The Bottom of the Pyramid: Nutrition & Learning

CrossFit founder Greg Glassman made a fitness pyramid. It's modeled after the FDA's food pyramid, except that it makes sense. It's design is modeled after the food pyramid.

CrossFit Fitness Pyramid

Nutrition is the base. By combining CrossFit training with a healthful diet--Glassman recommends meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch and no sugar--will result in "a jet stream of adaptation".

I have some quibbles with Glassman's take on nutrition (primarily, that he's too scared of carbohydrates, especially those that come from fruits--see the 'paleo' pyramid below), but on the whole his nutrition advice is very sound. And so is his emphasis that our diet is the foundation of our health and physical performance.

A 'Paleo' Food Pyramid

Above the foundation of the stuff we eat is the stuff we do. Metabolic conditioning workouts, gymnastics, weightlifting and throwing, and a variety of sports. CrossFit does generate a lot of attention for its diet. Mostly, I think, because it's so strange. But it's interesting to look at Glassman's pyramid and to hear how important he thinks nutrition is to performance. Especially when one considers how empirically driven he is. 

Below is a video in which Glassman and other CrossFitters elaborate on why and how our diets effect what we're capable of doing physically.

What would an intellectual fitness pyramid look like? The base of Munger's intellectual fitness pyramid would have learning on it.

Munger attributes his partner Warren Buffett’s success to his ability to keep learning. “The turtles who outrun the hares are learning machines. If you stop learning in this world, the world rushes right by you.”Munger often cites reading as the key to learning. But he'll take learning wherever he can get it. And he asserts that he's never met a wise person who didn't read a lot.

“In my whole life, I have known no wise people who didn't read all the time -- none, zero. You'd be amazed at how much Warren (Buffett) reads -- at how much I read. My children laugh at me. They think I'm a book with a couple of legs sticking out.”

But it's not just reading; it's reading and thinking. At high intensity. The way Munger approaches learning is similar to the way CrossFit approaches workouts. Reading, like running, is great. But you're not going to get super fit by doing it and nothing else. And, you're really not going to get fit if you don't do it at high intensity.

I'm not suggesting that reading is the intellectual equivalent of what CrossFit calls 'monostructural' physical activity. I do think, though, that it needs to be used in concert with other activities to achieve optimal benefit.

Munger has said that he and Warren Buffett "insist on a lot of time being available almost every day to just sit and think. That is very uncommon in American business. We read and think.”

And it's hard to argue with his results. Combining reading and thinking at high intensity has led him to exceptional intellectual fitness. His ability to continually learn (well, that a great partnership, impeccable timing and some luck) has separated him from the field. I'm sure Munger's IQ was pretty impressive to start with, but he's grossly outperformed it. And offers the following advice:

“The turtles who outrun the hares are learning machines. If you stop learning in this world, the world rushes right by you.”

Tortise or hare: run fast. Train, read, think at high intensity.