First things first.
As to methods there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
Fundamentals are way more effective than technicalities
In the world of sports and arts, we’ve all heard of the elites' successes attributed to their mastery of the fundamentals. If you agree, then should we not aim for mastery over the fundamentals of our lives? Following Pareto's Principle (I'm a sincere applicant of this), what are the 20% specific inputs/efforts that we can muster that gets us 80% of our desired effect (i.e. outstanding health and vitality)? In the context of health, this 20% input is simple. It encompasses a wholefoods diet, regular fun exercise, good sleep hygiene, proper breathing, clean environment, and low stress rhythms.
These fundamentals are what make of the centre of the wheel. Whatever that needs to revolve around this centre, the 'spokes of the wheel', the accoutrements, are your unique individual characteristics and traits that bring with them the requirements for your vibrant health. If you haven't grasped the basics, are you going to fare well with the advanced? If your diet is full of crap food that slowly poisons you, does it make sense to constantly stay updated on the latest antidotes? How much time and energy would that take? How effective would that be compared to simply understanding the fundamentals of health?
Next, technical means getting nitty-gritty into the micros. Telling you about our complex metabolic functions (go search for gluconeogenesis or the krebs cycle and imagine how fun that is to explain to patients) or telling you about the various vitamins and minerals (not even including crucial ortho-compounds or antioxidants like glutathione, coenzyme Q10, betaine, etc.) of which there are at least twenty-seven, is dry and boring. You may as well go read a nutritional factsheet instead of listening to me. Leave that to the aficionados, or when you’re having a consultation with me. Getting too technical in my writing, or in your thinking and perspective, distracts us from trying to be simple and effective. We end up losing the forest for the trees. In the future, with specific contexts in mind for the niche audience, I may go there. But for now, it would be much more effective for us to drill the simple fundamentals of nutrition (that are also immediately actionable) into your head.
The Feynman technique
The point of having an educator is to make things easier to understand if you're not an expert. The Feynman technique is a method of learning that requires you to teach a concept in simple terms, as if explaining it to a child. So can I teach and encourage five-year olds about how to simply eat well, sleep well, play, explore, and thrive? Hell yeah! But do I want to teach them about the multitudinous functions of magnesium in the body and how critical it is to ensure sufficient intake from the diet? Hell no. Even if I could explain, I'd end up with drooling kids trying to claw out their eyes from boredom. “So there’s these very tiny rocks that you need to eat from inside your veggies to help you grow up strong but also relax your muscles!” You get my point. If you're following me and reading this, chances are that you recognize there's more to it than meets the eye within this topic, and I'm here to provide you with uncommon insight that produces effective and actionable steps to improving the status quo. That's my personal criteria for assessing the quality of information for a preventive lifestyle and improving health outcomes. Otherwise, I'm just a dog chasing my own tail.
My weapon of choice
The last thing I want to do is contribute to the noise that's already out there. I am picking up the pen as my sword, as Henry David Thoreau put it, “ to slash through the mud and slush of opinion, and prejudice, and tradition, and delusion, and appearance, that alluvion which covers the globe." I want to emphasize to you now (hey listen!) that you should focus on the easiest, simplest, and most effective action you can take for your own health. Not what is overly technical, microscopic, ineffective and ultimately, time-wasting.
What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence, a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.
‒ Herbert Simon, recipient of Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics
I aspire to be the best health coach/nutritional therapist I can be for my clients. They deserve nothing less. But why should you give a rat's sass about what I say? You shouldn't. I don't need clicks nor views. I am writing merely because I enjoy clarifying my thoughts on this subject, and because I enjoy trying to get to the truth of the subject. Philosophers please refrain from shanking me over my wanton use of the word truth. For the dynamism of our lives and accounting for your bio-individuality, the truth in nutrition—that we are coming to understand—is that whatever works to bring you vibrant health and vitality, is your truth. But there are some rules to this. Everyone is uniquely unique and will nowadays require extensive experimentation with their environment and lifestyle to observe how their body adapts.
That’s what makes writing this so exiting for me.
The Socratic Method
Another curious half-wish of mine would be to empower you, my reader, to pick up the mantle and approach everything you encounter with a healthy skepticism. Listen here. Realise this. You will be able to understand the effective truth of anything you wish to pursue. There are tactics to doing this, but really, the easiest, most effective method would be to ask the right questions about the underlying premises of any established belief or fact. AKA the Socratic method.
What do you mean by that?
Why do you say that?
What is the underlying assumption?
How does this relate to our discussion?
Can you give me an example?
If Socrates understood that he knew nothing, I don't think anyone else can say they really know something without at least trying to examine it for themselves—with untainted lenses. Go ham.
conclusion
I want to my content to be simple and effective. I want you to takeaway powerful effective actionable steps NOW.
Health is true wealth. It cannot wait.
I do not wish to distract and overload you with technicalities and minutiae that leave you with more questions than you began with.
