Too often we compare ourselves to another person, or the person we were 20 years ago in terms of our health. We think that if we bench pressed 400 pounds or ran 20 miles at a record pace before, that we should always be able to do that. If we used to weigh 135 pounds 10 years ago, we think that’s the optimal weight we should always be, and that simply is not true. Being competitive with your health is not always a good idea if it’s not in a properly understood manor.
We are not the same people internally that we were even a year ago. The body changes at such a rapid pace that we can’t think of the past, but must always think of a current to future body state. To compare ourselves to what we were earlier in life does not help us, because it doesn’t give us accurate data about ourselves. Granted, past health concerns can give us an idea of what our bodies may or may not like, but we must learn to be adaptive as we age. The key to optimal health is to understand what current state our body is in, to predict where we will be in the future.
If a person has not exercised for six months but used to run 10 miles a day five years ago, that person often tries to expedite themselves right back to where they were 5 years ago. What happens is, on the short term the body has no understanding of what’s happening and shuts down. If your body has not taken more than 5,000 steps a day for the last 6 months, the correct progression is to add maybe another 1,000 steps to the 5,000 you have been doing and see how that feels. Maybe that extra 1,000 steps were too much, and your feet were hurting so you have to back off to 500 more steps and progress slower. Too often a person will get incredibility discouraged that they can’t do what they use to and will quit their program because they want to be right back where they were. There truth is, you are never really that far off track.
If your body has done that amount of exercise before, it is possible that it still can go right back to where it was in a short few weeks; assuming your body will let it and wants to go back to that state. There is no such thing as muscle memory, as your muscles don’t have their own brains, however, your brain and body has a connection that remembers the place you had taken it before. If a person has never had a background of running 5 miles a day, it will take a lot longer than the person who has run 5 miles a day a couple years ago because it’s so foreign to the body. The person who used to run 5 miles a day will often be able to revert back to where they were, assuming there isn’t significant amount of muscle loss, fat gain, or anything that has negatively impacted the metabolism.
If you used to bench press 400 pounds but you did incorrect form, a shoulder injury may have sidelined you for a short period of time. Let’s say you were forced into rehab and you realized all this time you were bench pressing wrong, and then you learn to bench press correctly pain free. When you go back to bench pressing you are bringing the weight lower, more efficient, getting your heart rate up more, using more and different muscle groups in the chest, shoulders, and arms, so you’re doing more work. Just because you aren’t demonstrating 400 pounds bouncing off your chest the wrong way doesn’t mean you have gotten weak. Its quite the contrary as you increased your work (Work=Force X Distance).
The same example could even go for running. Let’s say you use to run 5 miles a day from running with a shuffling motion, not recruiting all the leg and hip muscles at 35 minutes a shot and end up creating hip problems or something like plantar fasciitis. You must go to rehab, and you realize you have all these muscle imbalances and you learn how to walk correctly. You may not be able to run as far or as fast at first, but you’re using new muscles your body hasn’t seen, and you are getting more out of your metabolism. Once you start creating a relationship with your body instead of being a slave to numbers, the better you can understand what state your body is in.
It is really hard to go backwards if variables in your health are conducted correctly. The same theory can even go for proper eating. Someone who lived a life of fad diets is ultimately accumulating a life of bad metabolic behaviors, that accumulates years of damage. A person who eats terrible their whole life, has never had a body understand what its like to operate off good healthy food so never has a point to go back to. Someone who eats correctly most of the time will never be too far off track even if they get off track of eating. A person who eats healthy 80% of the year can usually get off track for a month then when they go back to eating well, their body remembers what to revert to.
This isn’t saying that someone who spent their entire life eating terribly isn’t able to learn how to get their body to adjust and operate off of good food. The body is very forgiving and sometimes it does revert to a healthy state relatively quickly, but not always. Even if it does take longer than usual, if someone continues to make positive healthy changes their body will eventually go to a healthy state. This can take months and even years, depending how off track someone is. If you drank 1 bottle of water the last 30 years of your life, the last thing you should do is drink a gallon of water because your body and organs will have no idea what to do with the water. You will have to train yourself for months to just increase a bottle of water here and there to get a general adaptation. The bottom line is your body keeps score, and it keeps score of what you did your entire life.
Regardless of what your health history is, it’s never too late to make a positive change for the good. It is just very important to realize that time will come at its own pace. If you are trying to lose weight in only 3 weeks, you are missing the point and could be hurting yourself for the next 3 months. You can only compare yourself to where you were last week, not yourself from 20 years ago.
