Op-Ed: 5 simple rules to live by

ven a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step – Chinese proverb. Or even better: “Many false a step was taken by standing still” – fortune cookie in a Chinese restaurant. This is true for most of us, thank you, Mr Wang! Have you ever wondered why some people have seemingly no problem staying in great shape, while others struggle immensely all their lives? Over the last year, we have interviewed outstanding experts for and with you in the field of inflammation, nutrition, high intensity training, sleep and a clear picture starts forming in my head. Learn about it here.

The 5 rules of AURUM

1. Sleep as long as you need and take it serious with these tips
2. Eat mostly stuff you would also find walking across the landscape of Switzerland (I know what you are thinking and, while you are technically correct, unlimited chocolate is not part of that list) with this roadmap
3. Do High Intensity Training, then relax and enjoy the rest of the week doing what you love
4. Have enough joyful movement in your life, see rule 3
5. Be grateful for rule 1-4 and chocolate of course, read this free ebook with exact How-To's

When made into a habit, these 5 rules will transform your life to an even better one than it hopefully is already or get you out of a rut. Trust me, this works for everyone, because it sends signals to the source code we all humans have in common. The parts of our DNA that define us as humans and which have developed over the course of our evolution. Think about it at its most fundamental level. This part of our DNA also defines that we cannot live below the sea or that we are all designed in a similar fashion. We all share basic anatomy and so forth. Before you don´t get these fundamentals right, there is no merit in even thinking about fancy supplements or nitty gritty biohacking stuff. Get the 80/20 right and worry about the longtail like high protein and fancy supplements later, if at all.

The problem with this part of our DNA is, it is old and stubborn. Its perception of time is beyond the comprehension of us mere mortals. It is very slow to change and we are not talking 100 years to change, we are talking tens of thousands of years even for minor changes.

This old part of our DNA also explains why many people report a beneficial effect of cutting gluten or lactose from their diets. We started eating grains and drinking milk only roughly 10'000 years ago. So, this food feels to your evolutionary setup like the first days of a trip to India. I am writing these lines listening to the classic Johnny Cash song "ring of fire," thank me later for the pictures in your head. After a few days, your intestines get used to the new spices and things calm down. This adaptation phase would be much more than 10'000 years in evolutionary terms. We, as a species, are currently in this "first days in India" phase. Which makes our modern lifestyle India. Just kidding, our modern lifestyle is a trip to India from Switzerland. It has just changed the environmental influences of humans too rapidly. Again, in evolutionary terms. Much like flying from Zurich to Mumbai overnight changes the food you eat to abrupt. One day you were perfectly adapted to Rösti and Sbrinz and the next day you are in a life and death fight with a Phaal Curry. I dare you to try it, this stuff is diabolic!

However, I have learned that people are different in their response to the five rules. The dark matter explaining that is the theory of epigenetics. Everything inside you forms a symbiotic circle, what happens to one part, happens to all the others as well. Your lifestyle either sets you up for the doom loop or the success flywheel. Every positive action counts and every negative action unfortunately counts as well. The trick is to keep pushing the flywheel more than you slow it down. Every step towards the right direction is as valuable as the next, no matter how small.

My future father in law is a good example for that. He should use the cross-trainer to get his heart disease under control. However, he cannot even do a one-minute session on the cross-trainer anymore and because of that he doesn't do it at all. If you embrace the smallest possible step into the right direction and visualize the flywheel accelerating, you can achieve anything. If you always look at the goal as a whole you will feel overwhelmed and procrastinate. That's why I love the cross-trainer at home, I can eat the whale, which is 30 minutes of joyful movement a day for me, one bite at a time. This leaves me with a sense of accomplishment, because I know how this will make my life easier, the next day, the next month, years from now.

“Most people overestimate what they can do in a year and underestimate what they can do in ten” - Bill Gates

Fit people are fit because their gene expression makes it easy for them to stay fit. Just to give you an example, there are gut bacteria that make you fat and your lifestyle can either make them proliferate or make their number shrink. Which one shall it be?

This and a many other factors, that in the end boil down to genetic expression via epigenetics, set you up for fitness or fatness or anything in between. Side note: What does society even mean by saying fitness? More on that next week.

Let's wrap it all up. The health and fitness flywheel called epigenetic expression can be sped up every day to make your life easier or slowed down to make it harder in the future. People should start from the five rules and tweak where necessary to their individual needs. Don´t lose faith this will ultimately work. We only have one health and one body, take care of it by embracing the circumstances you were designed for and you will not be good, you will be great. Don't be good, be great. Tomorrow take the first step forward, independent of where you start. And never forget to look back and celebrate how far you've come, not only how much is left to where you're going.

Life is so rich,

Julian