Exercising is NOT optional. And other Behavioral Motivators.

[TopHatFox]

Some of my values have recently been becoming more absolute; I like this. For example, before I use to talk about exercise as if I could do it "whenever I felt like it" (meaning every few days or even a week). Now I think of it as REQUIRED--It has to be done no matter how I'm feeling every other day, on top of potential mini-adventures like hiking or cycling (it doesn't take long since I use the exercise interval Jacob wrote about in his book with push-ups, tricep-dips, and some weighted squats).

This is the same with food. I am becoming more absolute in eliminating the 10% of diet that sometimes allows processed foods "because they're there and free." No exito-toxins (ingredients that have been linked to dementia and other degenerative diseases) like dextrose and maltodextrin for me in any quantities, thanks.

Finally, I'm also becoming more clear with anyone I get close to that healthful diet and exercise is a pre-requisite for spending time long-term with me. It's something I highly value and will need people close to me to value as well. No more lifestyle, in-their-control overweight or under-fit people allowed . >:( Sadly, It's hard to identify the people w/ good habits from bad when they're all in their early 20's.

This includes things like lifestyle debt too, of course. So, naturally, I've just made the pool of suitable candidates go from 1% to .001%!

Have you ever created any absolute or hard guidelines in any part of your life? How so? What'd you find?

[chenda]

I have followed a strict skin care regime since I was about 15, 10 min morning an evening. This is through necessity, as failure gives me almost immediate skin problems. I am also realising intense daily exercise, an hr a day, is essential for my mental health. This is more of a motivator than long term health benefits for me.

[BRUTE]

Have you ever created any absolute or hard guidelines in any part of your life? How so? What'd you find?

yes. and brute's guidelines have changed every single time so far.

edit to elaborate:

brute doesn't really set hard guidelines for himself any more. because they don't work.

guidelines imply that there is a certain, malleable character and it can be pushed in one direction or the other. brute has found the evidence for this assumption lacking, to say the least.

the way brute likes to think about it is this: there's a certain character, somewhere in there, but it hasn't been completely uncovered, and it's also a bit relative to the environment and circumstances. so to brute, it's more about finding out and learning about himself, less about pushing or forcing himself to do things.

[daylen]

Thinking in absolutes deprives your ability see multiple perspectives. Nothing is certain and everything is up for speculation.

[7Wannabe5]

After recently reading about the possibility of lifespan enhancing therapies being developed in the near future, I decided to run my factors through a variety of more or less complex actuarial quizzes to determine my current baseline from which I might seek improvement. Apparently, even given my sugar habit, I am very likely to survive well into my 90s. Beating my sugar habit will only give me an extra year. OTOH, if I go at least another year before menopause (total of over 40 reproductive years), I will be 13% more likely than my other female cohorts to survive into my 90s or beyond. Therefore, it is clearly in my self-interest to shun companionship of those unlucky, unhealthy individuals who do not menstruate. Au Revoir, Olaz! Give me a jingle if/when you get another leg glued on to that Y, "cause if you don't, most of the fat-bottomed female peers you may be shunning will still be alive but not attending your funeral

[Dragline]

I hear a tune by Queen in there.

And you already know about my feelings about consistency for the sake of consistency.

[Ego]

Decisions are not made in isolation. There are risks and rewards in anything we do. Costs and benefits. So I do cost-benefit analysis.

There are three words in that phrase. Cost. Benefit. Analysis. People often act out of habit or tradition without thinking. They skip the analysis. They are lured by the benefits and purposely blind themselves to the cost.

There are a whole lot of biases mixed up in that.

Ingesting a little bit of dextrose in a piece of birthday cake that someone made especially for you is better than refusing it and hurting their feelings.

[BRUTE]

does it involve the hobgoblins of small minds?

[Dragline]

does it involve the hobgoblins of small minds?

Indeed. An "exercise" in foolishness.

