Sleep is a fundamental health requirement. In her book, Trick Yourself to Sleep, Kim Jones shows us over 200 ways we can work with our body and mind to fall asleep faster and stay asleep longer.
Transcript
Allan (03:44): Kim, welcome to 40+ Fitness.
Kim (03:47): Hello. How are you?
Allan (03:48): I'm really good. And today we're going to talk about one of my favorite things, sleep. You wrote the book, Trick Yourself to Sleep, 222 Ways to Fall and Stay Asleep from the Science of Slumber. And going through all of those 222 of them, I would say I probably knew maybe half of them. So there's a lot in this book for someone to try if they're struggling with their sleep.
Kim (04:16): Good. I'm glad to hear that you've not heard of all of them because I think that was the whole reason I wrote the book. There's just so much out there you can do to help yourself sleep. It's not necessarily doing something just before bed. It can be doing things all through the day that can help set the scene for a perfect night's sleep. So, you know, there are a lot of things you can do. So my book, I hope people will be able to dip into, try test out a few things and find some new ways to get that perfect night's sleep
Allan (04:46): Excellent. Now, one that I hadn't really thought of, obviously as an adult, but it's something we do with our children is rocking. Can you talk about why rocking helps us sleep, and then a couple of ways that we can incorporate rocking into our lives. You know, cause like I'm not going to get my wife to do it. I weigh a little bit too much.
Kim (05:08): Exactly. That's the problem. I mean, it's obviously something we all do to our babies and our children when they're small enough to do it naturally, it's innate to naturally rock them to sleep, it's soothing. And you know, researchers have wanted to find out if the same sort of feelings can, the same drowsy things can be experienced by adults who rock. So a University of Geneva study. For example, they monitored people, adults who check in that rocking bed, which was like a hammock. And they found that they did in fact fall asleep faster. But what was really, really interesting was that they monitored their brain wave activity and they found that in those people who were rocking in this hammock, there was an increase in the type of brainwave activity that's associated with deep sleep. So it actually should suggest that rocking motions can synchronize your brainwave activity to that, to associate you with sleep. So how do we do it? Like you say, you're too big to be rocks by anybody. But of course there's the good old rocking chair. They are coming back into Vogue at the moment, especially with nursing mothers. There are lots of these chairs that have been sold might be able to find one an antique shop.
Allan (06:28): Well, no, no, they actually have them. If you live in the Southeast, I think mostly they're in Southeast, it's a store called Cracker Barrel, and they have these rockers outside when they have their long waits. If someone wants to sit out in the rocker and they actually do sell those rocking chairs. So if you're anywhere near the Southeast, you're going to be able to find a rocking chair at the Cracker Barrel.
Kim (06:50): Perfect. Well, there you go. There you go. So if you can't get hold of rocking chair, apparently now that aren't rocking beds, commercially being developed as we speak, I think in the US actually. And they are sort of as they fit onto your existing beds and they do actually have that beautiful, slow rocking motion. Again, they're quite expensive. So they might not be something we can get your hands on quite easily, but just simply rocking on your feet before bedtime can be relaxing. So it's very simple. You just, before bed, just stand with your feet about shoulder with the parts and just shift your body weight onto your heels. So that's backwards. So your toes lift off the floor and then shift your weight on to your toes so that your heels rockets the floor. And if you just continue rocking back and forth really slowly, breathing deeply as you do so you are setting that rocking motion in your body and you are hopefully then synchronizing your brainwave activity into that associated with deep sleep. And you've got the added advantage of stimulating acupressure points on your feet, which can come and relax you as well. So that's an easy way to do a rock some sort of rocking motion before bed, and then very calmly when you are finished rocking on the heels for a while and to do a stretch, then get into bed and it'll have calmed you down.
Allan (08:25): Yeah. And that's one thing, you know, at the end of a workout, you know, a lot of times if we're doing group training or you've done any group training, they'll finish up with some stretching and it's always kind of that just that relaxing you're laying on the floor, you're stretching out. So stretching and yoga actually are protocols that could help us sleep better. Could you tell us about that?
Kim (08:46): Yeah, absolutely. So yoga, myself I've not sort of ever been a huge yoga convert because I think before I tried it, I always thought it was difficult. You had to be really flexible, but of course that's totally not true. You can do so many yoga moves in the comfort of your own home, which are really easy and they don't require much flexibility. And when yoga moves is constantly mentioned when it comes to helping you sleep, nearly every yoga teacher I've talked to is totally, this one is the one to try. It's called legs up the wall. And it's thought to trigger your parasympathetic nervous system. That's the part of your nervous system that helps slow your heartbeat is helps you to relax and, you know, drop your blood pressures, everything down. It's really simple and you don't have to be flexible at all to do it.
Kim (09:44): So you simply, I don't know if you know this one, but you just sit on the floor with either your left or your right hip the wall, turn your body, keeping your bottom close to the wall. Then you bring your legs up on to the wall. And don't worry too much about how much your knees are bent. If it's more comfortable, you can keep your knees bent. Cause some people don't, can't actually straighten their legs completely against the wall. You can use pillows next to the wall or under your hips to support your back. It's gotta be comfortable for you to be in this position. Basically you are laying there with your legs up against the wall for a few minutes, breathing deeply. And it's really, really thought to somehow calm the nervous system and you can do it in bed against the headboard if that's at all feasible as well.
Kim (10:33): But that's definitely one pose, which I think you've got to try before anything, if you are going to do some yoga. And then do you want me to talk about any other poses? Like child's? Great stuff. So child's pose. If you are a yoga fan, you'll know the smell quite well, but again, it's one that is supposed to relax your body and mind very, very quickly, but you don't have to be too flexible again. And you can use lots of cushions and that kind of thing to help you. So you just get into a kneeling position. So you're sitting on your heels, their knees either together or it distance apart, whatever you feel more comfortable in and then roll the top half of your body forward. And if you can go a little forward until your forehead rests on the bed or the floor, wherever you're doing this particular exercise with your arms out stretched in front of you, that's fine.
Kim (11:32): But if you can't get your head to rest on the floor, I know I can't, I'm not that flexible, just rest your head on a pillow. So hold the pose for as long as it's comfortable and probably for a better maximum of three minutes. And just breathe slowly as you do, you're feeling your body, feel all your muscles sort of just getting out of that position. You've been in all day and it's a nice, relaxing, but easy blend, but there are even, there's an even easier one, which I like, which is just simply dangle there like a rag doll. So again, this is one that apparently in yoga, any head below heart pose, it's called an inversion in yoga is supposed to calm and relax the nervous system. So anywhere where you're putting your head below where your heart usually is, then that thought to really, really come down.
Kim (12:32): So again, with this one, you simply, you don't need much flexibility at all. You don't need really much strength or balance to hold the pose, but it can help release the tension and help people wind down. So if you want me to just quickly explain how it's done, you simply stand, start with your arms raised or the head, and then fold forward from your hips, reaching down towards your toes and then just hang there like a rag doll. Just as far as you can, no further, don't try to push it. Just allow all your muscles and your hair to hang heavily down and you'll feel the tension released from your shoulders. So just shake your arms loosely, back and forth, just like a ragdoll, soften your knees, if you need to. And just dangle there as long as you feel comfortable closing your eyes and breathing slowly and just letting your thoughts drift away.
Kim (13:26): And one important thing to do as well is to let out a big sigh because research shows that the actual act of sighing while you're doing this particular exercise can relieve stress and muscle tension. So there's a real reason why we say it is actually to release all that tension. So that's a nice one to do. And if you don't want to do while you're standing up, if you feel like you just want to do it when you're sitting down, you can do that at the edge of the bed as well. Simply fall forward like a rag doll at the at the edge of the bed and just get into bed afterwards. And hopefully that will have sort of loosens you up a bit more calm and relaxed.
Allan (14:06): Yeah. Stretching seems to always do that for me. It's just anytime I've ever done a class or whether it was yoga or just any other kind of fitness class, you get to the stretching part. And it's actually sometimes hard to not fall asleep on the floor.
Kim (14:22): Studies really have shown that stretching does help give you better sleep. So it doesn't matter what stretches you do as long as they're not really, you're not forcing anything to hurting yourself, but yeah, you're right. They will just calm you down. And like, you know, the science shows that study showed that women actually, who did a regular stretching routine for a few months, they reported better sleep afterwards. And things like stretching your legs can help. I don't know if you suffer like cramps at all in bed or restless leg syndrome, not something that really haunts a lot of people. They can't get to sleep with it, but if you do lots of leg stretches that can help with those such problems as well. And just generally sort of opening your chest as well. You know, we've all been in that position. If you're anything like me, you spend hours on the computer every day.
Kim (15:13): If you just open your chest before bed just means standing up straight and bringing your arms slightly behind you so that, you know, you're sort of correcting the rounded shoulders position that you might have been in all day. That's a nice one to do as well. That sort of loosens everything up because you don't want to get into bed with muscles that are tight and full of all the stress and tension that you've been living with through the day. Yes. So definitely like you say, like you do at the end of a workout, a nice stretch before bed really sort of loosens up.
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Allan (16:44): I'm a big fan, anything you want to change a journal is just your best friend. And you have several, you know, acts or tactics in the book that we can use a journal for. So do you mind going through a few of those and why they're valuable?
Kim (17:01): Yeah, of course. So really important to sort of get sort of worries out of your head before you get into bed. So a really good idea is to sort of schedule a time before bed. Quite a way before bed actually, cause you don't want these things particularly on your mind. So about six o'clock schedule, 15 minutes, which is called your worry time. And that's where you sit down with a pen and paper and you write out anything that's bothering you. And then you also write out some solutions, possible solutions to the problem. So, you know, this, it could be anything from, Oh, I know there's going to be a big bill coming in and you might want to write on the possible solutions. Okay, we going to have to cut back on this or that, but it sort of frees your mind from any niggles that might be there when you go to bed and it sort of stops you from worrying in bed.
Kim (18:06): So for example, if worry does come into mind at bedtime, you can actually say to yourself, I'm not going to worry about that now, because that'll be in my worry time tomorrow, it's scheduled for that 15 minute slot tomorrow. That's when I'll sorted out. That's when I'll worry about it. So it's sort of a way of putting your worries to bed if you like. And again, writing it to do list is really good. I mean, there's even been studies on this, where scientists have looked at a group of people who wrote out a detailed to do list. And then they looked at another group who wrote out a list of things they'd completed tasks they'd completed in the last few days. And it was actually the group who had written out their to do list before bed fell asleep quicker. And the more detailed the list they'd written, the quicker they fell asleep.
Kim (18:57): And again, it's the whole process of offloading on paper, things that have to be done. It helps free your mind from that responsibility and stops that list from going round and round in your head when you are in bed. So that's a good thing to do. Write all your worries and write your to do list before bed. And then another nice thing to do is think of good things, break down five good things every night that happened to you in the day. So it can be simple things such as getting a text from a friend or eating a great meal, just writing down things that are good in your life or something that you're grateful for. Again, studies, scientific studies have shown that writing these sort of a gratitude journal, or even just thinking about what's good and not bad in your life can help you fall asleep faster and longer.
Kim (19:51): So another nice reason to do that. And then keeping a sleep diary. I think you might've heard of that where you, I think you mentioned that, you know, it's a good way to find out what you're maybe doing wrong in the day that's a making you sleep badly. So in the book, I've got the details of how you can do that. You know, just buy a nice notebook. Then online, you can find really good sleep diary templates, where you can copy that section of the book and you fill in every day sort of what happened, what time you went to bed, what time you woke up, how many times in the night you might've woken. And then there's another section to put in what you ate and drank and when, and what exercise you had, whether you napped, and what you did in that hour before bed. So at the end of every week you can examine your diary for any patterns and you can see what's maybe helping or hindering your that way. So that's a nice way to sort of keep track of what you're doing and what you can make better. Yeah. So yeah, lots of ways, just sort of just writing things out on paper. I think actually I'd prefer to do it with a pen and paper myself. I think it sort of goes in better than doing anything on the computer.
