Habits of Health
“Like many people, you’ve probably tried to lose weight and failed. You are not alone… I’m going to give you the knowledge, skills, and support to put you back in the driver’s seat. You and I are going to build a different kind of relationship than you may have experienced in your past medical treatments. I’m not going to use prescriptions, warnings, or fear tactics. Instead, I’ll be your coach, your guide. Together, we’ll put you on the path to taking permanent charge of your health.”
- Dr. A’s Habits of Health
Review by Robert Fritz
Most of the medical profession is in the problem-solving business. A patient gets sick and then the doctor goes to work. When we are sick, we are glad that there is a helpful doctor around to heal us. But one question that medicine hardly ever asks is how can we create health in the first place. Doesn’t it make sense to create health, rather than to wait for a health problem to show up?
And while the answer to my rhetorical question is a definitive “YES!” the reason that the medical community doesn’t take this “create health” proposition seriously is that they have tried to help people change their habits, only to find that patients fall back into old ways. Patients yo-yo about their weight, they return to smoking after quitting, they regress into other unhealthy habits after a period of change. If you think that people can’t change their ways, you might adopt a strategy to help them when they fail. You would give up trying to help them create success. You would conclude it is an exercise in futility. After all, 85% of people who lose weight through diets gain the weight back within two years.
But now a new and important book has just been published that addresses creating optimal health. It is Dr. A’s Habits of Health. And it is the very first of its kind to take into consideration the underlying structural dynamics that can lead to either oscillating patterns such as yo-yo dieting, or to advancing successful patterns in which goals are not only created but sustained and built upon over time. It also has a practical step-by-step approach that can help the reader reach optimal weight and sustain it over time, achieve optimal levels of physical activity, and achieve balance in one’s life building process.
Dr. A is Dr. Wayne Andersen. He has had a distinguished career that ideally positions him to forge new territory in the realm of creating optimal health and longevity. His own story is his personal transition from long days in the operating room, grabbing junk food when he could, living under tremendous stress, gaining weight and losing control over his physical condition, to waking up one day, and deciding to take charge of his own health.
After years of Dr. Andersen’s research and development, thousands of people now practice his Habits of Health. They do not oscillate. They do not yo-yo. They do not wait for illness to drive them into new more productive behaviors.
In his new book, Dr. Andersen makes a contrast between a state of “non-sick” and optimal health. Dr. Andersen points out that a state of non-sick will eventually lead to a state of unhealth, and then to illness in a logical progression. Yet most people don’t consider creating health when they are in a non-sick condition. To them, their health is invisible. “If it ain’t broke, why fix it?” is the attitude most people take when in the non-sick state.
Dr. Andersen addresses the underlying structural motivation for change. He contrasts the profound difference between change motivated by conflict, visions of disaster, emotional stress; and change motivated by desired end results. Most people fail to adopt lasting changes because they are simply reacting to the pressure they feel when their doctor warns them about the awful things that will happen to them if don’t change their ways. The structural dynamic is that any change motivated by conflict will be temporary because as soon as the pressure is off, which happens once you adopt the new behavior, it is easier to fall back into your old ways. Visions of catastrophe are hard to hold on to. The driving force behind the change weakens, and the path of least resistance is to return to old habits once the pressure is off.
Dr. Andersen uses the principle of structural tension to enable the reader to create health rather than avoid illness. The goal may be “Optimal Fitness Goal: Great aerobic stamina, lean muscle, flexible and agile, etc.” Once the outcome has been defined it is time to describe the current condition in relationship to the desired outcome. The difference between the desired state and the current state forms the powerful dynamic of structural tension. The tension is then resolved by a series of secondary choices that the person can now easily take to accomplish the goal. These secondary choices begin to form life-long habits. They become a way of life. They are not motivated by avoidance of illness, but by the desire to achieve optimal health and longevity.
Can we think about adopting productive behaviors as habits? In her book The Creative Habit Twyla Tharp makes the point that it is through the repetition of actions that success is achieved. In fact, Dr. A’s Habits of Health lays out exactly the new habits that the reader can develop. Eating habits, physical habits, sleeping habits, and brain habits are part of an inclusive set of activities that are easily repeatable. Dr. A’s point is that if it is easy, it is more likely that people will do it. So he has developed a program that works both on the structural level (which is essential for success), and on a practical level, making the mechanics user friendly.
Dr. A’s Habits of Health is over 375 pages of wisdom, insight, tips, good sound advice, dramatic before and after pictures of people who have adopted Dr. A’s Habits, menus, shopping hints, informative charts, all in light of a comprehensive structural approach which is light years ahead of anything else in its field. And Dr. Andersen’s writing style is friendly, chatty, informal, and very entertaining. This is a book I highly recommend for the New Year.
- Robert Fritz is the composer, filmmaker and organizational consultant is founder of Technologies For Creating® and author of the international bestseller ‘The Path of Least Resistance’.