[Laura Ingalls]

After recently reading about the possibility of lifespan enhancing therapies being developed in the near future, I decided to run my factors through a variety of more or less complex actuarial quizzes to determine my current baseline from which I might seek improvement. Apparently, even given my sugar habit, I am very likely to survive well into my 90s. Beating my sugar habit will only give me an extra year. OTOH, if I go at least another year before menopause (total of over 40 reproductive years), I will be 13% more likely than my other female cohorts to survive into my 90s or beyond. Therefore, it is clearly in my self-interest to shun companionship of those unlucky, unhealthy individuals who do not menstruate. Au Revoir, Olaz! Give me a jingle if/when you get another leg glued on to that Y, "cause if you don't, most of the fat-bottomed female peers you may be shunning will still be alive but not attending your funeral

Apparently giving birth older is good too
http://www.forbes.com/sites/melaniehaik ... cdc8ed550f

I am in the midst of a rather uncomfortable ( for me anyway) menses. It was encouraging to me that it might be protective.

Accedotally one of my great grandmothers and Dhs grandma both had children in their 40s and lived to be 90+. Also both know for their cookies.

[7Wannabe5]

@Laura Ingalls: The downside is that there is an increased risk for estrogen related cancers. However, the much larger upside of protection against cardiovascular disease and evidence of slower aging process is quite overwhelming.

Sorry to hear you are in discomfort. Just remember that PMS is nature's way of helping you to rid yourself of men who take up too much of your energy without managing to get you pregnant. By the time you are my age, you might be able to take down 3 with one swat! But first you must fortify yourself with a pot of coffee, and any selection from the "Everyday Bar Cookies" chapter of the mid-twentieth century 1st Edition of Betty Crocker's Cookie Cookbook (and Secret Spell Manual-heh-heh-heh-cackle...shhhhh...don't tell...) However, I do not recommend going so far as to ingest the results of one of the "Festive Bar Cookies" chapter recipes, since men these days aren't quite as manual-labor-toughened or whiskey-soaked-numb as in our Grandmother's time, and you do not want to cause irreparable damage. In fact, I hear tell that the young men who attend liberal artsy East Coast universities these days are afraid to even come near females who eat their beets boiled rather than raw, because they fear banishment to a realm where they will have to work hard upon the land for their living, and something else about a snake, or 3 maidens swimming naked in a pond with hair made of snakes, or something like that.

[Laura Ingalls]

Lucky for me my estrogen exposure has been mitigated by lots of breastfeeding

Thanks for the warning on the festive bars. Dh works outside , grew up on a farm and went to a state school. He might be able to handle things "festive" on occasion

[eudaimonia]

Getting back to the original premise of the thread, I think that hard and fast rules for my behavior don't provide sufficient flexibility to be sustained over a meaningful period of time (meaning decades). What happens when life comes at you and for whatever reason you are in the middle of no where and the only food available is processed. Or if, like myself, you sustain an injury while working out and have to ease off doing a certain exercise for a few months?

That being said, I do believe there is value in raising your standards. I like what Greg Plitt said about exercise, "when you are pursing a healthier body, and you've been on that road for awhile and maybe not seeing the progress you want to see, how do you know you are doing enough? Well, how do you do the little things in life, like washing the car? If you've finished and put away the hose and then you notice some dirt do you say 'good enough'? Or do you pull out the hose again and clean it all the way? If you never say 'good enough' in life you will always have enough."

So instead of having rigid rules I would suggest a mindset where you are always pushing yourself to improve. But realize that setbacks are a legitimate and necessary part of the journey. So failing to adhere to the rules isn't the real failure. The real failure is giving up on working to improve yourself.

[GandK]

Being rigid about certain aspects of my daily life is helpful. But IME this benefit does not extend to anything beyond certain personal habits and health conditions, all of which have a demonstrable physical payoff.

Examples: My body and mind work a whole lot better when I get roughly 8.5 hours of sleep and wake up at sunrise. So I do that now unless I physically cannot. I also now take at least 4,000 steps per day, because history has shown that I feel bad if I don't. And if I eat gluten, I will get a migraine 8-10 hours later. So, no gluten. (Duh.)

But limiting myself for a psychological payoff is way less effective. It cuts into freedom, which is one of my primary priorities and motivators. Also, usually, these self-imposed limitations come about because I'm not handling some aspect of my life with ease and dignity. Better to educate myself as to how to live my life better than start issuing "Thou shalt not" proclamations that my inner child is only going to flip off.