Allan (21:07): Well, one of the advantages of doing it, I mean, my to do list is on my computer. As far as the rest of it, you know, journaling on paper, you're doing this, you can do this by candlelight because we know blue light computers, screens, are not necessarily things we need to be doing that the last hour before we go to bed. So if you're sitting there and particularly one of the things you had in there was just to write down a reminder. So if you were turning out the light and get ready to go to bed, and all of a sudden it was, Oh, boom, I've got to meet someone at seven o'clock, you know, or I've got to go do this thing. I need to write myself a reminder, or I need to, you know, or you're going to stay awake all night thinking about it? So it's just, you know, your alarm is set when it needs to be set, you know, you're going to be up, but just the reminder so that, okay, I know I have to do this thing, or, you know, so just getting that off your chest. And if you, again, if you get on your computer or your phone to do that, then you're dismantling some of the things we've done with the other work we've been doing.
Kim (22:04): Yeah, absolutely. That's right. So keep that pen and paper by the bed. Don't, whatever you do, like you say, don't pick up your phone to put it on your list because that's going to hold that light, that blue light coming from your phone is going to stop you from producing melatonin, which is your sleepy hormone. So just literally scroll on that piece of paper in the dark. I mean, it might look like a complete mess in the morning, but I'm sure you'll know what it says, but that's what you should do. Keep the lights up and just scroll. So you're giving your mind permission to forget about it. So it's not going to stop you from falling asleep.
Allan (22:39): Yeah. Now I have this client and you know, I go through a lot of the protocols with her but she's blind. So it's obviously, you know, the red light/blue light thing is not something that she can really do. You know, we've talked about her meds, everything she's taking shouldn't be a problem. She's got her hormones pretty much in check for a woman her age and what she's gone through in life, but she still really, really struggles with sleep. And from a health and wellness perspective, it's really bringing her down. What's some advice that you would give to someone who pretty much feels like they've just about tried everything, but still struggling to fall asleep.
Kim (23:19): Yeah. It's not nice, is it? And it happens to a lot of us. I think that the problem is sometimes we get into a vicious circle where, you know, we've had trouble with sleeping and then we walk into our bedroom. And as soon as we walk in, we associate that room with worry and sleeplessness, and it's just an awful sort of, is almost waiting to happen. You know, just know I'm not going to be able to sleep in it. It's sort of a self fulfilling really. But you know, sometimes anxiety can keep us awake. The whole thing of feeling that there's something wrong with us. Why can't we sleep? And cognitive behavioral therapy is really good helping tackle that the sort of mindset you have to sleep. And there is a particular branch of cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia CVTI, which is really helpful for helping reduce that anxiety we feel.
Kim (24:15): And it's recognizing all of that negative and exaggerated thoughts we have about sleep and then challenging them and then replacing them with more realistic, really telling us that it's normal. Everybody wakes up at certain points in the night, but we do all have the capacity to sleep. So you can actually try, you can get told of therapists who can help you with that obviously. Or you can train yourself by making sort of a thought record and that involves again, getting a nice book you feel happy writing in. And sort of writing out your thoughts and sort of what's maybe you could say the thoughts I'm having about sleep at the moment might be, you know, I'm laying in bed. I really can't sleep. Or gosh, I need 8 hours tonight, why can't I sleep? There's something wrong with me. And then you write how this all makes you feel.
Kim (25:09): And then obviously that thought will make you feel anxious or panicky or hopeless. And then you write a more realistic, balanced version of your thoughts and where you might say something like, okay, well, it would be nice to get that solid 8 hours, but not everybody really needs 8 hours to function. Well, there's plenty of evidence that support the beliefs that, you know, people can get by on six or seven hours. So there's lots of ways to do this particular exercise, but my book does explain quite easily how to do it. And eventually if you start challenging or negative thoughts in this way, not only at night, but even through the day, if you start to recognize when you're getting into a negative thought pattern and then you try and look at it in a more sort of calm and balanced way, and then it just becomes more of a habit that you start to challenge your thoughts, and then you actually sort of stop panicking in your mind so that, you know you're actually calming down your whole nervous system by thinking in this way. You're being kind to yourself, you know, sort of all the good fit, the feel good hormones are coming out rather than the anxiety inducing hormones is switching off the adrenaline in your mind, and that all can help with falling asleep.
Kim (26:28): In the end, it takes a little bit of practice, I've got to say, because you know, your initial thoughts when you're laying there for two hours, and you're not always likely to feel that way, but you can train your mind to be less catastrophic. If you like you can train your thoughts to veer away from that side of a feeling to a more calm and realistic side. So, you know, maybe that's something that your client could look at.
Allan (26:56): Well, cause the, the mind/body thing is, is so, so huge in anything that you're telling yourself you know, sweats was it Ford who said, if you think you can, you can, if you think you can't you're right. You know, either way, something like something like that. Anyway, I butchered that, but you know, what we tell ourselves is typically going to be true, unless we take the time to remap the way we think about things, the way we structure it, then we're setting ourselves up. So I see that, you know, and when you're getting hormone responses and the fight or flight, just out of being in the bedroom, that's not how to start a good night's sleep.
Kim (27:41): It's really not. And there's another section called acceptance therapy where you actually accept worrying thoughts in a way that's almost you know, you welcome them. There's a particular proponent in the UK, Dr. Guy Magis, who I interviewed him once. And he said to me, what you should do, if a worrying thought enters your mind at night, you should welcome it as if it's a friend. So you should say something like, Oh, hello, worry. Here you are again, how are you? And by welcoming this in that way, you are switching off the stress, you're, like you just said, you know, you are changing your whole mindset, your body reactions then become different. You're not under threat. So your fight or flight system is not coming on. So that's another sort of way to try and change your thoughts, sort of welcome those thoughts as you would a friend.
Allan (28:41): Yeah. Now, as I mentioned, when we first started the show, I'm a huge fan of sleep and also a huge fan of napping when you need to nap and I'm a regular napper. But in the book you go through and I've seen this advice several times, but it doesn't really fit the way I like to nap. So, you know, as you share in the book, and many people may know a standard sleep cycle typically lasts about 90 minutes. And so there's about four or five, depending on what school of thought you want to term things, as you go through there's lite, sleep REM sleep, and then deep, deeper. But anyway, as you go through those sleep cycles, it's, you want to go through all of them. And if you're getting good sleep, that's what's happening. So for me taking a nap, I want that 90 minute nap because I go through a full sleep cycle and I wake up feeling really good.
Allan (29:32): And if I do that early enough in the afternoon, waking up no later than say 3:30/4:00, I'm, I'm good to go. But other people may need to nap less. Can you kinda just talk about napping and you know, the shorter version, cause I've done that too, you know, like at work and you can't, they're not gonna let you lay at your desk for an hour and a half. So going out to the car and taking a quick little 20 minute snooze was what, all the time I had so I've done both, but I can tell you, they both have value.
Kim (30:05): Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, that just sort of illustrates the fact that everybody's different. Everybody needs different amounts of sleep. Everybody, you know, some people can do things during the day, like have a long nap and it doesn't interfere with nighttime sleep. Other people, you know, even if they do 5/10 minutes, that's going to interfere with heir night time. So there's no one size fits all. But the general advice is that your nap should be 10 to 20 minutes, no longer than 30 minutes. Because after that, you get into that deep stage of sleep. It's very typical to wake up from you get brain fog, you're sluggish and you know, if you can carry on and go through the whole sleep cycle, like you've done then brilliant. But like you're saying not many of us have that time during the day to do that.
Kim (30:50): But one thing I would say is the timing of your nap is really important because between 1 and 3:00 PM in the afternoon, we experienced a small drop in our core body temperature. Now that's something that happens every night and it acts as a signal to our brain to release melatonin, our sleeping hormone. And so that drop in body temperature happens every night about 9:00 PM or when dusk falls or whenever, just sort of starts to make you feel sleepy. It also happens at this time between 1 and 3:00 PM. If you want to work with that natural depth in your body temperature and work with your body's natural circadian rhythm, then maybe 2:00 PM would be the ideal time to have that sleep. And as I say, if you just don't want to get into, if you don't want to be woken from the deep stage of your asleep, then stick to 10 to 20 minutes and definitely no longer. But yeah, it would be nice to have the 90 minute nap every day, but I don't think we've all got that luxury unfortunately.
Allan (32:02): I just thought I hate being woken up during my deep sleep time. It just, I get angry, which is why I stopped using an alarm clock four years ago. Unless I have to get up for a flight. I'm like, I'm going to use my natural rhythms and I'm going to wake up when it's light sleep and I'll look at it. But if I wake up, you know, I'm supposed to be up at six o'clock and I wake up at 5:30, I'm up, you know, there's no sense in me trying to get another round of sleep because it's not going to happen for me. So yeah, I'm one of those that I hate alarms and I hate being woken up and you can ask my wife, that's just, don't wake him up when he's in deep sleep.
Kim (32:39): Yeah. Same with my other half yeah, let sleeping dogs lie, as they say, just leave them alone. But there's another bonus to not napping during the day because I know a lot of specialists actually say, don't nap it'll interfere with your natural drive to sleep later in the night. But I think a really good bonus side to napping is that it helps retrain your brain to realize that falling asleep can be easy because usually if you're having a nap during the day, you're tired, it's not difficult to fall asleep. So you're actually telling, your brain is saying, Oh, okay, well that was easy, I fell asleep. So in a way, it you know, it could help retrain you to sleep better at night as well.
Allan (33:30): Now, again, the book has 222 ways, and there's no way we could cover all of them in a podcast. And some of them are really, really good. We, like I said, I love sleep. We could talk, I could talk about it for hours. So this is, this is just really cool to be able to try these things out, get a journal together, start recording the things that are working for you and those that aren't and find the right thing for you. Kim, I define wellness as being the healthiest, fittest and happiest you can be. What are three strategies or tactics to get and stay well?
Kim (34:05): Okay. So I'm obviously gonna say get enough exercise more because we're all, so many of us are just sitting at a desk for 7 to 10 hours a day and that's just not natural. So I definitely advise everybody to move about more and to get your exercise. It doesn't matter what sort of exercise, you know, as long as you enjoy it, it's gotta be enjoyable for you to stick at it. So whether, you know, you like walking or tennis or whatever, just make it a regular habit. And again, you're going to help your sleep by doing that. All the research points to, if you are a regular exercise, it doesn't matter if you do aerobic or a mix of aerobic and resistance training, all this science points to the fact that you can sleep better because sometimes if you go to bed and you haven't done any exercise during the day, you're not going to be tired enough to fall asleep usually.
Kim (35:00): So I'd say definitely get enough exercise and move more. Personally. I also, what makes me happy is getting my daily dose of being outdoors. I think if we stay cooped up indoors all day, we're exposed to so much artificial light from our electric lights, our TVs, iPads, blah, blah, blah. It's sort of what we're exposed to unnatural light patterns that confuses our body clocks. So keep your body clued up, but getting outside, I love being outside exposed to all the natural patterns of daylight and dusk helps my body clock. I just love being surrounded by nature. I'm lucky enough to live near woods, you know, plenty of outdoor spaces, but no matter where you live, I think just being outside and connecting somehow, no matter how small with nature is just so good for you, good for your body, good for your mind, it helps you slow down.
