What Nobody Is Telling You About Fitness (I wish I would have known)

The modern approach to fitness is both outdated and incomplete.

The most common reason people give me for getting back into shape is that they want to get rid of some body fat or lose a few pounds.  Some people want to take things a bit further and get absolutely jacked.

Not bad reasons. However, when I encourage them to dig a bit deeper and tell me why they REALLY want to get into better shape they usually reveal some sort of lifestyle benefit that they’re expecting to get as a result of their fitness.

When people explain their deeper motivations it usually boils down to feeling more confident, improving dating prospects, living longer, staying out of the doctor’s office, etc. Some people even realize that the more fit they are the better they will be at work and in business, which means more financial success.

But what it all comes down to is this….

People understand that their fitness is essential for elevating their life experiences.

It’s not about weighing less or being shredded.  It’s about the life experiences that getting into shape brings you. It’s the experience of being complimented, feeling more confident, getting a clean bill of health from the doctor, having more energy.

“Life is not a problem to be solved, but an experience to be had.” – Alan Watts

The elevated life experience is the real motivation, but you’re not optimize your life experience because you’ve reduced your fitness strategy to just solving the problem of losing a few pounds or adding a bit of muscle. 

So, make sure you read to the end because I’m going to discuss something I haven't heard too many other people talk about, and my goal is for you to walk away from this article with a totally different perspective that will lead you to absolutely crazy and truly life-changing results.

If that sounds good to you then keep reading…

In the business consulting world, there’s this concept of MECE which means "mutually exclusive, and collectively exhaustive."  The premise behind it is that you need to consider all the potential options that will impact your ability to effect change.

This is important because if you overlook a viable option, then you could be ignoring that one thing that’s actually going to deliver the best results for you, and oftentimes its not abundantly obvious which option is actually going to produce the best results for you. So, it’s really important to consider all options.

This applies to fitness as well.  If your end goal is to elevate your life experience and all you’re doing is focusing on working out and eating right, then your strategy is not MECE.  You’re potentially overlooking other critical elements of fitness which could be the real game changer for you.

So if I were to draw out a framework for my fitness which is MECE, then I would spell out three main domains of fitness that each need to be optimized for getting me into the best shape possible, thus elevating my quality of life exactly in the way that I need it to be elevated.

So yes, physical fitness is an essential component, but there’s also cognitive fitness, and there’s psychological fitness. All three of these domains are essential for experiencing the lifestyle benefits that you would expect being in better shape to bring you.

Just as a sedentary lifestyle leads to muscle loss and becoming physically unfit, a cognitively sedentary lifestyle leads to loss of cognitive abilities, and a psychologically sedentary lifestyle leads to loss of psychological control.

Just as you diet and exercise to cut body fat and build muscle mass, you must also modify your cognitive and psychological diets while also building your cognitive and psychological muscles.

This is all super important because imagine committing to a process where you do all this work on your physical fitness, and maybe you do see some amazing results in terms of your body. However, that deeper aspect of your life that you expected to get better, that thing you expected to improve your quality of life, didn’t actually improve in the way you hoped.

So now you’re physically fit, but you didn’t actually alleviate the underlying problem.

I’ve seen so many people get really fit but still struggle with their self-confidence, with dating, with their finances, their mental health, their job performance… and the so many other things that they thought would improve through a fitness transformation.

One of the worst things that I see people do is get super fit, they have an incredible transformation but then lose all the progress they made and they go right back to where they were before because they only focused on the physical and ignored the rest of the trifecta.

So, what I want you to do is grab a pen and paper and write down one big life experience you expect to get out of being more fit.  Not outcomes, but experiences. So instead of writing that you want to lose 20 lbs, write down what you expect to happen in your life as a result of losing 20 lbs.

