Natural Born Heroes

Did you know the word hero comes from the Greek word for “protector”?

I didn’t until I read this book and I think it’s one of the coolest things ever.

Heroes CARE.

→ “True heroism, as the ancients understood, isn’t about strength, or boldness, or even courage. It’s about compassion.”

That compassion is the ultimate source of their superpowers.

Deepak Chopra echoes this wisdom in a fun little book called The Seven Spiritual Laws of Superheroes he wrote with his son Gotham. He tells us: “For superheroes, love is not a mere sentiment or emotion. It is the ultimate truth at the heart of creation.”

This is also awesome: “Buddha, or ‘the enlightened one,’ as he was known at this stage of his life to his disciples, proposed that there was a step more evolved than even enlightenment, or personal release from suffering. It was to share with others the wisdom gained and the experience of higher guidance, and in doing so elevate them to the same stage. Compassion in action. Love as the ultimate superpower encoded in total self-knowing and self-awareness.

Buddha called those who had evolved to this stage of sharing the ultimate truth bodhisattvas. It should be no surprise that the word bodhisattva translates as ‘heroic-minded one,’ or in common parlance ‘superhero.’”

A big theme of the book is the fact that WHY we are building our strength matters. If we want to be a protector and hero to those around us, we need to focus on BEING USEFUL—which leads us to our next Big Idea…

We can be fit to win the next race or to be ripped in that next selfie we take and post everywhere.

Or…

We can be fit to be useful.

The hero moves away from the “brutally egoistic” motivation of his or her own awesomeness to a deeper motivation. From, as Edward Deci says in Why We Do What We Do, extrinsic to intrinsic motivation. As heroes-in-training (and -in-action), our WHY is about more than just ourselves. We show up and get strong so we have the strength for two and can play the role of Protector when and as needed.

Although Christopher emphasizes the importance of being physically strong enough to do useful things (like carrying someone out of a burning building), the same idea of being strong to be useful applies to every aspect of our lives.

We need to be energetically strong enough to do our creative work in service to our world. We need to be mentally strong enough to solve the riddles of life and emotionally strong enough to be of service to our families in challenging times.

We practice our fundamentals and OPTIMIZE so we can actualize our potential IN SERVICE TO our families, communities and world. It’s not a “brutally egoistic” pursuit of seeing if we can create the most amazingly designed lifestyle we can show off on social media.

It’s about being useful.

Remember: Heroes are gritty. As Angela Duckworth advises, deep, intrinsically-driven grit REQUIRES not just a personal interest but a passionate commitment to something bigger than ourselves. A purpose to be useful.

So… To what and to whom are you committed?

Let’s make the connection between our physical, mental, and emotional strength and all the opportunities the world presents for us to be useful, hero-style. Then let’s go out and do the training so we’re ready when the situation calls for our strength.

As I mentioned in the intro, the book weaves the story of Natural Movement with a truly astonishing World War II story in which unlikely British soldiers teamed up with Cretan resistance fighters to KIDNAP A GENERAL (the first and only time that’s ever been done) and then escape through the crazy Cretan terrain.

A big question of the book is: How did they pull that off?!

A big answer is their diet. Therefore, as heroes-in-training, we need to pay attention to our diet. We’ll focus on the Cretan secret of using fat for fuel in a moment.

For now, let’s chat about wild greens.

First: Recall that in our Note on In Defense of Food, Michael Pollan talks about the five fundamental shifts in our diet since the industrialization of food. One of the key points he makes is that we went from eating a LOT of greens to eating a LOT of seeds. (In fact, 66% of our calories now come from 4 seeds: corn, wheat, soy, and rice.)

Leaves are rich in omega-3. Seeds are dense with omega-6. As Christopher points out, as a result of our shift from leaves to seeds, we went from a roughly 1:1 ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids to a 16:1 ratio. ← That’s truly CRAZY.

Although we need the natural, protective inflammation that omega-6 provides, when we consume them as much as we do now, we go from having a nice, warm little fire in our house to creating an INFERNO that burns the whole thing down.

Remember: Inflammation comes from the Latin word for “fire.” And, inflammation is at the root of EVERY disease you don’t want. Therefore, if you want to be a hero, you need to cut back on your seeds and jack up your leaves.

That’s what the Cretans do—eating a TON of wild greens.

As I type that I think of my interview with David Perlmutter. When I asked him what he eats, he went Cretan on me and his eyes lit up describing how much he loves his wild greens: dandelion + mustard + purslane + …

Next time you’re at your local market, yank some weeds off the shelves.

