training – Page 2 – Matt Shannon, Security Pro

Meal Prep for Real Life: How to Cook Once, Eat All Week

Meal prep isn’t just for the ultra-disciplined or Insta-famous. Sure, you’ve seen those photos: Tupperware lined up like soldiers, meals color-coded, macros counted. But let’s be real, that’s not most people’s life.

What if you could meal prep without spending eight hours every Sunday or needing a second fridge? Real meal prep isn’t about perfection; it’s about persistence and readiness. It’s about building a system that fits your training, work, and flexibility needs. When you fuel your life with intention, everything else sharpens into place.

Step One: Choose Your “Prep Style”

There are three main approaches to meal prep, and the one that’s best for you depends on your schedule and personality:

Batch Prep (Traditional): Make full meals ahead of time. Roast a tray of chicken thighs, cook up a pot of rice, and steam some broccoli. Stack them, label them, done. Good for those who like structure and predictability.
Buffet Prep (Modular): Prep components instead of full meals. Think proteins (ground beef, eggs), starches (sweet potatoes, oats), and fats (olive oil, avocado). Mix and match daily based on cravings or training demands.
Half-Prep (Hybrid): Prep only the time-consuming tasks, like chopping vegetables or marinating proteins, so cooking during the week is more efficient but still flexible.

Step Two: Focus on Your Macro Anchors

Every meal should hit three pillars:

Protein: This is your building block. Prep double what you think you need. Think grilled chicken, grass-fed, slow-cooked pork shoulder, hard-boiled eggs, and Greek yogurt.
Smart Carbs: These are your fuel tanks. Rotate between your favorite veggies, white rice, potatoes, and fruit. Make them in bulk and store flat in zip-top bags to save space.
Healthy Fats: Olive oil, nuts, avocado, seeds. Never forget flavor is fuel, too. Keep these on hand for fast drizzles or topping swaps.

Make meals that tick the macro boxes without requiring a calculator. Example?

Ground turkey (who doesn’t love leftovers?) + sautéed kale + roasted sweet potato + a sprinkle of feta and olive oil.
Scrambled eggs + pepper and onions + chopped spinach + avocado.

Easily repeatable, nourishing, and delicious.

Step Three: Make Friends with Your Freezer

Your freezer isn’t just for waffles and ice cream. It’s your long-term meal prep MVP. Here’s how to make it work for you:

Buy bulk frozen vegetables and fruits.
Freeze leftover portions of chili, stew, or curry in single-serve containers.
Portion “smoothie” bags with fruits, nut butters, and protein powder. Blend them up and freeze them ahead of time – easy-peasy.
Store cooked rice or roasted veggies flat in freezer bags for quick reheats.

Pro tip: Label and date everything. No mystery meals!

Step Four: Build In the “Rescue Meals”

Life happens. You’ll miss a prep day, forget your lunch, or get stuck in traffic. That’s when “rescue meals” save the day:

Package tuna or salmon + cucumber and tomato slices + olive oil
Grilled steak + half a sweet potato with a dash of cinnamon + two slices of crispy bacon.
Hard-boiled eggs + fruit of your choice + handful of almonds

Not fancy. But fast, macro-friendly, and better than skipping meals or panic-ordering pizza.

Step Five: Keep it Repeatable

The secret to success isn’t variety, it’s consistency. Most people thrive on 2-3 breakfast options, 3-4 go-to lunches, and 4-5 dinner templates. Boring? Maybe. But boring builds bodies. Save your culinary creativity for the weekends if that’s your thing.

Meal prep isn’t about being a hero. It’s about staying disciplined and staying in the fight.

The win is showing up to train with fuel already in the tank. The win is making your life easier, one container at a time. Prep is something to be proud of and it’s a version of self-respect you can see every day.

Pick your style and start prepping, your future self will thank you.

Recovery Is Training Too

Fuel isn’t just for training — it’s for thinking, building, and recovering.

