So Easy, a Caveman Can Do It

Well here we are… one week after New Years Day.

If I were to ask all of you how you are doing on your New Years resolutions what would your answer be? “Great?” “OK?” “Not so good?” “What’s a resolution?”

Whether or not you are still sticking to any of the goals you may have set for yourself, the real question should always be why you made the resolution in the first place. I can’t answer that for you.

As I’ve said before, even if you have already slipped up, that’s no reason to give up on the remaining 358 days of 2010! Come on!!

Most people will usually include some form of weight loss or activity goals in their resolutions, and that’s where Step#4 shows up.

Step #4. Do some form of activity EVERY day

Calm down. I can hear the whining starting already.

I have not just asked you to run a marathon every day. I have not asked you to fork out a lot of money to join a gym so you can exercise properly. And I’m not going to get in your face like some drill sergeant and make you do leg-presses until you can’t walk.

But I am not joking about doing some form of activity, and doing it every day.

As a species, our genes have changed about 0.2% in the past 50,000 years. What that means in plain English  is that we are effectively Stone Age hunter-gatherers living in the Space Age. That’s right, your DNA is identical to the caveman they make fun of on those GEICO commercials that used to be sorta funny but are now just really pathetic and worn out.

Think back to that time. What if you were magically transported back into the Stone Age right now… how well do you think you would fare? Unless you’re a world-class athlete with some wicked survival skills, you probably wouldn’t do too well.

You see, our ancestors were highly active every day. Basically, they were all Olympic-caliber athletes. They covered great distances and performed intense labor every day just to be able to survive. Not to mention all the dangerous animals trying to eat them along the way. They lived like that every day of their lives over the course of thousands of years. That’s the kind of energy expenditure your DNA has come to expect.

The big mistake many of us make today is that we think exercise is optional; that it’s some luxury that we use to “release stress” or to lose a few pounds. As a result, we have exercise habits and daily energy expenditure patterns that are completely deficient.

Evolution of energy expenditure

We don’t realize that exercise is a genetic requirement for health. It’s not optional! It’s not to lose weight or to relieve stress. It is required for health! Your genes expect nothing less, and if they get less it initiates a form of the stress response that is actually toxic to them.

The evidence for this is seen in the remaining hunter-gatherer tribes who still live like our ancestors did today. Studies have shown that “diseases of civilization” such as cancer, heart disease, obesity, Type II diabetes, and even high blood pressure are virtually non-existent in those cultures. Those same diseases account for over 75% of deaths here in the States. The genes are the same. What’s the difference?

The difference is they are still active every day. They satisfy their genetic requirements and are healthy. We do not and look where it gets us. There is 26% of our population that admits to doing NO physical activity every day. That’s unbelievable! What other species does this? Could you imagine how long a squirrel would live if it stopped doing any physical activity?

So what do we do? We start incorporating sufficient activity into our daily lives.

Park in the farthest space from the store. Take the stairs. Just start developing the habit of doing more activity in a day. I don’t care if you just put on some exercise clothes, go outside or stand on a treadmill and just breathe deeply. You will eventually get bored and start moving.

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