Kim (35:57): You know, listen to that bird song, listen to the ocean waves, walk and enjoy what's around you. And you're getting all that natural benefits of the, you know, what time of day it is, you're keeping your body aware of what time it is. And you're likely to get better sleep that way as well because your body knows when to start producing melatonin because it's getting dark or it knows when to stop producing melatonin because it's daylight. And the other thing I'd say is, and this is something that I've only really started doing in the last few years is meditating, but it's not meditating in a really big way. It's not something that has to take up hours of your time. My meditation will be just literally, if I am, if I've gone to bed and I'm not falling asleep quickly, I just do a very quick meditation, which is something like the hundred steps.
Kim (36:51): Like just pretend I'm at the top of this beautiful mountain and counting down from a hundred and each step I take down takes me sort of, lowers everything and my heart rate, my breathing slows and meditation is fantastic for sleeping because actually loads of research has been done into how it actually changes the structure of your brain. And it sort of diminishes the concentration of gray matter the amygdala, which is the area of the brain associated with anxiety and stress. And it's even find that people who meditate before bed can increase their output of melatonin, the sleepy hormone. So it's got to be good for you just slowing down your breathing, slowing down your heart rate and taking yourself somewhere in your mind that's really pretty and calming. So yeah, those are my three things that I think can help you live a healthy life.
Allan (37:54): Thank you, Kim. If someone wanted to learn more about you and learn more about the book, Trick Yourself to Sleep, where would you like for me to send them?
Kim (38:04): Okay, so it's published by a fantastic and the experiment. So you can find them at theexperimentpublishing.com they're based in New York. My website is KimJoneswrites.co.uk. The book is available from all good stockists and online places like Amazon and Barnes and noble and Books-A-Million that kind of thing. And it's all information's on the website.
Allan (38:28): Okay. You can go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/439, and I'll be sure to have the links. So Kim, thank you so much for being a part of 40+ Fitness.
Kim (38:42) Thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure.
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Transcript
Allan (02:30): Tom, welcome to 40+ Fitness.
Tom (02:33): Oh, great to be with you.
Allan (02:35): You know, as trainers, we know the number one reason that most people give us that, you know, I can't work out. I don't have time to work out. That's the reasons. I just don't have enough time in the day. I think with a lot of people idled during the pandemic stuff, they had a lot more time. But then they didn't have a gym.
Tom (02:54): Right.
Allan (02:54): And so, you know, there's a second reason and I actually struggle with that too. Cause I'm one of those guys that become a gym rat, I love going in the gym and pushing bigger weights can and still do this at home. But your book, but The Micro Workout Plan: Get the Body You Want Without the Gym in 15 Minutes or Less a Day, is really, really cool. I think this solves both problems pretty quickly. And you've got like 30 workouts in there. They give a lot of variety and a lot of opportunity and they're all things that we can do basically with nothing more than bodyweight and dumbbells.
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Tom (03:31): Yeah. And you know, I'm like you, Allan, I still go to the gym. I love going to the gym. I've been, you know, spent the better part of my life in a gym, but you know, it's an adjunct, right? So as you know, it's what we do outside the gym that really matters as well. It's both that are important. So yeah, this new book really excited just came out a couple of weeks ago, and it's to help those people that, you know, as well will say, Hey, you know, I don't always want to go to the gym or I don't want to go to the gym and I just want to feel better. I want to look a little better on a, lose a couple pounds. I don't want to be in pain. I want to be able to go golf or do whatever I do without pain. So, you know, I know a lot of people will hear micro workouts in 15 minutes, but if you think about it you know, we're generally, even if you go to the gym, you're doing like five minutes of abs, and five minutes of arms and five minutes of chest, which kind of just breaks it down into manageable chunks and you can do five, you can do 25. It's just making it accessible and easier for the average person.
Allan (04:28): Yeah. You know, I train online as well as in the gym. And you know, most of my clients that are online are online because they don't want to go to the gym so you don't have to go to the gym. And that's what's I think is really good about all this is, these are all things that you can do in your garage, in your living room. Really, really simple but effective exercises. I really liked the workouts that you have in here. Now in the book you, you go through and identify the five components of fitness. Would you mind going through those?
Tom (04:59): Yeah. So, you know, back when I was studying for all this, the certifications and then went on to get a master's degree and they talk about constantly these five components of fitness. And, you know, most people, I would argue, Allan are doing one, right. And it's what they generally love to do and what they're genetically predisposed to do. But for those people who don't know, it's you know, muscular strength, you know, lifting heavy things, muscular endurance, being able to do it for a longer period of time, cardiovascular endurance, so basic heart health. And then you have flexibility and there's a lot of debate about that. I'm sure you've done numerous shows and you know, constantly we're talking about importance or, you know, when and where about flexibility and then the steps would be body composition so that, you know, the amount of body fat you have and just your body composition as far as body mass and body fat. So all five of those things are important Allan. And most people again do one, maybe two consistently, and we need to do all five.
Allan (06:01): Yes, I agree. And I would throw a sixth in there if you don't mind. I put balance, you know, as we get older and you've mentioned this in the book, you know, if we're building strength we're more resilient for the fall, but you can also train some balance in there too. So I always throw in balance because.
Tom (06:18): We are totally aligned Allan. I just did a show myself about that very thing. There should be a sixth component. So I'm a hundred percent with you and I'm surprised that they didn't include it. And I think they should going forward. Absolutely.
Allan (06:32): Yeah. Well, you know I guess what, you know, 20 years ago, no one over the age of 40 would have even thought about working out. And so now it's, you know, as we have the baby boomers coming through, you know, there's a larger and larger contingent of people that are over 50, over 60, over 70 and even though we're 80, that are still training and active. So, yeah, that's all going to come about. And all of these are really important for us to train. And you have workouts across the board that do those, which is really cool. Now I liked one thing that you put in the book because this is the way we use our words, you know, when I was an auditor I always knew the way I wrote an audit report was really, really important. The words I used in that audit report, how they would affect the audit committee, how they would affect management. And so you spend a lot of time working on the words that you use in report. And then when I started training people, I realized, wait, it's, this is kind of the same thing. If, if I'm using the wrong words, then that doesn't work. If they're using the wrong words, I kind of have to pick up on that. But you list two words in the book that are really, really important for people to avoid.
Tom (07:45): Yeah. It's ONLY, and JUST. And, you know, I even find myself slipping occasionally and using them obviously in a different way but in the wrong way. So when people say Allan, you know, I only walked two miles today, or I just did, you know, three minutes of stretching. My response is you have to take those words out of your vocabulary because science just contradicts it. So, you know, I always use the example of three, 10 minutes, bouts of exercise, use cardio, as an example, has the exact same benefit as one continuous 30 minute bout. And I would say, and I'm sure you'd agree to it. Actually, if you do three 10 minute bouts, you can actually push yourself a little harder, depending on what you're doing. So there is no workout that is too short and, you know, minutes literally matter when it comes to overall health and wellness and you don't have to do an hour, you don't have to do a half an hour. And it's what you do throughout the day. Again, that truly, that all adds up.
Allan (08:48): Yeah. As you put in the book, the government guidelines, you know, they're going to say we should do 150 minutes at, or 75 minutes at, you know, extreme or intense. But there's no magic to that. There's no, it doesn't all have to be done in one workout. You know, it's not like you, you need to put that two and a half hours in, in one hour increments or even half hour increments at that point. Your book in the exercise you have in there, there are five minute blocks. And they allow you to pick and choose so that you're getting across all those different components of fitness we talked about. And then with that, this now kind of defines your fitness perspective, philosophy that you call excessive moderation. Could you describe that for us?
Tom (09:37): Yeah. I love talking about this. It's just over the years, what I've found is, you know, the secret to talking to TV soundbites is not doing most people do a lot of exercise a little, right? New Years rolls around, you get all motivated. You go to the gym, we all know we're all guilty of that at some point in our lives. And you do a lot for a short amount of time and either get burnt out, injured, or generally both. And then you don't do anything. And the true secret, if there is one, and I don't even like using that term, but it's doing a little bit, a lot. So that's where the whole philosophy of excessive moderation and shorter workouts done throughout the day it's being consistent. And you and I talked about that, you know, before the show even started, it's about consistency. That is my most important metric. And was back when I was a trainer, is just show up. That's the most important thing is how many times you exercise, then we can talk about, you know, what you're doing, but showing up, not just in fitness in life is one of the major keys to success.
Allan (10:40): Oh yeah. Showing up is 90%. If you're there, you know, that's what I tell some clients, you know, they'll tell me they're just not quite motivated. And I'm like, okay, go to go get on the elliptical. If that's what you got in your basement, get on that elliptical, get on the rower and go for five minutes.
Tom (10:57): Sure.
Allan (10:57): And after five minutes, if you're not feeling it any more, cool, just wrap it up, go take a shower and go to work. But most people find is they get in there for that five minutes. Like I said, if they did a five minute block of one of your workouts, then immediately, they're probably gonna, you know if they have the time they're gonna want to go ahead and say, well, I did that. I did that cardio work, I'll go ahead and do a stretching block.
Tom (11:19): Yes. Yeah. It leads to more, it's a snowball effect. And that's why you just have to get out the door right back when I was doing iron man, I still do them, but you know, truly racing and you know, we're not motivated all the time. You and I, and you go, I just have to get out the door. I know that in three, four, 15 minutes, it's going to start feeling really good.
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Allan (13:58): Yeah. When I was training for a marathon, and I was in Washington, DC and the gym I went to, they had a limit of 20 minutes on any 1 machine. So I'm like, I need to train for time. And so I just say, okay, well, I'm going to do this 20 minute block. And so I put my name on the list and then I do my 20 minute block. And then as soon as I finished the 20 minutes, I just looked for another machine that was open. And then I go do a 20 minute block there and another 20 minute block there and another. And so as a cross training that was happening because there's just different types of machines, you know, climber, rower, all kinds of stuff. And what I found was that, you know, I do a 20 minute block and I'd say, okay, well, I could just quit right now. But it just kinda got into my blood. It's like, no, I can, I've got 20 minutes. I can go do another block until they kicked me out of the gym, which happened.
Tom (14:46): Well, let me give you a funny story about that is back, you know, I started as a trainer for many years and then working for different fitness equipment companies that consultant, and I learned that all of those machines have codes. Cheat codes, where you can hack into the machine. And you know, if it's set for 20 minutes, you could hack into it and make it go continuous. So back when I was training and you know, occasionally you do like a 20 minute or 20 mile run at the gym. Now, obviously, you know, someone could come up and kick you off, but I would hack into the machine so that it would go, cause I wanted full credit. Allan, I didn't want to do like a 10 mile, 15 mile run and not see 15. It's a mental thing, right?
Allan (15:23): Yeah, it is. It is. Well, what they did was they had a sign up sheet and yeah, the machine only went to 20 minutes. So they had all 20 minute blocks. And so they told you that you go on you write your name and then you do the 20 minute block and you set your time. And people would be walking over, looking over your shoulder, employees and other people that wanted to use the machine because they were on the list and it was a very busy gym. There was a reason that they only gave us 20 minutes, but I was just like, okay, I'll go off of this machine, go there. And for me again, I was looking at, it was time. I was not training for distance because I said, you know, for me to be able to do something, it's really building that endurance to just be able to keep going.
Tom (16:06): Yeah, that goes both ways Allan. And now I have to chunk it. So if you think, if you are doing a longer day, you go, Oh, I gotta be on this for an extended period of time. He say, well, no, I'm going to break it down into three 20 minute chunks or whatever that makes it. So there's so much of the mental game that is involved in what we're talking about. And you have to figure out those tips and tricks that work for you.
Allan (16:26): Yeah. So we talked about consistency, but there are two other, I guess, what I would call attributes of excessive moderation and that's quality and intensity. Could you talk about why those are so important?