Write it down, and then let’s go over the three domains of the fitness trifecta:

Physical fitness is the easiest to understand, so I won’t spend much time on this one.  But physical fitness is about improving the mechanics of the body and keeping it in optimal working condition. Everything from mobility to proper function of the organs to warding off diseases like cancer and diabetes falls into the category of physical fitness.

There are plenty of people and resources out there providing different methodologies for physical fitness. I’m sure some are better than others. Some make a lot of sense, others not so much, but if you find something that works for you, then it works.

Personally my physical fitness philosophy is focused on primal living, which is centered around concepts like ancestral eating, fasting, walking, and building muscle on a foundation of bodyweight resistance training.

I'm not really here to give you a specific fitness routine because it think that's missing the forest for the trees.

It should also be noted that the things that you do for optimal physical fitness also have benefits with cognitive and psychological fitness.  So the foods that you eat to be physically fit, along with all the different workouts that you do, are going to promote better brain function and better states of awareness and consciousness.

So keep that in mind as we discuss the other two.

Cognitive fitness is about higher-order brain function and with it comes an ability to make better decisions, to learn faster, to think more clearly, to focus your attention on things for extended periods of time.

Cognitive fitness is also about protecting yourself from neuro degeneration, which is your brain losing its processing power. So, think about how people age, then begin to mentally slip away... they’re not all the way there.

Through cognitive fitness you’re physically changing the anatomy of your brain just as you change the anatomy of your body through physical fitness. You’re engaging in activities that stimulate the neuroconnections in your brain to get stronger, and in some cases, you’re actually triggering the formation of new neurological pathways.

“The key to having a healthy life is having a healthy mind.” – Richard Davidson

This is important because your ability to process the world that you live in, and navigate it successfully is contingent on your cognitive skills. Your relationships, your self-confidence, your discipline, your finances, your consistency… and your ability to make healthier decisions and not let your life be driven by impulsive actions are all factors of having cognitive strength, also known as mental fortitude.

The challenge for you, for myself, and everyone else is that, just as the comforts and conveniences of modern life make it super easy to be physically sedentary, the same can be said about modern life making it easy to be cognitively sedentary.

Technology has eliminated a lot of cognitively demanding tasks that were a normal part of everyday life at one point. So now more and more of our leisure time is spent in passive consumption of things rather than actively using our brains.

What does passive consumption look like? 

It’s doom-scrolling on social media consuming massive quantities of 30 second TikTok and Instagram reels. It’s binge-watching shows on streaming platforms, its watching sports, it’s following the 24-hour news cycle, it’s relying on Google maps instead of actively using your brain to navigate.

Passive consumption also looks like loosely maintaining relationships with people by casually observing their latest social media posts and sending each other reels and memes instead of nurturing deep connection with other human beings in the real world.

“The smartphone is the modern-day hypodermic needle, delivering digital dopamine 24/7 for a wired generation.” – Anna Lembke

And its not just in the digital world. We’re spending less time making home-cooked meals and turning to delivery services, and we’re eating at restaurants way more than before. Casual shopping and hyper-consumerism in the U.S. in general has transitioned into a culture where it’s normal and expected for people to fill most of their leisure time passively consuming things.

I don’t think any of these things are inherently bad in limited quantities, but we have to acknowledge that the more we incorporate these things as staples in our lives, the more our brains will atrophy, the more our attention spans shrink, and the more our executive function deteriorates.

And this isn’t a trivial thing. The same way that junk food causes obesity and diabetes, the instant gratification economy that we’re living in today is leading our generation to a cognitive decline epidemic. Dementia, Alzheimer’s, and the plethora of cognitive diseases out there are set to absolutely skyrocket because we’ve been feeding our minds with the equivalent of junk food, but in the form of information, media, entertainment, and consumerism.

The reality of our time now is that people are forming opinions and ideologies based on 20 second video clips and feel like they’ve actually learned something. People have a conversation through text messaging and consider that to be a real connection. It’s like eating lemon-flavored candy and thinking that you’re getting the same nutritional benefits of eating a lemon.

