Finding Home - part 1 (Day 265)

Have you ever stood in a crowd of people you have nothing in common with?

My junior year in high school, I took trigonometry. I was going for a special diploma and I needed extra math credits, so trig and calculus were in my schedule for the last two years. It was probably the single most frustrating experience in my life so far. Everyone else in the room knew what was going on. They remembered formulas and patterns I'd never heard of, recognized symbols I'd never seen.

Every night, I'd stay up as long as I could manage, studying the pages of my textbook until everything blurred together, using up stack after stack of paper as I tried to figure out the solution to the equations before me. Every morning, I'd drag myself out of bed, across the 3 mile walk to school, and into a classroom two hours before school started, to get extra tutoring from the teacher.

Over and over I heard, "If you'd just apply yourself," "just think about it, you know the answer," or "if you just try harder." Sometimes I would get better, I'd get a few answers right, and I'd bring my grade up a little. But in the end, I had to spend time after school re-organizing the math department's storage room for extra credit just so I could pass the class with a D. It was the first time in my academic career that I failed a class, and it was devastating. I couldn't figure out why everyone else in the class seemed to find this so easy, and why I was failing despite working so much harder than the rest of my peers.

The next semester I took Algebra 2, and learned that I really should have been in that class first. Here, after I had already failed and lost my chance at the advanced diploma, I learned what I should have known all along.

Have you ever stood in a crowd of people you have nothing in common with? Have you ever tried to have a conversation with these people?

The health and fitness conversation has felt a lot like trigonometry class for me. Everyone says things like "Just try harder," "just eat less," and "just have more discipline." Less sugar. Less carbs. Less food. More exercise. Less meat. More cardio. Less grains. More strength training. Less fuel. More reps. Push yourself as hard as you can go on as little as your body will let you get away with. I voraciously study medical journals, running and weight lifting and bodybuilding magazines, psychology research, anything I can get my hands on to help me unlock the door to my healthier life. All around me are the stories of people who have found success in the same answers:

Less, and more.

Just like with trig, sometimes I hit on some magic streak in the universe and I start to get the answers right. Getting my body into a state of Ketosis provided fast, easy results and gave me hope, but I didn't address any of the real stuff: what my body actually needed, why I reach for sweets so often, or what kind of exercise really was best. So when I left Ketosis in favor of training for the marathon, it only took one injury to undo the progress I'd made.

Fortunately, I'm not stuck. With the math classes, I was stuck. Someone messed up, I didn't know any better, and by the time I figured it out, it was too late to change anything. But I'm only 23 and I've got plenty of time to change the conversation surrounding my health. So I keep studying, keep learning, keep searching. And a good thing, too! Because in my search, I found answers in a place I never thought to look: Britain.