Do a Health Diagnostic in 2020

Are you healthy? How do you know?

There is more to measuring health than being able to squeeze into your summer jeans. (Although, if they are from the summer of ’87 that might be as accurate as anything else).

If you check the tyres, water and oil in your car this winter, or you get your boiler serviced, how about doing it for the most important thing in your life: yourself?

(I know the carers amongst us say our dependents are more important, but if we are unhealthy we risk becoming a dependent ourselves).

Rather than launch into some short- lived exercise or diet fad, try doing a health self-diagnostic and make 2020 the year you look after your wellbeing.

Some people spend hours researching the best tyres to put onto their new car, meanwhile neglecting the spare one around their midriff.

Some people spend hours watching sport on TV, but pull a rotator cuff reaching for the last mince pie in the cupboard.

I am no body fascist, but I think that you should be able to negotiate the stairs in your house without wheezing and puffing. The problem is that in our auto mechanised society, there is no standard of health, except the absence of disease. We can avoid any accountability until it is too late.

We have now the extremes of narcissistic 6- pack or bubble butt selfie takers on the one hand, and the mouth-breathing, thigh- rubbing, takeaway junkies on the other.

What should your health diagnostic include?

The four pillars of health are:

• Movement
• Nutrition
• Rest
• Rejuvenation

I have put movement in there rather than exercise. Dancing, climbing and playing frisbee are all active, without being a competition. Better yet, do a little of all three.

Thomas Cureton had a battery of exercises that he used to assess an adult’s physical well being. In the video below I am demonstrating three of them. These can be practised at home and are designed for normal active adults. Step 1 of your diagnostic is to try these. If you can do them, well done. If you find them hard, practise.

Nutrition is simple and can be sustainable. Yet, people try to make it complicated. In yesterday’s Twitter poll, those people going on Vegan diets are the most annoying to share an office with, mainly because they insist on telling everyone about it.

Years ago, P.G. Wodehouse wrote an article for Vanity Fair about people doing fad exercises.

“A man who does anything regularly is practically certain to become a bore. Man is by nature so irregular that, if he takes a cold bath every day or keeps a diary every day or does physical exercises every day, he is sure to be too proud of himself to keep quiet about it. He cannot help gloating over the weaker vessels who turn on the hot tap, forget to enter anything after January the fifth, and shirk the matutinal development of their sinews. He will drag the subject into any conversation in which he happens to be engaged. And especially is this so as regards physical culture.”

Or as Mike Tomlin said in simpler terms,

’Don’t tell people about your problems, because they’re either glad you got ’em or don’t want to hear ’em’

Rest and rejuvenation are not synonymous  

Rest is sleep and the absence of work. When working with athletes, I concentrate on relaxing activities that help them get a good night’s sleep. That includes, eating well, getting off the screen and doing something that takes your mind off your sport.

Rejuvenation is adding something to your life that enhances your spirit, soul or emotional state. The little things that help you get out of bed in the morning.

Tip: Getting a fist bump on Strava, or cycling with pretend friends on a computer screen are different from doing a shared activity, that requires no boasting

Instead, think about: learning, fun, having a purpose, and creativity. It might be baking cookies, singing, trying a cartwheel or fixing old bicycles.

Maybe dog walkers and gardeners have got it right? Regular moderate exercise, in the fresh air and purposeful. Repair Cafes and pantomime groups seem to have the group rejuvenation thing down.

Maybe it is their connection with other human beings.

So, if in 2020 you can move well, eat sensibly, get some quality sleep and try something that collaborates with others, your health diagnostic will score higher than in 2019.

Just don’t tell everyone about it.

Join us

If you want to get healthy and learn some new skills alongside other people then join our club. You could do the adult gymnastics or weight lifting. No heroes, just ordinary people trying to do extraordinary things.

I am currently working on a project that will help adults like you enjoy movement in the comfort of your own home. Watch this space, or get in touch if you would like to take part.