Logan Schwartz is Bouncing Back Stronger than Before

Rules of the Road:

Stop think­ing – don’t over­com­pli­cate it.

Stop mak­ing excus­es – there will always be an excuse.

Start today – you’re not promised tomor­row.

Com­mit 100% — that’s what it takes.

Hold your­self account­able – but don’t be afraid to ask for help.

And, just do it – you’re more than capa­ble.

In Sep­tem­ber 2020 I got into a bad car acci­dent. My car ran over a stray tire (rub­ber and rim) on the 405. My airbags explod­ed and my car became air­borne, hit­ting the medi­an, spin­ning out, and then final­ly com­ing to a halt at a 45-degree angle in the mid­dle of the busiest high­way in the US. As I sat in the hos­pi­tal with my body com­plete­ly beat­en up, I had this ‘aha’ moment. Live in the present – not the past, not the future. A moment that only being faced with my mor­tal­i­ty could have brought upon me giv­en the road I was on. It made me rethink every­thing from my per­son­al life, career choice, to my diet and exer­cise rou­tine. Most rel­e­vant, it was the cat­a­lyst to me join­ing the team at Pow­er­Plant. (More to come on that career deci­sion and my excite­ment to be work­ing with con­sumer busi­ness­es help­ing the world lead bet­ter and health­i­er lives.)

After the acci­dent, I had a slow, gru­el­ing recov­ery that kept me from phys­i­cal activ­i­ty for nine months. For some­one like me, who always used work­outs as an out­let for deal­ing with the stress­es of life, it was a real blow—not just phys­i­cal­ly, but men­tal­ly. By the end of those nine months, I start­ed to feel a lit­tle unteth­ered.

When my body was ready, I decid­ed I didn’t want to just get back into shape. I want­ed to get into the best shape of my life. I want­ed to invest in myself. I start­ed work­ing with a per­son­al train­er, deter­mined as I was to not just half-ass some­thing but to be ful­ly com­mit­ted. I real­ized that for me, allo­cat­ing a bud­get that was mean­ing­ful and hav­ing some­one else to help me stay account­able is what was need­ed to rebuild the habit. Hon­est­ly, I also acknowl­edged that after a long nine months of recov­ery and being side-lined, I need­ed that extra push.

I worked out with my train­er two to three times per week, but my reg­i­men also includ­ed three more work­outs on my own which would typ­i­cal­ly be my own strength train­ing rou­tine at the gym, or I mixed things up with row­ing, hot yoga, or spin. It’s impor­tant to note that my work sched­ule still did not slow down and con­sist­ed of long hours most days, but I would carve out time for my work­outs (typ­i­cal­ly in the morn­ing) and put them on my cal­en­dar. I also liked the idea of mak­ing one of my work­outs on a Fri­day night as I felt it was a healthy way to start a week­end and also meant an unin­ter­rupt­ed work­out. My rou­tine also con­sist­ed of a 10-minute men­tal break dur­ing the day where I would go for a walk out­side with no phone, which I found to be incred­i­bly help­ful for my work pro­duc­tiv­i­ty.

As part of my trans­for­ma­tion, I also com­plete­ly changed my rela­tion­ship with food. I’ve worked 80-hour+ weeks con­sis­tent­ly for the last six years, which means I nev­er made time to pay atten­tion to my diet (or pri­or­i­tize my over­all health). I was doing a lot of take­out or deliv­ery to the office. That makes it hard to be inten­tion­al about what you put in your body. I say that as some­one who lives a most­ly plant-based lifestyle. The biggest diet change I made dur­ing my trans­for­ma­tion was I began meal prep­ping. I was very inten­tion­al about every­thing I was con­sum­ing. I stuck to my diet pret­ty reli­gious­ly, but for the occa­sion­al din­ner with friends or oth­er inter­rup­tions that I planned around, I allowed myself some cush­ion. P.S. I hope my expe­ri­ence shows that you don’t need to be suck­ing down ani­mal pro­tein to build lean mus­cle!

By the end of the four month trans­for­ma­tion, I’d dropped ten per­cent body fat and gained a sol­id eight pounds of lean body mass. The expe­ri­ence real­ly helped me focus on liv­ing a health­i­er lifestyle that touched all aspects of my pro­fes­sion­al and per­son­al life.

I was real­ly proud of myself for show­ing what’s pos­si­ble when you com­mit to some­thing 100 per­cent. I’d encour­age any­one think­ing about a sim­i­lar life change: you can do it. It’s always a great time to get start­ed, so don’t over­think things or look for excus­es why not to do it. And don’t be afraid to ask for help—you can do great things with the right sup­port — and if you need that extra sup­port or kick send me a note at logan@powerplantpartners.co and let’s get work­ing!