What One Man Learned in His Quest to Be the Healthiest Person on the Planet

What happens when you try to follow every single health rule? (Photo: Yahoo Health/iStock/Getty Images)

Ever wonder what would happen if you tried to follow every health rule ever written?

What if you genuinely spent a year learning and living by the advice of every diet and workout plan you could find?

My buddy AJ Jacobs decided to give it a try.

First off, I should introduce AJ as a master experimenter. In his life to date, he has:

• Spent a year living biblically and following every rule mentioned in the Bible.

• Learned how to hack his body.

• Became a single woman for awhile to investigate dating.

He’s also the Editor at Large of Esquire magazine and an author who has published several books about his experiments.

So when I say he gave a genuine effort to this whole “abide by every health rule” experiment, I mean it.

When I caught up with him, I was dying to know what he had learned about health and his body from trying to be the healthiest person on the planet. This included experimenting with near starvation, endurance races, and more. His conclusion was this: You’ve got to be very careful about who you listen to.

During his experiment, he met people who told him all kinds of bizarre things, including the idea that you should drill holes in your head to mix up the electric pathways. His takeaway: Don’t pay attention to every health fad you may hear of.

Related: The One Thing These 2 Women Do Every Day to Be Healthier

I then asked him the the best format for living a healthy life. His answer: “Whatever you love, whatever makes you happy, is what’s going to be best for you.”

For example, AJ is super competitive, so for him, wearing a Fitbit to track all of his physical activity and compete with his friends who are also doing this is very fun and rewarding. He even bought a treadmill desk to get extra steps in while writing his books.

In addition, he pointed out that the more you track, the healthier you behave. This is because you’re constantly reminded of what you’re doing (or not doing) for your health.

Finally, I asked AJ what holds people back from living a healthy life. He explained that people think that they have to go to extremes. In fact, this is not the case. In reality, the healthiest lifestyles include moderation in all things, including workouts and diet, and a mental awareness of the messages your body is sending to you.

AJ’s final tip for me was to look at workouts as time that is increasing your productivity (versus time you could have been getting stuff done). This is perhaps one of his biggest takeaways from his year of healthy living and I agree completely.

To hear all of AJ’s stories about his crazy experiments, listen to our conversation below:

For more on AJ, click here.

ABOUT LEWIS HOWES: Lewis is a pro-athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur who hosts the top-ranked podcast The School of Greatness. He interviews the best and brightest minds in health, entrepreneurship, relationships and lifestyle. Follow Lewis on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

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