For a long time I’ve been a voice for sustainability and consistency. Picking practices and goals that are doable and keeping them up over the long term.

But despite this stance, I believe that intermittently doing things that push our limits is beneficial.

I was listening to a podcast recently with Lewis Howes interviewing Randy Couture. Couture is best known as a UFC fighter and now as an actor.

In his earlier days Randy competed in Greco-Roman wrestling throughout school and during his time serving in the army.

A normal Greco-Roman wrestling match is three rounds of two minutes. So the entire match would last six minutes.

Couture mentioned that in training they would have occasions where they’d have “grind matches” where they would go 90 minutes straight. So despite a normal match being six minutes and them being exhausted at the end, they’d practice matches that were the equivalent of 15 matches back to back with no break.

He said that these were tougher than anything he done. You’d be 10 minutes in and want to give up.

But you’d find some a way to go another 10 minutes.

Then some how you do another 7 minutes.

Then just a little more.

And then in what felt like an eternity, 90 minutes would be up. He’d have made it through despite thinking it was completely impossible and wanting to give up countless times.

This kind of challenge, where someone goes over and above what they think is doable, has huge advantages. It shows you what you’re really capable of and allows you to stretch what you do on “normal” days that little bit more.

But the point here isn’t that you need to challenge yourself like this every day. In fact, that is something I strongly advise you not to do. What I’m suggesting is having times where you challenge yourself doing things that you wouldn’t think you are capable of and seeing what happens.

Now I want to make something very clear here. While I’ve used exercise as an example, this idea applies to many areas of life and doesn’t have to be applied to exercise.

I have a very wide readership. Some people follow me because they like my take on nutrition and my sane food advice. For others it for my content around disordered eating or body image. For others it is my explanation around physiology and why someone may be having problems with their cycle or with digestion.

This means that not every example is going to be appropriate for every person.

If you are someone who comes with a history of food restriction or over exercising, then you shouldn’t be pushing yourself on the exercise front to see how far you can go. Undoubtedly you have already done something like this before. Or if not from an exercise perspective, you pushed the boundaries for how far you can battle against your physiology while “functioning” on limited rations.

So let me give you another example.

In 2009 a friend sent me an email. It was an introduction email, connecting me with a chef. She said that we had a similar passion around food and maybe we could do something together.

So I met up with Matt and we got on. We came up with an idea to host a supperclub where he would cook a five-course meal and I would talk about the food, the health benefits and why we’d picked the different ingredients. The talk would hopefully lead into a discussion and I could demonstrate my knowledge by answering questions.

There was one small hitch. I hated public speaking. I was so nervous to get up in front of a group of people and just talk. And more so because it was on the topic of nutrition.

I had only qualified about six months prior and I felt like a complete fraud. I felt like I didn’t know enough and that people were going to ask questions and that I wouldn’t be able to answer them and everyone would think I was stupid.

(This, I’ve subsequently found out, is how everyone feels. So if this is you right now, know that it will get better).

But despite these fears, I still agreed to do it. I knew that I wanted to get better as a public speaker and that the only way this was going to happen was by actually doing public speaking.

So I put in the work to be as ready as I could be. Despite only creating about 15-20 minutes of prepared talking, I probably spent about 30-40 hours putting it together. I immersed myself in as much information as I could to try and make me feel more knowledgeable.

So how did it go on the night? I did ok. I did as well I could have expected for someone who was learning to talk in public. But I didn’t die and people were very complimentary of what I had to say.

But it meant that when we hosted a supperclub a couple of weeks later, I was slightly less nervous. I knew I’d made it through before and could do it again.

My suggestion for you is to find the areas in your life that you feel discomfort or vulnerability. Find some challenge that you do that clearing puts you out of your comfort zone.

Our experiences alter our perceptions. Slowly and steady is the best method for long term habits that people keep up. But if this can be interspersed with challenges that push our limits, our beliefs about what we can accomplish on a day-to-day basis can be expanded.

We’ll also learn how resolute we can be in the face of adversity and while this may not make us “stress proof,” it can increase the level at which it takes to knock us down.

…and shows us when we are knocked down, that we can get back up.

Getting Help On Your Recovery Journey

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I truly believe that you can reach a place where the eating disorder is a thing of the past and I want to help you get there. If you want to fully recover and drastically increase the quality of your life, I’d love to help.

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