One book or another will have you believe that nutrition is the greatest component of changing your body. Not true. Let’s repeat that, because it bears repeating – Not True! Another book may tell you that you must deal with your stress (psychologically, spiritually, etc.) first. Important, but not exactly. Or there are many others still that will say that if you don’t get your sleep, nothing else matters. Fair, but that doesn’t tell the whole story. Oh, and, of course, exercise will either be the most important thing (if you’re talking to an athlete), or the least important thing (if you’re talking to the average person who drives themselves hard at work to make a living, but has “no time” for exercise). The fact is, all of these perspectives are flawed. Yep, you guessed it, they are all important!
It isn’t 80% of any of these four components that will make or break everyone (the Pareto Principle, or Pareto Effect, refers to how 80% of your output occurs due to 20% of your input, and therefore we often spend 80% of our time, most of us, doing unimportant or non-urgent activities so we only see 20% of the benefits!). Any single person may make some changes or simple adjustments to their diet, or their exercise, their sleeping habits, or lifestyle stress and get GREAT physical results and thus proclaim that CLEARLY THIS IS THE KEY TO ALL PROGRESS. It’s just the missing piece of their individual puzzle. You need all pieces of a puzzle to complete it, and perhaps that change or few changes were the final piece or pieces to your own puzzle. Every puzzle design is different, as are each person’s needs, so we must find the best combination of the “Final Four” Stresses.
If we just try to change one of these four areas, we will ALWAYS come up short in the long run. Changing any one of these components to you will only work for a short time. Until you deal with them all, you will never see consistent, long term progress and really find the you that you are seeking.