Fads |

This isn’t a joke! You are going to die…someday.

I hope that it isn’t soon, and that it isn’t painful. But nevertheless, it will happen someday. That’s how life works.

What strikes me as strange is the obsessiveness with which we often approach our prejudices toward certain things. Specifically, for this blog, I’ll discuss this with relation to fitness – but it’s true of anything.

People in the fitness world have all sorts of “rules” that you’re supposed to follow. Eat this, don’t eat that. Exercise this much, but no more, and no less. Do this ten times a day. Do that once a month. Eat these pills once after every other meal on Wednesdays.

You’re supposed to “activate your core” and build [insert bodypart here] “of steel.” You should only drink non-flouridated water from a holy stream that trickles from the top of Everest for one month every Spring.

You need to “challenge your proprioception and balance.” You need to do “multiplanar exercise” and get into your “heart rate zone.”

And you do! You race around, doing all this stuff. You eat organic, you drink the Yogic water, you practice your Asana’s, you give your Pilates instructor a cash gift every Christmas.

Then you die.

And not only do you die, but you probably die roughly around the same age as everyone else in your generation. Maybe you live ten year longer than your fast-food-abusing classmates. And maybe not.

Maybe you live a couple of years less than the person who ate moderately well, and exercised moderately, all those years. And maybe not.

My point is this – there’s little credence to most of the bullshit we try to sell ourselves and each other every day.

Will fast food kill you? Yes, in excess. In excess anything will kill you. Unhappiness is a killer if sustained for too long. Too much sunlight (plus other environmental stressors…like sunscreen) will give you cancer. Too little, also, can kill you.

You are going to die. The most important thing is that, while you’re alive, you get the most out of it, and help others to do the same (so that they, in turn, will help you, etc.). Do things you love to do. Do things that make you really effing happy. I mean – EXUBERANT. DO THEM NOW! And help others to do the same.

And forget about all those bullshit “rules.” You know what’s good for you. Do it.

I think there are a couple of other things that diets (books, etc.) do that are dangerous.

First, they put you in a position of powerlessness. When you pick up a book to get advice from it, you are saying to yourself that you don’t know what’s best for yourself. This is really horrible. People need to know the basics about diet (eat as close to nature as possible) and then just listen to their bodies. Counting calories, macronutrient grams, or anything else is not listening to your body. Let your body be your book.

The other thing these books do is they guide your focus. Most diet books are focused on weight loss. Weight loss shouldn’t be anyone’s primary objective. There have been several studies in recent years that have shown that people who are “overweight” (and I mean in bodyfat percent, not BMI which is a bogus measure) but active are much more healthy and less susceptible to cardiac and other risk factors than their “thin” but inactive counterparts.

We all know that a professional athlete will have a BMI that puts them in the “obese” range. To boot, my grandmother, who was raised in North Carolina, and ate “southern food,” and drank and smoked through most of her life, is now 89 years old.

What is the aim of all of this obsession in our culture? The human body is amazingly adaptable, and will find a way to get through almost anything your throw at it. Diet is an artificial focus. What is at the root of dietary concerns? Looking good? Being thinner? Or is it even deeper? Being healthy. Living a healthy and satisfied life.

As long as you continue to look outside of yourself for your happiness, you will never be satisfied.

How do you look within? Look to nature as your guide. What is your nature? I think being natural is or should be about much more than the way you eat. It should also be about how you live, where you spend your time, how you move and how frequently, etc.

Don’t obsess over your diet. Make things simpler and simpler, and you’ll be nearing the path of nature.

Tag Archives: fads

You are going to die

Obsession and Diet