The (Un)Reasonable Effectiveness of Raw Power

I.

Nutrition is the new religion.

We live in the age of fragmented meaning. It’s getting ever harder to find truth in the world of LLM-written listicles and 30-second TikTok hacks.

Some knowledge, however, requires years of study to grasp. Ain’t nobody got time for that! I wonder how many people still read blog posts, let alone books. Everything seems so urgent on Twitter these days!

Something that suffered a lot from the accelerated times, in my opinion, is fitness.

II.

Now everyone is a health & nutrition expert! I follow Glucose Goddess on instagram, man! No, but I read the papers, really! Or Dr. Huberman does, and he tells me all about the protocols I should follow!!. Wait, you haven’t bought the sunlight lamp yet? Man, I track my sleep with an Oura ring on one hand, the Apple Watch on the other, and a Fitbit in my ankle! I’m doing sauna 3 times a week, and then I meditate for 2 hours in the cold plunge!!1!

Hacks, hacks, hacks everywhere.

The cynical part of me sees fitness as the new socially accepted status game. We’re all so keen to talk about how much time and money we invest in our health. The kinder me believes this is generally good—and we’re becoming a healthier society.

I do feel, however, there’s been a little overeagerness about lifestyle changes to improve health. Are extreme routine contortions towards impossible goals healthy, or just a new layer of stress-generating excessive need for control?

That’s why I say: nutrition is the new religion. We’ve replaced prophets with podcasters. Crusades between Christianity and Muslims are now Keto vs Veganism. We adopt nutrition dogmas as if they were life-savers. Religion used to play a big role in making sense of our life story. If we followed God’s rules, we found meaning. We’re now all desperately trying to grasp onto some new all-encompassing ruleset that can fill the void left by the death of God.

III.

Listen, it’s OK if you’re playing the fitness status game. If, however, you’re really looking to find truth about how your body works, the path is harder (but not complex!). Here are some examples of what I call anti-hacks, or hacks based on wrong thinking. All of these share the same pattern:

How many pushups can you do is a proxy for overall health and fitness. Therefore, you should train pushups.
People who use floss every day live longer. Therefore you should floss every day.
Mental disorders—schizophrenia, autism, bipolar disorder—usually appear on people born of older parents. Therefore you should have children as young as possible.
“Night owls” are more prone to depression. Therefore, you should try to go to sleep early.
People who own cats have reduced heart attack probability. Therefore, you should get a cat to extend your lifespan.
Most millionaires do X, therefore you should do X to become a millionaire.
Cities with more golf courses have lower poverty rates. Therefore, you should build golf courses to eliminate poverty.

I hope you get it by now. Correlation does not imply causation. In all these examples, there’s either a reverse causation going on, or a common third cause. The most obvious example: Most millionaires fly in private jets, therefore you should fly in private jets to become a millionaire. However, when applied to health, we’re quick to adopt a new “protocol”. Take this one: “Mental disorders usually appear on people born of older parents”. It’s true! However, the explanation is that mental disorders are hereditary, and people who suffer them tend to have children later in life. Maybe the mental disorder makes them take longer to find a partner to have children with! So, the conclusion that you should have children earlier to reduce their chance of mental disorder is bogus! Figuring out the other anti-hacks is left as an exercise to the reader.

More generally: don’t extrapolate a result from a scientific paper to create a protocol. It’s very easy to mess things up.

(Incidentally, this is what I detest about Huberman. He’s a world-class expert in committing these errors. And, to be honest, I’m exhausted of hearing my friends talk about the new “Huberman protocol” they’ve been trying. Even worse: the new Huberman-endorsed product they bought. Yeah, spend money on a gadget, that’ll make you healthier. )

I’ve come to believe that reading papers is not a good idea unless you can interpret the results with solid knowledge of statistics and the scientific method. For the rest of us, there are simpler approaches. As my trainer says: “Our bodies evolved for movement, use it for that!”

IV.

Here’s my approach: if you want to prioritize health and fitness, dedicate more time to them. Don’t try to hack it! Not everything needs to be optimized.

In our age ruled by the Pareto principle, a simpler approach gets lost in the noise. Don’t be clever, be strong.

What works for me: blocking time in my calendar for a workout every day except Sundays. Sometimes I go to the gym. Sometimes it’s just a long walk with my wife & dog. Sometimes I run. Sometimes I do physical work in my garden.

No matter WHAT you do, how you remain healthy is using your body daily. Fitness, I find, is a discipline that especially hurts from an optimization mindset. The more I optimize, the less I enjoy it. The less I enjoy working out and doing sports, the less healthy I feel. On the contrary, if I don’t optimize it, I do enjoy working out, eating healthy, etc. This creates habits I see myself following for decades.

Hacks are products of the mind. Fitness, nutrition, health are the body’s domain. Don’t overuse your brain, listen to your body too! You may discover the (un)reasonable effectiveness of raw power.

Final Words

To end, let me leave you with a quick fitness hack: hold a squat while brushing your teeth—no need to look in the mirror!

The (Un)Reasonable Effectiveness of Raw Power

I.

II.

III.

IV.

Final Words

Additional Resources and Further Reading

Acknowledgments

Comments and Discussion