconds. Not an easy effort to do solo, although my dog Stu was there to trip and faceplant me at the finish line.

This YouTube is from 400m attempt #2, trying to improve my time, but landing at 60.18 instead -ouch!

** 

Back in March, I cleared 5'3" (1.60 meters) in the high jump, qualifying for USA Masters Track&Field All-American standard and (unofficially, not from a meet) matching a tie for 12th on this year's outdoor list. Here is a 5'2" clearance from March on video. Here are the 2015 USA National outdoor rankings for old guys. Next up for me is the World Speedgolf Championships in Chicago, Oct 19-20. I am looking to improve upon my 20th place finish in the pro division last year in Oregon. 

I am inspired by other longtime friends who are still performing magnificent athletic feats. Here some of them (at right in photo) are pictured after an epic pool basketball battle versus three high school varsity superstar athletes (at left in photo) from Northern California. The old guys pictured are also preparing for the annual Extreme Sports Camp, a weekend battle royale in 11 different sports to crown the best jewish or goyim athletes in west Los Angeles over age 40.

Another guy who is defying the laws of aging and gravity in assorted water sports, from competitive curling, to skeleton to wake surfing is Ray "Big George" Sidney, Prime Minister of Lake Tahoe. He makes the very difficult sport of wakesurfing to look easy, even with a dog involved, on this video: Big George Wakesurf's Lake Tahoe

Hopefully those of you in the advancing age groups are starting to think more and more about delaying the aging process and reducing disease risk factors that have become all too common in modern society. Check out this post, Brad's Primal Style Anti-Aging Tips, for an overview of the primal philosophy and a detailed discussion of my diet, exercise and lifestyle routines. 

Brad's Diet, Exercise, and Lifestyle Tips For Peak Performance and Longevity

Following are details of my personal diet, exercise, and lifestyle habits that honor the principles of evolutionary health. In 2008, I started working on The Primal Blueprint book and movement with Mark Sisson. I immediately transitioned away from the Standard American Diet (SAD) high in complex carbs to a primal eating pattern that is comparatively very low carb and high in healthy fats. Concurrently, I ditched my lifelong emphasis on endurance training (especially the destructive chronic cardio patterns I followed as a pro triathlete) to pursue a more primal-style all-around fitness program, featuring more intense, explosive workouts that optimize hormones and delay aging. 

OVERVIEW of primal lifestyle tips (details follow): 

1. Eat Primally: Emphasize colorful, nutrient dense primal foods, especially abundant vegetable consumption and healthy, natural fats from clean animal products.
2. Go Keto: The ultimate sophistication of low-carb dietary practices is the recently popular ketogenic eating strategy. Great for fat reduction, disease protection, and targeted performance benefits.
3. Move Frequently: Walk around more (especially taking breaks from prolonged sitting), try a standup desk, engage in brief calisthenics, strength, or mobility exercises during the day, and do structured cardio workouts at a very comfortable pace of 180-minus-age in heart beats per minute (e.g. 180-50 year old = 130 maximum heart rate for an aerobic session.)
4. Go Hard: Conduct regular brief, high-intensity strength and sprint workouts. Explosive, high intensity efforts help preserve muscle mass, optimize hormone function, reduce body fat, and delay aging.
5. Sleep/Relax: Minimize artificial light and digital stimulation after dark as this compromises healthy sleep and messes up hormone balance. Prioritize adequate sleep and awaken full of energy. Nap whenever you need to. Discipline yourself to take downtime from constant digital stimulation and hyper-connectivity to just chill. 

DIET

1. Ditch sugars, grains, and vegetable oils: The "Big-3" most offensive foods in the modern diet promote systemic inflammation, oxidative damage, fat storage, accelerated aging, heart disease, and cancer. Yes, these foods are cultural mainstays but science validates that this stuff will slowly kill ya.
2. Emphasize primal foods: Meat, fish, fowl, eggs, vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, and their derivative butters, and healthy modern foods like high fat dairy and high cacao percentage dark chocolate. An "ancestral" eating pattern (primal/paleo/keto) is, by comparison to the Standard American Diet (SAD), is very low carb (no sugars or grains) and high in healthy fats.
3. Flexible: When you become good at fat burning instead of dependent upon regular high carb meals as your main source of energy, your meal habits can become more sporadic. Intermittent Fasting optimizes fat metabolism, enhances cellular repair, and delays aging. 

The Primal Blueprint philosophy counters the "diet" concept of prescribed meals, calorie counting, and a regimented schedule. Caloric intake and meal choices can vary wildly each day, and you become expert at burning stored body fat. Your food choices are driven primarily by personal preference, within the broad guidelines of primal eating. When you cut out processed carbs, you soon lose your habituation to them and it feels liberating and energizing. Meals are predominantly fat and stimulate minimal insulin response, keeping energy, blood sugar, and appetite stable all day, even when meals are skipped/missed.

