By: Matt Weik, BS, CSCS, CPT, CSN
Unless you live under a rock, you’ve probably heard about the Netflix film that has the internet buzzing. While many say that Leave the World Behind is a conspiracy theorist’s wet dream, I’m not too sure that it’s not all that far off the realm of possibilities. Now, before you start looking for my tinfoil hat, let me explain. Leave the World Behind may be showing us the importance of health, fitness, survival skills, and even the importance of protein powder.
You may be asking what protein powder has to do with survival skills, and we’re going to dive into that shortly. Let’s first just lay the groundwork for what Leave the World Behind has shown us, as well as why it’s so important to be prepared by focusing on your health, fitness, and survival skills.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It is recommended that you speak with your doctor before starting an exercise program or making any changes to your daily nutrition plan. Also, we have no direct knowledge of any particular threat to the US, this is simply an article to help you get better prepared for any situation that may arise.
Leave the World Behind Exposes Survival Skills Along with Poor Health & Fitness
Playing off of Leave the World Behind, if you were at work and all of a sudden something like an EMP took out the grid, are you capable of getting home? I’m not talking about hopping in your car and driving down the highway; I’m talking about your vehicle and electronics being fried and no longer working, and you need to get home or to your family.
Are you in good enough physical shape to walk home? Do you even have the tools and preps necessary to make it back to your house safely or survival skills to make the situation a little less stressful?
Related Article: Stuck Inside Survival Guide
If you currently have the deer in headlights look, you’re not alone. In fact, most people in the US are completely ill-prepared to handle such a situation. Let me make the scenario even more intense. What if you have a wife and kids who are now completely vulnerable to the chaos that may follow a grid-down scenario? Can you make it to them and back home safely?
Now, I get it — this all sounds like some heroic movie where you’re playing Batman, and you’re going to swoop in and save the city. Unfortunately, not even your Bat Signal will work in a grid-down emergency. You’ll need to rely on your health, fitness, and survival skills to get the job done. Are you prepared to handle that situation?
Your Health & Fitness Will Either Be Your Achilles Heel or Your Superpower
How many miles is it from where you work to your wife, kids, and/or home? Have you thought about how you’d go about making that trek if you ever needed to do it on foot? Is your cardio up to par for the mission? Are you strong enough to carry emergency supplies or your kids on your back in the event of an emergency? Is your health failing due to poor lifestyle choices and behaviors?
When dealing with something like a Leave the World Behind scenario, you need to stack the deck in your favor, not build yourself a house of cards. Preparation, resiliency, and survivability all come into play.
Health & Fitness Survival Skills: Put in the Work
If you’re not getting 150 minutes of physical activity or exercise each week, you’re a liability — not an asset. And when teaming up with groups during emergencies, no one wants a liability on their hands (not even your family). You need to be a strong leader.
Working and able hands solve problems. And as we’ve seen in real life, after a disaster happens, weakness and frailty never seem to help individuals make it through the tough times. Only the strong survive.
You need to focus on not only your cardiovascular health but also your resistance training. Hit the weights and push your body to its limits a minimum of twice each week in the weight room. Get strong. Get fit. Be able to move with and without extra weight on your back.
Are you concerned about your current health? Don’t wish it to go away; make the changes in your life to align with a healthy mind and body. Put down the junk food and ice cream. Swap out the soda and beer for water and zero-calorie beverages. Put down the fork instead of going back for seconds. And start making protein a priority at every meal and in every snack.
Leave the World Behind Survival Skills You Can Implement Today
You don’t need to be Bear Grylls to hone the survival skills you need. There are simple survival skills you can implement with zero prior knowledge in order to take a Leave the World Behind scenario and put yourself in the best position possible to make it out the other side of the emergency unscathed. Heck, it doesn’t even need to be a Leave the World Behind scenario — think along the lines of the aftermath of a natural disaster that you now need to deal with.
What’s the first thing you should do to improve your survival skills and overall survivability? Simple… start prepping. Now, I’m not talking about becoming a doomsday prepper and fork out the money for an underground bunker (but that wouldn’t be a bad idea in today’s war climate), but rather having a month’s worth of water and food on hand at home.
Food Storage
You’re going to need to keep your energy levels up, and that’s where food comes in. You can get emergency food buckets that are premade kits, or you can make your own in order to build out your food storage.
Something that most people don’t think about or realize is that protein powder is a fantastic food prep. Think about it… each tub of protein tends to have at least a 12-month shelf life once you get it.
In a Leave the World Behind scenario, having protein powder along with adequate water (we’ll touch on this in more detail in a second) is invaluable. If you were to take a 5lb tub of MuscleSport Lean Whey, you’d have yourself 65 servings per tub. If you were to have one tub of each flavor (there are six flavors of the 5lb tubs to choose from, and this would provide you with enough variety that you wouldn’t get tired of the same flavor), that would provide you with 30 pounds of protein powder and a total of around 400 servings. Not bad!
You’re already using protein powder, right? So, it’s not like you’re going to waste the protein. Simply rotate your tubs of protein as you run through them and then restock what you used up. Who would have thought we’d be including a meathead’s favorite when it came to survival skills? But hey, at least protein powder is something you’re familiar with over a freeze-dried emergency MRE that may or may not taste like old cardboard you found in your basement during spring cleaning.
Water Storage
Store water in large water storage containers. Water storage containers come in different sizes, such as 5 or 7 gallons, but you should have enough water on hand at your home to provide one gallon of water per day for each member of your household. For example, if you live by yourself, you’d want to store at least 30 gallons of water.
Remember, in an emergency, you can survive weeks without food, but you can only go about three days without water.
Keep your stored water in a cool, dry place such as a basement. It would be ideal if you kept the storage container or even water bottles/jugs off the concrete floor. Put some type of barrier between the concrete and the water to prevent leaching.
Get Home Bag
Once you have your food and water storage taken care of, think mobility. You should have an emergency bag or get home bag in your vehicle at all times. If a Leave the World Behind emergency occurred while you weren’t home, you need to have the necessary tools to help you make it back home or to your loved ones.
Despite what you may think, don’t go with a “tactical” bag that has molle all over it. That screams military or prepper. Think “gray man,” where you blend in with everyone else. You don’t want to stand out and draw attention. Nor do you want people to think you have preps or supplies they want and need. The goal is to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible without people noticing you.
In your bag (or, at a minimum, in your vehicle), you should have spare clothing that fits your current weather and climate, comfortable shoes that allow you to walk several miles, a small amount of food for energy, water, and any tools that would help you navigate your trek more easily.
You want your get home bag to be as light as possible. As they say in the military, “Ounces equal pounds, and pounds equal pain.” You’re already going to need to endure the suck by just being in a terrible situation. Don’t make it worse or harder on yourself.
To simplify the process of creating your own get home bag and considering what you can put in it, check out this guide I put together on the topic.
The Proper Survival Skills Can Get You Through a Leave the World Behind Scenario
Are there other survival skills you should have if something like Leave the World Behind became an actual reality and not something we watch on our televisions? Absolutely. However, if you can learn and implement the survival skills and strategies we’ve mentioned in this article, you will put yourself in a much better position should an actual emergency or disaster take place. As they say, “It’s better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it.” Start preparing today. No one is coming to save you.