Life Looks Different At 30,000 Feet
We love flying. Obviously, Dr. Matt loves it since he changed careers and flies for a living now. Flying can give you an amazing perspective and make you realize how small we are in relation to the world around us. There’s something magical about being in the air on a clear day over the midwest and being able to see multiple cities and landmarks hundreds of miles away, that take hours to drive between, but in the window of the airplane they seem much closer. Or if you fly over something as majestic as Niagara Falls and realize just how small it is.
Sometimes we simply need a perspective shift.
Cruising at 30,000 feet gives a lot of opportunity to contemplate certain things that seem obvious, but are often times overlooked.
What Does This Have To Do With Health and Longevity?
After nearly 20 years in practice, loads of continuing education in health and fitness, and immeasurable experimentation with our own lifestyle; we have realized that there are many truths in the health space that should be very obvious, but often go unrecognized.
If we were to look at all of the complexities surrounding fitness and nutrition from “30,000 feet” we recognize that there are three universal truths that are often lost in the noise of “new fitness programs,” “fad diets,” and misinformation from large food companies about “balanced diets.”
The following are three simple observations that 20 years and “30,000 feet up” in this space have taught us:
The Number On The Scale Depends On How Much You Eat
You can’t “out-exercise” a bad diet (Dr. Matt was reminded of this in Germany last year). You can over eat “healthy” food and continue to gain weight. Consistently eating American sized portions will cause weight gain, regardless of how much exercise you do.
Simply put: total calories matter. The number you see on the scale in the long term always comes down to the amount of food that you are eating. We teach (exhaustively) that body composition is more important than the number on the scale, but that doesn’t mean that the scale doesn’t matter at all. (More on body composition later).
When it comes to weight loss quantity and quality matter.
The Types of Food You Eat Determines How You Look In The Mirror
Body composition (and the health of your skin, hair, nails, etc) is largely determined by the types of food you eat. Eating a very calorie restricted diet of twinkies and oatmeal will cause you to lose weight. Calorie restriction of any type will cause weight loss, but many times that is at the expense of body composition.
Body composition refers to your percentage of lean mass (muscle) compared to adipose tissue (fat). Many studies have shown that even being a normal weight, but having too high of a percentage of body fat carries risks of metabolic disease and associated chronic illness such as heart disease, diabetes, and certain cancers.
Our imaginary diet we mentioned above that consists of 1,000 calories per day of oatmeal and twinkies will cause your body weight to drop, but will also cause you to have a disproportionate amount of body fat relative to muscle mass.
Is this all about “looking good in the mirror?” Of course not! Body composition is about more than how you look on the beach this summer. Maintaining a good body composition, with a higher percentage of muscle, lends itself to a stronger and healthier metabolism. Having an optimal amount of body fat in proportion to muscle mass decreases overall risks of chronic diseases associated with metabolic syndrome. Don’t believe us? Follow this link.
Daily nutrition simply needs to consist of leaner meats, vegetables, fruits, and starchier plant based foods. The beautiful thing about the internet is that there are recipes galore on how to make these foods taste delicious.
Physical Activity and Exercise Determine Your Overall Health
We need to eliminate the ideas that we merely need to exercise to “burn calories,” and that all you need to do to be healthy is eat right and not concern yourself with exercise.
Exercise is important for developing overall health and metabolism. There is no diet in the world that will increase your heart’s ability to efficiently pump blood, or expand your lung’s capacity to deliver oxygen, or your muscle’s ability to take up glucose with or without insulin. Not a single “fad diet” will increase your bone and muscle density or improve your overall strength and aerobic capacity.
Over the last 20 years we have heard a lot of people say that they simply are “not exercisers.” You can change your diet all you like, but if you refuse to be more physically active, you are missing the boat on overall health.
Increase your physical activity levels through walking, hiking, recreational biking, golf, pickle ball, racquetball etc. Improve your aerobic capacity through 75-150 minutes a week of zone 2 cardio (60-70% of your maximum heart rate. Click the link for a max heart rate calculator). Strength train in a way that actually makes you stronger (hint: “cardio weight classes” that promise you will “feel the burn,” rarely make anyone sustainably stronger). How do you know if your strength training is effective? Simple. Ask yourself the question “am I getting stronger?” If you are exercising you should become measurably stronger. Can you do good pushups? Can you pick something heavy up off the ground? Are those numbers increasing as a result of the exercise you are doing? If you are showing consistent and measurable improvement in those areas over the long term, chances are what you are doing is effective.
Final Thoughts
Diet and exercise alone are insufficient. In order to be overall healthy, you must emphasize both. Yes, we admit, it is hard to remain focused and disciplined in these areas. However, your health depends on it. It is estimated that 60% of Americans are overweight, 14.7% of American adults have diabetes (nearly 30% of adults over age 65), and nearly 40% of Americans have metabolic syndrome.
With these statistics in mind, we must remember it is of the utmost importance to take care of ourselves.