Tom (16:39): Yeah. You know, I just did, I was talking, I talk frequently about like, you know, there's new thing as many reps as possible and things like that. I don't care how many pushups I do. I don't care how much weight I lift. Oftentimes when I am in the gym, people will come up to me and say, are you hurt the last, because I'm doing dumbbell curls with 20 or 25 pounds, but I'm about quality. You know, if the goal is to activate muscle fibers, you actually want to make it challenging. Right? So if I can do a hundred really bad pushups or I can do 30 really good ones. And if my goal is to change my body and to be healthy, I don't care about the number. So that goes to the quality of the exercise. You know, form is everything to me. And then intensity, we need to vary those things as well. Whether you have your easy day or your hard day. And that's why if you're doing a 5, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, with a cardio blast, if you're doing true tabata, that's four minutes of brutal anaerobic work. So the shorter we go, if your goal is to maximize your time, then the intensity goes up, but we need variation in that as well.
Allan (17:47): Yeah. For a lot of people, they would think that quality and intensity kind of contradict each other. But if you watched the CrossFit workout where AMRAP, people just flopping around and you know, I'm like, okay, that's great until you break, so you got to have the quality of the movement. And then yeah, we've got to go to an intensity where we're pushing ourselves. But we're not going to change, you know, we need that stimulus to change. So that's enough if you don't do it right, you're risking hurting yourself and you know, over 40 you hurt yourself. That's a setback, that's a setback you don't want to have.
Tom (18:23): Absolutely. And that is the secret to, you know, there's the top three things that I'm all about. It's the access of moderation, but it's also not getting injured. You know, our job in the fitness industry are threefold it's to get people the greatest results in the shortest amount of time with the least likelihood of injury. And that third component is oftentimes left out. A, because you know, the fitness professional doesn't know or B, they're just, you know, they're falling prey to their ego and what the client wants, but, you know, I've done an insane number of races in my life, but I'm injury free because it's about quality over quantity. There are exercises I just won't do because the cost benefit doesn't make any sense to me. I go, why would I do that? You know, when the risk of hurting myself is so high and the benefit is really not there either. So, you know, there's too many exercises to choose from Allan.
Allan (19:14): Yeah. And that's why that's one of the areas I've, I guess I'd say I've always struggled. I'm not going to say I'll ever get over this, but it's that ego over capacity. And so, you know, I tore a rotator cuff training for a Spartan because I just wanted to get really, really strong. And as I got really, really strong working with my trainer and you start moving heavier weights and heavier dumbbells, and I was like, I'm just going to do overhead press with heavy, heavy dumbbells and pop there goes that arm.
Tom (19:46): Yeah. And we all have those moments and hopefully we learn from them sooner rather than later. And it just happens. We're going to have those obstacles and it's human nature, right. To compete.
Allan (19:57): Yeah. Which is why when you were talking about your timing, your tempo of your lifts. You know, the concentric is fast and the eccentric is slow. So you're doing a two to four count. And I'll tell you, when you take half of the weight that you would normally use on any kind of work and you go two seconds up and four seconds back, that's intense.
Tom (20:26): Yes. And you know, it's so crazy. Allan is my first true fitness job back when I was about 18, 19 years old was a summer job at a Nautilus facility. And it was the old school, you know, I'm 51 going way back, but it was the old school machines that Arthur Jones came up with. And we were taught, I was taught for the two, four second counts. And to this day, I still do this. And the crazy thing you talk about coming full circle is now I'm the fitness advisor for Nautilus, but from, you know, age 18, it was just it made sense to me to have that slower repetition. Isn't that to be perfectly six seconds, but just contracting and controlling that movement throughout the entire range of motion.
Allan (21:08): Yeah. Now another way that we can get excessive moderation is just looking at ways that we wouldn't necessarily call a workout. And that might mean, you know, parking the car a little bit further away from the building, using a flight of stairs or two flights of stairs rather than the elevator. And I think with the social distancing, that's probably gonna be happening a lot more. But the term is called NEAT. It's an acronym. Could you kind of go into NEAT what it is and why it's important?
Tom (21:39): Yeah. And I think it's, so it needs to be talked about so much more so as we are doing the show, I am walking around, I have a standing desk and I am always moving and that adds up. So it does come down to simple math. Let's assume a person goes to the gym three times a week for an hour, and is on the cardio machine for 30 minutes out of that, you know, they're going to burn 10 thousand calories or what the number is so it matters. And that helps, but it's what happens outside the gym, as we were talking about earlier, that adds up enormously as well. So, you know, non-exercise activity, thermogenesis is what that acronym stands for. And it's basically the calories we burn while fidgeting, while you know, just the movement we do throughout the day. That seems so insignificant, but it goes down to Allan, we all have those friends who you go, how is that person? So skinny, you know, I see what they eat and they might not be going to the gym as much, or if at all, but they are moving and burning hundreds, if not a thousand calories or more per day than someone who is not doing those things. So just that movement that we may consider to be insignificant really matters. And, you know, the modern day environment has taken almost all of that out, which is a huge problem, as we know.
Allan (22:55): Yeah, there's a term called eating like a bird. And its that you're not eating at all, but birds eat a lot, but they're moving so much. It's kind of, they used it backwards if you're eating like a bird, which we are, you need to move around a lot to burn off that food. And unfortunately we're eating like, we're actually eating like birds, but not eating like birds.
Tom (23:16): That's a perfect analogy. That's so, yeah, exactly. Right.
Allan (23:20): Tom, I define wellness as being the healthiest, fittest and happiest you can be. What are three strategies or tactics to get and stay well?
Tom (23:32): Three tactics to stay well. So I would say, and start with what I start my new book with, is that you have to believe you have control. You know, we have to start from that. You know, so many people due to bad information and bad articles and bad science is the belief that their genetics and their situation has predetermined them. And they'll never be the healthy weight. They'll never be able to achieve what they want. And my lifetime has shown, you know, clients who have so far exceeded expectations. So it's that first belief that, Hey, you know, you have control, there are three things we control. How much we move, what we put into our mouth and our state of mind. And that's amazing. So you have to start with that, and then you just have to experiment, you know, when people say to us Allan that they don't like exercise you.
Tom (24:18): And I both know that that means they haven't found what they enjoy yet. And it just takes, you know, trial and error to get there. And then finally, and that goes for food too, by the way, healthy food, healthy exercise, you just have to experiment. There's so many options for everybody. There's no one way. And then finally we don't, unfortunately, you know, success in exercise has been two-fold. It's the number on the scale. And it's what you see in the mirror. And if today's pandemic, doesn't teach us completely how important being healthy is eating healthy, you know, our immune system, exercise. So you don't judge the success of your fitness program based on a number on a scale. And it's about, as you said, feeling good, being happy and living a long, healthy life. And we're going to be 60, 70, 80, 90 years old. I want those years to be quality years and enjoying everything that I want to. So that's what it comes down to.
Allan (25:14): Cool. Thank you for sharing that, Tom, if someone wanted to learn more about you, more about the book, The Micro Workout Plan, where would you like for me to send them?
Tom (25:23): TeamHolland.com is the website. and then TomHfit is basically my Instagram, TomHfit is my Twitter. And they can learn all about that too at teamholland.com.
Allan (25:38): Great. You can go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/438, and I'll be sure to have the links there. So Tom, thank you so much for being a part of 40+ Fitness.
Tom (25:47): So great to speak with you. And I'm very jealous that you're in Panama to say you figured it out fitness and Panama. So, congrats. That's awesome.
Allan (25:56): Thank you.
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Breathing is a lost art. James Nestor teaches us how to use our breath for better health with his new book , Breath.
Transcript
Allan (02:56): James, welcome to 40+ Fitness.
James (02:59): Thanks a lot for having me.
Allan (03:01): So today we're going to talk about your book, Breath: the New Science of a Lost Art. And I have to say that in the law, particularly intellect, like the last four or five years, there's been like kind of a reawakening on how important breath and breathwork is.
James (03:18): Oh, I would say . And I was lucky enough to sort of jump into that scene right as things were really just stating in the scientific communities.
Allan (03:27): And so, yeah. So we're hearing, you know about monks and you talk about it in the book monks that can basically change the, their heart rate. They can change the temperature, they can do that just with breath. There's of course there's Wim Hof, which is, he's just a fascinating individual and again, you get into him in the book, but I think really where I want to go with this conversation is to talk a little bit more about how we can use breath in an everyday sense to just manage our overall health and wellbeing.
James (03:58): Sure. And I think that so many people view breath as something that's binary. It's either about doing it, which is good, which means you're alive, or not doing it, which is very bad word. It means you're dead. But it's the subtleties and the nuances of breathing that are so fascinating to me because there's such a clear reflection of how efficiently our bodies are working, how our minds are functioning, nervous system, organ function, heart rate, mental state, on and on and on. And from what I've found from years of being in this world and researching with these scientists is how we breathe is as important as what we eat, how much we exercise and all that other stuff. It's really a missing pillar of health.
Allan (04:44): Yeah, it is. It is. You know, as I was, as I was getting into the book and I was thinking, you know, when do I ever actually think about breathing other than one when I can't because I've got, you know, I'm stuffed up or congested or have a cold or flu. I think about breathing a lot. And then when I'm doing meditation and more focused on breath is pretty much the two times that I find myself most focusing on breath. And I guess maybe the third would be when I'm lifting weights or running or doing something like that where how I breathe matters with regards to performance in the South. I don't know if this is everywhere, I guess it is everywhere, but there's this kind of moniker of calling someone a mouth breather. And it's not a nice thing to say to someone, or say about someone calling them a mouth breather. But beyond just the fact that that it's, you know, you're calling them out on something. There is something really, really wrong with breathing out of your mouth. Can you talk about that a little bit?
James (05:40): Sure. And you know that is a derogatory term that people have bandied around and for good reason. Breathing out of your mouth is extremely unhealthy and it will even after a while start affecting how you look, the skeleton ture of your face and it will start affecting how often you snore, whether or not you get sleep apnea. And there's just this laundry list of problems associated with mouth breathing because what happens when we breathe through our mouth is we're taking an unfiltered, unheated and raw air. The SAPs us of moisture irritates the lungs and loosens the soft tissues at the back of the mouth. So the more we mouth breathe, the more we're going to mouth breathe in the future. And mouth breathing has been even associated with neurological disorders, periodontal disease, increased risk of respiratory infection and on and on and on.
James (06:37): There's been several studies looking at the difference of mouth breathing and nasal breathing in animals. And one Japanese study showed that mice who had their noses plugged took twice the amount of time to make their way through a maze. And they've also found in human studies that when we breathe through our mouth, there's a disturbance of oxygen in our prefrontal cortex. So this is the area of the brain that's associated with ADHD. So very clear correlations between how we're breathing in this air, the pathway in which we're breathing it, and how we're functioning. So there's a bunch of other physiological effects to that as well. But it's bad news across the board. And what's even worse news is that about 50% of the population, according to one estimate, says that we are chronic mouth breathers and humans are the only species to really suffer from this affliction.
James (07:33): So if you look at 5,400 different mammals on the planet, they are breathing through their noses. Yeah, dogs are going to be breathing through the mouth, but that's for Thermo regulation. They're not doing it for any other reason. Beyond that, some people have told me, they're like, well, you know, my bulldog breathes through the mouth. My pug breathes through the mouth, but these highly inbred dogs have essentially became, become similar to the way humans have become where we've lost this ability to breathe through our nose. So we have just adapted to breathing through our mouth and it's caused all kinds of problems.
Allan (08:05): Yeah, and you personally experienced some of these problems by going through this kind of a crazy experiment of of 10 days as a mouth breather. Can you talk about that experiment? Cause that was, that was really interesting and a little bit scary.
