So let’s start with the cat poop coffee. I had a distance coaching client send me a package for Christmas that contained about 200 grams of Wild Kopi Luwak Coffee. For those who don’t know (as I was before I got this), Kopi Luwak coffee, or civet coffee, is made from normal coffee beans that get eaten by the wild palm civet, a type of cat native to regions of Sumatra, Indonesia and Bali. The civet eats the coffee berries, and then the beans go through a process of proteolytic digestion in the civets stomach that alter the peptide chains and amino acid profile of the beans, and is then excreted through normal defectation. Then the beans are harvested from the poop, roasted, ground and shipped out.

Because of the relative scarcity of the civet, the production procedure, and then limited availability of each in terms of the coffee growing regions of the world, this coffee is considered to be a bit of a delicacy, and is known as the most expensive coffee in the world.

This is great and all, but I’m pretty simple in my quest for a cup of coffee. Most coffee snobs would hate drinking with me. I can’t really tell the difference between things like arabica and robusto esperesso beans, or whether they were used with a gravity filtration system versus a coffee press, but that’s a story for another post. This is me talking about drinking this cup of cat poop coffee.

I don’t own a coffee machine, so I bought a cheap coffee press. I followed the recommendations on how to make a cup, using  scoop of coffee and four ounces of water. I normally take my coffee with some sugar and milk, but today I wanted to see if the coffee by itself would live up to the hype, so I took it black.

It was alright.

The taste was decent, not too sour, not too acidic, and had a good aroma. There was only a mild after taste with it, compared to some coffees that feel more like you licked a car battery for a couple hours after your cup. It was fairly smooth and resulted in a nice caffeine buzz that wasn’t off-putting or making me jittery. I would say I would score it like a 7/10 in terms of best cup of coffees I’ve ever had. As far as best, there’s a small independent coffee joint a couple blocks from my work that sells Intelligentsia coffee from Chicago and Los Angeles, and for me it seems like the best roast out there.

This brings me to the main point of this post. I know there’s a lot of people out there thinking that drinking coffee that’s passed through the digestion of a wild Asian cat is unnecessarily involved and something that only the really affluent would see as being important. I mean, who was the first guy who said “hey look at that poop! I wonder whether I could make a heady brew out of it?”

There’s a trend in social media called “First World Problems,” which is pretty much people who are well off in the world complaining about small insignificant things that tick them off. Pretty much like me saying the coffee my client got me and that’s considered a delicacy is just “alright.”

So today I wanted to present a view of some of the things that happen in the fitness world in a satirical view of complete first world problems. Remember, these are all satiricial.

First World Fitness Problems

• When I lift so much weight it’s tough to strip all the plates off.
• getting to the gym just after someone else grabs the last towel.
• when my shaker cup doesn’t quite seal perfectly.
• When the clubs’ wifi doesn’t work properly and I have to use my own data to upload my workouts and share with my friends.
• when my gym bag keeps sliding off my shoulder because my traps are so thick
• the treadmill doesn’t have an iPod adapter, which means my battery can’t get charged while I run.
• when your compression socks don’t match your shorts.
• you forget to foam roll before your workout. You instantly feel like you’re going to explode and immediately die.
• you forgot your pre-workout mix in the car. No one ever worked out without their pre-workout, because their nitric oxide levels would be suboptimal if they did.
• your lifting straps cause chafing on your wrists, and kettlebell work gives you small bruises on your forearms.
• your iPod playlist doesn’t get you jacked like it used to.
• you start doing squats regularly, therefore needing to buy all new pants
• Done work at 6, gym closes at 7
• All the parking spots close to the gym are taken, which means you have to walk 20 feet further. This count as cardio and saps your gains.
• deadlifting with octagonal plates
• The only water available is tap water.
• Completes a workout without taking a selfie or using #hashtags. Point of the workout is entirely lost.
• Pre-workout doesn’t kick in until 30 minutes after you finished your workout
• The treadmills don’t go fast enough
• the air conditioning in the gym is less than optimal.

What’s your first world gym problem? Drop a comment below and let everyone know.