My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I am familiar with Orison Swett Marden through one of his previous works ‘Ambition and Success’. That book, though brief, gave me a glimpse at the type of man he was, the insight he spoke with, and the vital spirit he guided men towards. His style and message resonated with me to great success and I knew this was a man whose works I had to comb through.
Since then, despite my lingering intention, I never got around to doing so. That is, until I decided to read his work ‘Keeping Fit’.
Initially I was unsure if his talent in writing about metaphysical matters such as ambition would carry over into the topics of the physical realm, but I am delighted to report that this book not only exceeded my expectations, but has changed me in many small ways for the rest of my life.
Echoing previous sentiments in some of my earlier reviews, we are taught a wide range of skills throughout our schooling years, specialising on equations, theories and mechanics. We graduate from or institutions feeling clued up about the world and eager to tackle it. What we lack however, is more fundamental than any of that.
How many of us are educated on how to build a digital application, how to fix a car engine, how to maintain a computer and yet are clueless as to the requirements of good health that our body so deeply longs for?
Without being monotonous or exhausting, this book provides a clear look into what is required for us to maintain our minds and bodies via both what we eat and how we eat.
‘Keeping Fit’ contains chapters covering a wide range of topics. From chapters on burnout, revitalising ourselves in nature, the different types of foods required by the brain worker and the labourer, the importance of fruits and how they are the physical embodiment of sunshine itself and the dangers of overeating, this isn’t a typical book advising us to just ‘eat healthily’. There are a wide range of behaviours we engage in that can only be altered once we understand the underlying reasoning behind them. This book was monumental in fundamentally changing the way I think about food from first principles, and I believe this is the basis of all behaviour change.
For example – we are made of blood, flesh and bones. As we age and release waste, we get rid of dead tissue from our bodies. What we eat therefore replenishes and replaces what we lost and becomes our new set of blood, flesh and bones. If we are taken by habit to consume substandard, unhealthy food, is it any wonder what we will become anything other than substandard ourselves? Is it any mystery why our thoughts will be slow and foggy? Even a machine’s output is determined by the quality of the resource it is fed. Could we imagine a computer functioning correctly without clean power? Could we imagine feeding a car fuel full of debris and waste? the strict requirements we have for powering both far outclass the requirements we put on ourselves!
Although this may sound obvious, for me it was a simple truth packaged in a convincingly meaningful way. No scientific study was quoted but it was unnecessary regardless, reasoning from first principles was enough. After all, what study would you need to prove such an obvious point?
Another example was when Swett Marden speaks about masticating (chewing) one’s food sufficiently. I myself have always been a very fast eater. I do not know why I have always been one, nor do I know when it started. But I have never seen this to be a negative thing until I read this book. The reasons for it being so that the Author argues is that the one who eats fast by necessity does not chew his food thoroughly, this is how he eats fast in the first place. He does not give his food its full right by chewing it.
The result of this is that his stomach does not communicate with him in time to tell him how full he really is. He swallows more and more before his stomach has time to tell him that his hunger has been satisfied. As a result, it is common for fast eaters to eat more than their fill without realising it. They are out of touch with their bodily requirements and push themselves to limits they did not nearly need to approach.
Looking back at myself, I recognise many of these issues in my own habits. Again, from first principles it made perfect sense. How could I expect to hear my body and understand its prompts when I did not give it the opportunity to speak?
These are but two examples from the book which changed my reasoning behind food entirely. They made sense at a fundamental level and have changed the way which I look at food and the process by which I absorb its nutrients into my body.
From a structural perspective, each chapter is prefaced by quotes from others relating to the upcoming topic, and often these quotes summarised everything succinctly in such a way as to make your brain yearn for it to be elaborated and expanded upon. This thirst was then entirely quenched by what followed.
