QT: Improving Your Health is Like Doing a Good Jigsaw Puzzle

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I’ve been a puzzle guy since before I can remember.

Adi and I are currently working on a 3,000 piecer, and it’s coming along rather nicely if I may say so myself.

My strategy when it comes to doing a puzzle is different than how most people do it.

And, if I may be so bold, my strategy is far superior.

One Section at a Time

Unlike the amateurs, that start a puzzle by doing the straight edges, I look for the easiest section to complete first.

The red door. Yellow sun. Blue truck.

It varies from puzzle to puzzle, but usually there are one or two features that stand out prominently in a typical jigsaw.

Once I’ve knocked out the easy bits, I start to look for the next section that will be fairly straight forward.

Could be a winding road. Flower garden. Lone tree.

Eventually, I’ll end up with different sections of the puzzle more or less finished.

That’s when the magic happens.

It All Comes Together

At some point, the different sections of the puzzle are ready to come together.

And before long, you go from a mess of desperate groupings to a fairly cohesive picture.

 

There still may be some gaps to fill in, but by chunking the puzzle up first it’s a lot easier to fill in the gaps to finish the job.

Build Your Fitness the Same Way

For us as runners, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by all of the ways we “should” improve our health and fitness.

Running is the easy one for us, obviously.

But there’s also strength training.

And mobility training.

Cross training. Sleeping. Stretching. Soft tissue work. Diet. Hormonal health. And on and on.

Trying to shore up all aspects of your health at the same time?

It’s overwhelming, to say the least.

You know what else is overwhelming?

Dumping 3,000 pieces of a Where’s Waldo puzzle on your dining room table.

If Adi and I tried to just “do the puzzle” we’d be working on it until she graduates high school.

But by chunking it up into different sections? Knocking out 80 pieces here and 200 pieces there?

The damn thing is going to be finished by next weekend.

Instead of trying to tackle every aspect of your health and fitness routine that could stand to be improved, chunk it down.

You already have a running routine in place, so you’re good on that front.

Now the key is looking for the next lowest hanging fruit.

Whatever that is for you, do that next.

Once you get that sorted, move on to the next thing.

By tackling one aspect of your health/fitness at a time, the task at hand will feel much more doable and you’ll make more progress overall than if you tried to do it all at the same time.

Put It All Together

Just like with the puzzle, there will come a point when the different aspects of your health/fitness that you’ve been working on start to come together.

It may be a gradual process, but you’ll start to see improvements in many different aspects of your health and fitness.

Maybe you’ll have a little more energy. Sleep quality improves. Weight ticks down. You’re running a bit faster. You are noticeably stronger.

The point is, your body and your overall health is an ecosystem.

As different aspects of your health improve, your overall health and/or fitness also improve.

But the big difference here between the puzzle and your health/fitness is that there is a point when the work on the puzzle is complete.

Not so much for your health.

As things come together and you feel your health improving, you have to keep working.

Keep looking for the next area that needs to be addressed or the gap that needs filling.

Because your health puzzle is never complete.

 

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Pace predictors are, at best, an inexact science. So don't treat them as gospel. #runchat Share on X

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