So, in our fit-for-purpose fitness practice, we continue this idea of both broadening our circle of concern beyond exercise —or even its further refinement training— while also getting past the broad, blurry and unspecific and sharpening the signal to ensure everything we do is to best effect.
Still using my practice as an example, today we expand the frame to include the unsexy essentials: nutrition, rest and recovery.
A movement in two directions — out, to include what matters; and in, to be sure it does.
NUTRITION
If we take the superficial category of eating to mean stuffing something, in some quantity, into your mouth, we clearly need some fine-tuning of both quality and quantity to ensure it’s aimed towards our fit-for-purpose ends.
And for me, that looks like this:
Including, more specifically and in some semblance of order — noting this reflects fine-tuning, not priority:
Whole foods (not foodstuffs), made easier by what is arguably the most valuable health skill: home cooking. Rounded out by supplements that either make up for deficiencies in (even a balanced whole food) diet, or offer additional non-dietary-derived benefits: protein powder, fish oil, Creatine, Vitamin D and ZMA.
Time-Restricted Eating (TRE): Primarily because it takes care of portion control. I’ve tried eating slowly and to 80% full, but they invariably end up as ‘slower’ and ‘about 93%.’ Happily, there are other benefits, as linked below.
That’s it. I eat the same thing every weekday for lunch: a protein and spice-loaded coconut porridge when it’s cold, overnight oats when it’s hot — with nuts and Greek yoghurt. Dinner’s a rotating roster of seasonal favourites.
The whole food focus and the (admitted) boredom of eating the same thing for lunch most days offers a recalibration of palate and pleasure that makes even a toasted sandwich (instead of fast food) a weekend ‘treat’.
Even so, nothing is off-limits, and when I do have KFC, I really enjoy it.
REST
Sleep, of course, is always helpful on some level. But here too, most don’t go beyond the superficial — and suffer the consequences.
The basics: A dark, cool room. And no phone.
A good night's sleep starts first thing in the morning. I’m outside at dawn and this exposure to early morning light calibrates my body clock, as linked below.
Don’t eat within 3 hours of bedtime. You wouldn’t believe the difference this can make
I go to bed (±15 minutes) at the same time every night, aiming for at least 7.5 hours of sleep.
I wake at the same time, typically without an alarm. Ideally, I wake at 4.25ish, allowing time for meditation and a walk to work. I set an alarm for 5.35 am as a safety net—if I need extra sleep, I’ll wake in time to drive to work.
.
Sometimes, I either have to shorten the meditation or drive instead of walk, but 90+ % of the time, I wake at 4.23 am.
With an hour scheduled for reading in the mid-afternoon, I’ll take a 25-minute nap when necessary.
These built-in buffers mean I rarely carry sleep debt into the weekend. If so, I’ll clear it on Sunday mornings with no alarm set, but it’s still rare for me to sleep past the normal pre-dawn wake time.
[Those lamenting the idea of never sleeping in are not familiar with the luxury of getting up and out, and then going back to bed.]
That’s how I go about it. And if you’re wondering whether you need to make some adjustments, that’s easy— the singular sign of sufficient quality sleep is waking without an alarm.
Non-sleep rest matters too—basically anything low-key that isn’t screentime. Mental stimulation or distraction is not restful.
For me:
Reading (not work)
Dog walking
Phone fasting
RECOVERY
Cold Shower: (daily) + Ice Bath (1-2/wk) (11 minutes total)
Breathwork (WHM) 4-5/wk
Sauna: 4-7/week
Swimming 4-7/week
Anchor circadian cues: Train and eat (and wake and sleep) at the same time, reinforcing circadian rhythms— the internal clocks governing everything from hormone release to digestion to recovery, as linked below.
Most see these—or frankly, any recovery protocols—as optional extras. But while I would not agree they are optional— and certainly not for me— I would concede that in our order of operations, I would rarely propose them as a first order of business. Although not because they may not be a priority, but because any advantages they offer are only in light of what we’ve covered so far.
