Food for Thoughts
We all change over time. Obvious, sure, but important to let that settle for a moment. Important to constantly reflect on the evolution of self in the context of life’s phases. As I write this today, I look back and see that I have changed A LOT in the last decade. When I say a lot, I mean transformational human type of shit. At or around the age of 25, I was dating as many women as possible, smoking weed, going to music festivals all over the country, eating and drinking whatever, whenever I wanted, and living in the same building as my mother.
I can picture the collective shift from “dude, nice!” to “damn, that sucks,” when I brought the living with mom piece into the story. Truth is, I was a total douche regardless of where I lived so shame on you for thinking I was cool at all.
Like many young, dumb, frat-culture bros, I wasn’t deliberate about anything except having a good time as often as possible. I really thought it was life lived at its best. Young, wild and free or on the pursuit of happiness, as my IPod would so often confirm.
I remember one Monday morning, circa 2010, waking up after arriving home the previous night from Austin, Texas. Monday’s usually suck royal ass, but this particular Monday was extra shitty as it was after a weekend of Austin City Limits partying and actual time with my frat bros. So much booze, drugs, and food. So little sleep and self respect. Looking in the mirror that morning, I was fucking gross. I was overweight, my skin looked like shit, and I’m pretty sure there was some paint or goop or unknown substance on my neck that hadn’t come off in the shower the night before.
2010 - Austin City Limits
The Catalyst
Something clicked that morning. No idea what. No idea why (probably the goop). And the truth is that there were plenty more necessary “clicks” to follow, but that morning started the transformation. It was that morning that I decided to start an exercise routine and stop eating like an asshole. The next day, I would wake up at 5am before work and go to the gym. I would start meal prepping and pack my own lunch. I would learn what kind of workouts to do and I would do whatever it took to keep the routines active. Fortunately, I was living with my cousin and best friend at the time who was willing to join me in my transformation plan and off we went.
3,729 days later (yup, did the math), I have better eating habits than I ever have and still wake up and go to the gym every morning before work. I am also in an almost 6 year long, wonderful relationship, prefer seats at a small concert, haven’t smoked in almost two years, and am asleep before 11pm pretty much every night. What I realized is that for me to change my overall lifestyle, the way I took care of my body had to change first.
Eating and Moving
Deliberate work on ourselves is the key to growing, developing, and becoming better human beings. I feel like I continue to stress that point. What I haven’t stressed yet is how much more challenging that work becomes when our body isn’t operating efficiently. I didn’t realize this explicitly 10 years ago, but there aren’t many things I am more grateful for than the decision to be deliberate about eating well and moving regularly.
If our body is a network of sophisticated systems https://www.livescience.com/37009-human-body.html, evolved to use and conserve energy in efficient ways, the way we nourish those systems becomes vital to its ability to function. If it isn't well oiled and you put unknown substances into the gas tank, the car is going to suck. I am not a scientist, nor have I done nearly enough research about how the miraculous overall system that is our body fully works, but I have some high level guesses as to what happens when it’s not cared for properly.
Non-genius Physiological Trade-Offs
The body only has so much energy. In any efficient system, if one component of that system is taking up more energy than it is meant to, another component is sacrificed. Therefore, if you eat shitty food that your body doesn’t know how to process (skittles, big macs, doritos, krispy kreme, etc) it will have to spend extra energy figuring out what to do with that shit. Similarly, if you don’t move your body to expend built up energy from food or help get your blood and oxygen moving, energy needs to be spent storing that food and moving that blood.
When energy in your body is going to unnecessary places, do you know where that energy is NOT going? It’s not going to fight the virus that dude just sneezed on you. It’s not going to your mind to get the focus needed to nail the interview you have this afternoon. It’s not going to your muscles and bones when you try to pick up your son or daughter at the park to play.
Sounds pretty fucking terrible, doesn’t it?
Three weeks or so into January and after a year where Uber Eats and DoorDash replaced Orange Theory and Planet Fitness, I am reminded of the importance of physical health as a central value in my life. Not having a gym for 6 months was tough last year. Yet, with some help in shifting my perspective, analyzing my needs from the workouts, I was able to remake my exercise routine to ensure those needs were met in a creative way. The creativity also sparked the chef in me to begin taking advantage of quarantine by being more deliberate about cooking my own food, more often. The combination of changes has me in the best physical health (gotta love the irony) that I’ve ever felt.
Ultimately, the energy necessary to create space for ourselves, mindfully understand our anxiety, and develop the necessary presence to focus on learning and growth begins and ends with how we choose to eat and move. Our body, mind, and spirit coexist in an energy exchange that facilitates the path in which we evolve.
It Starts with Understanding Yourself
Here are some questions for you to ask to assess your own foundational, physical health:
How often do you move during the day?
The majority of us live a sedentary lifestyle, working behind a desk of some kind, staring at a computer for the majority of our days. This has been proven to have significant health impacts https://medlineplus.gov/healthrisksofaninactivelifestyle.html and definitely would be worth some time to see what adjustments can be made. If that isn’t you, how much of your daily movement comes from the work you do and how much is deliberate for your health?
How much of the food that you eat is natural, whole food versus processed?
First, it is probably a good idea to explore processed foods https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/318630 and their impact. With that information, you can begin to better understand the variance in your diet of processed versus whole foods https://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/features/the-whole-foods-diet#1 - This should give you a basic idea of the work your body is doing to efficiently (or not so much) process what you feed it. Remember, that work is ultimately a trade for work to be done elsewhere in your body.
What are your energy tradeoffs?
I get it. Exercise, cooking, meal prep, all these things that I am talking about, they take time. We live in a fast-paced kingdom and convenience is king. There is always time, but it takes a deliberate effort to ensure that time is used wisely. When you are trying to eat a quick meal (drive through, deli, delivery), ask yourself what the time trade off is for what you’re about to eat. When you tell yourself you’re going to work out today and ultimately don’t, sit down and reflect on what you did instead that consumed your energy to a point of not following through. This isn’t a process of pointing out failures, rather, one to get a better understanding of yourself as you figure out what causes you to do the things you do, in case you decide to make any changes.
How often do you check in with how you actually feel?
As mentioned above, it’s easy to get caught up in the grind. It’s easy to stay on the surface and say generic shit like “I only live once” or “Everyone gets sick” or “Hangovers are borrowed happiness”. What isn’t easy is developing a practice of actually checking in with your mind to see how clearly you’ve been thinking. Or to sit down and do a mindful body scan to get an idea of what may be causing pain or discomfort. Same thing goes for your spirit or emotional well being. How do I feel? Why do I feel the way I feel? What is going on in the system in which I operate that may be impacting the systems inside of me?
Understanding Yourself Never Stops
10 years after that transformative morning, I am still trying to put it all together. Still working to figure out what “healthy” means for me. It didn’t all change at once, not even close. The change is persistent and depends on the deliberate efforts I take towards the various parts of my life that impact my own well being. That particular change was one of the most fortunate decisions I have ever made, but would have been worthless if the compounding, subsequent lifestyle changes didn’t happen thereafter. What I came to realize is that the decade-long transformation of my mind, body, and spirit started with a focus on my physical health. Give eating well and moving more a try. See what happens.
