The Habits of Fitness for Veterans, Sports Players, and The Average Person

(Illustrative)

Fitness is food and movement.

People often think that extreme workouts and drastic calorie cuts will make them lose weight — and they’re right. But they also lose muscle, miss essential nutrients, and usually can’t keep it up. Long-term fitness and health matter more than quick results.

For those who served in the military, sports players, and others it doesn't take long after you don't have a required routine to start gaining weight and getting out of shape. Just because your home or not on a sports team doesn't mean you don't have responsibilities and a need to keep your body fit. 

Good habits start with knowing your current patterns and making small changes. If you don’t exercise now, begin with three days a week for half an hour. Build up slowly to an hour, or more if you’re already active. Jumping into an intense routine without discipline or knowledge usually leads to quitting.

Food habits work the same way. Highly processed foods are easy and tempting, so it takes time to learn healthier eating. Fiber, vegetables, and clean protein help your body recover and stay strong while you work out. Fitness and nutrition are two parts of the same process.

This is why I don’t push weight-loss drugs or fad diets unless someone is truly at risk based on a physicians recommendation. They can cause fast weight loss, but most people gain it back because their habits never changed. Often weaker and less able then before. 

The study below highlights the importance of thinking long-term. Instead of focusing on extreme workouts or pushing yourself to the point of injury, focus on building steady habits, eating well, and living healthier day by day. Consistency is what makes the real difference.

Below is a summary of Maintenance of lost weight and long-term management of obesity

• long-term weight loss is much harder to keep off than initial loss, and most people regain weight over time

• biological, behavioral, and environmental factors all contribute to weight regain

• modern food and lifestyle environments promote increased eating and less activity

• the body responds to weight loss by increasing appetite and lowering energy expenditure, resisting further loss

• many diets produce similar long-term results, with individual variation

• maintaining weight requires persistent effort, often more than initial weight loss effort

• frequent self-monitoring, consistent habits, and behavioral strategies help with maintenance

• long-term professional support improves outcomes compared with short programs

• realistic goals and intrinsic motivation improve long-term success

• advanced treatment options (e.g., pharmacotherapy, surgery) may be needed for some people

VA Research Findings on Agent Orange, Parkinson’s Disease and Opioid Use

 

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Research plays a crucial role in improving lives, and new discoveries can benefit people well beyond the Veteran community. For Veterans, ongoing research helps support healthier, happier lives, especially for those who return from service with physical or psychological injuries that can lead to additional challenges. Continued support and funding for research strengthens the scientific community and helps multiple populations. Below are some of the recent findings from the VA Office of Research and Development, which you can explore further in the article.

Summary below of the article VA Research Wrap Up: New findings on Agent Orange, Parkinson’s disease and opioid use

• a VA Boston study found a possible link between exposure to Agent Orange and a rare form of skin cancer called acral melanoma, showing that Veterans with documented exposure had about 30 % higher odds of developing this type of melanoma compared with both healthy controls and Veterans with more common melanoma forms, marking the first time this association has been reported.

• Researchers led by a team at a New Mexico VA site investigated the gut bacterium Desulfovibrio vulgaris, finding it much more common in people with Parkinson’s disease and showing that the bacteria can cause a build-up of alpha-synuclein protein and suppress an enzyme important for dopamine function, suggesting a possible role for gut microbes in the development of Parkinson’s disease.

• Iowa City VA investigators used a mouse model to study opioid withdrawal and found that prolonged withdrawal triggers changes in brain synapses related to an enzyme called carbonic anhydrase 4, and that giving the heart disease drug acetazolamide blocked that enzyme’s expression, prevented those synaptic changes, and reduced opioid-seeking behavior, indicating potential for repurposing this drug to treat substance use disorder.

At Amvets Good Cheers, Affordable Beers, Musical Ears, and Having a Cocktail With Peers (A Bartender's Perspective)

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At Amvets bitters
are for Old Fashions. 😊
Bring your happy face
and hang with friends.

Some bars are better than Cheers a place for friends and peers. Other bars… well, they try.

The atmosphere at Amvets is lively and socially connected. The bartenders take the time to listen to customers and make them feel welcome. They help keep conversation going and the experience a positive one so that people come back.

Bartenders are there through it all. Some tell you their life stories, bring in their adult children (“This is my kid—he finally moved out!”), and show up for both their best days and their “I-need-a-double-right-now” moments. 

That’s the magic of a good watering hole—like Amvets—where the drinks are cheaper than your regrets, the smiles come free, and the kind of friendly energy that makes you stay “for just one more” somehow turns into three.

Weekends? That’s when the party wakes up. Music, dancing, karaoke that goes from surprisingly good to “wow, that took courage,” and bands that keep the place buzzing.

Weekdays bring out the pool sharks, dart throwers, and folks who swear they’re “not competitive” right before trying to sink an impossible shot.

