Can You Be Healthy Around The Middle?

Books, magazines, and, yes, even your trusted Functional Medicine Nutritionist always have some handy, easy-to-follow advice to keep you healthy. “Just 5 minutes face yoga per day prevents wrinkles”, “get a flat tummy in just 10 minutes a day” or “a simple 30-minute walk at dawn ensures better sleep at night” … That’s 45 minutes before you have even started looking after the rest of your life or even cooked a meal. If you’re not a celebrity and cannot afford a chef, a personal trainer, and a housekeeper, it can be difficult to find the time.

Add to that the restrictiveness of advice - like “avoid all carbs”, “don’t eat sugar”, “don’t snack”, “avoid alcohol”, “count calories”-, which can seem impossible to stick to at all times, and you may feel inclined to not even start. Being healthy can seem like an impossible task.

Does it always have to be all or nothing? Can you, perhaps, be “healthy in the middle”?

First of all, the more effort you invest in your health, the better the result. Of course, some people who live to 100 although they drink, smoke, live on crisps and chips, and the only body part they move is their finger on the remote.

Others seem to be doing everything right – perfect diet, exercise, fresh air, flossing, no stress – and still they are struck down by a heart attack at 54. We are not talking about those people. Some people are just lucky or unlucky.  

But we know what is and isn’t good for us, and having a healthy, real food diet, cooking from scratch, putting in some regular exercise, getting out into fresh air, taking time for meditation or other relaxation, scheduling me-time does increase your chances of living a long and healthy life.

Having said that, you can also benefit from – even small - diet and lifestyle changes if you are not able to stick to all of the above at all times. And here’s why:

The Pareto Principle – aka the 80/20 Rule

The Pareto principle states that for many outcomes, roughly 80% of consequences come from 20% of the causes. It was named after the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto who observed in 1896 that 80% of Italy’s wealth belonged to only 20% of the population. Surprisingly, it turned out that this principle can be applied in many other areas, too. Most things in life are not distributed evenly. For example: 

·       20% of the workers produce 80% of the goods

·       20% of the customers create 80% of the revenue

·       20% of computer bugs cause 80% of the crashes

·       20% of the clothes in people’s wardrobes are worn 80% of the time

Applied to health, this could mean: 20% of your lifestyle choices are responsible for 80% of your health outcomes. That would mean that small changes, or even a single one, could have a significant impact. If you are a smoker, just giving up smoking would greatly impact your health, your sense of smell, and your physical stamina, not to mention your finances.

If you drink alcohol most days and too much of it on many of those days, cutting back or – ideally - going sober would make a difference in how well you sleep, how much you weigh, how likely you are to suffer from heart disease, cancer, dementia or liver disease later in life.

If your life revolves around sugar, removing just that one substance from your diet could reduce pain and inflammation, put an end to cravings and binges, improve your mood and protect you from type 2 diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, dementia and depression.

I’m not saying that either of those changes would be easy, but you don’t have to turn your whole life around to be healthier in the future than you are now. If you decided today to become a health saint from tomorrow and were actually able to do that, then, yes, you may become 100% healthy. But how realistic is that? According to the Pareto principle, however, chances are (and it is not a law) that you may become a lot healthier with a lot less effort.

So, pick the one thing that bothers you the most, the one thing that you suspect has the strongest impact on your wellbeing and focus on that for now. It's a place to start. Once you have truly conquered that, you can, if you want, move on and tackle the next thing – one step at a time.

Another 80/20 Rule

One of the first things I tell my clients about when they start working with me is the 80/20 rule (not the Pareto principle this time): “If you eat healthily 80 per cent of the time, you can afford to go off track 20 per cent of the time.” Note that “healthily” means “in the way that we just discussed”, which can be different for each client.

When you first make changes to your diet, it can feel like you are “on a diet”. You’re not. You’re learning to eat differently for life in order to benefit from your new way of eating for life.

If, after four weeks or so, you were to go back to the way you were eating before – as most diets prescribe - you will get the same results as before and perhaps feel sluggish, tired, and overweight again, as the case may be. So, you’ll want to change your diet forever, but “forever” seems like a very, very long time.

Does that mean that you’ll never have another slice of cake? Never another pizza? No more Chinese takeaways? Ever? With that prospect, you may never start.

This is where the other 80/20 rule comes in. A little junk food now and then, a slice of cake or a couple of scoops of ice cream are not going to kill you. If you are at your friend’s dinner party, there are carbs on offer, and you fancy those potatoes/chips/pasta, by all means, have it.

This does NOT mean that you have fallen off the wagon and might as well not bother anymore. It means that you ate away from home and had what was on offer. It's not the end of the world. Move on and eat according to your new way of eating again tomorrow.

There is just one caveat to this, which goes back to what I said above: Know yourself! If you are an all-or-nothing person, if you know that having had chips once, you may never be able to get off them again, then perhaps don’t tempt fate.

Once you have followed your new way of eating for some time, once you have seen and felt the benefits, once your tastebuds have adapted, you may find that you no longer like the foods you couldn’t resist in the past. Cravings subside and processed, sweet or junk foods become a lot less appealing. When you get there, you may not even need the 80/20 rule anymore.

If you know you’re someone who needs accountability, coaching, support, tips & tricks to help you implement the 80/20 rule to improve your health and energy levels I am a Functional Medicine Nutritionist and would be delighted to do that for you. If you would like to discuss further how I can help you get to where you want to be book a complimentary Health Transformation Strategy Call today to take your first steps to a healthier and more energetic life.