More than just Muscle

When many people start getting into health what they will find immediately is that there is a vast amount of information to be read on the subject of having a healthy eating diet plan. So vast in fact that it would take a number of lifetimes to read it all. The problem is that most of this health information comes in the form of advice and most of it conflicts with just about everything else that’s said on the subject.

[I love this photo! It empitomises for me what having good health is all about... being able to spend quality time with loved ones enjoying life.]

Humans are very well adapted to seeing something that correlates to something else and drawing a causal relationship then generalising that out to the rest of their life. An example of this would be looking at top atheletes and seeing that most of them eat whole grains as an important part of their diet. We would then draw a causal relationship (i.e. that doing one CAUSES the other) that eating grains cause us to be healthy and if you start doing so yourself it will have the inevitable impact of improving your health too.

The problem is that we are all unique individuals, and what works for one person won’t necessarily help us even though we all basically share the same attributes e.g. we all have a liver and use oxygen. In fact in some cases it will actively hinder us or cause untold damage to our bodies.

Science has had a really hard time in proving just about anything to do with health because we are so unique. Where this really becomes a problem (and I fell into this trap several times myself) is when someone will follow the advice they see and think that a) it is correct, and must be right for everyone and b) they suffer from the placebo effect and while the choices they are making are actively hindering them, they focus on the science and only talk how great they feel and how much better off they are. Eventually something has got to give and the weakest part in the chain is your body.

If reading endlessly about all the intricate details of a certain health system won’t work what are we then to do? Do we forego health altogether and just eat whatever we want when we want and if there are consequences it must just be down to pure luck? No, this is a really bad way to operate.

The trick to health I’ve found is that you need to research first. Find out what is being said (by science, health practitioners or even your own family). Then draw up some conclusions and bullet point things that you are able to change in your own diet and health regime. Then the all important step is to test out these bullet points. Spend a few weeks to a few months eating according to the plan and exercising according to the plan and log your feelings and thoughts in a journal, that way when you finish up the program you can look back and see what worked for you. About the only thing that you can ultimately trust is your body’s own feedback mechanism, it will tell you what works for it and what doesn’t.

Over time you will build up a list of things that work and you can stick to those things 80-90% of the time. Unless you have a disease like coeliacs or an allergy that would make it dangerous for you to eat certain foods you shouldn’t be afraid to go out of your own system some of the time. Granted you may find that junk food tastes great but leaves you feeling like crap a few hours after for a day or two, but if you go out and that’s what your friends are all eating the social exclusion that you will probably feel will negate most of the benefit from eating strictly to plan. The 80-90% of the time that you do stick to your plan will more than make up for any foods consumed at any other point.

I have found this to be by far the easiest way to live.