What To Do If You Are Floundering
Before turning to an influencer, supplement, fad diet, weird workout, or spiritual quest, start with the most important foundational habits. If you get these into place, you will be in a whole new universe. After that, if you still need the spiritual quest, go for it.
Start with Activity
When you feel a change is needed, start with increasing your baseline activity. This has the biggest bang for your buck with reverberating positive effects. Push yourself until you get this consistent. Make it non-negotiable. Having a routine will be essential. Experiment with different times of day (but accept that early morning will most likely be best). What you should do is lift weights. If you truly love some type of cardio you want to get back to, I am not against it, I just think lifting is a better starting point. If you are just working on getting active, cardio is going to suck.
Lifting is a better human activity. It generates motivation in all the ways we like. If done properly, you will have objective evidence of improvement via the increase in the weight you are lifting. Humans love visible progress. Lifting properly means recording the weight you are lifting and engaging with progressive overload (increasing the weight steadily over time). Increasing skeletal muscle (the voluntarily moving muscle you think of when you think “muscle”) is extremely beneficial to our health on many levels, from increasing our baseline metabolism, to improving insulin response, to protecting us from injury. You want more skeletal muscle. This is one of my favorite sites to learn about lifting. Explore it all. I won’t rehash everything.
If you have never lifted before, you want to learn how to do the big three lifts — squat, bench, and deadlift. This page has beginner’s programs as well as how to train with good form. You can also learn from videos online. If you feel you’d like a trainer, have them show you how to do the big three and critique your form. I am not sure how hard it will be to find a trainer that can do that. You want to learn how to lift so you can do it forever without having to rely on them. You don’t need any complex program. Learn to do these three lifts, follow a program like the prior link, add weight consistently while tracking, and you will get strong and improve your overall physical and mental health.
Get the Right Amount of Consistent Sleep
Prioritize sleep. There really isn’t a choice. Get 7 to 8 hours and stop questioning it. You’ve heard of those people that can go with 4 hours of sleep and still thrive and be productive and healthy? Assume that isn’t you. Prioritizing your sleep will mean going to bed earlier for almost everyone. Make this happen. This should be another non-negotiable. Don’t over-rationalize. Of course you can stay up late sometimes, just don’t make it most of the time. Figure out your most common excuses for not going to bed and kill them in whatever way you can. Watching more Netflix is a stupid excuse.
Build simple habits and forget all the other complexity. Add it later if you want, but you mostly won’t need it. As above, get a relatively consistent sleep and wake time most of the time. Make sure your room is dark, quiet, and cool. If you live in a loud place, invest in a cheap white noise machine. Come up with a simple pre-sleep routine. Brushing your teeth and reading in bed is the best.
Yes, you can get less sleep than this and function, but it will drag down your health and capacity over time. Avoid this. There is no reason to simply give in and succumb to steadily becoming your worst self over time.
Get Your Diet Under Control
If your diet isn’t under control, get it under control. Following our theme, do not get complex. Additionally, don’t fall into the trap of becoming religious over one type of diet. The simpler you keep this, the better. Simple means getting a lot of protein with fiber from vegetables and fruits, and a reasonable amount of fat and carbs. Again, this website is excellent if you want to explore more. Eating lots of whole foods will do this for you. If there is a diet (Mediterranean, Paleo, etc.) whose story resonates with you, you can give it a go. Just remember, no diet has been shown to be “the best,” and there will never be a diet that is “the best” for 100% of people. Don’t fall into the trap of following something extreme or something led by a “guru.” If it sounds weird, extreme, restrictive – steer clear.
As with sleep, moderate your diet discipline to sticking to it most of the time. Enjoy indulgences occasionally, especially during holidays and celebrations. That being said, if you are just home on a Wednesday, there isn’t a reason to house an entire pizza by yourself. Don’t let boredom be the cause of eating. Let sustenance be first, celebration with others second. If you pair a solid diet with consistent activity, you are going to be in an increasingly enjoyable spot.
Insidious Killers and Your Capacity
Insidious killers are the things that destroy you over time, mostly without you knowing. They are stealth assassins. Sedentary lifestyle, lack of sleep, and a poor diet are amongst these.
The paradoxical thing, and what makes these so harmful, is the fact that they destroy nearly imperceptibly. They are easy to ignore (or overcomplicate things so that you don’t actually improve them), but they are nearly always the most important and effectual to improve your health and life.
Fighting the insidious killers helps to increase your capacity. Increasing your capacity allows you to engage more fully with life, living the life you want to live. It is essential in flourishing.
