For health and fitness, the single-most important book you will ever—you must read:

Robb Wolf’s The Paleo Solution: The Original Human Diet is the most exhaustive, authoritative and readable work on nutrition available anywhere. It is mandatory reading for all MPH athletes—even especially the vegans and vegetarians. It is so valuable, that we will only consult on this topic after successful completion of this unprecedented resource.

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From Chapter 10, “Implementing the Paleo Solution: It’s Easy, Really“, pp. 197-199:

“In the ten years of helping folks with their nutrition and fitness, I have observed that people fall into one of the following categories:

“1. About 50 percent of the folks I work with “get” how to eat Paleo immediately. The Paleo concepts make sense, they modify their cooking seamlessly, and they never look back. They live a Paretto kind of life in which they adhere to things about 80 percent and actually get about 95 percent of the benefit Paleo has to offer. Folks with serious health problems (myself included) follow a tighter plan because they find the increased diligence to be worth the results in how they look, feel, and perform. This is a simple ROI (return on investment) analysis, and a little common sense and the observational abilities of slime mold can tell you where on this spectrum you need to be (fully compliant, or a dabbler). God bless this 50 percent because I really earn my money on the other 50 percent!

“2. About 25 percent of folks fall in the DUMBB category (Dude, yoU Must Be Balanced!). These folks argue every damn point of minutia and claim that we need to be “balanced.” Should we ignore the fact that these “experts in balance” have no exact definition of what “balance” means, or any explanation of why they are all still sick and overweight? They have enough excuses to win a congressional filibuster. But at the end of the day, it’s all fluff. Eventually I wear these people down and get them to simply try things for a month. They tend to battle and find ways to slow the process. (Shouldn’t I have a bound food log? Or maybe an online food log to document my meal? Or maybe if I wear pink leotards it will make my ass look smaller and I won’t need a food log.) These folks need some hand-holding in the kitchen, supermarket, work, school, and social functions. And we need to keep them accountable, lest they wander off and become vegan or something goofy like that. But they eventually stick with the program and see significant results and success. When this happens, these folks become OMGWTHSTHUAP (Oh my God will they shut the Hell-up about Paleo!) As hard as it was to get them on board, they are so ecstatic about their success, they become annoying even to my trainers and me. Just the cost of success I guess!

“3. The final 25% (I’ll keep their acronym to myself – it’s not very nice) battle the process the whole way. They have baggage that is apparently more fun than success and progress. It’s Mommy issues, Daddy issues, self-esteem issues. It’s fear of change, and it all plays out the same way. They want attention, they do not comply, they fail to make progress. I want to lobotomize myself with a pencil. I try to help these people, but I’m no therapist, and I don’t want to be. I understand many of the mechanisms on a social, biochemical, and even an evolutionary level, but at some point, you’ve got to realize that you can’t save everyone. If you insist on being helpless, your needs will exceed my abilities to help you, and I will move on to the other 75 percent who want to succeed. The only difference between this group and the previous group is these people will not even try this for a month. They are a month away from transforming their lives and from success, but they just won’t do it.”

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Rest today.