With one exception. Because new parents, busy mums and the high-flyers, as a rule, don’t usually need exercise—or even training— first, and certainly not without some (low-intensity) caveats.
First, they need to come down off the stress ledge. And the best way to do that is —not the method I listed above — a focus on diaphragmatic and/or nasal breathing with simple drills like Crocodile or Straw Breathing. Drills the new parents and busy mums take to like ducks to water—a drill I often have to gently wake them up from.
The high-flying guys — the women, to their credit, seem to have more brains — are, shall we say, less open to the idea of breathing drills or to the fact that performance in training—and everywhere else—will come from learning how to downshift.
And then doing it. For real. Daily.
But, I digress.
I came to appreciate the breathwork and cold as a package deal with the Wim Hof Method, the science for which is steadily stacking up, as linked below. But, anecdotally, it cleared up hayfever within a couple of weeks. I don’t know if it’s breathwork, the cold, or both that is the mechanism of effect here, and your mileage may vary, but this raises another important point.
I don’t need to know. In addition to removing the scourge of hayfever, this protocol causes an uptick in every performance measure, and a tick in every subjective box —mood, energy, focus— as well.
Science is very often a lagging indicator in much of fitness and health, but that doesn’t mean I’m either ignorant or dismissive of it.
Indeed, where the science exists, I’ll follow it to what and how and when.
To offer just one example:
A 2015 Finnish study tracked over 2,000 men for 20 years and found that those who used a sauna 4–7 times per week had a 63% lower risk of sudden cardiac death, a 50% lower risk of fatal heart disease, and a 40% lower risk of all-cause mortality compared to once-a-week users.
Which makes 4 times a week very good value for money, right? And it’s not only that science has saved me the heavy lifting of trying to find that sweet spot— I could never determine that, no matter what I measured.
So your practice should be evidence-informed, but experience-validated. You don’t need to become a scientist, just a student—following a framework that helps you test, tune, and trust your body— not just track it. That’s what you’ll learn in LEFTFIELD YOUNIVERSITY starting Friday, July 4.
But just as we sharpen the resolution of our practice—from vague obligation or pressing chore to more deliberate, directed, and ultimately useful behaviours—we also move from the physiological to the biological.
Bringing us, finally, to:
THE PROMISED LINK BELOW
We can be managing stress, building strength, improving endurance: but dial in further still and you’re influencing cellular adaptation: mitochondrial density, insulin sensitivity, hormonal signalling, even gene expression. The quiet processes shaping how your body ages, recovers, and responds.
But while the metaphor of resolution used here can and does apply equally to awareness, responsibility, and even attention, it’s important to acknowledge our limits here too.
Because no matter how finely calibrated or sensitive we might be, much of this should be happening below our powers of perception, and it’s only when we fail to adequately address some of these demands that we’ll see any signs or symptoms.
[Signs that will (hopefully) lead us to skip more than a few levels of resolution as I’ve described, and cut to the chase with a blood test, MRI or the like. Or better still, to have these screens done periodically.]
But for a far more detailed and qualified look at the reasons for the practices I’ve listed above —including a full protocol that goes far beyond mine— I’ll hand you over to Bio/Acc, who dials up the resolution further still.
But this, again, is not about what I’m doing or what somebody else suggests.
But —remember— it’s not about you finding your fitness practice either. You already have one, so it’s only ever about making things better. You might, at least, be curious.
And if a deep dive into your body is not what you had in mind on a Saturday afternoon, that’s fine, bookmark it. Come back to it later. It’s important.
The degree of insight and scholarship aside, I respect Bio/Acc because, unlike so much of the sugarcoated fluff that dominates fitness media, he—like me—doesn’t shy from calling a spade a spade.
This is not a threat; it is a biological statement of fact, as immutable as gravity.
Next time, we’ll wrap things up with the hinge that swings all doors: mindset.
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Enjoy your weekend.
- OLI