125: You Don’t Always Have To Be Healthy To Be Healthy with Richard

Mar 27, 2025

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Today’s guest, our web developer Richard, has practiced Man Flow Yoga longer than any other person. He watched a few of my first ever YouTube workouts… and 12 years later, he’s still doing Man Flow Yoga 3-5x a week.

Even though he hates working out!

Since Richard has been doing Man Flow Yoga workouts for so long—and because he used the workouts to recover quicker and almost return full functionality to his knee after getting diagnosed with a rare cancer in his knee—he’s chock-full of wisdom, especially if you don’t feel like being healthy all the time.

My favorite part about Richard’s story is how he isn’t healthy all the time. He misses workouts and eats unhealthy foods sometimes. But he stays kind to himself (which used to be his biggest struggle before his cancer changed his perspective).

Despite his general aversion to working out, he’s mastered his body and mind and uses some never-before-heard tricks, like his "Arbitrary Goals” trick, to inspire himself to exercise consistently.

If you want to know more about the Man Flow Yoga lore, you struggle with being kind to yourself when you misstep, or you just secretly hate working out like Richard does but know it’s essential to a healthy life, do yourself a favor and listen to this episode.

Here’s what Richard shares:

How to workout consistently even if you hate it and don’t feel endorphins from it
Why yoga prepares your body for ANY kind of strength movements
The importance of self-compassion (and how to build it if you have none)
How to be okay with failure

And so much more, including…

How to incorporate fitness into your life even if you don’t think of yourself as an athletic person (2:30)
The weird way in-person yoga classes expect you to know how to move your muscles (and how this causes injuries for men) (4:06)
How Richard built a consistent exercise habit (even though he still does not enjoy working out) (6:13)
Why yoga sped up Richard’s recovery and gave him nearly full function of his knee after developing a rare type of cancer in his knee (7:56)
How losing too much weight can make you feel worse (and how to figure out your ideal weight) (15:49)
The "Arbitrary Goals” trick to build consistency when you’re just starting to exercise (17:57)
How to have great posture even if you’re hunched over a laptop or book all day like a gargoyle (20:51)
The single best way to start your day that prevents the sands of time from sabotaging your body (22:24)

Listen now!

Quotes from this episode’s guest:

(3:45) Man Flow Yoga was one of those ones that was like, I could do that at home by myself. I had tried classes before and they weren't ever really my jam. I don't like the music that a lot of yoga classes have.
(6:46) I have never felt endorphins from working out.
(20:06) Right now I'm doing kettlebell training five times a week. And I am doing complex, heavy movements. But because I also do yoga three to five times a week, I can come in and I’m the only one who’s not sure. It made me realize, “Oh, I can do things and feel fine afterwards because I have done other things, like yoga, to make me feel fine.”
(22:25) If you could have a different keyboard setup, that could potentially improve posture. Or you could just do yoga in the morning.
(23:53) Yoga prepares you for a lot of other strength movements just because it's the core. It's being aware of what your body is doing and where your body is moving and the planes of movement your body goes through. And that kind of branches off into almost every other type of thing you're doing—whether it's martial arts or Olympic lifting or kettles or throwing hucking logs.
(28:32) Treat yourself with self-compassion. Just be kind to yourself. In everything. It's okay. If you fall off the wagon, you didn’t, you're just on a little detour. It's fine. If you eat a whole cake, it's fine. It was probably a great cake. Enjoy it.
(30:39) The first step at being really good at something is being really bad at it.
(34:35) Progress isn't a straight line. It's a series of ups and downs.