Let’s K.I.S.S.
I’m just getting back into the groove of things after attending the Paleo F(x) and National Association for Nutrition Professionals conferences where I was surrounded by some of the biggest, brightest minds in the functional and holistic health world.
I’m beyond excited about the plethora of new research and information coming out at light speed in regards to health and wellbeing.
It’s absolutely fascinating, but I can’t help think that we are overcomplicating things.
There was a ton of talk at the conferences around new health monitoring gadgets and lab testing, which is all great, but you could spend thousands of dollars and hours chasing results trying to find an answer that may already be within you.
Chasing so-called standards of health, diets and exercise is not the answer.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of using functional lab testing and different health monitoring tools to find clues and healing opportunities, but the most intelligent and powerful tool you have is your body.
Your body holds all of the answers. Lab testing and health monitoring tools simply provide clues that can correlate with your symptoms and help point you in the right direction.
The pursuit for better health is like a scavenger hunt. You don’t know exactly what you’re looking for, but can use lab tests and health gadgets to collect clues along the way to eventually find the treasure.
Going on a health scavenger hunt can feel overwhelming and complicated.
Sometimes we have to throw what even the experts are saying out the window and just tune into our own body.
For lack of better words, sometime we need to K.I.S.S. – keep it simple, stupid (KISS).
This is a phrase I picked up in my previous days of project management in the corporate wellness world when projects started to get out of control.
Regardless of the situation, the basic and general principles of health will almost always outperform specific treatments anyways.
At any point in time you can tune into your body and recognize if your current strategy around diet and lifestyle is working for you or not. You don’t need a test or gadget to tell you that.
This innate ability to know what your body needs, without the use of lab testing or health monitoring tools is something that has been passed down for generations, yet connecting with our body has almost been lost in our material world.
In this week’s video and blog I talk more about tuning into your body, tuning out what the experts are saying and what we can learn from our elders to create better health.
Some of the most common questions I get asked by people who are seeking better health are related to diet and exercise.
Diet and exercise are topics we have certainly made overly sophisticated and complicated.
I see so many people get lost, frustrated and eventually giving up on their health because they’ve been chasing down a diet or exercise routine that works for other people but may not be right for them.
When my friend Jason Prall traveled the world studying the healthiest populations, the first question he got from people back in the US was: “how did they eat?”
It’s no doubt that when people think about health and longevity, diet and exercise are the top two subjects on most people’s minds.
Jason didn’t find the healthiest and longest living people on the planet eating one particular type of diet or doing one kind of exercise.
What he did find was that without any lab tests or health monitoring tools, the healthiest, oldest people on the planet are healthy because they keep it simple.
They simply get up when the sun rises in the morning.
They simply eat what is local and seasonally available.
They simply move their body every day by walking or working.
They simply spend quality time with family and friends.
And they simply go to bed at a reasonable hour after the sun sets.
Why do we try to make the pursuit of health and longevity so complicated?
This is exactly why Episode 3 of The Human Longevity Project resonated with me.
It cuts through the noise and dispels many the myths surrounding these sometimes polarizing topics of diet and exercise that we make so complex, and it focuses on the simple facts that truly promote health.
Episode 3 investigates the diet, eating habits, and how the healthiest populations view movement and exercise. You might find it fascinating that there isn’t a single “diet” that is uniform across all of these cultures.
Yet some recurring and simple themes among them all included: meals consumed in a communal setting with friends, family, and neighbors, and eating traditionally-prepared, locally raised & produced, seasonal, and non-processed foods as a significant majority of their diet.
The episode also shows how overly restrictive diets (common now in western world) are detrimental, over time, to the health and diversity of our microbiome – which requires a wide variety of plant foods to thrive.
The healthiest and oldest people across the world have lived a life full of health because they keep it simple in so many ways.
Episode 3 of The Human Longevity Project is sure to be one of the most talked about episodes in this one of a kind documentary and I don’t want you to miss it.
Tune in at 5:00 Eastern Time Here To Watch It! – and learn how you can keep it simple too.
P.S. In case you missed any of the previous episodes or want to watch them again, there’s an encore weekend happening May 19th so still sign up to get episode 3 here and you’ll get notified when it is released again!
