Three views...

 “All this time the Guard was looking at her, first through a telescope, then through a microscope, and then through an opera-glass.  At last he said ‘You’re travelling the wrong way,’ and shut up the window and went away.”  Through the Looking Glass, Chapter 3

What do Alice’s adventures have to do with fitness?  Many things, actually, but I will confine myself to what the Guard says in this instance.  Fitness is something that happens on many scales (yes, even that one we weigh ourselves on…) and is best served when we consider all of them.

How we perform various exercises, how we cook our dinner, and how we feel in the moment are the microscope level.  We need this kind of detail to refine our choices.  However, if all we did was focus on form and vegetables, we would not get all that far.  We need the opera glass scale to build a workout or an eating plan.  We have to understand how a particular exercise or food fits into a larger system because even the most beautiful squat and the largest quantity of leafy greens is not going to make health all alone.  The telescope view has two purposes:  one is to help us realize what our goals are (stars, here we come!) and to keep the other stuff in perspective (no, one cookie is not the end of the universe.).

What we want to do is decide where we want to go, make a plan to get there, and then work on the details:  telescope, opera glass, microscope.