I’d like to bust a myth that prevents you from achieving your potential: that anecdotal experience is trumped by ‘science’. Anecdotal is not the pejorative the experts and their followers make it out to be. Anecdotal is YOUR experience and if you experienced it, it is real. What that experience means is where the learning and growth occurs from examining the science.
The way science is marketed to us is part and parcel of modern life providing the convenience of being ‘Sold, Told & Controlled’ on a particular subject whether it be politics, religion, nutrition, health, performance etc.
While all these externals have a place, so do YOU! Your experience matters, and you had better be paying as much attention to what you are experiencing as that online health Guru with the 6 pack abs waving around peer-reviewed, double blind crossover studies showing you whatever being offered works. All too often we cede our experience to a bunch of published studies and a pretty face and body.
What place does your anecdotal experience have?
This doesn’t necessarily mean you’re always right, but it doesn’t mean you are necessarily wrong either. The data and science should corroborate and support the experience, not drive it. When they don’t, something is wrong but not necessarily YOU. Unfortunately, in today’s data-driven world, a lot of times the data is driving the experience to the outcome it wants rather than just the outcome.
My ‘anecdotal’ experience over 20 years ago with carb-loading before my first marathon told me something was wrong with the science. I took 15 years of being ridiculed and dismissed by experts until the FASTER Study emerged showing the science to date had completely underestimated the potential of fat adaptation. The Low Carb Cohort of Athletes tested in the FASTER Study were made up of athletes I helped in their fat adaptation journey and this was all done ‘anecdotally’ and led to this ground-breaking science.
Honor Your Experience
An open mind is not one of convenience. It is one of hard work. An open mind asks questions and challenges itself as much as what it is skeptical of to develop real, lasting solutions. This is really how you get stronger and more resilient. So, honor your experience as you would really good science or some online Guru because your experience is the ultimate collator of what works for YOU!
This is how we work to create an intuitive athlete. We are here to be your Guides, not your Gurus, to help you experience what performance fat adaptation is all about so YOU can enjoy the Metabolic Freedom you deserve!