One thing I noticed as a common theme throughout the book was that Swett Marden himself was optimistic about the role of governments in the future taking an active part in ensuring the citizenry lived healthy lives free of imperfect foods and clean air. While we live today in a world where there are many regulations about the quality of food and the environment, I doubt the Author would be as pleased as he imagined were he to see our state today. Unfortunately despite the leaps and bounds we have made since this book was published in terms of our knowledge about food, we have not made similar strides in our general implementation of them. I can only imagine the confounding horror Orison Swett Marden would feel were he to see our world today where products are chemically engineered to be as addictive as possible and where the nutritional value is often seen as a secondary or even tertiary factor in the sale of food.
Nonetheless, it is this book and its contents which arm a man with the knowledge he needs to make the changes he wants in his life. Ironically were this book to be widely read, I believe it would be the catalyst for more of a seismic change than any government policy could enforce.
Another benefit – Swett Marden quotes Louis Comaro at the beginning of a chapter on overeating where he says:
“The food from which a man abstains, after he has eaten heartily, is of more benefit to him than that which he has eaten.”
It is these kind of perspective shifts which if we sufficiently internalise, have the power to change our habits and ultimately our lives. So often we can get caught up in the minutiae of dietary habits and ignore what is arguably the largest general cause of them all, overeating. These perspective shifts are scattered throughout the book, and many readers will find themselves in a state of intellectual shock as they pass through the first chapter where we are flooded with enough of these ‘core truths’ which serve to wake us up from our slumber and prepare us for the rest of the book to come. How can expect the most optimal output, the best work and the best of our efforts in anything if we do not keep ourselves in efficient shape?
Despite all of the advices on healthy food given in the book, we all know some people (and we may be them ourselves) who insist that their specific eating or consumption habit is most optimal for their body. Perhaps there is a man who smokes 3 cigarettes as his ‘breakfast’ daily, without them he claims, he is unable to function and feels foggy and lethargic. Orison Swett Marden points out that this is but another evidence for the miraculous nature of our bodies. Although we may feel as though a certain habit is necessary for it to function optimally, this is due to the body adapting to the habits we set. He gives the example of a Bedouin Arab who would be offered water only to decline because he “drank water yesterday”. Just because the human body is able to adapt to an extreme limit in how we treat it, this does not justify or mean that the habit it is accustomed to is the most optimal for it to function.
This, again, is another perspective shift for the reader since we all believe ourselves (especially in youth) to be unique in many ways that seem contradictory to all public messaging and known standards of health. Whether it is staying up late at night, the continuous consumption of unhealthy food or the lack of exercise, our bodies simply tend adapt to what we do. We then look at the circumstances backwards and justify out habits by saying that our bodies cannot effectively function in any other way.
While there is the truth that the best physicians tailor and fine tune the known advices to the individual sensibilities of each patient, the general truths are applicable to all. We should not feel immune from the general needs and requirements of our bodies because we feel we are the exceptions to the rule. Each man likes to feel that he is unique and works differently to the rest, but we entertain the practical effects of such thinking at our own peril.
In conclusion, I do not merely recommend this book. No, rather I oblige everyone to read it. The value of restructuring ones thoughts from first principles on such an important topic that affects every one of us must be read. We ought to take as much care of our miraculous bodies as we do of our cars and computers. We often take for granted that a thing works, that is, until it doesn’t. The same is true with the bodies that God has gifted to us.
Earnestly speaking. I will not feign to be a completely changed man as a result of this book. I still have a long way to go before I see myself as having implemented all the advices therein, but the train has left the station and the seeds have been planted. The roots of behaviour change have begun to entrench themselves into the earth.
I intend to purchase a physical copy of this book for it to sit on my bookshelves forevermore. Published in 1916, I have taken great benefit from it in 2024, a testament to the lasting power of knowledge and the ability of the written word to influence those who do not yet live. I will recommend this to all my family and friends and to everyone who understands that food is important but doesn’t know why. This book does not trip itself up over specific scientific intricacies, but touches upon core truths we all know to be self evident.
And that is enough to move mountains.
Highly recommended read.