Bill W. Brazil Blog: Don’t Be So Sure: Why Doubt Is an Essential Tool for Reaching Health Goals

Doubt Final I’m sure we’ve all found ourselves around people who are absolutely hamstrung by their beliefs—whether about business or healthy eating, politics or fitness. Some people are overly sensitive or even overtly defensive when discussing them. Others might be congenial but simply shut down when the conversation turns to a “sacred” topic. But if conviction hampers them this much in social exchange, can you imagine how much it hampers them in the rest of their lives? Many of us tend to perceive certainty as a strength, but often it can cut us off from imagining a scope of better options. Over the years, people have invested so much time, energy and justification in their opinions that the cost to entertaining other possibilities seems too high. And that’s too bad. Because as the old saying goes, the only thing worse than making a mistake is to keep making it. That’s why today I want to talk about the value of doubt.

Productive doubt, I’ve found, applies just as much in health considerations as it does in other areas of life. Conventional health wisdom unfortunately continues to reign, after all, not because it’s incontrovertible truth, but because it’s a convention that society refuses to question. As a result, we have more people than ever who suffer from obesity, diabetes, and other lifestyle diseases. In the end, the more certain (i.e. hard-headed) we are, the more limited we’ll inevitably be. That reality can both compromise our personal health and erode our belief in positive health change.

At first, it might seem strange that I’m even making the case for doubt. After all, here I am more than a decade into promoting a specific blueprint for health, weight loss and vitality. However, those of you who have been around here for a while know I’m anything but a fixed thinker. I have never, nor will I ever, suggest anyone give me or the Primal Blueprint blind faith. Please don’t check your skepticism at the door here. By all means, inspect and scrutinize. Put the plan and all its principles fully under the microscope of your own experience. I’ve always said I’ll follow the Primal Blueprint until someone shows me something better. That day hasn’t come, but one day it might, and I’ll be genuinely grateful for the insight if and when it does.

I grew into the Primal Blueprint philosophy over decades of experience and experimentation as well as study. If my mind hadn’t been open and stayed open, the PB never would’ve gotten out of the gate, let alone evolved over the last several years to become an inclusive, but loose design for flourishing. And I fully trust it will keep developing into new areas, highlighting new principles.

Because here’s the rub.

When we seat ourselves in certainty, we abandon curiosity. We see the effects of this in everything from government to parenting, science to education. Those who are convinced they know what they know despite evidence to the contrary have cut themselves off from learning, from growing, from expanding. Can you imagine what our world would be like today if a hundred years ago we collectively decided that we had already discovered and invented everything worth discovering or inventing? What if we’d settled on it even ten years ago? Thankfully, enough of us throughout history (and our current times) are driven by a pretty insatiable curiosity that leads us to doubt the status quo whenever possible.

Tunnel vision certainly never got Grok anywhere—literally or figuratively. At some point, someone always had to doubt that the same old means for x, y or z wasn’t the best approach. It took a while, but the human species over time continually found better ways to do things, easier methods to gain the same results for less effort or risk.

And so it is today. When I talk about the the Primal Blueprint as the genuine design to gain health and vitality with the least amount of pain, suffering and sacrifice possible, it should be clear that this is the continuing, in progress objective. The Blueprint is not a static formula, and neither should your experience of it be.

So, how can you leverage doubt in pursuing a healthy life? Let me throw out a few takeaways and examples.

Don’t accept just anyone as an absolute “authority”

I don’t need to personally conduct my own longitudinal studies or spend years authoring large meta-studies to trust them.

That said, I can scrutinize scientific studies and/or read diverse sources that cover and discuss these studies or the health and wellness field in general. I can read each with a grain of salt, understanding that the best argument isn’t always the most insistent or entertaining. I suggest you employ the same measured skepticism as well.

Question how much any product, contraption or membership will realistically benefit your priorities and lifestyle

I don’t own much equipment, and most of my workouts don’t require a gym. That’s the beauty of Primal movement principles. Likewise, I’m skeptical of the countless new gimmicks that get rolled out every year as the latest panacea for everything under the sun.

Prioritize the basics of real food diets, Primal macro ratios, solid sleep, and essential nutrients. If a health recommendation or contraption sounds complicated, it’s probably superfluous.

Don’t underestimate the need for modification

Health practices, even as they follow general principles, still need to be tailored. Metabolic and other physiological subtleties vary from individual to individual, and we all obviously bring plenty of personal circumstances to the table that will influence what works for us and what doesn’t.

By all means, study the principles, but commit to continual self-experimentation and modification. Isolate new variables for a while, and see how increasing or decreasing carbs slightly works for you. Adjust the timing of your workouts. Try giving up nightshades for thirty days to see how you feel when you’re off of them and when you go back on. See if eating more fat or less affects your body composition, hunger or energy levels.

Likewise, consider what realistically fits your lifestyle. For example, the best health practices are, above all, the ones you actually do and maintain over time.

Never accept that you’re “done”

Not only is stagnancy a boring prospect for a healthy and fulfilling life, but it’s not a sustainable truth. The human body even under the best of circumstances changes over time, adapting to age and circumstance (e.g. athletic training, significant weight loss, stress, etc.) as well as physical events or natural shifts (e.g. pregnancy, breastfeeding and menopause).

A health routine, even if it’s Primally based, that feels perfect at 25 likely will need several adjustments by the time you’re 65. If you simply maintain the same drill for years if not decades, you’ll likely be sacrificing top level benefits. Bring a healthy dose of skepticism to your own routine. Be willing to both read and experiment further to stay in your optimal zones of fitness and nutrition.

Likewise, changes of life circumstance should cause us to reexamine our assumptions about what works best for us at any given stage. For example, those HIIT routines you’ve been doing for the last five years may not be the best strategy now that you have two kids under three and are operating on routine sleep deprivation. CrossFit may sound great (and is for many people), but ask yourself if it’s really the fitness practice you want to commit to as you just begin to reclaim your health and start getting back in shape after a ten year hiatus of exercise.

Don’t assume you need to adopt every good strategy you read about

I’ve mentioned this before, but it’s worth saying again. This blog reaches several million people a month, and readers here are working at varied levels with countless interests. In keeping with that, I cover a lot of ground in terms of strategies and information. Not all of it may be valuable or relevant to you.

I think this point is critical: be selective enough in what you take on that you don’t overwhelm yourself and lose motivation. Keep Primal living as simple as you can. Apply doubt when considering whether any additional change or routine will make enough difference to be worthwhile in this particular moment. That doesn’t mean the answer will always be no. Sometimes it will absolutely be a definite yes, and a window of experimentation can confirm as much. Regardless of our ultimate decision, doubt can ensure that we’re thoughtful about each new practice we commit to in the grand scheme of our health goals.

Thanks for reading, everyone. How has doubt helped you in your health endeavors? Share your thoughts, and have a great end to your week.