Athletes already know this truth: you don’t get stronger in the gym, you get stronger in recovery. Stress plus rest equals growth. Skip the rest, and all you get is breakdown.

In cybersecurity, it’s easy to forget this lesson. After long nights, incident responses, or big migrations, teams often jump straight into the next job. But recovery isn’t a luxury, it’s the bridge between surviving and improving. Without it, you just accumulate fatigue disguised as progress.

The Cost of Skipping Recovery

Burnout: tired minds make risky calls.
Missed lessons: incidents get fixed, but are never studied.
Fragility: systems stay brittle when they’re never given a chance to adapt.

Building Real Recovery

Post-incident reviews. Treat them like an athlete breaking down game tape, where the real learning happens.
Plan real downtime. Make sure everyone gets real rest after major efforts. Feeling worn out doesn’t show you care more; it’s a sign you need to pause.
Iterative improvement. Apply what you learned before running the next drill. Reflection without action is just rest, not improvement.

Fuel and Recovery: The Overlooked Half

Physical recovery doesn’t stop at rest. It’s also about what you put in your body.
Meal prep isn’t about looking good; it’s about making sure you can keep going. Drinking enough water, eating real food, and keeping your energy steady (and your blood levels in check) all week isn’t about following a trend. It’s about having the strength to do your job well.

You can’t think clearly or respond quickly if your system’s running on fumes. Whether you’re training or troubleshooting, energy is uptime.

A rule I’ve used for years: “We eat well today for optimal performance tomorrow.” That mindset changes how you plan your day, not just for food, but for everything else as well. Every decision contributes to tomorrow’s success.

When you build those habits, you stop depending on motivation to show up. Discipline becomes your safety net.

The Mindset Connection

In martial arts, you learn to reset between rounds. In strength training, deload weeks are built in by design. Cybersecurity should be no different. We don’t just patch systems; we maintain the people running them.

Recovery isn’t the end of work, it’s part of the work.

It’s where resilience grows.

Progress Isn’t Linear, in Martial Arts or Cybersecurity

Progress isn’t linear. Martial artists learn this the hard way. One day you nail a three punch combo finished with a clavicle crushing elbow; the next, you stumble over the same movement combination you were hitting regularly just a couple days before. Some weeks, you level up quickly, while others days you’ll hit stumbling blocks. Always approach your wins and losses with the same humility.

Cybersecurity follows the same rhythm. Just as martial artists face setbacks, security professionals experience their own ups and downs. You patch systems, close vulnerabilities, and tighten configurations. Then a new zero-day vulnerability emerges, or an audit reveals previously unaddressed blind spots. It feels like sliding backward.

That slide isn’t a failure, it’s where progress truly forms.

The Myth of Linear Progress

We often imagine progress as, although slow, always moving upward. Reality is less predictable.

Perfection Bias
We assume improvement should always feel smooth. However, mastery, in both martial arts and cybersecurity, is a jagged path. The dips are where the depth develops.
The Comparison Trap
We see others’ highlight reels, the black belt breaking boards, or the company posting its “zero vulnerabilities” report, and mistake it for constant progress. Behind every clean result lies a mess of mistakes, patches, and failed tests.
Forgetting That Setbacks Build Strength
Regression often signals deeper adaptation in progress. In training, it’s when you refine mechanics. In security, it’s when you reinforce foundations.

Why Steps Back Matter

Plateaus and regressions aren’t detours; they’re checkpoints. They test persistence. Anyone can stay motivated when everything goes as planned; resilience forms when it doesn’t.

They reveal gaps in fundamentals. A failed pen test or misconfigured IAM or conditional access policy highlights what needs real attention. They build humility and precision. Overconfidence blinds; setbacks sharpen focus.

On the mats and in the SOC, mastery isn’t about avoiding mistakes, it’s about learning faster from them.

The Cybersecurity Parallel

You don’t know what you don’t know so every incident teaches you something you didn’t know you needed to learn. Every vulnerability scan reveals details you may have overlooked. It isn’t failure. It’s your system adapting, like a martial artist’s mind & body.