James (08:21): Yeah. So we know all of these problems that are associated with mouth breathing. We just don't know how quickly they turn on. So no one's really studied this. So I was able to convince, I don't know how, but I was able to do it, the chief of rhinology research at Stanford. I had done a few interviews with him over the past several months and finally hatched this idea. I said, well, why don't we test this when we plug my nose with silicone balls and put some tape over it and we can do data panels, we can do pulmonary function tests, we can look at my cortisol levels on and on and on, 60 different markers and we can compare them to nasal breathing afterwards. So for 10 days, me and another subject, a breathing therapist of all people, a Swedish breathing therapist, one of the best breathers in the world, we made him one of the worst.
James (09:18): And so for, for 10 days, we just breathed through our mouths and tried to live our regular lives. You know, this wasn't so much of a, like a supersize me stunt because what we were doing was placing our bodies into a state that most people have experienced and up to half of us experience regularly. So it's a feeling and you know, a certain level of functioning that we already really know. So you know, it was the data came out and proved everything that the ancients have been saying for thousands and thousands of years. That mouth breathing is just really, really bad news. Both of us started snoring the first night. Snoring increased about 1300%. It got worse and worse until I was snoring four hours throughout the night. We got sleep apnea. We were stressed, we were fatigued. I mean, all of the above. And what was so interesting to me about all this was not the damage afflicted during mouth breathing. It was what happened when we took out these plugs and just breathe through our noses for the next 10 days. All those problems went away. This wasn't just subjective, you know, we were recording everything the whole time, and it was a complete transformation by just changing the channel through which we breathe.
Allan (10:38): And it was, it was really, really quick. Just, just a matter of a couple of days.
James (10:44): A couple of days, Yeah.
Allan (10:45): You're suddenly, it's like, I'm feeling horrible. I'm about to die. And then you change over to him to nose breathing actually. And within a day or two, you're well not fully recovered, but you're you feel drastically different. Your life is drastically different. You're sleeping drastic thing, so much better. No snoring or less snoring it down to no snoring. Sleep apnea goes away. So it was reversible.
James (11:10): For sure, you know, we went from snoring up to four hours during our worst state of mouth breathing to snoring within that first night, snoring, seven minutes, and then I wasn't snoring at all a couple of days after. So you realize how malleable and how flexible the body is depending on what, what you, what inputs you give to it. So to us this was just a clarification and context on what the ancients have been saying for literally thousands of years. There's this one quote from the Chinese Tao that's 1200 years old. It says, “the breath inhaled through the mouth is called Nietzsche adverse breath, which is extremely harmful. Be careful to not have the breath inhaled through the mouth.” So people were saying this, you know, over a thousand years ago, and it seems to be mostly lost on modern populations. If you look around, a lot of people are habitually mouth breathing and it's bad news.
SPONSOR This episode of the 40+ Fitness podcast is also sponsored by lumen. Lumen's handheld device measures your metabolism in real-time using your breath once only available to professional athletes. It is now available to you. Lumen will tell you if your body is using carbs or fat for fuel. It then provides you with personalized meal plans and insights to help you reach your weight and fitness goals. When we burn fat, we breathe most of it out. The Lumen handheld device will give you the data on that. I love data, especially when it helps us get healthier and more fit. Lumin is working to improve the world's metabolic health and quality of life one breath at a time. Go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/lumen and use the code 40fitnesspodcast25 to get $25 off. Visit 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/lumen and be sure to use the code 40fitnesspodcast25 to get that wonderful listener discount.
Allan (13:29): So beyond why mouth breathing is bad, let's talk about why nose breathing is actually good and some things about the nose that make it that way.
James (13:40): Sure. And this is the fun part, right? So once you injure yourself, you can try to rebuild yourself through various means and we simply change the pathway through which we were breathing. So we were no longer breathing through our mouths. We instead put tape on little piece of tape on our mouths to remind us to keep our mouth shut. Obviously we'd open them to eat and to talk on occasion. But for the large part, we were breathing only through our noses. And breathing through the nose, will save you about 40% moisture. So that's one reason, especially while jogging to always breathe through the nose unless you want to be carrying around those silly water bottles, which which nobody wants to do. Also breathing through the nose will increase nitric oxide by six fold. Nitric oxide, and I'm sure a lot of your listeners know what this is, but a quick little recap. It's a molecule that plays an essential role in circulation and delivering oxygen into cells by just breathing through your nose. You can have a massive increase of nitric oxide. They're using nitric oxide now to treat patients with Covid. It's that effective at opening capillaries and increasing oxygenation. And we have a natural supply of this in our nasal passages. All we need to do is breathe through our nose.
Allan (15:01): And just for the record, Viagra increases nitric oxide. That's why it does what it does. So breathing through the nose.
James (15:11): That's true. That's true. And if you want to hum, if you want to hum, you can increase that nitric oxide at least 15 fold by humming. So that might be something you know you're out on a date. Things are heating up, something you might want to consider doing on the way home.
Allan (15:30): Okay. I was actually just kind of blown away when you got into the structure, the nose and all of that and how it's, you know, people just think, okay, it's just a like a vent and then taking in the air. But it's not actually just taking in air, it's causing it to do some things like circulate through the air a little bit differently. It's warming it up, it's filtering it, it's doing all those really good things before it gets to our lungs.
James (15:54): For sure. I mean this is a natural filter. It's our first line of defense against pathogens and bacteria. So nitric oxide will attack a lot of that stuff. But so will the natural filter of our noses. And if you would open a human nose up, it's pretty amazing to look at. You can find this on the internet or in an anatomy book, but it looks just like a conch shell because, and that's where it gets its name, nasal conchae. So, and it's designed that way. The same way that seashells are designed to keep invaders out. So we also have that function in our nose. What I found, what was so ironic is you look at the national institutes of health and there are 17 different departments investigating everything from skin to lungs to the heart, the brain on and on. But none of them are looking at the functions of the nose, the importance of the nose in health and in longevity.
James (16:54): So beyond that filtering, the nose also adjust our levels of stress. It can calm us down, it can get us amped up and that is determined by which nostril you're breathing through. So the nose is covered with this erectile tissue, which is the same erectile tissue in our genitals and it responds to the same inputs. So whenever we get excited in one area, the nose will respond as well. And what happens throughout the day, every 30 minutes to about every four hours, the pathway through which air comes in through your nose, either your right nostril or your left nostril is going to switch. So one nostril is going to gently close and the other is going to gently open up. And one of the reasons it does this, some of this is theoretical, but a lot of it has been checked out and verified by scientists. Is that when we breathe through the right nostril, we heat the body up so the heart rate increases. We get a little drip of cortisol, blood pressure increases as well. And if we switch that pathway to the left nostril, the body cools down, heart rate decreases, blood pressure decreases, the heart lowers, heart rate lowers. So you can use this throughout the day depending on what you're doing. There's a whole school in yoga that studies this and that practices these alternate nostril breathing. But you don't need to do that because your body naturally does this. And it adjusts throughout the day and throughout the night.
Allan (18:38): So we know that our body brings in oxygen and then basically expels carbon dioxide. That's kind of the cycle of what's happening here. One of the interesting things that I got from your book was that, it's not about the amount of oxygen that we take in that matters. It's about the amount of carbon dioxide we have in our blood. It needs to get out that actually keeps that thing working well. And if we don't have the carbon dioxide we're not gonna use the oxygen we're breathing in. So breathing slow and breathing less can actually work to our benefit. Can you get into that?
James (19:13): For sure. And this is something that's been misinterpreted and still is today is for a healthy body. And that is for somebody who has about 95% or higher of oxygen in your bloodstream in any one time. You don't need more oxygen, so you have plenty of oxygen in your body. What you need is a way of offloading that oxygen efficiently into your cells and tissues and muscles. And that's what carbon dioxide helps us do. So carbon dioxide is, you know, in a lot of circles, considered a very bad thing. It's the stuff that plumes out of coal plants and it's heating up the planet. And all that's true, but for your body, it's essential to have the right balance of carbon dioxide and oxygen so it can work at peak efficiency. And often when we breathe too much, we are off gassing too much carbon dioxide.
James (20:07): So our bodies enter into an alkaline state, which makes it harder for oxygen to enter into these tissues and muscles and do what our body naturally wants us to do. So when you see people at the gym or jogging or wherever, when they're breathing through the mouth and they're thinking they're getting, getting a good workout, they're actually doing the opposite so they're not burning any more fat. They're making their body work harder to do less. So for the vast majority of people, breathing less is going to give you more oxygen and it's going to do that by your carbon dioxide levels balanced. Now there's extremes to this, right? Somebody with covid or pneumonia or emphysema doesn't get enough oxygen in their bloodstream. They need oxygen. If they're below 90 especially if they're in the eighties but again, for healthy people having extra oxygen isn't going to do anything, which is why I find it so ironic with these oxygen bars.
James (21:12): They have these people, Oh we're going to help you out. You're healthy, we're going to make you feel even better. It's not doing anything. What you need to do is allow your body to do what it naturally wants to do. You can breathe slowly and get much more benefit from doing that. You can also save a lot more money.
Allan (21:28): So in, in some of the breathing that you talked about, you actually talked about the breathing rate of 5.5 per minute being kind of a sweet spot.
James (21:38): Yeah. So these researchers about 20 years ago were looking at different prayers. They were looking at Catholic prayers, the rosary, the Ave Maria, they were looking at the Buddhist chant, Om mani padme hum, The Kundalini Chant on Sa ta na ma. And they found that to vocalize each of these, it takes about five to six seconds and then there's about five to six seconds to inhale.
James (22:09): So you're inhaling for about five to six seconds, you're exhaling for about five to six seconds. So they got a bunch of subjects and they hook them up to all these sensors and they looked at what was happening to their brains and bodies when they breathe this way. And they found that blood flow increased in the brain. Circulation increased and the body entered a state of coherence. Where the heart, nervous system and everything else were coordinated at peak efficiency. So this really lessened the burden on the heart and allowed us to do more again with less. Just by breathing in this way. And they hypothesized that the healing effects of prayer were probably real, but it had more to do with how we were breathing than what we were saying. And since this discovery, I guess you could call it, various scientists and researchers and psychiatrists have used this breathing pattern in their patients with depression, anxiety, and even for to purge toxins from the lungs and with 9 to 11 survivors.
James (23:20): So it's free, it's easy. Anyone can do it and the effects or they feel great, you know? And it's backed up by science. So I try to breathe in this way as often as possible. Sometimes I have timers around and even when I'm working out, if I'm at a gym on a stationary bike and I'm really huffing and puffing, I try to slow my breathing to about six or seven breaths per minute, which sounds like how are we possibly getting enough oxygen to support yourself? But I've worn a pulse oximeter and found that my oxygen level did not waver when I was breathing this slowly. So that's a way of really, if you're nervous, you're not getting enough oxygen that you're breathing too slowly. Try to get a pulse ox. You can get these things for for 20 bucks and try it out if you're geeky like me.
James (24:10): But I was really blown away by this because I had always learned that the more you breathe, the more oxygen you're going to gain. You need that oxygen to go further and to work out harder and that's complete BS. You don't, you need to breathe inline with your metabolic needs, which for the vast majority of us is to breathe more slowly.
Allan (24:31): Yeah. Because we're going to bring in enough oxygen into our lungs with that breath to be able to go for another minute or two. Actually, if we wanted to hold our breath, there's a guy he married the volleyball player, Gabrielle, and his name's Laird. He was a surfer. Yeah, he's got this protocol where they actually work out underwater, you know, they're lifting weights and running under water so they're not breathing, you know once, maybe a minute and you know, well, from what I've heard, it's pretty amazing stuff, performance in movements you can get when you start training your body to work that way. So a little different thing out there, but we don't have to breathe every two seconds just to make sure we have oxygen. We can, we can go with less.