This is the world we live in today…

“The conventional mind is passive - it consumes information and regurgitates it in familiar forms. The dimensional mind is active, transforming everything it digests into something new and original, creating instead of consuming.” – Robert Greene

So, a complete fitness routine should require a mental diet that limits passive consumption and instead incorporates a regimen of cognitively demanding activities that build the cognitive muscle.

This means way less scrolling on social media, less relying on technology to do everything in your life, and spending less leisure time being constantly filled with entertainment.

What this also means is more time-consuming long-format content that requires focused attention.  This can be through books, podcasts, lectures.

It means more time interacting with other humans face-to face so that you can communicate complete thoughts and navigate the subtle non-verbal nuances of human-to-human interaction.

It can also be through more coordinated movement of the body.  Not just physical exercise, but something that requires a lot of practice and focused attention on the mind-body connection.  So, think about something like dance or sports. I do calisthenics which kills two birds with one stone with the strength training element along with the cognitive element.

Learning new languages or really any new moderately difficult skill is very good for training the cognitive muscle.

So, I want you to go back to that life experience that you wrote down earlier in this article and now list all the different ways your cognitive health plays a role in you being able to manifest it into reality.

Does being able to focus and stay on task contribute to elevating your life in the way you want? Does having good long-term memory and being able to comprehend complex topics align with the experiences that you expect a fitness transformation to bring you?

These are the elements that are going to separate you from the masses by keeping your mind as fit and as sharp as possible. That’s what’s going to keep you from suffering from premature cognitive decline.  And most importantly that’s what’s going to equip you with a healthier mind to go along with the healthier body, and both of them will complement each other to produce exponential results for your fitness and your quality of life.

Psychological fitness is a bit more difficult to conceptualize but it’s basically about your perceptions of reality, your sense of self, your state of consciousness, and your overall awareness.

Think of it this way.  You are neither your mind nor your body.  The mind and body are just an amalgamation of organs that serve the necessary functions in making you, “you.”  But they, in and of themselves, are not you.  You’re a conscious being who is aware of its own existence inside of the brain and body.

YOU are your psychology.  You are your spirit. You are your state of consciousness.

And if you are focused on your fitness, then in addition to fitness of the mind and fitness of the body, it stands to reason that you should also focus on fitness of the conscious being that is YOU.

This is important because your psychology, or your state of consciousness, is like your body’s operating system.  If your operating system is faulty, if it has too many bugs that you don’t try to patch up, then you will always be in a suboptimal state that will prevent you from ever truly being healthy. 

“Control of consciousness determines the quality of life.” - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi,

If your internal environment is chaotic then you will get sick more often, you’re mental health will be sub-optimal, you’re more likely to have damaging relationships, and you might find yourself spending a lot of energy on things that don’t come close to bringing you a deep sense of fulfillment and purpose and connectedness.

Substance overuse and self-deletion are one of the biggest problems for people in their 30s and 40s.  And even for people who don’t take it to that extreme, being in that kind of mindset that lends itself to these sorts of behaviors still substantially reduces a person’s quality of life. So how can we have a conversation about fitness if we’re not directly addressing a core element that’s causing so many people to be unwell, even if they look healthy?

So, it’s important to be intentional about psychological health. It’s important to make sure that you are feeding your spirit the nutrients that it needs and that you are building psychological strength by exercising your spiritual muscle.

The challenge is that we live in a highly distracted society, and what I mean is that you have a certain calling in life. It’s your purpose, it’s your life’s work. It’s whatever makes you feel connected and gives you the energy to get out of bed every day and to self-actualize. But modern society does everything in its power to keep you away from self-actualizing and instead pushes you towards external sources of gratification that are completely misaligned with the things that bring you a deep sense of purpose and fulfillment.

It normalizes people climbing the corporate ladder, chasing the highest paycheck that they can get even if it means neglecting their health and spending a significant portion of their lives doing soul crushing work.

