A Systematic Approach To Nutrition (HIAX Nutrition)
How to solve it once and for all and why fat loss is a great vehicles for identity shift.
Table of contents
Health Mastery
I have been in the health space in some capacity for nearly 20 years. As well as exploring the extremes via sport, (rugby, bodybuilding, and strongman) and self-experimentation (keto, veganism, blood tests, DEXA scans, etc.).
I also studied deeply both academically via Medical and Exercise Science degrees and also worked as a coach for many years.
In 2018 my journey took me from performance to a lifestyle focus as I left my medical career and competitive sport and shifted to travel, business, and exploration of life. I found that at this point I could stay healthy and in shape with very little effort.
I had built an identity where health and the activities required to support it were second nature. Then through my coaching practice, I reflected on my journey, systematized it, and then refined it into something that could be followed.
This philosophy was then further tempered by deep exposure to social media during my bodybuilding/influencer phase which allowed me to observe the 'diet wars' firsthand. I saw fads come and go over the years and with my background and knowledge, I could draw correlations between the common denominators of success.
People were succeeding irrespective of what superficial method they employed in the moment. I realized that health was coachable and there was an underlying process that was universal. Most people were doing it wrong.
The Problem: Prescriptions vs Philosophies
I am in shape and healthy. I travel the world, and am involved with multiple businesses, fully experiencing and enjoying life and the joys that it has to offer. I’m far from perfect but I have a system.
There are countless diets constantly being peddled online but health is not about finding the right one. These are mere costumes disguising the fundamentals to try and create something to sell.
And the nature of humans and marketing means that people become numb to repeated claims so they have to change and evolve over time.
You have the charlatans peddling pseudoscience.
The evidence-based 'science' crowd then tries to fight this but in actual fact just ends up amplifying the noise all while overcomplicating simple things to try and keep up in the social media algorithm race.
Body positivity has then come along more recently, using clever wording to confuse the issue further under the guise of inclusivity to appeal to certain groups.
It's a circus and a distraction from actually getting healthy. People spend more time arguing about what to do rather than actually doing anything.
Achieving health is about doing a handful of simple things consistently for long enough. We know this at our core. It's what we've always been told and it's still taken me 20 years to get to this point of confidence and clarity.
Thus, my approach is a philosophical one rather than just another method or prescription because when you follow the logic, YOU can see the path ahead for you. You don't need to be told what to do.
The secret is identity shift
Let's begin. Most people are in an awful place healthwise. 'Average' is a poor benchmark given the state of the world. Humans did not evolve to live as we do now.
This means that even basic changes will help and even the most brazen nutrition zealots won't argue about the core fundamentals (needing to sleep, move and eat nutritious food).
So, let's start with the things that we all agree with. Logical so far?
Once we get to the point of needing to worry about the minutiae, we can cross that bridge (as you'll see, 99.99% of us never need to bother).
So, for all intents and purposes, we know what to do. Now, we just need to do it.
And this is where we come undone.
Why? Because marketing is incentivized to make health seem both more complicated AND easier than just sticking to the basics consistently for long enough to succeed.
So, this is where I say, it's not easy, initially. It takes a lot more effort than you've likely given in the past but if you apply enough effort for long enough then it can become effortless via identity shift.
And for identity shift, behaviors, and psychology trump all of the intellectual masturbation and debate over nutrition and exercise science which becomes a form of sophisticated procrastination for the individual looking for the perfect method. After all, it's easier to 'research' and debate on the internet than actually do the work.
This is the 'secret'. This is how all those effortlessly healthy people operate. It's like passive income - it's not passive it's just frontloaded with effort.
And, ironically it's quicker to do it 'the long way' because you end up only doing it once vs. chasing the quick fix and failing multiple times.
Who is this for?
As noted, some people appear to be effortlessly healthy. They may have been brought up this way or stumbled across a healthy identity. On average, they take more positive actions than negative ones and so they are net positive when it comes to health. And it's effortless because it's just what they do.
Although they may not be perfect they are doing great and the process outlined below is not for them. Adding positive behaviors and habits is easy enough as they are already moving in the right direction and they just need minor adjustments.
This process is for anyone else because we build an identity from scratch though different people will take slightly different paths and have slightly different starting points.
Some people are faking it. They may look healthy but are constantly trying and struggling and fighting and dieting. This is not the goal and not a way to live. If you are using constant willpower then it's a fragile win at best.
Some people are intermittently healthy but it all disintegrates whenever life throws them a curve ball.
Some people are just constantly failing. They are yo-yoing and never reaching a goal. They are approaching learned helplessness where they have 'tried everything' and are on the verge of giving up.
In all three groups, narratives need to be addressed and systems need to be built. Most people have the majority of the knowledge and actually, it's a case of trimming the bullshit and slight refinement.
Achieving identity shift
So, we've concluded that fad diets (aka any diet with a name) are more marketing ploys than actual substance and that an identity shift is needed for true change.
How can one achieve an identity shift?
In the simplest sense, actions that are aligned with the goal are consistently performed. These actions 'vote' for the new identity.
This takes time and during the initial phase (the flatter part highlighted in red) there is effort without reward.
There is no real internal motivation at this point so a strong incentive is required.
We often start with high external motivation but this does not last (see every other diet that failed). Otherwise, life kicks in meaning these actions are de-prioritized and we regress to our baseline identity.
The 'intuitive eating' approach focuses on just habits and although people can feel good doing it, I suspect it doesn't ultimately work in isolation as there is no strong reason to change.
Occasionally, something major can create an incentive that may or may not be strong enough to elicit long-term change - a heart attack for example.
Given other methods have failed and we do not want to wait for a heart attack, I propose that we piggyback identity shift onto something which provides strong external motivation to help us over the 'red zone'. Almost like using a rocket to get out of the Earth's atmosphere, before dropping off and letter the lunar probe go the rest of the way on its own.
Weight loss as the vehicle
The vehicle that I have found works the best is weight loss for a number of reasons.
The software has been placed there by diet culture so comes with motivations and rewards built into our psyche.
As well as often being healthy, it facilitates learning about ourselves - a requirement for long-term success.
Weekly progress incentivizes us to stick to the actions needed to create an identity shift.
Weight loss can force unconscious narratives to be challenged.
The caveats here are that the actions taken to achieve weight loss must be sustainable otherwise you just achieve short-term weight loss without an identity shift. Most methods neglect this (on purpose because it's slow and hard) and this is why they fail and you rebound.
Care also needs to be taken so negative narratives are not programmed in, for example, an obsession with the process (orthorexia) or emotional attachment to scale weight for example.
The process of identity shift is not easy or quick but it's very predictable when you approach it correctly and persevere for long enough.
The four steps of using weight loss as a vehicle for an identity shift
Here we focus on incentivizing the correct habits and behaviors for long enough for an identity shift to occur.
Step 1: Start making progress using the minimum viable intervention.
Step 2: Optimize this for sustainability.
Step 3: Stress test the process to build resilience.
Step 4: Systematize it to make it effortless.
Let’s go through them.
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