My eating routine: I either fast until 12 noon or later per ketogenic eating strategy, or prepare a morning super nutrition, macronutrient balanced green smoothie w/full fat coconut or almond milk, Primal Fuel powder or other whey protein, avocado, assorted pre-frozen greens (spinach, kale, celery, beets, chard), a bit of frozen berries and frozen green banana, and assorted supplements for athletic performance and recovery including MCT oil, creatine, glutamine, L-carnitine, sea salt, and probiotics. Check out my smoothie video and get it going!

Sometimes I'll have a late breakfast of hard-boiled eggs and walnuts and Primal Kitchen mayo or just some 85-90% dark chocolate busted out around midday. Afternoon or evening features large salads with vegetables, meat, nuts and olive or avocado oil dressing, giant stir fry's with assorted organic leafy greens and other vegetables, and the highest quality grassfed meats or wild-caught fish, such as Lone Mountain Wagyu beef. 

Total elimination of all grains (wheat, rice, pasta, corn, and all derivatives), sugars/sweets and sweetened beverages. Okay, a little leaking here and there with occasional popcorn fests or corn tortilla fish tacos. If I want extra carbs I make these fabulous sweet potato discs. Beverage of choice is water and tons of homemade kombucha, now that I am an expert kombucha maker. Snacks of assorted nut butters, and lots of 80-90% dark chocolate. Read about how I choose only the highest quality bean-to-bar dark chocolate.

My estimated macronutrient profile:
~66% fat: Naturally raised meat/fish/fowl/eggs, coconut products, avocados, nuts, seeds and their derivative butters, oils of avocado, olive, and coconut, and high cacao percentage dark chocolate
~20% protein: 0.7g/lb of lean body mass is the goal. Easily accomplished from eating primal style with animal foods, nuts and some whey protein powder. 
~14% carb: Under 150 grams/600 calories per day is the critical Primal goal, while under 50 grams per day is the critical keto goal. The 150g standard is easily accomplished when all grains and sugars are eliminated. Keto entails getting your carbs from veggies and putting aside fruit, sweet potatoes, and the like during those focused periods. I estimate my daily carb intake ranges from 20 grams to 150 grams with no specific pattern except for naturally increased carb intake in and around strenuous workouts. This is what Mark Sisson refers to as eating in the "keto zone," where you effortlessly drift into and out of ketosis without worrying about it or noticing.

If you wonder if you are eating too many carbs, chart what you eat on a notepad for a day or two, trying to measure or estimate quantities as best you can, then visit myfitnesspal.com and input your data. It will generate a nice report with macronutrient and caloric breakdowns. 

Re - the Keto Reset: There are outstanding health, disease protection, and fat reduction benefits to be had from becoming highly fat adapted through frequent fasting and adherence to a very low carb intake standard with meals. Personally, I'm don't bother adhering to strict keto guidelines every day, but many days I'm keto-qualified by default. It's an excellent idea for lifelong metabolic health to prepare for and complete an initial focused period of ketogenic eating lasting for six weeks, then recalibrate any time with shorter forays into keto. This journey is presented in detail in The Keto Reset Diet, which reached #4 ranking on the New York Times bestseller list upon its 2017 release. We also offer a comprehensive online course to learn how to go keto the right way. 

EXERCISE

My routine features comfortable aerobic workouts (i.e., slow jogging in the morning or evening on golf course), regular brief, high intensity strength training sessions at home with bodyweight, heavy weight, or resistance cords, a high intensity sprint workout once every 7-10 days, and a general daily effort to move more with walking, bike cruising, flexibility/mobility drills, and mini strength efforts.

My routine:

