Hey everyone, my name is Matt, and I’m your Impossible Health Coach. My mission is to help you overcome challenges in your life and Be Impossible! Every other Friday, you can join me on this forum to find high-level content related to health and wellness and Doing the Impossible. For this post, lay out what I call the Four Pillars of Health. There are many paths to health, but these four principles, when applied correctly, serve as the supports to meeting your health goals! Thank you all for tuning in, I hope you enjoy this content, and please comment below or reach out to me directly here if you have any questions regarding your Impossible Goals!
All temples must be built on a strong foundation with solid supports. Last time, we discussed the Be Impossible mindset that serves as the foundation, and today we are going to dive into the Pillars of Health that will serve as the supports.
The truth is, true health is a moving target, and it means something slightly different to each person. In the past 6 years of studying human nutrition, physical training, and general health, I have come to the conclusion that there is no “one-size-fits-all” plan. However, there are some core principles that come up time and again, and are imperative to meeting any health goal. These are the Four Pillars of Health.
Nutrition
Physical Training
Mindfulness
Recovery
Nutrition
This is one of the most difficult pillars to get fully aligned. Nutrition is often a difficult subject to discuss because so many people today have taken a fully dogmatic approach to it.
Whether you eat high carb, low carb, vegan, carnivore, keto, paleo, or any other of the myriad diets out there, many people have decided that “their diet” is the best diet for all of humanity. But I’m here to tell you, none of those people are correct; there is no optimal diet for all of humanity.
The best diet for you is the diet that’s best for you.
I’m not interested in preaching a specific diet style to you; I am interested, however, in helping each of you find the diet that works best for you. A diet that allows you to meet your health goals while still being enjoyable, satiating, and sustainable (remember that word).
Now, there are certainly a few key aspects of nutrition that I do believe are good general concepts for most humans to follow, but the cool thing is, the concepts we will discuss fit into practically any style of dieting!
In my group program, 30 Days to Impossible, we have several amazing discussions on nutrition. My clients learn to keep the word “sustainable” in mind, and always remember: the best diet for you is the diet that’s best for you.
This is the First Pillar of Health: Nutrition.
Physical Training
Or, as you’ll hear me refer to it simply, Training.
Training Is a huge aspect of human health, there is almost no situation in which one would not benefit from some form of physical activity. Whether you’re in your 80s and want to have a little more energy, or you’re an Olympic Athlete training for Gold, we all need activity.
A lot of people ask me why I call it “Training” and not “exercise” or “workouts” like most coaches and organizations do. I honestly started calling it this because that is the main term used in the world of Powerlifting, one of the sports I participate in. However, after a few years of using this term, I realized that it lends a powerful distinction.
The term “Training” implies direction. We train for something, it inherently contains a course of action. Exercise, on the other hand, simply conveys that we are doing an activity for the sake of doing an activity with no specific end state or direction.
Not that I feel it is bad to use the term exercise, but the distinction that the term Training provides is a powerful tool to put us in the right state of mind when approaching it.
Training is fairly similar to nutrition in the sense that everyone has their own way of doing it, and everyone believes their way is right. But, again, there is no optimal training style for everyone. You could even use the same adage for Nutrition applied to Training:
The best training style for you is the style that’s best for you.
To bring up our earlier analogy, the 80 year old man wanting more energy is going to have a very different training style from the Olympic Athlete chasing her first Gold Medal.
In my group program, we dive into many different Training styles, and how you can use them to help meet your health goals. We also discuss some similar principles that exist behind all good Training.
This is the Second Pillar of Health: Physical Training.
Mindfulness
This is the most vast and varied Pillar of Health, but it is vitally important. Mindfulness can be thought of as a collection of spiritual, emotional, and mental practices that resonate with us and bring peace and joy to each of these areas.
This is definitely a very broad description, but this Pillar can be fortified with an equally broad array of practices. Whether it’s prayer, meditation, martial arts, journaling, reading, philosophy, poetry, archery, or any other activity, good mindfulness can be found in practically any area.
Since the list of options is so extensive and that research is fairly easy to do independently, we aren’t going to spend a large amount of time discussing the different options available to you.
During our group discussions on mindfulness, we analyze healthy thought patterns, and how they can help us meet our health goals. We take time to figure out which mindfulness practices may be best for each of us as individuals, and how to build a guiding Ethos that will serve to give drive and purpose to our health journey.
This is the Third Pillar of Health: Mindfulness.
Recovery
And of course, after we’ve eaten our meals, done our training, accomplished our mindfulness practices, we need good Recovery so that we may continue to follow these practices on a daily basis.
There are many aspects to good recovery, but chief among them is sleep! Sleep is arguably the most essential aspect of human health, so I spend most of my discussions with clients regarding Recovery here.
There are many things in our environment that can impact our sleep, and there are many unique challenges that each of us face getting quality sleep.
One rule that tends to hold true for sleep, however, is that quality seems to be immensely more important than quantity. There are, in fact, many things we can do to help improve our sleep quality, which will often allow us to feel more rested and energized throughout the day.
Other important aspects of Recovery include hydration, flexibility, and rest. We dive into each of these aspects during the last week of my group program.
This is the Fourth Pillar of Health: Recovery.
We can see that the path to true health is not simply defined by how much we eat or how much exercise we do. It is a constantly shifting target that involves many moving pieces. This is what you will gain from working with me. The ability to have a broad view of all of the moving pieces that make up health, build strong Pillars to support your health goals, and learn how to adapt and overcome challenges when they come your way.
Clients who do my group program, 30 Days to Impossible, get a full week of content dedicated to each Pillar, while my individual coaching clients get a full month of content, discussion, and practice of each Pillar. If you would like to learn more about which coaching services might fit you best, and what coaching can do for you, click here to schedule a FREE Discovery call with me today!
Thank you again for reading, have a fantastic weekend, comment below if you have any thoughts or questions, share this article with family and friends, and as always…
BE IMPOSSIBLE!
Best,
Matt
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