Stupid Simplicity: Four Pillars of Health and Wellness

During their recent episode, Taylor, Carlisle, and Phil Pearlman discussed Stupid Simplicity: Four Pillars of Health and Wellness. Here’s an excerpt from the episode:

Tobias: Let’s just start with the health program. What’s your philosophy about getting healthy, staying healthy? What are the big muscle movements that people can do to get themselves on the right track?

Phil: My view is this. I have this model of– Okay, I have two models, and they’re both very straightforward. One is just called stupid simplicity. That is this idea that there’s all of this research going on, and there’s so many arguments occurring within health and that’s at this level of the research and information. And then, there’s a line, and then above that line there’s the functional, and that’s just what works. That is a combination of what has been curated from below the line.

So, what does the research tell us that we know for sure? And N of one, like what works for us? What works for me personally may not work for other people. I mean, I have clients who are vegetarians, and I’m on the edge of being a carnivore and it’s like, “Well, if that works for you and you could sustain that, fine.”

So, this idea of stupid simplicity, is just find the things that work for you and that you are the chief scientist and the sole subject of the most important, continuous experiment that you will ever be involved in, and that is like, “Hey, if you eat something and you feel bad afterwards, don’t eat that again. It’s just so dumb.”.

And then, the other concept that I really utilize is just this very– It’s also part of the stupid simplicity model, and that is that there’s four elements of health. You don’t have to understand anything else. You don’t have to know what mitochondria is. You don’t have to know what your VO2 max is or even what VO2 max means. The four elements are just move your body, put real food into your body, get some rest, listen to your body when you need it. Like, if your hamstring is tweaking, don’t go out and run hard that day. Like, rest your body. And then, four, love and community. That’s it. So, that’s all you have to know to do what I do.

So, I’m not a bright guy. I keep it really stupid simple, and I avoid all of these debates about is Zone 2 better than– If you want to get fast, should you be training in Zone 2 all the time? I don’t really care. I like to run fast. Fast for me to get faster, so that’s what I do. And then, sometimes I run slow, and I’m feeling sluggish and that’s it.

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