3387: How To Bridge The Gap Between Knowing and Doing by Lea Genders on Taking Action

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[00:01:00] This is Optimal Health Daily. How to Bridge the Gap Between Knowing and Doing by Leah Genders of leahgendersfitness.com. And I'm Dr. Neal Malik reading you some of the most popular health and fitness articles out there with permission from the websites and always with a bit of my commentary at the end. Now, I'm going to keep this intro nice and short. So let's get right to the post as we optimize your life.

[00:01:27] How to Bridge the Gap Between Knowing and Doing by Leah Genders of leahgendersfitness.com. Pop quiz. Sorry to hit you with a quiz, but this is important for a healthy lifestyle. Are you with me? All right, here we go. Healthy Living Quiz Part 1. Answer the following questions to the best of your knowledge. Which is more beneficial for optimal health? More water or more soda?

[00:01:56] Highly processed foods or minimally processed foods from nature? Eat your food slowly with intention or eat as fast as possible? Four hours of sleep or eight hours of sleep per night? Grilled chicken or fried chicken? Eating until satisfied or eating until over full? Performing mobility exercises or not doing them? Sitting more or moving more?

[00:02:24] 30 minutes of exercise most days or no exercise most days? Finally, doing resistance training exercise a couple of times each week or not doing resistance training at all? Wow, you nailed it. 100%. The point I'm making is that most people know how to be healthy. Even those with the least amount of nutrition and exercise knowledge most likely know the basics of healthy living. The difference is between knowing and doing.

[00:02:54] As trainers, we may be the most guilty. Just because we know more of the science doesn't always mean we do more in our lives. Ask me how consistent I am with my mobility exercises and you'll see, I'm not perfect either. The fact is, if you make the positive choices on those 10 questions most of the time and consistently, then you'd be healthier than most of the population. I doubt there would be debate on the correct answers, although I'm willing to acknowledge there are outliers.

[00:03:25] Not to say there's no room for treats and indulgences in a healthy diet. It's just that what you do chronically is more important and impactful than what you occasionally do. I've proved my point. You already know. But the real question is, what do you do? Are you applying what you know to improve your health and ultimately, your life? Healthy Living Quiz Part 2 Answer the following 10 questions to the best of your ability.

[00:03:53] Which is more beneficial for optimal health? A high-fat diet or a high-carbohydrate diet? Eating every 3 hours or eating 3 times a day? To eat dairy or to not eat dairy? To eat gluten or to not eat gluten? To avoid foods with genetically modified organisms or embrace the technology? To eat in an 8-hour window or to eat in a 14-hour window?

[00:04:23] Running at high intensity or running at a steady state? Lower repetitions or higher repetitions? Long rest periods between sets or short rest periods between sets? And finally, to take supplements or to not take supplements? This quiz is a little trickier. There are no clearly defined answers. You can easily search the internet and find long articles, scientific studies,

[00:04:51] medical professionals, and writers with compelling arguments for both sides. Experts on both sides adamantly claim they are correct. But the answer to those questions largely depend on you. Meaning, what works best for you? How does your body respond? What are your goals? What are your preferences? What is important to you? What works best with your current lifestyle? What is the most sustainable? If you don't have part 1 of the quiz mastered,

[00:05:21] you'll see fantastic results just by being consistent with the basics. You don't need to spend the mental energy on quiz part 2. Yet. Once you gain the mastery of the basics, then it's appropriate to fine-tune with exploring your options to the answers to part 2 of the quiz. The exception is if you have food allergies or are under direction or supervision from a medical professional to pursue options listed in quiz 2. Change is hard. There's no denying it.

[00:05:50] If your habit is a fast food drive-thru for breakfast, then a fruit smoothie or a wholesome breakfast at home can feel overwhelming, even impossible. Your mind might already be putting up some resistance. Yeah, I can't do that because... How to bridge the gap between knowing and doing. 1. Start small If you're currently not mastering any of the healthy choices in part 1 of the quiz, then don't attempt to start them all tomorrow.

[00:06:18] It doesn't work like that for most people. Too much change too soon will be too difficult for most people. You may start fired up to pursue your new goals, but between 3 days and 3 weeks in the reality of change can begin to feel overwhelming and most humans, not just you, will revert to what feels comfortable. Start with the first one. If it's too much change, start with 1 meal a day or 1 day a week. It's okay to start small and build over time.

[00:06:48] If you want to do more, then great, but be prepared with bare minimum daily requirements. You may want to exercise for an hour 6 days a week, and that's a great goal, but it's aggressive if you're not currently working out at all. Set a 15-minute daily requirement instead. That means if you want to work out for an hour, but you're short on time, energy, or motivation, then do at least 15 minutes without fail. Hold yourself accountable to small actions taken daily,

[00:07:16] not a massive change. If you want to make healthier food choices, start with breakfast. Do the best you can with all your meals, but commit to at least consuming a healthier breakfast each day. Once you've mastered breakfast, move on to lunch, and so on. Start small, then connect the dots. 2. Build habits I write a lot about healthy habits because habits are actions you take on autopilot when you don't have to think about them.

[00:07:45] What you do on autopilot is easy. It doesn't require willpower or motivation. If you work on starting small and setting bare minimum goals, you'll begin to develop healthy habits over time. It doesn't happen all at once, but once it does, making healthier choices with diet and exercise becomes part of your daily life. Effortless. You don't want to miss your workout. You turn down the cake because you honestly don't want it, not because you can't have it.

[00:08:13] And 3. Focus on progress over perfection Accept the fact up front you will never be perfect, no matter how committed you are today. You will mess up, and you'll miss a day. You'll do something that you told yourself you wouldn't do. You'll have a bad day or a bad weekend. Well, congratulations. You're human. Do the best you can. Make the best choices reasonably available to you most of the time. You won't always have access to steamed vegetables,

[00:08:41] organic fruit, and the highest quality meat. Sometimes, a fast food salad is the best choice under certain circumstances. Ordering a salad instead of french fries is healthy progress for a lot of people. Healthy living isn't all or nothing. Focus on making the best choice possible, not perfect decisions all the time, and you will be successful. You just listened to the post titled

[00:09:09] How to Bridge the Gap Between Knowing and Doing by Leah Genders of leahgendersfitness.com, and I'll be right back with my commentary. If you've been optimizing your diet, your protein intake, your sleep, you're already ahead of most people. But here's one thing most of us completely miss. The quality of the water we're drinking every single day. That's why I started using CovePure at home. It's a water purifier that sits right on your counter and plugs straight in. No plumber or drilling required.

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[00:11:03] I do something really similar to what today's author, Leah, mentioned at the beginning of her post. You remember how Leah had us take that first quiz, the one about healthy eating habits? And you remember how you answered all of those correctly? Leah's point was that most people know how to be healthy. I tell my nutrition students that they'll unlikely ever encounter a patient that says, What? I need to eat more green vegetables? I've never heard that before. That is brand new information.

[00:11:33] Instead, what they'll say is, Yeah, I know. I know what I should be doing. It's actually doing it. That's the problem. And taking action and making that action consistent is behavior change. And we know behavior change takes time and effort. Luckily, today's author, Leah, gave us some wonderful suggestions for how to get started. So now the question is, Which one will you start with? All right, that'll do it for today.

[00:12:00] And don't forget, I'll be back here tomorrow for our usual Friday Q&A. So definitely stay tuned for that. Where your optimal life awaits.