Sitting Is the New Smoking

In our early life and teens, we feel physically invulnerable and invincible. However, in later years, we come to believe that not only are we not invincible, but we also actually become ever more fragile with the passage of time. As more time passes, we say that this ever-increasing infirmity is because we are “getting old”, but the basic design of the body at the DNA level would seem to deny our collective experience. The body rejuvenates at the cellular level by replacing old cells with new ones several times each year. You are quite literally a new person at least two times per year!

Conversely, recent evidence shows that an enzyme in the DNA structure degrades slightly with each successive generation of new cells, hence explaining a part of the aging or degradation process. The aches and pains that usually show up around age thirty do not come from the aging process. These can always be traced to any of four areas of potential breakdown: lifestyle, biochemistry, biomechanics, and attitude. All of these are events or patterns that are the predictable negative consequences of tampering with nature’s design (Principal One: The Prime Directive). One example of biomechanical breakdown is when certain areas of the body that were injured or damaged may never have fully healed, in turn setting off a chain reaction that is almost always more pervasive to the body than perceived at the time of the injury. At the time, it is not considered serious and is basically ignored – it is perceived as something we should just learn to “live with.”

The Obstacles We Face

Though modern-day technology can positively improve the quality and duration of our lives, technology and the modern lifestyle also generate many obstacles to vitality. Some of the biggies are:

1.     The modern lifestyle requires excessive sitting – a task for which the human body was not designed to handle.
2.    Over the last 100 years, nutrient densities in our fruits and vegetables have dropped an average of seventy-five percent! It takes more food to get the same nutrition – hence one argument for supplements.
3.       Studies show that more than 80.000 harmful agents permeate our immediate physical environment. These are chemicals and pathogens, pollutants, and toxins that we breathe, eat and integrate into our physical bodies. This increase of the body’s need for vitamins, minerals, enzymes and exercise, which we are getting less of. Exercise is the best way to detoxify the body.
4.       Although the body is designed to handle and fully receive from intermittent high stress, it is not designed to handle or recover quickly from sustained high stress levels! Chronic high stress actually prevents the body’s natural rejuvenation mechanisms from working properly. Recovery from even minor maladies is thwarted and slowed when excessive stress is in the body, leaving it vulnerable to infections, injuries, depression and pathways of disease. It is common knowledge that psychological stress ages and degrades the body physically.
5.       Lack of consistent, natural, organic exercise. There is a vast minefield of exercise misinformation in our society. The exercise program described in my book “Fitness On Purpose” reflects the principles of nature and science combined, and therefore has tremendously greater leverage to impact the quality of life and our lifespan.

We are still surviving, even though all of these obstacles to our health exist. It is yet another testament to our bodies’ incredible capacity to adapt. However, given the dramatic rise in just about every major disease in the last 20 years, we are apparently reaching some kind of upper limit of stress, pollution, and what amounts to malnutrition. At what point, I wonder, will we reverse or stop this trend?

It is now estimated that the human body’s normal lifespan should be at least 150 years! Because there are so many obstacles to natural living, we pay for our ignorance of, or non-compliance with, natural principles - quite literally with our lives.

Survival Versus Vitality

The human body is a self-regulating biological wonder. It has been designed to survive under many extremes in temperature, humidity, nutritional requirements, food availability, activity levels, stress and so on. But Principle Two takes us beyond the realm of mere survival and indicates that we are designed to thrive vigorously.

The Prime Directive (Positive benefits arise from actions consistent with nature’s design) dictates that if you exercise, particularly in the manner suggested throughout this book, and your nutrition is basically balanced, you will have enabled your body toward vitality naturally. Balanced exercise and nutrition will result in vigorous health because it is the body’s natural response to this type of input.

If you really think about it, most of our body weight is muscle and bone designed for one thing – work. We are designed for activity. So nature’s design, like it or not, is to exercise, work, move and be active. The more that our actions are congruent to the design of our body, the more vitality we possess. It’s that simple.

It is the design itself – activity-based – of the human form that instructs us as to what our proper habits should be. Contrast this with plants and vegetation; they are designed to be stationary. It’s ridiculous to think of a plant exercising, isn’t it? It is equally ridiculous to believe or hope that you can be vital and sedentary. It is also ridiculous to think that junk food can nurture your body. Why do you think it’s called junk food anyway?

Our design has inherent capabilities such as strength and flexibility, which improve with training and atrophy (entropy) from being sedentary. Being sedentary is not natural, not germane to our design.