The Demotion of Exercise

By Neil Anderson

Exercising has one distinct purpose.  It's purpose is to serve you.  It is to help you live a richer, more capable life. A life not limited by self-induced capacity and/or disease. It is to help you enjoy life's benefits and reap its rewards.  It is to help you avoid the pitfalls of ill-health.  Exercise is meant to enhance your life in ways that promote a healthier lifestyle for you and those around you.  It is the conduit to creating health on every level.  It is noble to exercise. 

At GPP we workout so that we can attain better health.  Better health helps us to be better parents, better spouses and better children.  Better health helps us to be more active in our communities, our jobs and in our worship.  We exercise so that we may serve others.  We exercise so that we will have more capacity and energy to engage in rich and meaningful hobbies and crafts that interest us. 

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Unfortunately, as exercise rightfully becomes more and more important among the masses, its purpose is becoming more and more bastardized.  Its effects are now being used by increasingly selfish people to become more and more UNHEALTHY.  People are now using it for looks only.  They are using it as sport.  They are using it as a way to feel superior.   People are turning to exercise as a way to build so-called "incredible" bodies and perform feats of strength and endurance that serve NO other purpose than to glorify themselves.   This is the epitome of ill-health. 

Folks have lost track of the knowledge that health through fitness occurs along a continuum.  On the far left side of this continuum there is no participation in fitness.  We all know the effects of ill-health that can occur from participating in a life devoid of proper exercise (obesity, heart disease, cancer, diabetes, poor energy, and etc.).  On the far right side of the continuum is "hyperfitness."  The pursuit and attainment of which is no less unhealthy than no fitness at all.   Health occurs somewhere in the middle. 

As the world continues to use exercise for increasingly unhealthy pursuits, I think it behooves us to give exercise a mighty and humiliating demotion.  It is time to put exercise back into its place. 

Exercise is the servant.  For healthy people it always will be.  Its entire purpose is to strengthen the healthy capacities of those who participate in it.  These "healthy capacities" include service to our well-being, our employers, our employees, our families, our relationships, our community, our country, our society and our God.  Otherwise it has NO important purpose.  

It Doesn't Get Easier

by Neil Anderson

I think the above (title) needed to be said at some point. In fact, as you get better and better at the workouts, as you become more and more fit and healthy, you will find that these workouts just get harder and harder.

You'd think the opposite would be true. After all, that is how THEY sell exercise to us. THEY tell us the more you do, the easier it gets, right?

It is hogwash!

EFFECTIVE, life changing exercise that lasts forever and looks good ON will not get easier as you go. You may recover faster. You may not get as sore. Maybe you'll even begin to enjoy it more, but in our experience, exercise only gets HARDER the better you get at it.

This is as it should be.

You should know, as you get better at these workouts you will start to experience a VERY strange phenomenon. You are likely to become sure that the workouts are getting harder and harder when, in fact, they are NOT.  You may also begin to become convinced that we are conspiring against you personally when programming workouts for you to perform.  Again, we are NOT. 

The truth is these workouts are only getting harder because YOU have become stronger.  You have gained more stamina, endurance, power, speed, agility, flexibility, coordination, balance and accuracy. As you have become much healthier and more fit, your ability to crank reps has increased.  This demands enormous levels of energy.  You have now progressed to the point where your ability to produce work has outstripped your ability to immediately recover from it. 

To get to this point you have done and learned much to assemble the basics of success. You have learned self-reliance and accountability. You have learned to muster the guts and the will to move forward through that which is painful, embarrassing, intimidating, unsightly and uncomfortable.  You have learned to pay much closer attention to the auxiliary necessities of nutrition, hydration, sleep, stress level moderation, recovery, physical limitations and injury management. 

These are not aspects of health which are considered by most. Neither are they well publicized. Why would anyone publicize this? Why would I? Hell, I can't think of a faster way to scare folks off. Nonetheless it is REALITY. And those who have walked through the fire that is "improved fitness and health" know all too well the realities of self-improvement.

If you are at this point, where you are convinced that these workouts are getting harder - I congratulate you. You are uncommon.  And you are to be congratulated. 

You have conquered this part of the journey. You have done the relatively "common," uncommonly well. While there are many more levels yet to conquer, your experience thus far predicts success in the upcoming challenges you have yet to face. It is our hope you will look forward to these challenges with an eye to ever increasing health.

Here is to you, and what you have accomplished. May you never look back.

Be Perfect

By Neil Anderson

Want to know how I know when a person is cheating on their diet? It's easy. When I ask them, "How are you doing on your meal plan?"  They will say something like, "good," or "great," or "better than ever."

Seriously. Anytime I hear one, any, or all of the above, I automatically know two things about the person making the statement:  1) This person is cheating on their diet.  2) This person hasn't a clue what they shoving into their pie hole on a daily basis.