And sure, some places have a scratch on the wall or a nick in a chair—but those are stories, not flaws. Little reminders of all the characters who came before.

When the place gets busy, no need to get frizzy. Your bartender will meet you with a smile—because they know your shoes have walked more than a mile, and everyone deserves a cold drink and a warm welcome.

Open most days 4 to 6 pm or longer. Weekend music around 7 pm.

You may want to read, 

Bartender Jokes that Make You Laugh

Amvets Entertainment: 02/20 Tom Edberg and 02/21 Moonlight Entertainment Karaoke

 Come on down for some entertainment this weekend. 

The Warrior Within: Personality, Growth, and Life After Duty

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An older veteran
teaching recent veterans
about the lessons
of life and career
after service.

Personality and emotional intelligence shape many parts of our lives, and veterans know this more than most. You can be highly trained, disciplined, and capable, yet still find yourself struggling when frustrations or triggers hit too fast. Military service sharpens certain instincts—quick reactions, strong command presence, mission-first thinking—but those same instincts can become challenging in civilian life if they go unexamined. Many of our core traits were formed long before enlistment, and the structure of service often reinforces them. Without reflection, we repeat old patterns instead of adapting them.

Variation in personality isn’t just normal—it’s essential, especially in the military community. A unit never functioned because everyone behaved the same way. You needed the sharp strategist, the calm medic, the decisive leader, the meticulous technician, the quiet observer, the steady teammate. When someone insists there’s only one “right” personality for success—on the battlefield or back home—it oversimplifies reality. Every personality carries strengths and liabilities. Self-awareness is what allows veterans to identify those patterns and reapply them in a way that solves problems rather than creates new ones.

Human survival—and mission success—have always depended on a diversity of minds. If every service member thought the same way, operations would fail. History shows that both great and flawed leaders rose from their personality traits, not from uniformity. The planners, the innovators, the protectors, the thinkers—all existed because people react and reason differently.

Most veterans naturally strive to grow, overcome challenges, and continue improving long after their time in uniform. The key is understanding your own personality: knowing where you excel, where you struggle, and how your tendencies show up under stress, transition, or in everyday life. Don’t mistake confidence for competence—some speak loudly, others act quietly, and both can be effective depending on the situation.

Real awareness comes from reflection. Sometimes others mirror behaviors back to us—coworkers, family, other vets—but their interpretations aren’t always accurate. Ultimately, self-understanding helps you separate who you truly are from what others project onto you. When you understand your tendencies, you can pause, choose better responses, leverage the strengths service gave you, and navigate obstacles with more consistent success.

Thinking about personality, Confucius once said:

“Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.”

For many veterans, the mission, the camaraderie, and the purpose were that “job.” Learning yourself—really knowing yourself—is how you build a life after service with that same sense of meaning.

Setting Effective Goals for Veterans, Students and Anyone Else

 Goals help us stay focused on what we want to achieve, whether they are big and long-term or small and short-lived. They guide our efforts, give us direction, and help us stay motivated even when life gets challenging. Effective goals matter to us personally, can be measured, and are broken down into manageable steps that keep us moving forward. As we grow and change, our goals evolve too, but the process of setting and pursuing them remains essential. While we cannot control everything in life, staying committed to our goals helps us move with purpose rather than drifting aimlessly. Giving up guarantees failure, but persistence creates the path to progress.

Steps for Setting Effective Goals

• Choose goals that matter to you so your effort feels meaningful.

• Make the goals measurable so you can track progress and know when you’ve achieved them.

• Break each goal into smaller steps that can be done daily or weekly.

• Stay persistent, even when obstacles arise.

• Review and adjust your goals over time as your life, priorities, and circumstances evolve.

Goals play an important role in the lives of college students and military veterans. In many cases, these groups overlap—some students are veterans, and many veterans pursue new paths such as starting a business after leaving the military. Setting goals helps guide that process of discovery. You begin by exploring how to start a business, learning the rules, figuring out financing, understanding operations, and following a developmental path that leads from one step to the next.

The same is true in college. If you want to earn a specific degree or pursue a certain career, goals help you stay on track. Even for those who simply love learning for its own sake, the journey is shaped by goals. You take new courses, meet new professors, encounter new ideas, and gradually expand your understanding of the world. It becomes a continuous process of discovery.

Goals are not meant to be easy—they are meant to challenge you. That challenge is what shapes personal growth. The goal gives you a direction, but where you ultimately end up depends on your choices and the environment around you. Along the way, you may grow enough to adjust your goals into something even more meaningful. That evolution could never happen, though, if you didn’t take the first step and keep moving forward.

Knitted Hats for Our Amvets Scholarship Fund

Come in and get one of these very warm handknitted hats and support Amvets Scholarship Fund. Made by a master knitter. If you want to make a monetary donation reach out to our local Amvets. Information on the flyer.

Amvets Scholarship Fund Central Page