A martial artist doesn’t quit after a rough sparring session. They analyze what went wrong, refine their techniques, and return smarter & stronger. Security teams should do the same. A missed vulnerability isn’t a defeat; it’s a mirror. It can show you where your technique slipped & where to tighten your counter-offensive skills.

From the Mats to the Data Center

Both disciplines thrive on discipline, reflection, and repitition:

Training drills = Routine audits. Each repetition builds muscle memory for fighters and for security teams.

Pad work and shadow boxing = Playbooks and runbooks. Practicing in controlled settings builds confidence under pressure.

Sparring = Incident Response sims. You can’t simulate chaos perfectly, but you can train to be calm, and respond correctly, in chaos. That’s why you just keep training and doing reps over and over because each time your partner responds differently but you’re learning to respond with the correct technique every time.

Every repetition, every submission attempt, every punch, every kick, or incident response builds competence and confidence. Every CVE update, OWASP update or vulnerability scan creates visibility and awareness.

The Real Skill of a Black Belt: The Ability to Adapt and Overcome

In martial arts, the belt color doesn’t make you untouchable; it signifies you’ve learned and adapted more than others. In cybersecurity, it’s the same. The strongest organizations aren’t flawless; they’re mobile, agile and when necessary, hostile.

Adaptation beats perfection. Reflection beats reaction. Resilience beats your comfort zone. So the next time your scan lights up with new vulnerabilities or your red team exposes a blind spot, don’t get discouraged. It’s just another training session.

Final Thought

Progress, whether in close range combat or in your code, isn’t about avoiding setbacks. It’s about showing up again after them. The real win isn’t being unbreakable, it’s being unshakable.

Keep patching. Keep learning. Keep moving. Progress isn’t linear, but staying adaptive always drives you forward. Or, as it was once famously said, “Be water my friend.”

Persistence Beats Perfection

Chasing perfection can be tempting. It makes us believe that if we get everything exactly right, like following a flawless training plan or a perfect patch cycle, we’ll be safe from risks or mistakes. But perfection is fragile. One mistake or setback, and it falls apart. That’s when persistence matters most.

Persistence, on the other hand, is unbreakable and endures where perfection falters.

Anyone who’s trained in martial arts or strength sports knows some days you set PRs, some days you don’t. Some days you win; other days, you learn. The outcome of a single session doesn’t matter; what counts is that you keep showing up.

Cybersecurity runs on the same principle. Rather than expecting flawless results, it relies on the daily commitment, running scans, monitoring logs, and applying updates, which builds resilience over time.

Why Perfection Fails

Unrealistic expectations: Nobody patches everything at once. Expecting to do so leads to burnout.
Procrastination: Waiting until you can do it “perfectly” means it never gets done.
Fragility: Perfection breaks under stress; persistence adapts.

Why Persistence Wins

Consistency compounds. One small patch today, another tomorrow, adds up to systemic strength.
Resilience under pressure. When incidents occur, teams that have developed daily habits respond more quickly.
Adaptability. Persistence isn’t rigid; it bends, adjusts, and continues forward.

The Martial Arts Parallel

Martial artists don’t achieve mastery through perfection. They drill basics until instinctive, spar, fail, and adapt. Each session is about persistence; the discipline of returning to the mat, working on strikes, footwork, counter-wrestling, etc, etc.

Cybersecurity professionals must do the same. Drill, repeat, refine, and drill some more. That way, when the attacks come, your persistence in training wins the day.

Closing Thought:
Persistence, not perfection, is the key to success. Perfection is unattainable, persistence ensures progress, and tangible results.

Fueling Your Cybersecurity: How To Eat Right for Cyber Success

A Beginner’s Guide For Eating to Shed Fat, Revive Your Metabolism, and Sharpen Daily Performance.

Cybersecurity incidents don’t care how well you slept or ate. They happen anytime. If your body feels slow, your mind will too.

That’s why nutrition isn’t just about physique or gym numbers. It’s about resilience.

