“You pick an apple when it’s ripe”
Last night I took a break from updating Eat Stop Eat to go to a very special event.
The Macallan – One of Scotland’s most beloved Whisky distilleries and the makers of one of the world’s truly great single malt whiskies, was holding an event to kick off the launch of it’s new series of Scotch – names the 1824 series, aptly named after the year the distillery was founded.
During the event we were able to taste each of the four new offerings (they called them ‘expressions’) and even got to pair them with their cheeses and chocolates of choice. All and all a good night 😉
(Apparently rambling about scotch occasionally on my blog and twitter is a good thing 😉 )
To mark the event they flew in their ‘chief wood guy’ (who’s name completely escapes me) to talk about the importance of the wood they use to make their casks – the giant barrels that the whisky is stored in while it ages.
Now, I was there to take a break from writing and enjoy some drink, but as usual I started to pick up little nuance – little ideas, that I think will help you with understanding weight loss, muscle building and the like.
I can sum the whole concept up as ‘You pick an apple when it’s ripe’ but to explain what I mean, we need to go back to talking about the barrels.
The people at the Macallans are crazy about their wood – and with good reason – this is where their scotch gets the vast majority of its flavor and color (Macallans is one of the rare few scotches that does not add coloring to their scotch).
The barrels (casks) are only ever made of Oak – either American Oak from the Kentucky area, or Spanish Oak. The process used to make the casks is very ‘old school’ – hand made, fired, aged with sherry… Everything you’d expect from the romantic attachment they have to the lure and history of their drink.
Interestingly, after the 100 year old oak is cut into planks it has to age and dry – they do this naturally. They don’t put it into an oven or a kiln, they just leave it outside for a couple of years. Yep, not weeks or months, but years.
And this is where I started to see an underlying unity between the story I was being told about aging wood to make the casks that hold one of the world’s most beloved scotch and weight loss.
We have a romantic attachment to the idea of things being done naturally, and with the idea of not rushing a process. We intuitively see a value in this approach. We’ll pay more for it, cherish it, talk about it, blog about it.
It’s not that we HATE technology, it’s more that we have an appreciation for something done painstakingly well when appropriate. It’s just something innate within people. As my old man would say, If you’re going to do something, you may as well do it properly. It’s the difference between sending your friend a hand written condolences card rather than quick email that says
‘Hey,
sorry for your loss,
-B.’
I think this concept of being drawn to something that was done properly and done at a proper pace is what pulls so many people towards fasting – It’s fat loss happening at it’s own pace – not being rushed, tricked or hacked.
Sometimes we are in such a rush to lose weight that we never stop to consider that there may be a sort of natural pace to the process – that you can’t just ‘put the pedal to the metal’ for weeks and months on end without some sort of negative repercussion.
We all know that pushing our system too hard and too fast is not the way to arrive at a sustainable weight loss goal, but at the same time we’re all likely guilty of trying it at one time or another…and it never works.
Instead I would rather we all embrace that the process has it’s own natural speed.
However, this was only a minor ah-ha moment for me, the big one came next…
When we were talking about the process of drying and aging the wood people wanted to know exactly how long it took. But the reply was that there really isn’t any hard math or science behind it. Sure, it’s there as a guide, but in the end you have to go by feel and results.
In other words there are simply too many variables to be able to lock it down to a blanket statement like “dry the wood for exactly 44 months”
The wood is dry when it’s dry. Or, as the wood-guy said (a statement I’m going to use for the rest of my life)
“You pick an apple when it’s ripe”
This is a statement that could be applied to workouts.
When it comes to exercise – we easily lose focus and forget that it’s really about our ability to actually feel what’s going on. To be cliché – nobody knows your body like you.
Instead of going by feel, we just do as we’re told – 3 sets of 10 reps, 5 sets of 5 reps, 10 sets of 3 reps are whatever the case may be.
But what happens after that third set of 10, when everything feels awesome, and you’re in the groove, and your muscles are primed for another set or two because it just ‘feels right?” – You put down the weight and move on.
And on the 4th set of 5, when your muscles are exhausted and ‘done’? when something just wasn’t clicking that day and the exercise just didn’t feel right? – you hammer out one last set to get to five simply because your program has it written for you to do 5 sets.
We’ve lost a bit of the intuition behind training – Instead of picking the apple when it’s ripe, we’re picking it on the 93rd day, regardless of whether it was on the sunny side or shady side of the tree, oldest or youngest branch.
This is a mistake, and again it goes back to respecting the natural pace and intuition that can guide you, the feeling that something is ‘right’, instead opting for finite, one-size-fits-all answers to how many sets or reps, or how much cardio, or how many calories….
Yes there is a process and a science behind it – there is no denying this, but in the end you pick an apple when it’s ripe.
When you take time developing this intuition, instead of simply following routine, great things can happen.
Bob Dalgarno is the guy who ‘makes’ the Macallans final product. I think his official title is “Whisky Maker” so you know he’s kind of a big deal at the Macallan Distillery 😉
The Macallan gets all of its color and much of its flavor from the wood they use to make their casks. So every cask will have a slightly different flavor and a slightly different color. Bob, with his nose and taste, blends the scotches from each cask to make the Macallans four new expressions, each with it’s own unique color and flavor.
Gold, Amber, Sienna (The one I want for my birthday), and Ruby .
This is done through a blend of science and trial-and-error combined with intuition and know-how.
Simply put, the human touch, brought in by intuition and know-how is what makes a high end product like the Macallan so high end, and it’s also what allows you to get the best results from your exercise or diet. Don’t ignore the science, but also don’t ignore your past experiences and your own intuition of what ‘feels right’ for you.
How many calories you should eat, how often you should workout, how much protein, how many sets or reps, how many days off, fasting or no fasting, there is science behind all of this, but in the end, you must include your own experiences and intuition to get the best results.
Bottom line – every once in a while remind yourself –
“You pick an apple when it’s ripe.”
BP