Fat as fuel. That’s how heroes roll.

(And that’s how our unlikely British heroes fueled up—modeling the Cretans using fat as fuel.)

But, you say, “What about carb-loading before a big race? Everyone knows that’s how it’s done! Carbs are the preferred fuel of humans, I say!”

Well… Not so fast. Christopher introduces us to Dr. Tim Noakes, who was so influential as an advocate of a carbohydrate-rich diet that he was dubbed the “High Priest of Carb-Loading.”

Short story: After spending his career advocating for carbs, Dr. Noakes converted to using fat as fuel. Noakes says: “‘Skillful marketing has made carbohydrate consumption a religion among athletes,’ he’d fume. ‘They believe that you cannot get energy from anywhere but carbs.’ The same foods Noakes had assured people would make them stronger and faster were a slow-acting poison making them fatter, weaker, and more prone to heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, and dementia.”

FAT *not* carbs is the evolutionarily preferred source of fuel and some of the most elite athletes in the world have caught on to this fact to dominate. More on that in a moment…

btw: Did you know ten companies produce 80% of the processed food in the world? And that companies like Kraft and Nabisco are owned by tobacco companies? Yep. (And.. Never forget the Beaver Anal Gland Juice they like to add to their foods. Hah.)

P.S. Christopher also describes Noakes’ book on the absurdity (and toxicity) of the “Drink Giants” like Gatorade who have convinced us we can’t run 20 steps without their aid. Quit buying and consuming that junk. Those liquid calories are literally killing us.

That’s from a chapter in which Christopher walks through the FASCINATING story of Phil Maffetone. He’s the guy who helped Mark Allen flip the fat-as-fuel switch that powered all his Ironman wins. He also worked with other elite athletes and rock stars before basically completely disappearing.

Christopher tracked him down and walks us through the super-simple approach to crushing it—which is basically exactly what Mark Hyman and David Ludwig recommend in Eat Fat, Get Thin + Always Hungry?

Basic idea: We need to reboot our bodies (Hyman calls it returning our bodies to “their original factory settings”) by eliminating all high-glycemic carbs. Christopher tells us he loaded up on greens and veggies and meat, fish, eggs and a ton of cashews while getting rid of “fruit, breads, rice, potatoes, pasta or honey. No beans, which means no tofu or soy of any stripe. No chips, no beer, no milk or yogurt. No deli ham or roast beef, either, since they’re often cured in sugar.”

That’s half of the equation—changing what you put IN to your body. The other half is changing how you USE the energy.

Short story here: You need to train in your fat-burning zone—never going above your maximum aerobic threshold (which triggers burning carbs for fuel). Arrive at that max heart rate number by subtracting your age from 180. So, for me, that 180 minus 42 = 138.

Christopher walks us through his (amusing) transition which involved the detox from the elimination of carbs AND the super slow pace of his training when he ran within his now-acceptable range.

He tells us: “Maffetone has tested it on hundreds of athletes, including triathlon legends like Mike Pigg and Mark Allen, and they’ve consistently come back with the same results: they recover faster from workouts, blow past their old records in competition, and leave chronic injuries behind. One reason they rarely get hurt is that they’re no longer gritting through fatigue. When you go into oxygen debt, your form crumbles. Your head drops, your feet thump, your knees go cockeyed. You get sloppy and you pay for it.’ …

‘But if you’re always going slow,’ I’d asked, ‘how do you ever get fast?’ ‘You work your way up a few heartbeats at a time.’ You adapt. The more workouts you do in the fat-burning zone, the easier they get; the easier they get, the faster you can go.”

P.S. This is *ALL* one big, fun experiment-game. Put “TEST” at the top of the sheet. :)

P.P.S. You know how we always talk about the fact that exercise in nature = exercise squared? Christopher shares the same University of Michigan research we discuss in Focus and Movement 101. Let’s get outside more today. Take a forest bath. Nature heals.

The book is packed with stories of real and mythological heroes. The underlying theme is that ordinary people (like you and I!) have the power to do extraordinary things.

Our heroes tend to be outsized these days and we tend to think of ancient heroes like Hercules as some HUGE He-Man. I love this perspective that it wasn’t Hercules’s size that made him great. It was his UNBENDING WILL.

His greatest strength was his growth mindset, his open mind and his passionate commitment to learning and OPTIMIZING—skills we can all develop as we become heroes in our own lives.