Your Body: A Product Of Its Environment
Tuesday, August 17th, 2010
Just as much as the saying “you are what you eat” is true, so it “you are what you do.”
This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t think that people examine their entire environment deeply enough when trying to change their body to loose weight or gain fitness. Ultimately, your body is the way that it is at this moment because of the decisions that you make on a daily basis.
You are fit because you have made frequent choices to stay physically active.
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You are soft around the middle because you have made frequent choices to eat unhealthy food.
Over my adult life, I’ve had distinct different body types that directly correlated to the choices that I made every day and the environment that I created for my body. This ‘ol bag of bones has shown a crazy ability to adapt to whatever it is that I throw at it. I’m constantly amazed and I love seeing how my body reacts to new stimuli on a daily basis. My body is like my own science experiment that I carry around with me every day.
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High School: By the end if HS I was about 130 pounds, running 6-7 days per week and was as fit as f*ck. Sure, I wasn’t the first person you’d call if you needed some help moving some furniture, but I was lean and fast. I ate like crap, but I exercised often enough and hard enough to more than burn it all off.
You could count all of my ribs. On my back. |
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College: I rocketed to 195 pounds and drank Keystone Light and ate pizza at 2am like it was going out of style. And my body looked like it. I spent zero time running and any athletic activity was spent in the gym pushing weights back and forth. It was the first time in my life where I actually had distinguishable pectoral muscles instead of just the etheopian-like skeleton look I was rocking in high school. |
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Post-College: I got hooked on triathlon, which led ultimately to where I am today. I am a soon-to-be iron distance triathlete. I’m not all that fast, but won’t bat an eye at a 7 or 8 hour training session any day. I’ve plateaued at 165 pounds, look at food more as fuel and nutrition than I do a solution to my hunger and I’m probably just as lean as I was in HS with the muscle to avoid looking like some sad cancer patient when I get out of the shower. |
What I’m really getting at here is that I don’t think people think holistically about the type of environment that they create for their own bodies when setting up their fitness and weight loss goals. My body adapted to three completely different lives over the past 10 years as a direct result of the physical and nutritional environment that I created for myself. But it isn’t just what I eat and how often I excersize. It is how often I’m sitting in front of this computer every day, walking around outside, riding my bike to the grocery store and cooking my own meals vs. eating out. Whatever it was, my body adapted to it.
I ran as fast as I could and tried to carry as little weight as I could along the way for 3.1 miles. My body adapted.
I abused my body with booze and cheese. My body adapted.
I abused my new weapon – ironman training. My body adapted.
While mental focus and dedication is a huge part of overall wellbeing, you can’t simply wish yourself into the body that you want. Create an environment where no other version of your body can survive except for the one that you want and you’ll find your body adapting closer and closer to your ultimate fitness goal.
Tags: adaptation, body type, fitness | Posted in Ironman, Life, Nutrition, Running, Triathlon | 4 Comments »