It normalizes people, particularly those in high-salary corporate jobs, spending their discretionary income on instant gratifications that don’t bring happiness, but do increase financial dependency on the jobs that bring a whole lot of stress and anxiety to the table.

It normalizes people doing things for external validation rather than doing things that they naturally feel compelled to do. For example, there are a lot of people out there who look incredibly fit but have terrible self-confidence problems because they’ve attached so much of their self-worth to their looks.  They’ve nailed down their physical fitness but they’re still unhappy about themselves because they neglected their psychological fitness.

Society is feeding us a diet of marketing, of rules and status-quo thinking, and of psychological programming that’s disconnecting us from ourselves.  It’s plugged us into a system that tells us to think in a certain way that we don’t naturally think, to value things that don’t align with our personal values, and to dedicate our lives to causes that we don’t really care about.

And because we’re so distracted, we’re not taking the time to really understand ourselves, and align our lives with our own values.  This is what being psychologically sedentary looks like.  It’s passively taking whatever programming society gives us and just playing by those rules.

And being psychologically sedentary keeps us locked into a lower state of consciousness. We’re perpetually stuck in survival mode rather than being in a spirit of exploration, and this is what introduces stress, burnout, self-destructive thoughts, and unhealthy habits into people’s lives.

So, any fitness transformation, or fitness journey, should require a psychological diet that limits passive consumption of external programming, and instead incorporates a regimen of internally focused spiritual practices that build the psychological muscle.

From my own experience the two best ways to do this are through a mindfulness practice and engaging in flow activities.

I see mindfulness as the diet component of spiritual health, primarily in the form of meditation.  Mindfulness helps to navigate the distractions that society throws at us, because it forces us to ignore the external environment and channel our attention inward, deep into the subconscious so that we really know ourselves and what we stand for rather than letting society tell it to us.

“Meditating is also a means for you to move beyond your analytical mind so that you can access your subconscious mind. That’s crucial, since the subconscious is where all your bad habits and behaviors that you want to change reside.” – Joe Dispenza

And I see flow as the exercise component of spiritual health. So when you are clear about who you are and what you stand for through a mindfulness practice, you can then align the actions in your daily life with your values, and get deeply immersed in the process of challenging yourself, of learning, and pursuing some larger vision.  This is the state of flow.

“The happiest people spend much time in a state of flow - the state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter” – Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

This is how you optimize your spiritual or psychological health.

Going back to the life experience that you wrote down at the beginning of this article, now I want you to write down all the different ways that your psychological health plays a role in you being able to manifest that experience into reality.

Does having less anxiety or stress align with your idea of fitness? Does freeing yourself from the grip of external validation allow you to build the lifestyle that you really want for yourself? When you engage in deeply satisfying work that’s connected to your personal values, does that put you in a state of consciousness that is conducive to the lifestyle you expect to come from getting fit?

I can speak from personal experience that when you tap into your subconscious, when you start fixing the glitches in your operating system, you elevate all other aspects of your fitness.

When you optimize all three domains of fitness, and you bring them all together, that is how you ward off diseases and get a clean bill of health from the doctor. That’s how you find the energy to get up out of bed and enjoy all that life has to offer. That’s how you attract people into your life whether it’s romantic partners or otherwise. That is how you level up in your career and business.

So, focus on optimizing your fitness trifecta. This is an opportunity to really align your fitness with your values and create the lifestyle that you want for yourself, so don’t just limit yourself to losing a few pounds of body fat and building a few pounds of muscle when you can be optimizing for so much more that's going to deliver the life experiences that you truly want for yourself.

And if you need a structured approach to optimizing the fitness trifecta then you’re in luck because I’ve created a 60-day primal fitness challenge designed to help you do just that.  In just 60 days you can fundamentally transform your body, your mindset, and your life through my system of intentionally living.

If a 60-day challenges isn't your thing then you can always schedule a 90-minute consultation with me.