The following Mark's Daily Apple article was written by Mark Sisson,

and is narrated by Tina Lehman.

How defining moderation can help you reach your health goals?

We've heard it a million times. Eat a well-balanced diet with How defining moderation can help you reach your health goals?

We've heard it a million times.

Eat a well-balanced diet with everything in moderation.

After all these decades of clear failure, it's a hazy cliché still delivered by physicians,

dietitians, and nutritional experts with earnest assurance.

The same goes for exercise and stress. Moderate amounts

of stress are okay, moderate cardiovascular work is good, et cetera. We accept the concept of moderation

so readily, I think, because it sounds so rational and simple. If we follow common sense,

moderation suggests, we'll be fine.

But if it were that easy, most people would be healthy, and statistics on rising rates of obesity and chronic illness tell us otherwise. So what's the problem? Something critical is missing in the

picture. Unfortunately, the moderation mantra, as we tend to invoke it, is too often a comforting abstraction

we use to dilute ourselves and to justify engaging in the same sabotaging behaviors again and again.

After all, moderation as a blurry standard conveniently doesn't exactly ask us to change anything

specific or question what we've come to accept as normal lifestyle patterns. It's limited by our own

subjective interpretation. So, to that old mantra, I'd like to make an additional recommendation.

What if we could take the low-pressured

positivity of this concept and reframe it within specific, personalized, meaningful bounds?

In short, what would it mean for our health goals if we truly took moderation in hand

and clarified it for our own individual use? Because the fact is, I see a genuine

...