Environment Mismatch
Fit Thinking is Unnatural
Being fit has not required thought until recently. Imagine there are two islands for people to live on - Illness Island and Fitness Island. Environmental forces push people towards one of the islands.
Fit Island and Ill island - These are made up numbers to represent the high levels of fitness when we were hunter-gatherers. Most people were fit by default. Illnesses killed quickly. Only a small percent of people would have a chronic long-term illness.
Back in our Hunter-Gatherer days…
Fit by Default
Human bodies and minds matched the natural environment. the “current” or forces of the environment pushed people to fitness.
Food was scarce. Food required effort. We naturally focused on high-calorie, high micro-nutrient foods - meat and some plants.
We had to move to get eat and drink - get water, find plants, and track and kill every animal on the planet - the bigger the better.
We had to move to make things. Everything. Every shelter, fabric, and tool, had to be made by hand.
No delivery. No drive-thru. No grocery or hardware store.
More motion, less food, more nutritious food. There were many dangers that could kill you fast. Few things, besides aging could kill you slow. Many of our chronic long-term illnesses (metabolic diseases) were rare.
Most Americans are on the Fat, Ill and Out of Shape Island. Only a small percent can get to and stay on the Fit Island. To be fit in Modern America, you cannot do what everyone else is doing. Failure, long-term illness are normalized.
Fat, Ill and Out of Shape by Default
The “currents” or forces of our modern environment make getting fat and becoming ill the default condition due to mismatch. Our instincts and bodies fail us. Our instinct is to eat types of foods that were once scarce and are now abundant. Our instinct is to move as little as possible to conserve calories. Our bodies were made to handle a food supply that was limited all the time and sometimes famine scarce. Our bodies were made to move every day. To carry things. To climb, dig and hunt.
To be fit in the modern environment we have to think past our instincts and an environment that is hostile to our long-term survival. I got fit by rejecting one part of the modern environment - soda, then another - sweet beverages, then a third - industrial seed oils and most processed foods. I classify these foods as unnatural and not to be eaten rarely, on a special occasion, or in times of famine.
The modern world has wiped out many of the diseases, conflicts, and physical dangers that killed us fast. It has introduced drinks, foods, and motion-saving devices that kill us slowly.
Due to this environmental mismatch, fitness requires thinking.