I am often caught talking to myself lately! I’m always recounting in my head how I’ve gone off on a tear about something like how someone was probably trying to tell me their juicing strategy, or how they just want to be “tone”, a word that is like fingernails on a chalkboard in my head), or better yet, wasting time recounting ld injuries from 5+ years ago versus how we’re going to tackle their workout (past or future…it’s your choice). Often, I “aim” posts at someone like a gun to the head…this time, it’s years of aiming!
My goal is to inspire our community to justify their personal methodology of why they are doing what they are doing – whether in training or diets…or geesh!…even in making decisions. I believe it might also be called critical thinking…or being resourceful versus gullible.
THAT WAS A VAGUE STATEMENT
Inspire you to understand why you are training the way you are, and what the benefits of that training are. Inspire you to know why you are eating what you are eating and what it does to your body. If we understand why we are doing what we are doing, when questioned, we have a position. When training, we have more vigor because we know the goal or the outcome we’re aiming for. When we do something, we understand the resulting outcome! Score!
It’s hard when you start something new… to dive in with both feet and embrace it… especially when it’s a foreign style of training or eating a new way. We know it’s hard because we’ve all been there.
We believe:
Give a man a fish, feed him for a day.
Teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime!
Here’s the most important part of this post. I want you to be a critical thinker, an evaluator of information, and a learned student of your own health.
Do you think something is true because Dr. Oz says so… because Oprah promotes it…or because the neighbor next door took the magic pill and lost 50 lbs and can now run a sub 20 minute 5K? THAT’S IT! THAT’S THE SOLUTION! Really? The magazine you just picked up said you can get a 6 pack in 6 days in 6 minutes a day using the new “ab-miracle” machine-thing (ok, that was the Thighmaster, but it’s still funny!). The magazine at the grocery store checkout says you can lose eight pounds in 5 days with the magic fat flush. Do you pick it up?
All that sounds pretty stupid when I put it that way, right? You really don’t want us to think that’s how you make decisions, especially about things that are related to your health, do you?
If you do….if you think that way….if you just don’t know what to think…or if you just don’t want to think at all, I sort of understand. (just don’t admit it to me yet!) I know there’s a lot of information out there. I know it’s confusing. But the first line of defense should be:
“Is that logical? Does that make sense?”
Really, if you haven’t seen your 6 pack in 6 years, do you really think it’s going to appear in 6 days working 6 minutes a day? Really? It’s ok. You can laugh at yourself.
This state of being enticed to find the fast fix happens all the time…ALL THE TIME! It’s in the media all around us….even 12 years ago when I started this post! Yes, it was in a draft from a previous challenge and so far…it’s all still relevant. Now it’s called “being influenced”. It should be called “being gullible”.
We have been in the midst of a few generations of young adults that are of the “instant gratification” mentality. They have not grown up in a time where you worked and earned your right to do…just about everything. Instant gratification, in work, in fitness, in diet…is just not realistic. None of these things come easy, fast, or without effort. And for those of us that are a bit older, we’re just probably so freakin’ frustrated that anything that seems like a quick fix is appealing. Don’t get me wrong – I get it. Some people are blessed and it happens – but not for the majority of us.
Back to getting a grip on what’s fact and fiction. At the grocery store the other day, this is the conversation I unfortunately had with the cashier, or rather, that she had with me.
CASHIER: Are you doing to juice all these vegetables?
ME: (straight-lipped smile) No, I don’t juice.
CASHIER: Well, Dr. Oz says juicing is so healthy.
ME: I don’t juice. I prefer to chew my food.
CASHIER: But isn’t juicing healthier?
ME: I don’t believe so. There’s energy expenditure in chewing, digestion begins with chewing -I prefer to eat my food.
CASHER: Hmmm. Weird. Dr. Oz said it was healthier.
All because I bought vegetables. I’ll never get that few minutes of my life back. And I left grumpy. My favorite grocery store and I’m irritated when I leave because of a nice lady who bought into Dr. Oz. What I wanted to say is “Are you writing a book?”. What happened to privacy? Should I order my groceries online and have them delivered? It’s really hard for me to spend time on the obvious, but I do understand that we live in a world where information is free, and anyone can say anything and it’s deemed fact.
I told Ed, when we were thinking about building our first gym, that this place has to have a training aspect (TRAIN, vs. “work out”), it’s got to have an EATING aspect (eat well), and it’s got to have a THINKING aspect…. and that’s the part that is always up in the air…” I don’t want to think…just tell me what to do”. Or worse yet, we don’t think and just do what Oprah, Dr. Oz, and mainstream media and fitness magazines tell us to do. That’s what most people want. Heck, sometimes that’s what I want too. It’s hard to think, study, learn, make a decision, feel confident it’s backed by science, have a position or stance, and stick with it…until you’re proven wrong scientifically or even empirically, or until you’ve wiggled your way through it and it isn’t working for you.
