– Before you read this post, please click on the “About” tab and take a minute to read the introduction for this blog.  Assuming that you have already done so, let’s get started. –

Philosophy of a Squatter

It’s important to note up front that this is a “how I’ve done it” approach, and I’m convinced it will work for others.  If you don’t think it will work for you, I encourage you to try it and attempt to prove me wrong.  As with any method or approach, there always has to be a foundational concept.  Mine is balance…in all things…not just health.  As part of this process, I employ what is known as “The Goldilocks Principle”, and though I’ll expound on this in later discussions, the basic idea, in this context, is to find that sweet spot in your approach to health and well-being that is not too much, not too little, but “just right”.  Also, I believe strongly that you need to involve both exercise and diet to achieve proper balance.  Weight loss can be achieved without exercise (often with only temporary success), but balance can only be achieved when exercise is part of the process.

Opposing Forces

In my method, exercise is the driver for diet, not the other way around.  Some believe that by controlling diet, one can reduce weight and increase energy, thus making exercise more enticing and easier to accomplish.  I believe this is a flawed approach in that it relies heavily on will power and is often time- consuming and expensive involving unnecessary dietary restrictions, lengthy preparation and/or tracking/monitoring, and expensive supplements (what I’ll later refer to and explain as “magic feathers”).  Any of these factors can lead to failure and, in combination, they often guarantee it.  Take a moment and ask yourself right now:  Why do we, as a society or as individuals, insist that success in health and well-being is relative to the proportion with which we are capable of forcing ourselves to do something we don’t want to do?  Let that sink in for a moment and ask yourself another question:  Why do we so often fail?

Following the Sun

The answer to this is that we are fighting against ourselves…and for no good reason.  This is different than pushing ourselves in the same direction as our forward momentum to achieve greater success.  Rather, it is the false assumption that we can achieve success by increasing our opposing force.  There’s an old Aesop’s Fable that I love about The North Wind and the Sun.  The basic story is that the North Wind and the Sun competed to see who could get a passing traveler to remove his cloak.  The North Wind sought to blow the cloak off by force while the Sun simply encouraged the traveler to want to remove the cloak by applying heat.  The Sun’s approach was successful because it led the traveler to want to perform the desired action while the North Wind’s approach only succeeded in getting the traveler resist by clutching more tightly to the cloak.  For some reason, the norm with regard to health and well-being is to take the North Wind’s approach which usually only succeeds in driving ourselves to clutch more tightly to our unhealthy habits.  So, I leave you with this for today.  Ask yourself the following questions:  What do I want out of life that I’m not getting?  What do I enjoy doing that I haven’t made time for?  And, most importantly:  How can I use the answers to these questions to help me take the Sun’s approach with my life and health?”  I’m looking forward to hearing your thoughts…