James (25:19): Yeah. And that protocol has been around for 70 years that Laird is using. So you know, scientists have known this for a long time. We have known about carbon dioxide benefits in the body for a hundred years. Some prominent scientists, Christian Boar discovered this and then Yen Del Henderson at Yale was a big promoter of the use of carbon dioxide, both in tanks and in our own bodies to allow us to function efficiently. He said this is something that's completely ignored by the medical community. What's ironic is they were doing these tests in the 1910s, 1920s and arguing that more people need to get hip to what's going on with these gases and to know the real benefits. And then today you still have a lot of misinformation and a lot of ignorance as far as how oxygen and carbon dioxide are used in human metabolism. And so it was fascinating to go through all of these medical stories and articles and studies and to see these things played out over again and again and again. People keep discovering the stuff and then disappears. They discover it and it disappears. So what Laire is doing and as part of a long tradition of conditioning the body to use more efficiently. And we do that by breathing less.
Allan (26:46): I define wellness as being the healthiest fittest and happiest you can be. What are three strategies or tactics to get and stay well?
James (26:55): I would argue that breathing is at the core of this. Along with eating well and exercising. So I've thrown in sleeping. You know, this isn't the most original list you've ever heard I'm sure.
Allan (27:11): Well you started with breathing, that's a little bit more original than most, but yeah.
James (27:14): I guess, but if you look at the Holy triumvirate of wellness, a longevity of feeling good every day, it's those three things. But breathing has to be considered in there. Because I've met so many people who are triathletes who go to the gym every day who eat, you know, only a keto diet or vegan diet, whatever. But they are not paying attention to their breathing. They have sleep apnea, they snore at night. They say, Oh, this is just this natural. Everyone I know snores. Everyone I know is sleep apnea, but it's not. You have to get control of that before, in my opinion, before you really double down on your food and your exercise. You have to be looking at how you're breathing because we breathe 25,000 times a day. And if you're doing that wrong, you're going to be injuring your body just a little bit, with each breath, so you need to get that right and then you can build upon that foundation and really sharing in good health after that.
Allan (28:16): Well thank you James. The book is awesome. You know, you're not just giving us information, you're actually walking us through the story of you finding a lot of this stuff. So it was a really cool read. I really enjoyed it. If someone wanted to learn more about you or learn more about the book, Breathe, where would you like for me to send them?
James (28:33): My website and all the links to the book are there as well. There are 550 scientific references with some videos and photos and a bunch of other stuff to support what sounds like a bunch of pseudoscience. It's all real stuff, people. And all the data's up there on my website at mrjamesnester.com.
Allan (28:50): And you can go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/437 and I'll be sure to have the links there. So James, thank you so much for being a part of 40+ Fitness.
James (29:04): Thanks a lot for having me. Really enjoyed it.
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In the documentary, Cancer is Curable Now, Marcus Freudenmann shows us some alternative treatments for cancer that are showing great promise with less damage.
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Transcript
Allan (00:56): Marcus. Welcome to 40+ Fitness.
Marcus (00:59): Thank you for inviting me. I'm very excited to be here.
Allan (01:03): You know, most of the time when I have a guest on, it's a book and that book, you know, will take me anywhere from six to 12 hours to read depending on how long the book is. You took all the information. I think I would have gotten from a book and you put it into a documentary that was less than two hours long. Congratulations for that. That was pretty insane.
Marcus (01:24): Well, we live in a fast paced world and most people don't have that endless time to go through, but let's face it that way. Once you are intrigued, there is a workbook that comes with the movie and that is 460 pages. You can go much deeper.
Allan (01:48): Okay. Yes. Okay. I did not read the workbook. I promise I didn't do that homework. But I did watch the documentary and had Dr. Gerson on to talk about her method. And I've had someone on this speak about that before. So I'm basically familiar with a lot of this and you know, we're over 40, I'm over 50. The C word, is one of those words that just kind of, every time he goes to see your doctor, every time you have a lab test you kinda expect it. It's going to come up at some point.
Marcus (02:20): Hi. Yeah, I know that feeling. I'm over 60.
Allan (02:25): And so, right now we're like, okay, what's going on in my body is there's this, there's just these things happening. I obviously have no, yeah, I don't feel like I have control over. But we're going to talk about that a little bit later because I actually do, but can we talk about what is cancer when someone gets a diagnosis of cancer from their doctor, what exactly is the doctor telling them?
Marcus (02:46): Oh, well there's many different, well, it most of all shows that there is an imbalance in your system that your body can't control anymore. Or some would call it the final breakdown of the immune system. It's definitely immune system related disease and I would just simply call it an overwhelm. There's too many things your immune system should be doing and fixing and repairing and getting rid of. And it's overworked, it's tired, and it's like an army that slowly disintegrates and doesn't do what it's supposed to do because some of the soldiers are stopped then others are living in very unfavorable conditions. And I like to make those, you know, images, because when we think about you have a complete army of soldiers that defend you and repair and fix your white blood cells and they have just too much to do. And that's usually the reason why we move with age into a cancer state. But until you get the lump bump state, as they call it, it takes six to seven years. So it's not something that happens overnight. It's something that slowly grows. And there is many components that we know that support growth and many that stop growth. So it's something that we can control quite easily.
Allan (04:13): Okay. So I'm gonna take your war battle and I'm going to carry that out. Now we're going to keep going with that one. Okay. So I see cancer and you, talked about this a little bit in the documentary, or a lot of people talked about this documentary and this was really one of the cooler parts of it was okay, so cancer's going to get in, for lack of a better word, a battle front formation. It's going to clump together. And so it's all going to, you know, the cancer cells are all gonna accumulate and they're gonna all be in one locate location. And then, you know, they'll tell you, you know, in the old, particularly in old times, supply chain supply line, if you're not getting the things that you need for your forces and your cutoff, that forces, it's just going to lay there and die. But cancer can actually develop its own supply line from our own blood system. Can you kind of explain how that process works? Because like I said, it was, for me, it was fascinating to say, okay, here's something that my body should just be beating out and saying, get out of here. You don't belong here. But it's clumped up, set a formation and now it's, getting its supply line set up.
Marcus (05:20): Well it cancer has many attributes to defend itself and it's more or less a cell in complete survival mode. They don't need the environment anymore. And this is where the biggest discovery has been. A cancer cell has stopped dying so it tries to survive in unfavorable conditions. There was a study in Switzerland done which was quite significant. They took when they did surgery and removed a tumor, whether that prostate or the breast or any tumor that they removed, they always cut out a little bit more tumor tissue around so that they get it all, you know, like the, the typical sentence so that we get it all. And then there was a toxicological report done on tumor tissue and unhealthy tissue and the level of heavy metals, the level of bacteria, mold, candida, fungal overgrowth was tested in tumor tissue compared to the healthy tissue.
Marcus (06:28): And the results were really significant. Tumor tissue usually had up to 40,000 times higher concentration of heavy metals of bacteria overgrowth. It's been, it's like the body collects toxins and puts them all together into a package, you know, to prevent it if you can't detoxify, and a lot of us have impaired detox pathways so the body doesn't know what to do with those toxins. So it stores it in a place and packages. And that's why usually cancer grows in fat tissue. That's well, what do you store those toxins? So when you look at brain tumors, for example, cholesterol, it's pure fat tissue. So there is many places that your body just starts to hog up toxins. And then within that environment, bacteria and heavy metals in combination get very close together. It's like a root canal filled teeth with a metal pin that is breeding bacteria.
Marcus (07:37): And these bacteria transform, for example, mercury into dimethylmercury mercury, which is deadly in a very short time. In the same way you have heavy metal accumulation of arsenic or mercury or cadmium or whatever in tissue with that high load of bacteria, which then transform the metal into arsenic, for example. And that is where they end. Those breeding places of mutated cells happen. Cancer cell is just simply mutated and the mutation, the change that it stops dying and that's the apoptosis effect is more or less a survival mechanism of that cell, which is either in high inflamed areas or in areas of low oxygen or is an area that are totally poisoned and polluted and these cells then survive and become mutated cells, which is a cancer cell. So all of us, you, me at the age of five years old, up to the age of 80 years old, you know, we all have every single day many cancer cells that produced in our body based on the, that we are surrounded with based on the toxins in the air and the fish, you know, like mercury heavy metals, we know coal mining, all of those things.
Marcus (09:04): They throw out a lot of pollutants and we all develop cancer cells. Now our normal immune system, our army would then clean up, and they would clean up in many different areas. So they eat mutated cells, they eat cells that are or destroy cells that are just intermediate. We always say there is like a progression state from a healthy cell to a cancer cell. There's many steps in between. And so those immune cells clean up and tidy up if they are working properly. But now imagine you have leaky gut for example. It's one of those prime examples. Leaky gut means when you eat, there is little perforations, little holes in your colon and in your small intestine where food particles and bacteria and undigested proteins are squeezed out into the bloodstream. So it's like a garden hose that is too old and gets little holes and sprinkles in all directions like a water fountain.
Marcus (10:12): And that's the same that happens in our body. We have a few added components why leaky gut happens. For example, any kind of Roundup use that we have in all our normal sprayed vegetables, they cause leaky gut. Heavy metals cause leaky gut stress causes leaky gut. So there's many things. So when somebody has leaky gut, every meal, they eat huge amounts of bacteria and undigested proteins are squeezed into the bloodstream. That's an imminent threat to your body, an imminent threat to your whole health. So your body will use all the soldiers, all the army to clean up that leaky gut, the mess that is created and will ignore cancer cells, ignore infections, ignores bacteria, and Hheavy metals because that's not relevant right now. And that's how we occupy our soldiers instead of letting them do the right work. And there's so many, I would call leaky gut phenomenons, you know, food sensitivities, allergies, creams that we put on externally that are absorbed into the bloodstream that then go to the liver. There's so many components, how we suppress our immune system every single day. That it's just overworked. And that's when the cancer cells start to center, start to build clusters and start to grow. And once they are connected to the blood supply and good glucose sugar, then they are perfect in fermenting that sugar. And that's creating a belt around them so that the cancer cells are protected. So it's a very sophisticated survival mechanism that kills us.
SPONSOR This episode of the 40+ Fitness Podcast is also sponsored by Lumen. Lumens' handheld device measures your metabolism in real-time using your breath once only available to professional athletes. It is now available to you. Lumen will tell you if your body is using carbs or fat for fuel. It then provides you with personalized meal plans and insights to help you reach your weight and fitness goals. When we burn fat, we breathe most of it out. The lumen handheld device will give you the data on that. I love data, especially when it helps us get healthier and more fit. Lumen's working to improve the world's metabolic health and quality of life. One breath at a time. Go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/lumen and use the code 40fitnesspodcast25 to get $25 off, visit 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/lumen and be sure to use the code 40fitnesspodcast25 to get that wonderful listener discount. I'll be sure to have a link and the code in the show notes@fortyplusfitnesspodcast.com/436.
Allan (13:21): Now, most of the time we go into the doctor and they're going to give us a diagnosis. They're going to say, okay, you have prostate cancer or you know you have breast cancer and they have a protocol and their protocol is, is typically nuclear war. We're going to do chemo, radiation, removable or all of the above. Can you talk about those standard treatments because, you know, I've had a few people on, we've talked about prostate cancer, we've talked about some other cancers and there's always a downside to almost every treatment protocol that's currently out there in Western medicine.
Marcus (14:00): Yeah, it's, this is often the philosophical question, because what we believe in what helps. See if people believe in conventional medicine can do incredible things. I, I always, I'm very cautious to say doesn't work or it's not the right way to do because for some people it does. I think there is a strong belief pattern. If I know chemotherapy will poison me or that radiation is like and terminal and stops everything healthy from growing, then that will happen. So we have a lot of discrepancy here based on belief. But in general using poison to kill in a body that is already overburdened usually with poison or with toxins or with heavy metals or with bacteria, you know, bacteria, poop and pee. As I always say, they create neurotoxins as a waste product. So there is a lot that is already overburdened and if I didn't use more chemicals, it's sometimes a miracle how patients survive.
