Live Like an Animal

Oink oink oink

The basics of weight management aren’t that hard to figure out: eat like a pig; live like a pig; look like a pig.

And despite what diet pill manufacturers will have you believe, there’s no way anyone’s going from hog to hot while they’re lounging around stuffing their faces with garbage.

No big surprise. No giant secret. Most people are fat and lazy because; well; they’re fat and lazy.

Running with dinosaurs

Of course, our bodies weren’t made to look or feel that way.

Millions of years back when we walked out of the Garden of Eden or crawled out of the primordial ooze (depending on which side of the Big Bang Theory you come down on) couches and TV remote controls weren’t around. Our bodies were made to either chase down or flee from the mass of creeping, crawling, swarming, swimming, flying life that filled the planet.

We were made to climb up after fruit; to dig down after roots; to run for our meat and to eat it all more or less as we found it. Back then our food didn’t have a longer shelf life than we did.

That’s because there was a time when we adapted to suit our environment. Now that we’re clever enough to adapt our environment to suit our desires; “hunting” means an online search for the nearest Mr Delivery, we can’t run without gym-provided hamster wheels, and “natural flavours” come in bottles.

Beat that body into submission

So here we are with bodies that are broken. Bodies that are bloated and sluggish and diseased. And what do we do? We damage them even more … on purpose!

We take pills to stop our bodies digesting fat, to stop us feeling hungry. We starve our bodies of healthy food, feed them nothing but juice. We pump them full of hormones. We medicate them into submission.

Birds do it, bees do it

Of course there is a secret to looking and feeling incredible. One that diet pill manufacturers will be keeping to themselves because secrets are only worth sharing if you can put a price on them.

The secret is this: let your body live like nature designed it to live.

Don’t gorge as if you’re Pharaoh planning for 7 years of famine. Don’t pay for pills or programmes that help you starve. (Millions of people up in Africa are doing it right now for free.) And stop wearing a couch on your ass.

Let your body live a little! Let it feast on whole foods. Let it run fast and lift heavy stuff. Let it play outside in the sun. Let yourself fall in love with being healthy and fit and not with being skinny.

 

Yes, it’s simple and it’s common sense. But isn’t it odd how something we’ve known at a cellular level for millions of years is suddenly humankind’s best kept secret?