[BRUTE]

@GandK:

very well said. this is pretty much the way brute looks at this, too. brute also has certain very strict rules, but only for himself, and only for a few basic habits, most of them related to health. diet, sleep, exercise, is basically it.

[stand@desk]

Sticking to hard guidelines also depends on how much you desire acceptance from other people. (Look up 16 desires theory for more info).

And then if you want a permanent spouse or kids or friends, jobs, anything outside your apartment etc, will you be able to stick to permanent hard guidelines when others are wanting to stick to theirs? Who will crack first?

“Flexibility is the best measure of human intelligence, not pure knowledge.” I read this somewhere and have included it on my Page of personal wisdom quotations. Of course flexibility is an asset if you want to advance things forward in your life. Inflexibility is more extreme I would say for better or worse, likely the latter.

And for another quote: John Buchan: "I believe that all wisdom consists in caring immensely for a few right things, and not caring a straw about the rest."

Sure you can follow your guidelines when alone, but what about around others? I think the best idea is to learn what your preferences are in life what you desire, your MBTI type etc. Learn and study yourself and then commit to a strategy based on who you are and then live. Refine and reinforce as you learn.

[BRUTE]

if brute applied the standards he applies to himself sometimes (what was that thing about hobgoblins?) to humans, he wouldn't have any friends. at it stands brute still has almost no friends, but the ones he does have are very good ones. some of them smoke. some of them eat crap all the time. some of them never work out. some of them are fat, or in debt.

if brute excluded every human who had any sign of anything brute dislikes in his life, brute would not have any friends left. so brute is very selective in traits, instead of humans. he doesn't exactly take diet advice from those who drink coca-cola. he doesn't take lung-related advice from those who smoke and never work out. and he doesn't take financial advice from those in debt.

this is both far easier and yields far better results than the "true scotsman" type of relationship.

[Dragline]

Yeah, part of maturity and being able to distinguish "things I can't control" is being able to appreciate other people without feeling a need to either adopt or critique/change their habits.

[CECTPA]

Motivation does not work for the domain of the most basic needs. The most basic needs are: fill your belly, save energy, avoid pain, procreate.
Exercising intentionally is against human nature and long term goals don't matter, motivation only works for a while. Long term goals and delayed gratification don't work well with basic needs. Otherwise why a lot of smartest overachievers look either too sickly or too fat, can't quit smoking and all that? People keep jumping off the wagon not because they lack motivation or too weak, just because homo sapiens would not survive if we just enjoy spending hours in a week performing hard physical labour for no reason. I mean a reason that would alter odds of survival.
If you want to be motivated to exercise then build your life the way that there is no way around it.
My example is physical labour at work and no driver's license My job before I became a nurse was in an office and my butt would not fit in the chair. I've been overweight all my life and only now I don't struggle with obesity anymore.
As a nurse I sometimes take care of elderly athletes. You think they keep themselves in shape? Ha-ha! But the farmers, who continue working hard after retirement are those who outrun the retired athletes.

[vezkor]

+1 to BRUTE

I am generally this way, too, in regards to the company I keep. I have very close friends who are morbidly obese (on track to die from heart failure by 45), friends who smoke, friends who spend $200/month on recreational drugs etc... obviously these aren't the interests we share, but they are interests they have.

DW doesn't have any of these interests, though, and I was very very very picky about the kind of person she was before we ever entered into a relationship. So I see where Olaz is coming from.

What I do instead of "hard and fast" rules, in general, is simply maintain an attitude of being in constant competition with "Vezkor from last year". Always trying to improve myself in whatever way is currently relevant. That being said, I do have A FEW "hard and fast" rules that deal with the purely self-destrutive albeit "normal" human behaviors that you would be hard-pressed to concoct a real-world scenario where violating these rules could prove objectively beneficial. They are:

1. I do not smoke.
2. I do not consume or purchase illegal substances.
3. I do not take on ANY unsecured consumer debt.
4. I do not believe anything Kevin Trudeau says.

3&4 had to be learned the hard way. Thankfully, 1&2 I've been able to stick for my whole life, so far. I'm sure this list is incomplete, but I'm young.