confused about lack of progress...
If a person searches out a fitness professional and says they want to achieve XYZ fitness goal, they obviously value that fitness professional’s opinion, otherwise they wouldn't pay them. However, when they provide this person with their best guidance based on past experience (which likely led them in their direction to begin with) as to how to achieve XYZ goal, they fail to complete the necessary tasks needed to get there, and then they get frustrated about not making any progress.
Why is that? It's likely that many people… 1) don't actually know what they want, and/or 2) have no idea the effort it takes to get there.
1) People don’t actually know what they want, they just know they aren’t happy with what they have. The general complaint is they’re carrying around too much weight, and so people think fat-loss is the answer, but it’s not necessarily the goal. Confidence is the goal.
2) People have no idea how much effort it takes to achieve their goal, it’s not that the goal is necessarily difficult to achieve. For example, weight loss is relatively simple — eat less, move more — yet far from easy because it requires change. People don’t change because they need to, they change because they’re inspired.
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If anyone is lacking the clarity about what they want to achieve (in any health endeavor, or even life), I don't think they can be truly inspired. So, I guess the first step is to figure out what any of us are truly after in order to find the inspiration to get there. And, I think that comes down to simply asking why enough times to find out.
312. form implies function
The way we look speaks volumes about our health because of the simple fact that form implies function.
When a racehorse breeder sees obvious disruptions in healthy growth, they naturally consider the nutritional context in which the animal was raised. If a prize-winning mare gives birth to a foal with abnormally bowed legs, the veterinarian recognizes that something went wrong — asking the logical question: what was the mother eating?
Applying this example to children, rarely do physicians ask the same question, even when life-threatening problems show up at birth. And we continue to neglect the nutrition-development equation when people develop scoliosis, joint malformations, autism, schizophrenia, and other maladaptive issues later in life.
Our desire for beauty is not solely a matter of vanity. The way we look speaks volumes about our health because of the simple fact that form implies function. Less attractive facial features are less functional. Children with suboptimal skull structure may need glasses or braces, whereas those with a more ideal architecture won’t. This is because suboptimal architecture impairs development of normal geometry, leading to imperfectly formed facial features; whether it’s the eyes, ears, nose, or jaw.
For example: narrow nasal passages irritate the mucosa, increasing the chances of rhinitis and allergies. When the airway in the back of the throat is improperly formed, a child may suffer from sleep apnea, which stares the brain of oxygen necessary for normal brain development.
Frederick Douglas once said that “it’s easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.” Yet, with our complete avoidance of looking at the root of the problem and addressing the nutritional and environmental factors, it is getting increasingly more difficult to even build strong children.
254. keep your head up
Never be so sure of what you want that you wouldn’t take something better. We all like to think, “I know what I want,” but in reality there is no way to know that what you’re after is the best possible outcome for you. All the effort you put into a goal or the lifestyle you’re chasing is commendable, just don’t let your focus become so narrow — by keeping your head down, only focusing on where to place your next step — that you lose out on opportunities along the way. Walk your path knowing that you really don’t know what lies outside the boundaries you force yourself to stay within, so continue to strive for that life you want, but keep your head up because you never know what might come along.
141. change is hard
Change is hard. We approach the concept of positive change with good intentions, yet when we arrive at the crossroads of where we need to leave behind our old habits to implement new ones, we inevitably stumble. Whether we realize it or not, we hold onto more fear about losing what we have come to accept as ourselves — lifestyle and habits — than what we stand to gain by making the transition. If we know that implementing healthy and positive changes will be beneficial, then why is change so hard?
To answer this question we can look into the work of Daniel Kahneman, who won the Nobel Prize for his research into cognitive biases — those little hardwired shortcuts in our brains that help speed up the decision-making process. While they’re helpful, they’re not always rational. An example of this is something called loss aversion. Rationally, gaining a dollar should be as pleasurable as losing a dollar is painful. However, our brains don’t work like that and a reason why change can be so difficult. Losing a dollar bothers you a lot more than earning a dollar makes you feel good. It makes sense because losing too much can equate to you having to live in a box and evolutionarily if you lost everything that meant death, while gaining a lot is nice but its appeal quickly diminishes (due to the hedonic treadmill). So it seems that evolution has wired us to fear losses much more than we love gains.