A strong body fuels a sharp mind, which makes you a stronger IT professional.

Before jumping in, you might ask: how do you build nutrition habits that fuel performance, even under pressure? Let’s break it down with these five rules:

Rule #1: Always Eat Protein First

If there’s one macro nutrient that changes everything, it’s protein. Most people under-eat it, even those who train.

Why it matters: Protein saves muscle, keeps you full longer, and helps your body burn more calories.
Aim for .75 to 1g per pound of lean or target body weight. Spread it across meals: eggs at breakfast, chicken or beef at lunch, fish at dinner, or a shake if needed.

Think of protein like a system update: without it, your body gradually weakens until you notice it, and by then it’s too late.

Rule #2: Drink this down deep into your SOUL – Carbs are NOT The Enemy

Carbs, like protein, provide 4 calories per gram.

Carbs get demonized needlessly. If you train hard, they’re your gas pedal—not optional.

Performance: Carbs fuel high-intensity efforts (CrossFit, sprints, heavy lifts). They refill glycogen so your “engine” doesn’t sputter.
Focus: Complex carbs—including all fruits, vegetables, and grains like rice—keep blood sugar steady. That means steady energy and fewer crashes.

The key isn’t cutting carbs. What matters is eating quality carbs at the right times.

Hard training days? Eat more.
Recovery days? Dial it back a bit.

Rule #3: Fats – The Slow-Burn Energy Source

Fats do not give quick energy like carbs, but they help you last longer. Fats are essential for hormone production, brain function, and recovery.

Prioritize avocados, nuts, olive oil, walnut oil, and sesame oil, as well as grass-fed, wild-caught and free-range meats.

Most people do well with 20–30% of their calories from fat. That’s enough for health but not too much.

Rule #4: Hydration = Cognitive Uptime

Mild dehydration tanks focus faster than hunger. For IT pros, that’s dangerous.

Target: ½ gallon per day minimum.
Use electrolytes during long training or extended incident calls.

Think of hydration as uptime. Skip it, and your system crashes.

Rule #5: Structure Beats Willpower, Every Time

No one does well by guessing. Like securing a system, lasting results come from discipline and routine.

Meal prep → Simple, repeatable meals built ahead of time.
Macro targets: track for a few weeks until you get the feel.
Boundaries: Sleep, fuel, and downtime are mandatory security controls.

The goal is not perfection; it’s persistence. Remember, chasing perfection can actually slow your progress. Aim for 80 to 90 percent consistency for the best results.

Closing Thoughts

Nutrition is about training, discipline, and resilience, and it all starts with each meal.

Forget fad diets, quick fixes, and guilt. Focus on what helps you daily: sufficient protein, good carbs, healthy fats, water, and sticking to a plan that eliminates guesswork.

Anyone with a strong body and sharp mind doesn’t just survive the grind; they thrive in it.

Soon, I’ll show you how to build simple, sustainable meal prep systems. You can protect your body and mind just like you protect your network: with structure and planning.

Remember: your body is your first line of defense. Fuel it like YOU matter.

Do You Even Eat Bro? Why Meal Prep Is Security for Your Health

Waaaayyy back in the day, when we launched our Paleo meal prep business, people used to love and also laughed at our meme tagline: “Do you even eat, bro?”

It was funny. But it was also the truth. Most people didn’t eat well, not because they didn’t care, but because they didn’t plan. And, the truth is, most people don’t invest any time in preparing their meals, and it costs them.

The business was built on a simple idea:
* Make eating clean easier than ordering pizza.
* Source only local, high-quality foods–from all of our fruits and veggies, to our choices of pasture-raised poultry and beef.
* Take the stress out of nutrition so people could focus on training, work, and life.

And here’s what I learned: meal prep is like security for your diet and prior proper planning always ensures success.

