Being healthy may just be a gut thing

Recently I saw a couple of articles that got me thinking. The first deals with something that everyone does, but we train ourselves not to do. The other is a bit older and deals with what we don’t do. It may be the combination of them that is most relevant to Male fitness today.

The first item I alluded to deals with making decisions. There is the old concept of Ben Franklin,

“When Benjamin Franklin's nephew Joseph Priestley found himself stumped by a complex life decision, he wrote his sage uncle for advice. In his 1772 letter of reply, Franklin described his own method for reasoning out complex problems, which he called "moral algebra." Divide a sheet of paper in half, he counseled his nephew, and make an exhaustive list of pros and cons. Then, over a couple days, weigh the pros and cons, and when a pro and a con seem of equal weight, strike them both out. What is left in the balance is the best answer.”

This sounds great, but recent research by psychologist Gerd Gigerenzer, of the Max Planck Institute states what many already know and we all do to some degree. You just make a decision and act on it. Whether it’s when you are driving, in the grocery store, on the golf course, or most other “mundane” activities of daily life. We don’t (most of us) agonize over the decision; we go with our guts and do something.

The other thing I read was an old report that found that one-third of adolescents and 14 percent of adults (aged 20 to 49 years) in the U.S. has poor cardio respiratory fitness. That means that roughly 16 million Americans (according to the 2005 numbers) are at an elevated risk for illness and death from all causes, including cardiovascular disease and cancer. The report doesn’t get into the why of the facts, and I’d speculate that it has to do with the increase in less physical jobs, and more time spent on computers than in decades prior.

So taking these 2 things together what is it that I came to think?

Simply this, it is far too easy these days to ‘think about’ getting healthy than actually doing it. How much time is spent planning out the way to get healthy? Mapping out a diet, discussing with doctors and nutritionists what we should or shouldn’t eat. Researching on the net the latest fat burning, or cholesterol lowering, pill. Sitting around and making a list of what we should do and what we shouldn’t. Just like Ben Franklin suggested, and we have learned from school and work to do.

And it isn’t helping. In fact, it could be hurting us. Instead why not just do something. Rather than plan out a routine, with every minute accounted for, why not just get up and go out for a run around the block? Rather than looking over a chart on your computer to see if you can eat an extra piece of pie, why not just skip it and eat nothing like your gut told you.

I’m not saying that evaluating some decisions is unimportant. But men have survived and lived well for decades if not millennia, just by making the correct actions they know in their gut. 9 out of 10 times you know if you are being unhealthy. But in a world where every decision requires debate and research we often waste time and continue in our bad trends.

So the next time you think, I should do some push-ups to work off that extra cheese, pepperoni and bacon pizza pie I ate with the beer while I watched the football game, get up and do 3 or 5. Just do a couple of push-ups. And the next time you think about it, do them again, and maybe add 1 or 2 more. You’ll be amazed that before you know it you will be able to do 30 or 50. And in the meantime you’ll be getting healthier, lowering your chance of heart attack, illness and cancer.

Sometimes your gut is the best advice you can question.

**This can be found at Male Fitness Blog, where I am a contributing author.**