Marcus (15:13): Even with that extra on-slaughter instead of cleaning up. See the biggest problem that we have and what you just mentioned, you have prostate cancer, you have breast cancer. We look at the disease and we focus on the disease. When I made the documentary and traveled around the world there was like always which treatments do we do? Which treatments are most effective? That was my main concern and I was focusing on that. And until I came to Dr. Rao in Switzerland, he said, Marcus, you're asking really stupid questions. Who cares about treatments. I was like 10 years of research. I thought I had it. I was freaking shocked when he just put me on the spot and said, you're really off the plot. And then he explained, he pulled three charts out and said, look at those three breast cancer patients. They all have breast cancer they are all around the 42-48 mark. The first client has cancer because of self-loathing, a series of trauma from childhood being abused.
Marcus (16:21): She doesn't care for herself. Very high, acidic, very low oxygen, slightly obese, but no care for herself. That would constitute into already enough reason for her to have cancer. The other patient has a viral infection, Epstein Barr virus infection combined with mold toxicity and she lives in a very high EMF environment in a high rise where pretty much everybody has an EMF router plus the telephone pole is not far away. So she was really exposed and we know that mold in combination with EMF is very toxic. And then having EBV on top, plenty sufficient reason to develop breast cancer while the third client had actually really dental problems. She had three different metals in her mouth, which causes a galvanic reaction and released huge amounts of mercury into her system. Plus she had detox pathways in there that, you know, she couldn't get rid of toxins no matter what.
Marcus (17:27): They all just reoccurred in her body but couldn't, couldn't be eliminated. So seeing that three identical cancers had three completely different reasons, was already like a big awakening. And then we looked at the treatment protocols and all three had a completely different approach to getting rid of those causes. And once we did, all three patients recovered. And that's, I think it was about 10 years ago when that happened. I never forget, I sit in that office and it was first time clear to me that we are not treating disease. We need to treat the patient who has the disease and remove all those things that surprised the immune system overburdened system that was clear. And I followed through with, we had, oh God over 50,000 people who watched the documentary and studied with us and I reported back and that's when it became clear that we need to completely go away from looking at the cancer. Just, you know, some people get cancer, those get fibromyalgia and another one gets depression. It just depends on where those toxins settle and where the problem establishes.
Allan (18:48): Okay. Now in the documentary you talked about some alternatives. So if we realize, okay, if we're, we're not talking about just trying to remove a tumor or reduce a tumor or those types of things. We're actually talking about taking care of our health as a functional, you know, it's kind of a more of a functional medicine approach. You talked about a few different things in that documented like ozone treatment. Hyperthermia and PEMF. Could you kind of talk about those?
Marcus (19:21): Yeah, there is many treatments that support the immune system. There's many treatments that remove some of the main causes. For example, when you look at ozone, ozone is antiviral, antibacterial, antifungal. It removes all of the biome and balances it out if you have an overgrowth of Helicobacter pylori or Klebsiella. All of those bacteria that we, we need, but we need a very small quantity in our body. And when they overgrow because the menu is wrong, then ozone will correct that. And it's been, you know, 30 years in Europe as a standard treatment for every kind of infection. And it's proven. In fact there's hundreds of studies, but it's not allowed in most of the world. So in Australia, doctors lose their license if they offer ozone, even in Germany, they are clamping down on it. So it's a treatment that is not welcome yet it is super effective.
Marcus (20:31): And because it is so easy to do, we teach patients and clients how to use it at home. So it's a standard treatment that you can do at home. And you more or less help your body to get rid of infections, local infections, skin infections, bacterial infections. It helps healing with leaky gut. It's an amazing treatment and because you couldn't do it daily at home effects are really, really fast. So we have now since probably about two years, a lot of medical professionals, clinics and doctors that work with patients, sell them bundles or sell them equipment so that they can continue the treatment at home. If you go to a $30,000, $50,000 clinic in Germany and you go through a three week treatment, they give you a device home afterwards because they know that your chances of success are massively increased just by doing those treatments at home.
Marcus (21:33): And that's the same with hypothermia. You know hypothermia is the natural healing response of your body. If you have a cold, a viral infection, a bacterial infection, what is the first response of your body?
Allan (21:49): Fever?
Marcus (21:50): A fever. Exactly. And the body stops the reproduction of the virus at 39 Celsius. I think that's 1.2 or 1.8 or something like that. So it stops the reproduction. The virus is just a string of RNA and that goes into a cell, and then that RNA or DNA will then tell your cell to replicate out of amino acids, a virus. So all of a sudden that one string goes into a cell and then replicates thousands of clones. Now that process is stopped immediately at 39 Celsius fever, which means your body says, Oh, we have a virus that shouldn't be in my body. It starts affecting cells.
Marcus (22:45): Let's upregulate the temperature, and then we stop reproduction. That's the first step. Then you go into the next step, which is think about, you know Darth Vader and the soldiers. We all know them, the ones in white uniform, they're sitting on a long production line in your bone marrow and all of a sudden as soon as the temperature goes up, that's a signal that those new soldiers that are built in your bone marrow are released into the bloodstream. So as soon as you go into a fever, your body releases out of the bone marrow, thousands of white blood cells, killer cells, that are then cleaning up with that virus. And the infected cells. And that is usually a process that takes two days. And that's why when children get a cold or when you have your spring cold, it's coming for two or three days, then you have a short period of time and then it disappears again after you had your fever.
Marcus (23:51): And that is the normal response of your body. And we recreate that with the hypothermia dome. So it's the same thing. We heat the body up in about 30 to 45 minutes to fever temperature. We stop all reproduction of virus and bacteria and then we heat the body further up so that it releases all those white blood cells. And there is another super effect that has been documented a thousand times and that's why it's used in conventional clinics now as well. It flags pathogens and floating cancer STEM cells with heat shock proteins. And I always say it's like when a cancer cell floats in our blood, it's invisible because it's a cell from our body. But if I heat the body up, then all of a sudden the cells that can't handle heat very well, which are cancer cells, they create heat shock proteins, they grow green hair and all of a sudden your immune system, all those new soldiers that are available look around and see all the guys with green hair need to be eliminated and they start attacking.
Marcus (25:01): So it's triple effect that you get with hypothermia. And that's why it's the fourth pillar of conventional treatments in Germany and it's now used in so many university clinics to bring back a patient. Let's say you have chemotherapy and your white blood cell count goes down, well then they do hypothermia to bring your white blood cell count back up and then they continue chemotherapy. It also reduces the side effects. You need less chemotherapy to have the same effect because your cells are better supplied its an incredible system. So they use that and because it's illegal in America and Australia and New Zealand and England, well we teach people how to do it at home.
Allan (25:51): And the cool thing documentary was that you can do this. There's localized and then there's a whole body. And so the treatment home I assume is more localized versus the whole body.
Marcus (26:04): The other way around, the whole body is very easy to do at home, whereas the local hypothermia device is about $500,000. And they are not something people choose to do.
Allan (26:19): Yeah, that's a little outside my budget. Okay, and then last one we talked about was PEMF.
Marcus (26:29): I always say it's like a toothbrush. When you use it too long, it gets tired and then it stops, you know, those electric toothbrush. And then you put them into a dock, into a little stand and they recharge and there is no cable connected. It's just induced energy through magnetic waves. And that's pretty much the same thing. We live in a world that has a magnetic field around. And by moving through that magnetic field and moving through different forms of magnetic field, we are alive. Ourselves, have energy. It's an energy field that keeps us strong and alive. Now we can replicate this energy field and this recharge station with a pulsing magnetic field and those pulsing magnetic fields, they act in very similar ways. Like a recharge. All of your cells slowly lose, you know, that membrane potential.
Marcus (27:36): They get tired, like we all do. Lack of nutrients, toxicity, exhaustion, all of those things contribute. Now, if I sit myself on a PMF device while watching, you know, a movie on a lazy boy, it doesn't really matter. It's like recharging every single cell. And if you keep doing the treatment for two, three, four days, you will find that your inflammation goes down, your gut starts healing, your energy levels goes up, your healing expedites, if you have open wounds, they start healing faster. It's a massive energy boost that we can give ourselves. And that's why most clinics in Europe and in America use PMF as a reach out full patients. When you think about having a cold, how exhausting that is. And we all know when you, when you have just a simple problem, how much it drains the body. Now think about you have tumors or you have infections or you have large inflamed areas. That is draining you of energy and the less energy you have, the less you can heal because the body needs tremendous amounts to detoxify, of energy, to detoxify, to heal, to repair.
Marcus (29:00): And that's what we give it with that PMF machine. So it makes, I've sold one, I have to tell you, that was my biggest transformation. I sold one to a retirement village and after a few weeks the nurses called and said, Marcus, we do have a problem with the device. Would you mind coming by and I went there and she said, we exchanged the problem. Before we had moaning and grumpy and pain and tired. And you know, now we have parties in the corridor. We have people sneaking out at nights and going out for adventures. The whole dynamic change, dancing in the corridor, we would like to order four more machines. That was a very sweet, you know, testimony of how, especially elderly people really reach out with that device. And if you look at the demographic of people in hospitals and clinics that are run down, it's the same for them. It just gives them a massive boost.
Allan (30:04): Now, one of the things that kind of resonated with me as we start talking about these other protocols is that, they are, I want to say life building versus destroying. So it's not the nuclear bomb, it's the how do we provide more resources for our troops, if you will. But there's a way for us to avoid the war in the first place, or at least while we're fighting the war for us to make sure we have a really good battle plan and a really good battle field position. And that's our lifestyle. Could you talk a little bit about that?
Marcus (30:40): Yes. Let me very shortly say when you get diagnosed, and I think everybody stumbles upon that learning curve in a very similar way. We don't know before it's too late. There is a small demographic of people you know who care for mom and dad or who look after a relative who has been diagnosed with cancer. So they are what I call early status. They witnessed and do the learning curve at an early stage and they are also the ones that usually learn how to prevent. The normal general demographic needs to hit their nose on the world before they start waking up.
Allan (31:21): Well, in all fairness, Marcus, that they're listening to this podcast, they're woke, they're ready, they're ready to have this conversation. They're there, they're looking after our health. So we're ready. So what are those things we can do?
Marcus (31:34): The most important is in regards to you are set up, there is five main components. Number one is stress. Constant stress suppresses your immune system and that is really important. The second one is toxicity that we absorb and consume. And it starts from, you know, sprayed vegetables to Monsanto grown grain and corn and all of those things which just, you know, they are designed to keep bugs away. Then they also do that in your gut. So the, the affects of sprayed food and toxic food and preservatives and colors and flavors, they really make a massive impact. Then it's also what medication you take and the side effects of those medications. There is so many components. And for me that was actually always the most irritating part of the whole lot. You know, healthy lifestyle, doing exercise, eating right food and having the right nutrients and having enough oxygen.
Marcus (32:43): It all is one big part. And what we've done is we created a mind map and that mind map takes you through all of those individual steps. You know, how are you teeth connected? How are they related to certain organs? How is your mind connected to the whole thing? What are different exercises that you can do during the day? How is oxygen connected to cancer? Oxygen is one of the key proponents for spreading angiogenesis for the building of cause. Cancer cells don't need oxygen, they ferment the food, whereas your healthy cells need oxygen. So how can we implement more oxygen into our life, feed all cells with more oxygen? And that mind map is actually very, very detailed. There's so many different components and you will have a very different set of combination of things that you miss out on as someone else. And that's why we made that mind map. And God, we had over 50,000 people go through that training and it really shows that everyone has a different set of reasons to be sick and out of their environment, out of their habits, how they grew up, and to look through that mind map and look through all the different departments. That's where it really becomes obvious, Oh, that's one of my blind spots or this is one of the reasons that triggered my disease.