How many times have you picked up a magazine or seen
- a “review” that “beets are good for energy”, or
- “whole grains give you energy”, or
- “coconut oil can give you energy”, or
- “not eating breakfast can give you energy”, or
- “drinking coffee can give you energy…or…or…or?
OK, how about this: eat less, exercise more. Couch to 5K. Zumba. These are all viable options. So, what do we do? Have beets, whole grains, coconut oil, and coffee for lunch because we’re skipping breakfast (to eat less) so that we have a lot of energy left over for our 5K training and dance class afterward? Probably, especially if you are not fit and lacking energy and something told you this is how to get fit and gain energy.
ANCESTRAL HEALTH & FITNESS
We are meant to be lean, strong, and fast but also have endurance, to be agile and mobile enough to “get around…move in and out of spaces and places”. We are meant to be free from the diseases of civilization. The movie Wall-E truly is a fun, playful look into what we’ll become if we don’t get a grip on what we’re supposed to be able to do with our bodies and stop looking for the easy way out.
Life today is different than that of our hunter-gatherer ancestors, and even our parents and their parents. I don’t care what kind of life you were born into or acquired, whether you have loads of money or none, who your parents are, or who you work for…that’s the greatest thing about our setting: the playing field is leveled and solely ranked by the efforts you put into it – your training, your diet, and your lifestyle. Remember that – that’s really important: our playing field is leveled and solely ranked by the efforts you put into you. You work hard, count your reps accurately (because we know when you don’t, even when you think we didn’t see), you eat well, you recover smart, and your outcomes are our outcomes: you’re lean, healthy, resilient. Recently there have been a few great articles written, all with great archaeological support behind them…none of them earth-shatteringly different from what we know and continue to believe, but I always love it when someone puts a comical spin on it, specifically:
“You’re pathetic. Really. According to the latest research, human fitness has decreased so dramatically in recent years that even the strongest of us would consider ancient men to be, well, monsters.”
Check the article out: HOW FAR FITNESS HAS FALLEN. It’s short and to the point. Its backup study is here, longer, but interesting.
Unfortunately, after all that, we know there are still some who just want the shortcut. Losing weight is hard. At 1 lb a week, it takes a month to lose 4-5 pounds. If you have 30 to lose it feels like FOREVER. Or is it?…compared to how long it took us to get here?
Most of you have seen this. Five pounds. The same 5 lbs of fat takes up more space than 5 lbs of lean muscle. Gain 5 pounds of fat and lose 5 pounds of muscle and you’ll weigh the same, but you’ll look fatter.
Or how when you gain a little muscle and lose a little fat, you look leaner even though you added muscle weight. I promise.
And the funny part…putting on 5 pounds of muscle is A LOT more fun than taking off that 5 pounds of fat. Remember that! To us, that 5 lbs is 5 lbs less weight in a push up and a ring row, and 5 lbs less “inflammation” and pain in your knees and hips.
If you want to be a part of this community, you need to be smart about your training, your diet, and your lifestyle. You HAVE TO BE. Yes, your coaches are there for you when you crash…we’re always there for you. But we’re not going to lie to you. If you can push harder, we need to tell you that. If you need to refocus, we’ll tell you that. If we can tell you’ve been eating like crap and drinking too much, we’ll tell you that. Our outcomes are only as good as what you give us to work with. A healthy, well-fed body versus a sleep-deprived, processed-food-fed, dehydrated from drinking too much, inflamed body (yikes!).
And on that note, a sign-off from the hubs:
LAST THOUGHTS ON BEING TRUTHFUL WITH YOURSELF
Ed used to always say: you have to be honest with yourself. I always took that to mean being self-critical. Vain, self-loving people are sometimes fun to be at parties with, but you won’t find those traits running rampant around us. We tend to squash the. We are innately self-critical and yearning for improvement. Yes, we celebrate our wins but quickly reestablish new goals. Ed will elaborate oftentimes on “being honest with yourself” and say it this way: “Look in the mirror and if you don’t like what you see, if your abilities aren’t where you want them to be – do something about it.” It’s crude, simple and probably “cancel-able” in today’s culture, but it’s the quickest way to start seeing results – admitting what’s going wrong. Eating wrong. Drinking too much. Moving too little. Sleeping too little. The next thing in your head should be “What am I going to do about it?”.
Think – but also take action. Be self-critical about what’s working and what’s not. And make simple, sensible decisions. Success comes – often slowly. But it comes!