Baselines & Outliers

Because I hold a Master's degree in Clinical Nutrition, I hear it all the time. "You'd hate to hear what I ate yesterday." I may as well be a priest holding confessional. I find myself reassuring folks all the time,  it's not what you you every once in a while, it's what you do most of the time. I'm talking about your baseline - what you typically do 90% of the time. Do you typically eat well, get enough sleep, exercise regularly? If so, then that extra piece of dessert, late bedtime, or missed workout isn't going to be the end of you. I encourage folks to think of it in this way. Try not to hold yourself to an impossible ideal, just try to support your life's goals and values 90% of the time. Set and maintain your baseline in a way that feels in line with your lifestyle and values. Then the outliers won't seem so out of control. It's when the outliers become the norm that trouble begins to surface. And most of us know and recognize it too. Think of yourself as a high performance machine that needs high octance fuel and a lot of care and maintenance. You can get away with a little neglect now and then, or run some low-grade fuel, but if you try to do that all the time, your engine will start to sputter and stall. And you don't want that. Most of us know what we need to do to take good care of ourselves, whether as athletes or not, it's just taking the time and care to ensure that we do it.