Could the Greatest Threat to Your Health Actually Be You?

By Kevin Kolodziejski 

If you think I’m a fool for asking that question, I understand.

Until last October, I could’ve never imagined asking it to RBR readers — let alone use it as a title.  But then again, I could’ve never imagined the statistic that I read at that time to be true either.

But before we get to that stat, it’s best you play the what-if game.

What If?

What if you had been asked the title question 30 years ago and were a professional cyclist? In that case, there’s probably 50/50 chance (though some may argue that’s a gross underestimation) the truthful answer to “Could the greatest threat to your health actually be you?” would be yes. For in all likelihood, you’d be dangerously thin, riding 30,000 kilometers or so a year, crashing a few times in the process, and using perilous performance-enhancing substances.

But what if 30 years ago you had not been a skeletal professional cyclist but a pudgy patient prescribed actual legal medication for a chronic condition like diabetes or hypertension and asked the same question? Despite the change to the what-if game, there would still be a 50/50 chance your answer would be yes. According to a 1998 Business Health article, 50/50 are also the same odds that you don’t take that medication or take it so irregularly it’s rendered ineffective.

But that, my friend, is not the stat I would’ve never imagined. After all, some people are just lazy, others are simply foolish, and many prefer living in a state of denial. But there’s no denying that as a society we’re supposed to get better. Especially in matters pertaining to our health and especially in 30 years’ time.

The Stat I Would’ve Never Imagined

But in this case, that’s not the case. The stat that I never would’ve imagined is that the Business Health estimate is still valid today. That in 2025, there’s still a 50/50 chance that a person prescribed medication for a chronic condition like diabetes or hypertension won’t take it or will take it so irregularly that it’s rendered ineffective. My guess is that Lisa Marshall would’ve never imagined it either, and that it’s one of the reasons why she titled the article she wrote for WebMD “Your Greatest Health Threat Is You.”

Now here’s what I hope happens as a result of mentioning that title. That you do what I did: become all defensive and offended and start enumerating all the reasons why her assertion doesn’t apply to you. For once I made my list (and it was expansive), a line from “Hamlet” crept into my head: “Methinks the lady doth protest too much.” Which made me think to ask you today’s title. Because when I asked it of myself, I realized the truthful answer was “At times.”

For even though I am fully committed to (though some would say with totally obsessed about) my health and fitness, there are times when the rides and weight training workouts I do are less than what’s best for my overall health. For what Thomas Sowell once so famously wrote about economics and politics (and I may have quoted here once before) is also true in this case. When it comes to the frequency, intensity, and total time of the riding and weight training we both do “There are no solutions. There are only trade-offs.”

But there’s no need to throw a fit about that. You can make matters much better, however, if you better manage FIT, the frequency, intensity, and total time you spend exercising in a given week.

Don’t Throw a FIT, Manage It

To best manage FIT, you need to consider what’s your maximum recoverable volume. That’s a term Dr. Mike Israetel coined to express “that your body’s ability to recover from training is finite at any one given point and it changes over time,” the ramifications of which he discusses at length with Thomas DeLauer on a Thomas DeLauer Metabolic Optimization Podcast.

Israetel, a professor who’s taught exercise science courses at Lehman College, Temple University, and the University of Central Missouri, is better known as the host of the Renaissance Periodization podcast. He has been a competitive bodybuilder, a professional Brazilian Jiu Jitsu grappler, and coauthored six exercise-performance books. He tells DeLauer “all good training” doesn’t push past your maximum recoverable volume. For if your amount of exercise exceeds your body’s ability to recover from it, “You’re engineering an environment where you don’t get gains, you get losses.”

While that’s not nearly as bad as people failing to take prescribed medication, it’s still a health threat. So is the problem Thomas DeLauer faces every week when plotting out his weekly workout schedule.

Is DeLauer’s Problem Yours Too?

Take a look at any picture DeLauer posts, and you’d never guess a guy this jacked could possibly have any workout problems. But what these photos don’t reveal is what’s in DeLauer’s heart.  He loves to run and long distances at that. Weight training, unbelievably enough, is his second favorite form of exercise.

So here’s the trade-off Israetel suggests. For DeLauer to have set times in the year when he dramatically cuts back on one exercise, as much as 70 percent, to get better at the other. Science has determined, Israetel explains, that for a few weeks you can maintain your base level of muscular strength or cardiovascular fitness by doing roughly 30 percent of the FIT you typically do.

That means if a reduction in all forms of exercise is a trade-off you need to make during the upcoming holidays, it’s really no big deal. Just keep it to a week or two, and once you get back to going full guns, remember to occasionally ask yourself today’s title.

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Kevin Kolodziejski began his writing career in earnest in 1989. Since then he’s written a weekly health and fitness column and his articles have appeared in magazines such as “MuscleMag,” “Ironman,” “Vegetarian Times,” and “Bicycle Guide.” He has Bachelor and Masters degrees in English from DeSales and Kutztown Universities.

A competitive cyclist for more than 30 years, Kevin won two Pennsylvania State Time Trial championships in his 30’s, the aptly named Pain Mountain Time Trial 4 out of 5 times in his 40s, two more state TT’s in his 50’s, and the season-long Pennsylvania 40+ BAR championship at 43.