Mainly regarding weight.
You never used to worry about weight, but now the 5–10 pounds not only appear after the holidays but don’t want to come off.
Or.
You remember what it takes to lose weight—having coffee instead of breakfast a few days each week and being back to your norm after two weeks—but not anymore.
You used to do X, and now you have to do 3X, and it seems even that isn’t working so well these days.
And it’s not just about weight.
Blood pressure. Cholesterol. Moods.
The price of eggs.
The obvious answer is to run to keep up
Something has to change, if you want to regain your original state.
If cutting breakfast three days a week doesn’t work, try five days. If walking 30 minutes a day doesn’t work, try running. And so on.
Your physiology has changed, so your actions have to adjust.
(And by the way, if you change and match speed with your physiology, you won’t catch up; you’ll just keep pace. When you eat like a bird, work out like a maniac, and don’t lose an ounce, you’ve successfully adjusted to your physiology—otherwise you’d be gaining weight. To lose weight, you need to really outrun your physiology for a bit, then drop to the higher pace once you’ve caught up.)
The first take-home lesson: like being stunned when seeing friends from high school whom you haven’t seen in years, the only thing that stays frozen in time is your memory. Real biology is constantly changing—what worked at 20 won’t work at 40.
Needing to adjust your health habits to keep up is the norm, not the exception.
Take home lesson #2: you can only run so fast
I had a rude awakening about 10 years ago in the office: my systolic blood pressure (the top number) was over 200.
After cutting out the soy sauce braised beef, it came down to 160.
An hour on the treadmill twice a day, and it came down to 120—but pounding the ground 2 hours a day was of questionable sustainability. Eventually, I split the difference, exercised about an hour daily, and took a modest dose of BP medication.
You pays your money and you take your choice.
But everyone has their limit, whether physical or mental.
If your physiology demands more than you can lifestyle adjust, then you either make up the difference another way (like medication), or you live with your biology being no bueno.
Take home lesson #3: no bueno is also an option
I didn’t say it was a good one.
But it’s one that a surprising number of people choose to take, the operative word being choose.
I knew a great professor in college: humorous, knowledgeable, and with the gift of making complex topics understandable. I asked if he ever considered attending medical school, and he said, Nah, I’m just not enough of a people person. Which was categorically ridiculous—but apparently, not in his own mind.
I know a great self-defense instructor, who has been fighting a particular kind of slow-growing cancer. He eventually decided against surgery, chemo, and radiation, despite the very good odds that they would cure him, because he had done his research and was convinced that the changes would make his life no longer recognizable and worth living, though he would, in fact, be alive.
Some will choose the mental model they can live with over the biology that demands otherwise.
Health and fitness come down to choices
Getting a little meta, as I will periodically.
But health and fitness aren’t actually about steps walked, protein grams eaten, days journaled, hours slept, or even family members hugged.
Health and fitness come down to values and choices.
The thought of a certain negative is unacceptable to you—weight gain, heart attack—so you choose to take action to fix or avoid it—working out or dieting.
The thought of a certain benefit is highly valuable to you—being strong or able to defend yourself—so you choose to act to make it happen—lifting weights or taking self-defense classes.
And certain actions or choices are less valuable to you than keeping things as they are, so in those cases you choose to change nothing.
This is why many health coaches talk about clarifying a client’s Why? before delving into the details of What to change.
What to change is pretty straightforward: eat cleanly, lift heavy things, mellow out, see your doc periodically, and so on.
It’s the details of the Why? that explain the mysterious lack of progress thus far.
Action item
Think about your health, fitness, and life goals. Is there anything valuable enough to change your life to achieve or avoid? To turn the steering wheel hard to the right or left?
And if not, is it because the goals aren’t worthy, or because your mental model means more?
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