In other words, losses loom larger than gains. Change is so hard because we have to lose a piece of ourselves in the process. We are loss averse.
105. upgrade the system
No one in the modern world is unaware of the impact a virus can have on our day. We’ve dealt with them for years. Ever since the advent of downloadable porn, music, and movies, we’ve had to be on the lookout. The natural solution at the time was to install an antivirus software and go about our day. However, as technology evolved we found that upgrading the hardware and software would make the whole system more robust and allowed our digital interactions to be less prone to exogenous attacks.
We’ve taken the antivirus mentality and applied it to our current health crisis, forgetting that upgrading the hardware and software — i.e., lifestyle and mindset — are the key components to creating a more vibrant and healthy system. With the knowledge that the majority of our society is unhealthy, operating on a dysfunctional and worn down system due to years of neglect, compounded by the fact that the least healthy among us are the ones most affected, why are we choosing to wait for the latest antivirus to “install” when the real solution is to improve the overall system?
72. just a thought
Yesterday, through the introduction of a friend, I met someone for the first time. As she approached, I saw she was wearing a mask, so to be polite, I asked if she would like me to put my mask on so we could sit down and talk. “No, I don’t think it’s necessary.” I agreed, I didn’t think she needed her’s either, so she took her mask off and we proceeded to have a great conversation.
In the small community of people I interact with, I’ve found that none of them really care about the “safety procedures” of social distancing or the need to wear a mask. And to be honest, I’m fine with that because I don’t find the merit in doing so either. Before the Karen’s and Kevin’s jump down my throat because my mouth is exposed, let me explain myself.
Everyone I surround myself with is deeply entrenched in the health, fitness, research, nutrition, functional medicine, and the strength and conditioning world. They are not IG influencers searching for likes or part of the Dr. Oz tribe that likes to lead you down the yellow brick road of bullshit. These people are not average in anyway. They are the people you look for when you want to improve your health or get in shape because the government guidelines on health you’ve been following haven’t worked. They are people I respect, because they place their health as a top priority in their life. I’m assuming this is strange to hear as it sounds like some type of cognitive dissonance. They want to be healthy, yet they don’t follow the guidelines or wear a mask?!? GASP! They must be crazy, right?
No, they are not crazy. Nor do I think they are dangerous or careless. How could they be? They are the best at what they do and it shows. They, much like myself, stopped listening to the “wisdom” the government was shoveling in our direction many years ago, and it’s subsequently the reason why they have acquired the health they have. If these people aren’t worried about the biggest health crisis of our lifetime, maybe we should start to ask why, and take on some of their practices so that we can get on with life. Perhaps the “information” you’ve been hearing on the News isn’t the best advice to lockdown your health in these uncertain times. Just a thought.
Health care should be preventative, not reactionary
The purveyor’s of health continue to promise one cure after another, yet they don’t even understand the disease. The real reason no progress has been or will ever be made in health care on a governmental or institutional level is because they have no awareness to the actually manifestations of disease (or perhaps they just don’t bother because there’s no money in it). Type 2 diabetes is not a disease of Metformin deficiency. Heart Disease doesn’t develop due to lack of statin drugs. Your poor sleep is not due to a Lunesta deficiency. Your adiposity didn’t advance because you waited too long to sign up for CoolSculpting… (you have to see the video)
This line of thinking completely misses the point of what primary health care should be.
Think of human physiological dysfunction as trying to repair a broken vase. You start with the big pieces and, finally, all that’s left are the tiny shards of the impact point. Those tiny shards will go together in the end, but you would never have started there.
The big pieces are akin to the different pieces of your lifestyle — how you eat, how you sleep, how much you move, how you think and ultimately the environment you find yourself in. All these play a role in constructing that vase so that it doesn’t break easily, and can possibly become antifragile.
You always see headlines with “cutting-edge discoveries” that ostensibly have the power to change the world, but in reality, never provide a single cure because they completely miss the point.
Health care should be preventative, not reactionary. Primary health care should be eating well, moving well, sleeping well, and spending time in the sun with people you enjoy. Secondary health care can be when you go to see your doctor because you had too much fun with your friends, decided to climb a tree, fell and broke your arm!
It all comes down to taking responsibility for your health. As I said yesterday, we have been taught that the system has our best interests in mind, however I think the epidemic rates of poor health should be considered cause for continuing to believe in a system that failed you long ago.