Listen to Your Body (Part 1) — Get to know it first.
A key principle in fitness, and in life, is to listen to your body. Throughout my journey, many have cautioned me to heed this lesson, and there’s no questioning the wisdom of doing so. But what is often ignored is that, in order to listen to your body, you first have get to know it. Not doing so can lead to misunderstanding what your body is telling you. This is especially important when changing bad habits into good ones, as our bodies often react initially with a “What on earth are you doing do me?!?!” response. The topic of listening to your body will be a series of posts here. This is part one, and the focus is on getting to know your body first.
The messages your body sends can be confusing and are often misunderstood . . .
Take exercise. When I first started to work out – and do something that was undoubtedly good for me – my body responded by telling me that I was sore, tired, and in pain. Resting made me feel better. And while there is no doubt that some recovery was the right way to listen to my body, there was also the potential to interpret the message in ways that could have led me to work out less or not at all – as I have done many times before. Many of us have not gone back to the gym after feeling the pain only to later look back at the gym membership wondering why we even joined. It can feel like the body is saying not to work out, but in reality, it is preparing itself to take on a new adventure and sending the message that we had not been working out enough. For those who show up a couple days later after the soreness dissipated to do it again, the surprising result is often that doing the same workout again did not lead to the same level of pain. If you make it through that sequence, you’ve not only listened to your body to get proper recovery, but you come out of it knowing much better what your body is telling you in the first place.
Similar messages occur when adapting other good behaviors after years of bad ones. Giving up sugar amidst a high carb diet can lead to withdrawal symptoms. The message can make anyone want to go back to their old ways. But since it should be obvious that’s not what the body is telling you to do, what’s it really saying? As I got to know my body throughout the changes I incorporated into my lifestyle, I learned that it’s messages were telling me that what I was doing before was not right. I will discuss in more this in more detail later, but I believe that, when possible, small changes rather than big ones can lead to better behavior in the long run. For anyone attempting to make any changes, big or small, it’s important to seek advice from a medical professional. I’m simply here to share my story, but I am not giving medical advice.
Sometimes small changes are the best way to clear sugary habits.
Embrace data . . .
Getting to know your body means getting in tune with the subtle messages it sends rather than just the loud ones. Sometimes, the messages are not loud enough to hear, but they can be seen in data. When my diabetes was out of control, my doctor prescribed the Freestyle Libre – a continuous sugar monitoring system – so that I had constant readings of my glucose levels. Using this device provided direct feedback as to the effect each meal had on my sugar – something that I could not feel from the messages my body sent me. I was often shocked by some of the feedback and even more surprised at some of the ways to address it.
As an example, I noticed extreme spikes in my sugar if I ate a banana for a snack. I wondered, are bananas that bad for me? When I discussed that with my doctor, she explained that the body can respond differently depending on how I eat the banana. Her advice was to put some protein in my body first, so I changed the snack to having some almonds and then a banana. Shockingly, even if I ate a little more, my sugar did not rise the same way when starting with the protein, and my levels remained safe. Through this process I learned that for many foods, there are differences that occur in the body based on how you consume them. For instance, juicing fruits has greater risk for diabetes than eating (or blending) them. Seeing the data for my body led to instant changes in how I consume various foods and whether I consume others at all. But it was data that introduced me to my body in ways that I otherwise could not get to know it. There are many options available for all sorts of data to get to know your body. I’ve already discussed the WHOOP, but other practical ones include a scale (particularly one that provides information on body composition) and getting regular blood tests from your doctor.
Seeing the data in my sugar levels taught me how to make my body react better to foods like bananas (by eating some almonds first to prevent a spike in blood sugar). That, and my doctor told me so.
This is not just about physical fitness . . .
These same lessons apply to work life too. Whenever I have a breather in my schedule, I get used to the downtime so much so that it becomes harder to return to the grind when it’s time. Is my body telling me not work or is it saying something else? Once I am back at the grind, I again get into a mode where I am unstoppable. I relearn just how much I can achieve. These days I have very little breather between balancing work, fitness, blogging, and life. What I take away from this is that I’ve gotten to know that my body needs constant stimulation, and there are so many ways to provide it even when one part of my usual routine slows down. A friend recently asked me how much downtime I have in a day given all that I do right now between work, fitness, and blogging. After reflecting on it for a minute, I answered in a way that even surprised me, “I have none.” And then I thought, “And I’ve never felt better.”
With each piece of information I learned about my body – whether from the physiological responses I received or the data that I observed – I got to know it like never before. I’m still getting to know it today. We always are. But the better we know our bodies, the more we can listen to them.
Learning your body breeds success in fitness, work, and life.
Aaron