Basic Pursuits

The American Dietetic Association recently offered up 10 diet and lifestyle recommendations to cut the risk of your developing cancer.

Every day I see articles like, "7 Tricks to Keep You Motivated to Exercise" or "Five Reasons You Should Exercise."
The tricks and the reasons are good, but articles like this fail to address a simple but powerful reason why long term exercisers are successful.
They have formed a habit and their habit makes them feel better. Exercise - feel better. Repeat until addicted.

Ross Enamait's site Rosstraining is a premier source for great exercise ideas. Ross seeks ultimate fitness for his athletes and is certainly an expert in attaining it.

In reading his recent article The Power of Patience I was struck by how much the patience problem among dedicated athletes resembles the patience problems of folks just trying to learn to exercise for health.

Years ago I learned about Skinner Behaviorism. This early experimental psychology focused on positive and negative reinforcement. For example, you might ring a bell, a stimulus. If the rat did what you wanted, you'd give the rat a treat. That's positive reinforcement. If he did something that you did not want, you'd give him a mild electrical shock. That's negative reinforcement.

Experimenters figured out that positive reinforcement produced faster learning. That discovery hugely influenced the ending of corporal punishment in schools.

Yesterday was "Death of the Diet Day." Yesterday was the day when more people gave up the diets that they started New Years than on any other day of the year. This according to a survey by Britain's PruHealth.

I learned this from an article by the BBC. The article pointed out that one of the reasons is that people tend to behave as a herd. One person quits. She's seen by another who quits too. And on and on.

Brad Isaac learned something from Jerry Seifeld, "...that would benefit me a lifetime."