IT’S WHAT YOU DON’T DO

Americans, and possibly other westerners, are obsessed with doing.  We take pride in it: “we’re doers, not talkers!” and other such trite bravado.  We see inaction as sinful and action as virtue, and even I have displayed this mentality with one of my favorite Klingon proverbs of “in battle, make a decision: if it’s a good one, even better”.  However, quite often, it’s the stuff we AREN’T doing that is responsible for our success, while the doing becomes our undoing.  And this fact is the cause of so much cognitive dissonance, because we take so much satisfaction when we are in the process of doing, whereas we experience so much anxiety from not doing.  But, in that regard, the basic premise of physical transformation continues to hold true: physical transformation is an uncomfortable process.  The body transforms BECAUSE of discomfort, as the body is attempting to adapt as a means to avoid this discomfort.  And this will include the discomfort associated with the stuff you AREN’T doing.

In this case: exhaling

 

The fitness industry has latched onto this broken part of our psychology and weaponized it against us in order to make a profit.  Growing up in the 90s in San Diego, I heard radio ads (holy cow what a 90s sentence) for a product called “Metabolife”, which was a miracle weight loss powder.  All you had to do was, stop eating 3 hours before bed, and then mix this powder with water and drink it before bed, and like magic, the fat would just come off.  Hey, what happens if you stop eating 3 hours before bed and DON’T drink the powder?  …oh yeah…but you can’t sell “Don’t eat for 3 hours” to people for fat loss: where is the DOING?!  Where is the ACTION that MAKES the fat loss happen?  Surely it can’t be the INACTION causing this!  And it was the same with the “shock your abs to a six pack” electro stim products sold by infomercial.  Ever notice how those products came packaged with a diet?  What happened if you followed the diet WITHOUT the ab shocker?  Oh yeah: abs.  Because they’re made in the kitchen.  But where is the DOING!?  Same with 8 minute abs, the ab wheel (which is a GREAT product for training abs, but won’t make a size pack happen) and, honestly, the entire “health food” industry.

 

Why health food?  Because it’s not what we eat that is making us healthy: it’s what we AREN’T eating.  We, again, see this trap all the time: people fill their shopping carts with kale and wheatgrass, and chow down on it alongside their Captain Crunch and 5 drinks per evening.  This idea that the “health food” will “undo” the consequences of the unhealthy food.  That drinking a diet coke will undo a Big Mac.  That Manuka honey and protein bars will undo eating out of the vending machine at work.  That slamming a Slim Fast shake alongside a Subway footlong will make us skinnier.  Because, again: now we’re DOING something.  No one wants to believe that the path to health and fitness is traveled by NOT eating the stuff that’s killing us.  No one wants to believe that the health food DOESN’T come in a box with special labeling and mixing instructions: that it’s just ACTUAL food.

We figured this out decades ago...

 

This is why REAL nutritional interventions are successful, irrespective of the specifics of them.  Whole food vegans experience similar health benefits as carnivores when it comes to the initial phases of the intervention, because both AREN’T doing the same thing: eating highly processed hyperpalatable chemically engineered “food like products”.  One is only eating plants, one is eating no plants whatsoever, but both have eliminated the stuff that was actively poisoning and killing them, and their health improves.  And, consequently, you can go on the other end of the spectrum, eating “dirty vegan” or “dirty keto”, living entirely off of Oreos (yes, they’re completely vegan) or Atkins frozen pizza (yes, ALSO a thing), completely following “the rules” of the diet, DOING all the things, and end up in far worse health than you started, because now you’re ONLY living off of hyperprocessed junk.  The only “not doing” that’s happening here is NOT eating actual, real food, which is absolutely setting you up for failure.

 

This, of course, exists in the training world as well, with examples abound.  Both Chris Duffin and Stan Efferding have spoken of how, during their peak performance in the sport of powerlifting, they were training about 3x per week.  But the ENTIRE internet has decided that we NEED to lift 6x a week to get the OPTIMAL muscle protein synthesis: why can’t these dumb strongest humans to eve live figure that out?  Both these dudes were forced into these training frequencies as a result of life circumstances…and both talked about how, with such infrequent training, they were able to RECOVER so much better from the demands on their training, such that they could develop SO much more strength, now that their fatigue was better managed.  It’s the whole reason deloads exist: we let fatigue heal so we can continue to push hard.  Dan John has shared a similar sentiment with the origins of Easy Strength: life as a busy father and teacher confined him to 15 minute workouts 3-5 times a week, and it was during that time he had his best ever performances in throwing the discuss. 

What's the point of training 3 days a week if you can only deadlift 1000lbs?

 

Hell, what we just described is WHY abbreviated training itself became so popular: trainees had been slamming themselves with volume for so long in the pursuit of growth that, when they FINALLY backed off, they were ABLE to grow.  They were SO obsessed with doing that it was their UNdoing.  They had it in their minds that they HAD to do more sets, more workouts, more training, more frequency, more more more…and, ultimately, it was the NOT doing that would get them results.  Stuart McRobert wrote about this exact experience in Brawn, and he was not alone in that era.  What weren’t the trainees doing?  RECOVERING from the training.  Because the recovering WAS the “not doing”, and not doing was so hard to accept.

 

 

Take stock of all the “not doing” you need to be doing.  Stop doing the things that are taking away from your progress.  Stop OVERdoing the things that are supposed to be BRINGING you progress.