Plan ahead, or get hacked by junk food. If you don’t have meals ready, DoorDash or the vending machine will win.
Build guardrails, or chaos takes over. Structure (shopping lists, prepped meals, set eating windows) keeps you from drifting.
Stay consistent, and resilience follows. Just like training or cybersecurity, it’s the boring reps that make you strong when it counts.

nutrition for busy professionals
discipline_paleo fitness_crossfit

That’s why I still fall back on three rules that anyone can run with:

Prep protein in bulk → Grill or roast a few pounds of chicken, beef, or fish. Protein is the foundation; everything else is garnish.
Keep easy fruits & veggies on hand → Frozen, bagged, or pre-chopped. Don’t overcomplicate it. Rotate what you like.
Don’t skip fats → Avocado, olive oil, nuts. They keep your hormones happy and your brain sharp when the day gets heavy.

It’s never about hitting 100% perfection. It’s about persistence — stacking small wins, meal after meal, day after day, week after week. Never forget the 80/20 rule to begin with, and do your best not to get overwhelmed. Small changes build habits that lead to permanent changes.

I didn’t always nail every meal, but because the vast majority of my meal were planned, I could keep training, keep coaching, keep working, and keep moving forward. One day at a time.

Never forget, meal prep is like security for your health and wellbeing. And, in the world I come from, when you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

And yes, I still eat, bro.

What’s your go-to meal prep hack that keeps you fueled during the week?

Training the Body, Training the Mind: Why Security Pros Need Both

When most people think about cybersecurity, they picture glowing screens, rapid typing, “hacking” and maybe a hoodie or two. What they don’t picture is chalk & barbells, sprint intervals, sparring mats or even walking.

But here’s the truth: the body and the mind aren’t separate operating systems. They have a symbiotic relationship. The stronger one becomes, the more resilient the other gets. And in a field like cybersecurity, where pressure is high, hours are unpredictable, and the stakes have real-life impact, that resilience makes all the difference.

Stress Management

No breach ever times itself for your convenience. Alerts fire off at 2 a.m whether youre trying to sleep or not. It doesn’t matter if your judgment is foggy and your nerves are already frayed. Mistakes made in those moments don’t just cost hours, they can cost you and your clients millions.

Physical training is rehearsal for that kind of pressure. Every time you push your heart rate into the red zone, whether it’s during a sprint, a lift, or a round of sparring, you’re training your nervous system to stay sharp and composed. You’ve practiced breathing through discomfort. You’ve felt the panic rising and learned not to flinch.

That calm under physical stress translates directly into composure under digital fire.

Discipline & Consistency

You don’t get strong by lifting once a month. You don’t become a skilled defender by reading one book or passing one certification.

Strength and security are both built on repetition. Small daily habits, squats and deadlifts, daily log reviews, routine key rotations and hardwired discipline.

Discipline isn’t glamorous. Nobody applauds your Tuesday-night study session or your Sunday meal prep. But that quiet consistency is what separates those who dabble from those who attain mastery.

Recovery Matters

Burnout wrecks the mind. Overtraining wrecks the body. And yet in both the gym and SOC, too many people wear exhaustion like a badge of honor.

The best of the best know better. They respect recovery. They take deload weeks. They do their best to sleep 8 hours a night. They understand that stress plus rest equals growth. Without rest, stress is just destruction.

Security pros need the same rhythm. Downtime, sleep, and boundaries. They’re not luxuries, they’re daily essentials. A fried analyst is a liability, not a hero.

Confidence Under Pressure

Just like any APT or other malicious actor, the iron doesn’t care how you feel today. The sparring partner doesn’t care if you’re tired. They test you anyway. No matter how tired you are that day, the weight still weighs the same.

That pressure teaches confidence. You must feel what it’s like to fail a lift, get winded mid-round, or be pushed beyond what you thought you could handle to know that you can. Only then you’ll learn you can stay composed, reset, and respond decisively.

That kind of grounded confidence is exactly what’s needed in the middle of a high-stakes incident response, defending your infrastructure under scrutiny, or having to brief leadership with incomplete information. It’s not bravado, it’s composure forged under fire.

The Long Game

Neither training nor cybersecurity has a finish line. You’re never “done.”

