Okay Tina, what’s with the boiling kettle?
Boiling water is often used as an example when describing Minimum Effective Dose or MED. Okay…..So what is a minimum effective dose and what does it have to do with exercise, fitness and eating? I thought you’d never ask! So let’s say you want to make a cup of tea. You fill a kettle with water, you put the kettle on the stove, you turn the stove on high and wait for the water to boil. Once the water hits 100°C standard air pressure, it boils. Once it’s boiled, it’s boiled. By leaving it on the stove on high longer it won’t make it “more boiled” it will only ring up your electric bill. If you turned it off once it boiled then you could conserve energy for something more productive. The minimum effective dose is the smallest dose that will give you the desired result and anything beyond that is just going to be wasted. It’s the same with exercise and eating….doing more than you have to will not result in a better body and you could actually be wasting your energy and time. (An exception to this is if you are an athlete in training, but really when was the last time most of us ran an IronMan Triathlon)
Lifestyle hacker Tim Ferris popularized the term and brought it into the mainstream when he used MED in his approach to fitness. Most people (including me a long long time ago) think that getting fit or staying fit requires hours and hours of weekly exercise and restrictive meal plans. And believe me I’ve been there and done that. I’ve wasted years of my life, starving myself, spending hours at the gym, and spending thousands for personal trainers and gym memberships that oftentimes led to me injuring myself…both mentally and physically. Yes I got good results but it cost me massive amounts of sacrifice, time and pain. And guess what? I couldn’t sustain any of it. I would always end up quitting the gym and binging on all the food I restricted which would then result in me gaining back all the weight and hating myself for failing once again!
Then I read about MED. And what a life changer it’s been. The minimum effective dose for me is a 30 minute High Intensity Interval Training workout, 3 times a week and following a nutritional plan based on intuitive eating. And guess what? I got the same if not better results and the bonus is I have been able to sustain it. Another bonus is I actually look forward to my workouts and haven’t injured myself once.
So the old saying “no pain no gain” is exactly that…old. Exercise should be enjoyable and it shouldn’t consume your day, the same goes for food and eating. If you have been struggling with the “old way” of thinking I suggest you give MED a try. I think you will be pleasantly surprised.
Now I’m off to boil the kettle and make a nice cup of tea. Won’t you join me?