1. Morning Flexibility/Mobility Routine: Done in bedroom every single morning, no matter what. It's only 12 minutes but it's pretty challenging and a great way to get energized upon awakening. My competitive fitness goals launch from this higher baseline, which has really helped with injury prevention at my intense workouts. 
2. Morning Cold Plunge: Immediately following my morning mobility exercises, I plunge into a chest freezer filled with water cooled to 33F-38F (0C-3C). I spending 4-5 minutes in the tub, completing 20 deep, diaphragmatic breath cycles. This is a fabulous experience that puts me into a meditative state and helps strength my focus and resilience for a productive day. Cold therapy delivers an assortment of hormonal, cognitive, and cardiovascular benefits and definitely energizes you when you exit! The movement routine-plus-cold plunge have become habit to the extent that I don't need to apply psychic energy nor will power to make them happen. Developing winning habits begets more winning habits, such as being able to prioritize your work objectives or stick to healthy eating goals. I also plunge for a few minutes right before bed to lower body temperature and facilitate a good night's sleep. Read about the comprehensive benefits of cold therapy. 
3. Movement: Many experts believe that this is the next fitness breakthrough: increasing all forms of general everyday movement to counter the many sedentary forces of modern life. This includes morning or evening neighborhood strolls, taking the stairs instead of elevators, hitting a single set of pullups or deadlifts when you pass by the apparatus in your yard, doing air squats while watching the World Cup on TV, or implementing something like my morning routine as a consistent element of your daily routine. Increasing your general daily movement patterns could in many ways be more important than conducting formal workouts, especially if the workouts are too stressful. 
4. Jogging: Either a short morning jog of 20 min or evening golf course jog for Speedgolf practice. This used to be every day, and now it's not every day. I don't think I've lost any fitness, which strengthens the argument for sporadic, intuitive training patterns and increased emphasis on recovery. The critical component of my running is keeping heart rate at or below 130 beats per minute (per the MAF "180-age" formula). This means a very slow (over 9 min/mile pace), very comfortable exercise session that doesn't stress me. I can easily run faster with minimal strain, but getting into a pattern of medium-to-difficult paced runs, instead of truly easy runs, can lead to fatigue, burnout and hormonal imbalances. Read how I doubled my testosterone from clinically low (after months of too much running at slightly excessive heart rates), to the 99th percentile for males 50+ and 95th percentile for males in their 20s.
5. Strength Training: These brief, high intensity sessions last 10-20 minutes and happen two days per week. At my advanced age, I've drifted away from formal workouts that last too long and make me too tired in the days afterward. Instead, almost every day I do a bit of strength efforts, whether its 100 decline Spiderman pushups and a set of deep squats and deadlifts (maybe 10 min total time requirement). A couple days a week I'll do a more ambitious workout, such 200 Spidermans along with a few sets of deadlifts, squats, stretch cordz, pullups, or ankle band work. Everything is at home within easy reach so it's no trouble to get a little work in. I go to the gym too, but more often for sauna than for moving iron. The longest I'll be in an actual workout mode is only 20 minutes. Go hard and get it done before you overstimulate stress hormones. In contrast, being in the gym doing machine circuits for an hour is too stressful, making you tired and craving sugar in the aftermath.
6. Sprinting: Sessions happen a few times per month, consisting of warmup, 10 minutes of quite challenging technique drills that elevate heart rate, and main session of perhaps 1 x 400m, 2 x 200m, and 4 x 100 meters at the running track. Some rare sprinting footage. Sometimes I'll combine (fewer) sprints with high jump practice of 20 x explosive high jumps, or a golf course practice session where I'm running 3 x 500 yard hole all-out while playing (training for the Guinness World Record that I broke June 1st, 2018, for the fastest single hole of golf ever played (minimum length, 500 yards).

LIFESTYLE

Sleep and sufficient rest, recovery and downtime from the hectic pace of modern life could be the number one priority for health and longevity. Research shows that if you are sleep deprived it compromises your ability to burn fat, essentially negating your diligent dietary transformation efforts and fitness accomplishments. 

The number-one priority in this area is to avoid excess artificial light and digital stimulation after dark. Get your screen work and entertainment done early in the evening, and reserve the last hours before bed for winding down in a dark, quiet, mellow setting - socialize, take an evening stroll, read a book, take a cold plunge! Download f.lux if you insist on working on computer after dark. Wear yellow lens sunglasses and use orange "bug light" bulbs to minimize indoor light after dark. Minimizing light exposure will trigger Dim Light Melatonin Onset, a genetically programmed response where we become sleepy soon after dark in alignment with our circadian rhythms and prep ourselves for a good night's sleep. 

Introducing excess artificial light and digital stimulation after dark suppresses melatonin, elevates stress hormones, increases sugar cravings, and compromises optimal cycling through all phases of sleep. This in turn compromises immune function (healthy intestinal flora flourishes at night, while you sleep; as does cell repair and recovery from stress of daily life). Lights Out - Sleep, Sugar, and Survival, a fantastic book on the subject, recommends we all sleep 9.5 hours per night in the winter, and can get away with 8 hours per night in the summer. If you like catching up on email or Netflix at night, remind yourself that excess evening light and digital stimulation = stress hormone spike = sugar cravings = fat storage. 

I'll also take an afternoon nap of around 20 minutes any time I feel my energy and cognitive performance flagging. I wake up feeling refreshed and focused for resuming work. I guarantee any heavy hitter out there that my down time is more than made up for with improved productivity for the rest of the work day. 

My goal in sharing this information is to garner awe from my fan base and national media outlets, as well as inspire and hopefully assist you with achieving personal health and fitness goals. Please contact me if you have any questions or further interest!