Paleo Magazine – August-September 2019

72 August/September 2019

etabolic flexibility

refers to the ability

to switch between

fuel sources—from

fat to carbs and back again. It

requires healthy mitochondria,

the cellular power plants that

convert macronutrients into

usable energy for our bodies.

It requires good insulin

sensitivity, so you’re not

locking out your body fat from

being burned every time your

pancreas so much as twitches.

Metabolic flexibility is the

hallmark of a healthy, long-

lived, vibrant person. It’s what

we’re all after, and it’s what

I keep coming back to time

and time again. Metabolic

flexibility is all the rage, and

for good reason.

But what about mental

flexibility?

After all, we aren’t just

corporeal beings whose only

concern is the food we use

to fuel our metabolisms. We

are also mental beings. We

interpret incoming sensory

data and use it to create an

internal reality that plays out

in our heads. We are one of

the only animal species on

the planet that maintains

a persistent sense of a

“self ”—an identity, a mental

world that persists through

childhood and parenthood,

pain and heartache, trauma

and tragedy, momentous

changes and gradual shifts.

The congruence of that

The Full Measure

of Life: How to

Cultivate MENTAL

FLEXIBILITY

By Mark Sisson

mental world and our place

within it determines how we

operate in the external world.

It decides the quality of our

relationships, our happiness,

our sense of purpose. And,

as the Stoic philosophers

described better than anyone,

the only thing we can control

in this life is our response to

the world and what it throws

at us. Mental flexibility