How do I know this?  It is simple.  When a person is REALLY being perfect on their diet, they will answer my question in a VERY different manner.  Instead of giving me a simple cookie cutter answer like, "good," or "great," they will usually look me square in the eye, take two steps toward me, and grab me by the collar.  And then in a low, raspy voice that sounds as if it were conjured up from one of the hounds of hell they will say,

"I am FRICKIN PERFECT."

ANYTHING outside of this statement is cheating. 

For you to be successful at weight loss through proper nutrition, there is absolutely NO ROOM for error with your diet. You can't guess. If you are guessing, you are FAILING.  A lot of times you may be doing "good" or "great," and although it is better than you have done with your diet in a long time, it won't be enough. THIS is where the frustration with dieting lies for you. This is also where you are most likely to give up on yourself. The scenario looks like this:

You've decided to do something about your health and appearance (for WHATEVER reason). You start doing a little better with your diet by cutting back on the things you know aren't good for you.  You do this "pretty well" for a week. You figure that you know you are doing "pretty well" because you are "always hungry" and you have been more uncomfortable (through cutting back and exercising) than in past weeks. So, it MUST be doing you some good, right? Then, you jump on the scale at the end of a week or two of this and it hasn't budged! Not at ALL!

Frustrated with yourself, this is the point where you are most likely to quit. This may also be the point where you figure something is wrong with you. You figure it CAN'T be that the effort you put into your last couple of weeks was insufficient. So, it MUST mean that there is something wrong with your metabolism…, or your thyroid…, or maybe it is your age… Hell, it has got to be something hidden and sinister, right?

Wrong! It is the obvious. You are simply cheating and YOU know it.

I had a lady challenge me on this point once. She said she "guaranteed" she NEVER cheats and that it was her specific body type that prevented her from losing weight. 

I said, "That's just stupid.  I bet you are cheating."

She said she could prove she wasn't. When I asked how, she said she would bring me a list of EVERYTHING she ate for a week.

"Oh right, like writing down a bunch of lies is any harder than telling them.  No dice."  I said. 

And then without really thinking about it, I issued the following challenge. (I have issued this challenge a number of times since then.  I have never once been taken up on it.) 

"Why don't you put your money where your mouth is?"

"Huh...How?" She asked cautiously.

"I'll bet you that I can help you to lose weight."

"How?" She asked incredulously. 

"I'll tell you what.  I'll follow you around 24/7 for the next 7 days. I will weigh and measure every morsel of food and/or drink that passes over your lips. I will also make sure you are working out for EXACTLY 20-30 minutes per day doing one of my workouts that follows GPP methods.  After 1 week of having me in your hip pocket, making absolutely, positively sure that you get EXACTLY the amount of food and exercise you need to lose weight and get more healthy, I GUARANTEE you will lose 3-5 lbs. of FAT."

"And if I don't?" She asked smugly.

"Well, here is the thing...I charge you $35 per training session. Each session lasts 20-30 min."

I pulled out my cell phone and opened the calculator app and started doing some math.

"I figure a week of my services 24 hours/day would cost you $11,760.00. So, the bet goes like this:  If I am right and I can help you lose weight through constant supervision and support, then you will pay me that entire amount at the end of one week."

She started to gag so I continued…"HOWEVER.  If YOU are right and you really are an anomaly of science, and you DON'T lose weight despite yours and my best efforts at the end of the week – I will pay YOU that amount."

She didn't even hesitate to say, "NO WAY."

The cool part about this story was that this challenge was just the kick in the pants that she needed to lose 13 lbs over the next 5 weeks. 

Would you have taken me up on this challenge? 

If you would have, you should know…I did NOT intend to lose this challenge. I would have been no further than 3-4 ft. away from her at any time during the day or night. I would have checked the bathroom for contraband and frisked her before she went in each time. I would also have torn her room apart looking for food before she slept each night, and I would have slept at the base of her bedroom door to ensure complete compliance with my STRICT eating plan. Trust me, she would not have gotten her hands on ONE morsel of food that didn't meet with my direct written approval.  You should also know that her workouts would have been…let's just say…INCREDIBLY effective that week.

How about it? Would you have been up to that challenge? Could you put your money where your mouth is? If not, or even if you hesitate … you may want to rethink your story.

OK, fine. So, MAYBE there ARE those people in life who can lose weight by simply making minor changes to their eating and exercise habits. We have ALL heard of that guy or gal who simply stopped drinking soda and lost 20 lbs. I have NEVER met one of these, but I heard about it on T.V. once. Frankly, I don't believe it. Even if it WAS true … so what?

Life is unfair. By now it ought to be painfully obvious, this isn't YOU! Let it go. The sooner you face this, the sooner you become more fit and healthy. It IS what it IS and THAT is what you have to deal with.  YOU are going to have to BE PERFECT to make this happen. So, why not just start there?