Last week I reminisced about the past year of writing my column for Dayton City Paper. In that issue, I quoted a reader that was not quite a fan. In the reader’s quote, they used the phrase my “personal orthorexia”. Now for all of you who don’t have a dictionary in your pocket or apple dictionaries on your phone… Orthorexia means an obsession with being healthy or healthy things. Obviously, it was meant as a dig but I found myself laughing so hard at the inane attempt to chastise me and my love of health.
Yes, I am guilty of wanting to find truth in the ridiculousness that is the USDA, FDA, Fitness Industry, Nutritional logic, ingredient lists and whatever else lends itself to creating unhealthy bodies in the name of health. I will continue to bombard you with my personal orthorexia because if you pick your head up from reading this, look around you… 6 out of ten people are visibly fat or unhealthy. That’s a pretty large percentage to just go on living our lives with our head up our asses thinking that it is someone else’s problem…
And most likely one of those 6 is you.
Most of the people reading my column either hate me or semi-like me for holding the mirror up and unveiling a truth that has evaded them for years. The hardest thing to do is to find the truth hiding in your own shadows. No one wants to confront the truth. The truth is an ugly, vile, oozing proliferation of excuses, lies and half-baked attempts at reaching even one goal or resolution.
I want to give a quick English lesson here for those that may not understand. The word “resolution” means to resolve or to be resolute… Ok, what the f-k does that mean? It means to “go with a purpose” and follow through it a designated direction. When I’m coaching my fitness business clients on how to create multi-million dollar companies, yes, this trash talking, f-bomb dropping columnist with personal orthorexia consults on how… Because I’ve been there. When I consult with my business clients it is not unlike the way I consult with my fitness clients.
You Need To Plan
Prepare and execute all stages of your fitness plan the same way you would build a house. Never in my wildest dreams would I ever put a roof on a house before I laid a foundation, put up walls and knew those walls would support that roof but that is exactly what nearly everyone does when starting a fitness plan. You want results yesterday. It doesn’t ever work that way. If you are fat… I know this is going to be hard for you to comprehend but it takes a whole bunch of f-king work to get you “unfat”. And bariatric surgery, prescription weight loss pills (Amphetamines/Speed), the latest diet book, diet fad, diet f-king food isn’t going to get you to the place you need to be. Resolved… Resolute.
My personal orthorexia should become your battle cry. Take 5-10 minutes every day to read educated health material. If you don’t like me or my material don’t read my sh-t but I do ask that you give people like the late Andrew Weil, Deepak Chopra, Mark’s Daily Apple (although I’m not a huge Paleo Fan), RenegadeHealth.com (no I’m not a vegetarian), Ray Peat and whatever you do keep it as simple as possible. The biggest mistake that everyone makes is complicating the whole process…
So it’s bound to fail.
We, as individuals make sh-t difficult on purpose in order to make sure that we fail. And we as a society have a hard time winning and it shouldn’t be that way. Thus, we should want to win everyday. The more simple you keep something the easier it is to draw a straight line to the end. What do I mean by simple?
If you are fat, recognize how fat you are. 50lbs overweight, 75lbs, 100lbs… 10lbs it doesn’t matter how fat you are it is important that you know how fat you are and can measure your progress. Simple is knowing what foods you like and finding healthy foods that you may like and eating them. It’s not wise to try and eat foods that you have to “tolerate” or just flat out don’t like. I don’t like fish. Never have, never will.
Everyone wants me to get my Omega 3’s from fish. F-k fish. So as you can see I’m not a huge fan of fish… So why in the hell would I ever go on a Sushi Diet or fish taco diet or some other idiotic seafood diet? I would choke down fish dishes for the first 3 days. And then go back to eating meat, potatoes and vegetables and everything else that wasn’t fish. If you don’t normally eat 3 salads a day, it’s going to be quite a stretch to choke down 3 salads a day. I like salads and it’s hard to eat that many a day. If the only time you’ve eaten a grapefruit is as a vodka drink garnish… Don’t think it’s a good idea to start eating grapefruits morning noon, and night.
In a nutshell find the foods (meat/protein, vegetables, fruits) you like and eat in portions that sustain your hunger not make you feel full or even eat your soup if you must! Get some sun, breath some fresh air and you will be headed in the right direction. Make it easier for yourself to win.