Martial arts teach that a black belt isn’t an end state, it’s proof that you’ve mastered the basics and are ready to start again at a higher level. Security works the same way. Every new CVE, every new framework, every new technology is another layer, not the final one.

The goal isn’t perfection, it’s persistence. The discipline to keep showing up, stacking reps, and sharpening your resilience over time is what it takes.

Closing Thoughts

A strong body fuels a sharp mind. A sharp mind makes a stronger defender. Separate them, and you limit yourself. Train both, and you’ll be prepared for whatever comes your way — whether it’s on the mat, under the bar, or in the middle of a 2 a.m. incident call.

Next up, I’ll dive into practical ways to sharpen your eating habits — how to drop body fat, boost metabolic health, and fuel both physical and mental performance.

New Deadlift PR: 234kg/515lbs for a Double

Closed out the training block on a high note — pulled a new PR double at 234kg (515lbs). This cycle was all about fast-twitch development and explosive power, and it paid off on the bar.

The plan now: a short deload through the holidays, then hit the ground running January 1st with fresh momentum.

Takeaway: whether in the gym or in cybersecurity, progress comes from focused blocks, not random effort. You train a specific quality, test it, then recover and reset. Discipline > perfection, every time.

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas — and here’s to chasing your own PRs, wherever they are.

162 Hours on Udemy, Building the Foundation for a Career in Pentesting

When I first clicked “Enroll,” I didn’t know it would add up to 162 hours of training.
That’s almost a full month of time — stolen from late nights, weekends, and early mornings before work.

Like a lot of people breaking into cybersecurity, I started with curiosity and a mess of browser tabs. YouTube videos, Reddit threads, course recommendations. It’s easy to drown in the noise. What made the difference wasn’t just finding the right content, it was learning how to stay with it long enough for the dots to connect.

Udemy became my training ground. Not glamorous, not perfect, but consistent.
Over time, those 162 hours weren’t just “video time.” They became hours of repetition, frustration, and slow understanding.

There’s a phase in every learner’s path where you stop studying for a test and start thinking like the work.

That’s what those hours taught me, how to reason through a network like a puzzle, how to see the seams where systems and people meet, how to build patience in a field where curiosity is the only constant.

Looking back, those 162 hours weren’t just prep for certification. They were the price of entry, not into a career, but into a mindset.

Every scan that failed, every lab that wouldn’t load, every problem that took three days instead of three hours, they were all small rehearsals for the real work ahead.

And that’s the absolute truth about cybersecurity training: the time never feels fast, but it’s never wasted. You’re not just learning commands. You’re learning endurance. It’s the art of staying with a problem long enough to earn its answer.

The PenTest+ and the Long Game of Persistence

There’s a moment most people don’t talk about when they post their certifications, it’s that part where you stare at the screen, waiting for the result to load, rehearsing how you’ll feel either way.

That was me, after months of studying, rewrites, retakes, and nights when the last thing I wanted to see was another port, protocol, or payload.

I’d already passed the CompTIA trifecta, A+, Network+, Security+, and each one felt like a step forward. But PenTest+ was different. It wasn’t just about memorization. It forced me to think like an adversary, to build a structured approach out of controlled chaos. It was humbling.

There were setbacks. Long hours after long workdays. Missed weekends. That quiet voice that says, maybe this one’s just too much right now.

But that’s where persistence replaces motivation. I tell my students and training partners the same thing I remind myself: motivation gets you started, discipline keeps you moving.

When that “Pass” finally appeared on the screen, it wasn’t triumph, it was relief. And gratitude. Because every failed scan, every misconfigured lab, every late-night tracing network maps, they built the competence that makes the win real.

The truth is, no certification on its own changes who you are. The process does. The grind does. The decision to sit back down after the first, second, or third setback does.

In cybersecurity, as in martial arts, you don’t earn a belt to prove you’re done. You earn it because you’ve decided you’re not done yet.

And that lesson, more than any flag on a résumé, is what makes the next challenge possible.