90 Day Regimen Breakthrough – Week 12
90 Day Regimen Breakthrough – Week 12
Tonic Regimen
“Why do you want to climb Mount Everest?”
“Because it’s there”
-George Mallory
Almost every teaching about regimen (and nutrition in particular) is an example of “pathic” regimen – how to select and prepare foods in a way which are the most nutritious, and have the lowest “cost” to your body’s energy. In other words, the question of pathic regimen is how much can you “take” from your regimen, while minimizing what you have to “give” in order to get it.
“Tonic” regimen, on the other hand, has a very different objective – it is to strengthen, tone, or expand some aspect or function of yourself, through the act of overcoming something which may normally be toxic, or otherwise “bad” for you (or at least “difficult”). Think of the example of your immune system which is increased when you successfully overcome an infection. This is the core idea behind immunization.
Tonic regimen applies not only to what you physically ingest (nutrition, germs, etc.), but also to what kind of resonant challenges you undertake in life for the purposes of growth and expansion. Tonic regimen is what you do to you push yourself to the next plateau, while pathic regimen is what keeps you sustained and in balance.
Some examples of tonic regimen include:
- Michel Lotito (“Monseiur MangeTout”) – Performer whose claim to fame was consuming inedible objects, including 9 tonnes of metal in his life, as well as rubber, and glass. He completely ate a Cesna 150 airplane!
- King Mithridate – Systematically consuming increasing doses of poison over the years to build up his resistance. [See The Princess Bride movie clip below as an artistic portrayal of this]. Also, think of the modern example of what happens to children who live in increasingly sanitized environments, and become so much more susceptible to having allergies and asthma.
- Homeopathic “Provings” – Dr. Hahnemann’s procedure of systematically ingesting poisonous medicinal substances to catalogue their exact effects, so that they could later be consciously applied as curative medicines to disease of a similar picture.
- The principle of homoprophylaxis (immunization) – Overcoming a pathogen or microbe, in order to gain lifelong immunity to it. The exact same principle is also effective for challenges of an emotional or spiritual nature.
- Supersize Me – Filmmaker Morgan Spurlock documented what happened to him as he ate only what he could buy off of the McDonald’s menu for 30 days.
This week’s video on Tonic Regimen:
Your homework from this module:
- Does your current level of health require you to focus almost entirely on pathic regimen, or do you have some leeway to push your boundaries?
- What forms of tonic regimen do you, or could you engage in to further expand yourself at different levels?
- What resonant life challenge could you tackle that would cause you to grow or expand?
Additional resources:
You ca read my blog post on tonic regimen here.
Scene from The Princess Bride:
The extreme expression of tonic regimen – Michel Lotito (“Mr. Eats It All”)
The theme song for pathic regimen:
Supersize Me Trailer:
Supersize Me Full Documentary:
Hi Jeff, could you provide more ordinary examples … of what ‘tonic giving’ might be?
Hi Lee – the basic idea of “tonic giving” is that is a polarity to the usual “pathic taking” we do with regimen. In other words, we spend most of our time in regimen focussing on what we “get” from something, such as what the nutritional value is of a certain food. The polaric counterpart is the side of regimen where you have to “give” something to get a benefit. Think of the analogy of any school or training program where the student has to put in all kinds of effort into their studies and work projects, in order to “gain” their skill and knowledge from the program. It cannot be simply handed over to the student, but they have to put their own effort into getting a result.
An example of tonic regimen in the realm of nutrition would be to eat a food which would normally be considered “bad” for you, but that you do it with the purpose in mind of strengthening your system by having to overcome something. Kind of like the famous quote “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”.
When I go to a developing country in South America, I take small sips of regular water to strengthen my immunity to whatever pathogens may be in the water. Last time I traveled and did that, I got no stomach viruses and my digestion was fine even though I ate all kinds of foods that might have been prepared in less than ideal conditions. I even had some fruit juices prepared with regular water. In the past, I would get indigestion and would be sick part of the time. I don’t over do it, but do think it can strengthen you.