Allan (34:11): Marcus, I define wellness as being the healthiest fittest and happiest you can be. What are three strategies or tactics to get and stay well?
Marcus (34:21): Three out of my many oxygen would be number one. Trusting the body that it knows what it's doing and not interfering with medication. I think that's one of the key factors, especially in present times where a lot of people don't trust their body and suppress fever with any kind of fever suppressing medication that is always very, very challenging. That's what we know, increases cytokine storms and causes a lot of havoc. So trusting in the body and allowing the body to really do the work it's designed to do and supporting it in ways that are very natural like exercise, outdoor sweating, sweat lodges. We've seen tremendous change by doing that and becoming aware of what surrounds you, becoming aware of how toxic your intake, your food intake, your surrounding your environment is. And that starts with EMF all the way to the food that you eat.
Allan (35:33): Cool. So Marcus, if someone wanted to more about you, more about the documentary, Cancer is Curable Now or your truly healthy stuff. You're doin tons of stuff. Your site is really big, you know, spend a lot of time out there. If someone wanted to learn more about all that, where would you like for me to send them?
Marcus (35:57): Trulyheal.com so it's trulyheal.com/40plusfitness. And I've put a page together where you have access to training that we provide internally to our students. So it's a six-part video training that takes you through every single thing that is important to look at. And you have access to the documentary, you have access to the research. It's all on those pages. It's quite a massive load of information. I always say it's the shortcut that I've been looking for. When my friend was diagnosed and we started to look, you know, you run into a thousand different information streams and you don't know which one is the right one. And what we've done in that training is actually give clarity to all the different things that we know and that we can combine into a very, very effective healing program.
Allan (37:02): Well, I thoroughly enjoyed the documentary, so I know this is a really good site. So if you want to learn more about this, if you can't write this down right now, you can go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/436. This is episode 436 or just go to the main podcast website and you can find the link there. Okay, Marcus, thank you so much for being a part of 40+ Fitness.
Marcus (37:25): Thank you so much for inviting me.
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Krista Stryker shows us how to get fitter, faster, and stronger with her book, The 12-Minute Athlete. You can find the full show notes for this episode at 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/435.
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Transcript
Allan (02:18): Krista, welcome to 40+ Fitness.
Krista (02:20): Thank you so much for having me.
Allan (02:23): Now your book is called the 12 Minute Athlete: Get Fitter, Faster and Stronger using HIIT and Your Body Weight. And you said something at the very beginning of the book that I need to start adapting to, adopting, I guess for lack of a better word is calling people athletes. And I think too many times we think of athletes as guys, guys and gals we see on TV and we don't often think of ourselves as athletes.
Krista (02:51): It's true. I definitely never considered myself an athlete, until you know, five years ago or so. It's just this kind of belief in our society that we look at these people on TV and we think they're the athletes and they can train hard and do these amazing, impossible seeming things, but you know, we're more mere mortals and we could never do hard things like that. And I really like to kind of help bring out everyone's inner athlete because I really do believe that everyone can have some sort of movement that gives them joy and that we all really are athletes.
Allan (03:36): Yeah. When I first got started into all of this, it was, it was actually a tough Mudder that I wanted to do with my daughter because she was getting into the CrossFit and doing, you know, these mud obstacle races and really enjoying herself. And I was thinking, you know, I don't want to be the father that when my daughter says, Hey, I'm going to go do this thing, that I'm the spectator. I'm like, no, I want to be there with her. I want to cross the finish line with her, I want to do those things. And at the point where I made the decision and then the commitment that that's what I was going to do. I was nowhere near being able to do a tough Mudder. Eight months later, because I had that mindset of getting there and being there with my daughter. I did it! Now that was fairly athletic. When I was younger I did a lot of athletic things, but it doesn't have to be tough Mudder. You know, as you put in the book, it's like you just be an awesome grandmother that keeps up with the grandkids when they run from the monkeys to the lions, you know, being an athlete just means performing very well at the things that you want to do in your life.
Krista (04:39): Exactly. So well said.
Allan (04:42): Now, many of us don't have access to a gym or periods of time when we don't have access to a gym. You know, and when I was traveling a good bit for work, you know, sometimes you staying in a hotel and the gym they have isn't really equipped to do the things that I wanted to do. So we, we go to using body weight and I think a lot of people miss out on how effective body weight can be. Can you talk about some of the benefits of body weight exercises?
Krista (05:09): Yes. I am a huge, huge fan of body weight exercises for so many reasons. Like you said, one of the main reasons is that you can really do them anywhere. So if you're traveling, if you're sick at home, if you're, you know, in a park outside, you can still work out and really, really get an effective workout that way. Another thing that I really love about body weight type training is that you can really scale it to make it either much easier if you're starting at beginner level or much harder if you're more advanced. And so you look at something like a basic pushup, it seems pretty simple, but a lot of people, I'm sure you know, can't do a proper pushup. So The way to work at that, if you break it down into steps. So the way I like to do is with the hands elevated push up because you can really gauge that progress. You start out on something higher, like a wall or a counter top, work your way down eventually to the floor. And now if that gets too easy, then there's so many ways to make it more challenging. You can work for the one arm push up, you can do explosive variations. Bodyweight training is just so cool because there are always ways to bump up the level or to break it down if you need to build up more strength in order to get that full exercise.
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Allan (06:42): Yeah, I was, you know, I trained various people even though we're all over the age of 40, I have some that are relatively fit and some that are just getting started. And so yes, the counter at the countertop, the countertop pushup is kind of a staple for me for most people that are just getting started, make sure you're wearing skid resistant shoes cause the tile floor can get slippery. But yeah, the countertop is an excellent way for you to start getting stronger in the chest and get that pushup. Whereas then I have other folks that are a little bit more athletic and been doing this a bit longer and you know the dive bomber, which you demonstrate in the book, you know, I'm like here, here's a pushup. This is going to be hard. And they'd do it. They'd go do it in the workout and the next time I hear from him it's like, Oh God never had me do that again please. And of course it's in the next workout cause that's what a family wants to hear. But it's with body weight and you just, all you've really done is taken your body weight and by changing the leverage and changing things up, you've made it much more difficult or much easier depending on what a trainee needs, which you need.
Krista (07:46): Exactly.
Allan (07:47): And then I think one of the other ones you talked about this a little bit in the book is that you know, with body weight, the likelihood of you actually hurting yourself is lower.
Krista (07:55): It's so true because you don't have heavy weight around. And I'm going to drop something on your foot. You're not going to do some crazy thing with the overhead squat and tweak your shoulders. There's so much less likelihood of injury or body weight training. It's very cool. And it's super functional. So usually what I see with people who start training body weight exercises more there, their whole body starts to work together better. And so any nagging injuries and stuff, they might just go away, which is amazing.
Allan (08:30): Yeah. And that is probably what I would say it'd be my favorite part of body weight exercises is almost every one of them that you would be doing theirs. There's a functional aspect to your life. So if we're talking about, you know, body weight squats will we squat sit every day and the ability to have that leg strength to do that is very, very important. And because we don't have a huge load on our shoulders, particularly early on, you know, with just doing body weight squats, you know, we're less likely to hurt our knees because again, if we're doing the squat poorly, we won't be able to do it very well with body weight. But if we put load on there, then the likelihood of injuring ourself is so much higher.
Krista (09:09): It's so true. It makes me cringe every time I go on a gym and someone's doing heavy squat and their squat form is so bad. I just want to help them get them to do body weight squats. But people don't, people don't always know about the things to do.
Allan (09:26): Yeah. And, and you know, with, with the gym that I run, you know, I actually have to go say something. I used to when I was training, when I was training, he was training people in up and I was like, if they're not my client and you know, I'm not going to butt in that I'm doing my workout. They're doing theirs and I'm just watching them from the side of my eyes so that they don't kill themselves. But it's okay. I gotta be ready to go grab a weight if someone starts to fall. But other than that, I'm going to ignore them. But now running a gym, it's like I see someone, I was like, I need to go. I need to go talk to this person. We'll have a little conversation. They may or may not listen to me, but you know, I just don't, I don't want someone to get hurt. So, but body weight exercises are kind of cool thing about them is it's very difficult to hurt yourself. The progressions there.
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Allan (12:29): I'd like to talk about progression. I talked about, you know, two kinds of extremes: the counter push-ups versus the dive bomber is two different levels, but there are lots of different ways that you can make these exercises more progressive.
Krista (12:43): So many ways. So if you, like I said, if you can do the basic kind of full version of what you think of the exercise, then you can start, there's a couple of ways to make it more challenging. You can work at unilaterally so you can take a bit bodyweight spot. Well instead of going down on two legs, do a one legged squat or pistol squat and that will make it significantly harder. So that's one way. And from there, you know, you don't typically go from that body weight squats straight to the pistol squat, you do the progressions of the pistol squat to help build up that strength. Or you can add, apply a metric aspect to this. So that means jumping, explosiveness, all that. It's going to make it much more challenging. And see the typical athletes, when you think of track athletes and basketball players and they're doing all that stuff, they're not doing heavy weights. They're doing a lot of body weight training, a lot of plyometrics training to build up, you know, maximum strength and explosiveness. So this stuff really works.
Allan (13:51): Yeah, and another one I like to use a lot is tempo. You know if you using, you know, one of the cool things about plyometrics is you're applying power and it does build explosive power. But if you really want to see how strong you are, particularly when we're talking about body weights, slow down, can you slow down the movement where there's no momentum and you're having to hold yourself under that tension for a longer period of time. It gets a lot harder.
Krista (14:20): Yeah. Like to actually, one of the ways that I love to help people build up strength for things like pull-ups is those really slow negatives. They're brutal, but they really weren't. And you can do that with so many different things if you know,
Allan (14:34): once you've gotten yourself to a point. Absolutely. I mean, so you want to have some base level and then once you start really trying to work the pull ups and then yeah, then doing the negatives is really good because you're kind of at that point, if you're close to being able to do the pull-ups, you kind of reached almost, I'm not gonna say an intermediate, but you're at a higher level of training because you've been doing some other pulling movements. So I really do like how you take someone through each of these progressions to help them build out their strength until they're able to do the exercise properly.
Krista (15:05): Yeah. And it's also helpful for your mindset. A lot of people look at something like a pull-up if they've never been able to do it before and they just can't even picture themselves doing it. It seems so hard and impossible. But if you just break it down into these little steps and then every time, you know, every couple of weeks or so, depending on how fast you're making progress, you bump it up just a little bit more. It just becomes so much more doable in your mind. And it just helps people like really accomplish big scary seeming things that they never would've have done if they were to just go towards that higher level thing to begin with.
Allan (15:50): Yeah. Now in the book you also get into, HIIT training, which is high intensity interval training. Can you talk about some of the benefits of HIIT what it is and how it helps us?
Krista (16:02): Yeah, so HIIT training, it's a style of train that basically your training or working as hard as he possibly can for a very short amount of time and then you rest. And so there a differnt kind of intervals that you've been set up. I tend to like doing like 30 seconds, anywhere between 10 seconds or 30 seconds. Yes. And what you thinking about during a HIIT workout is essentially, I like to tell people like, think about it. Like you're sprinting during that work period. You really want to give it your absolute all. You want to feel like you're not really holding back. And the, one of the huge benefits of HITT training is like very short. So a lot of people think that they need, you know, 45 minutes to an hour to get in a good workout. Especially like a cardio workout. The HIIT training, for like 12 minutes and people to try them.
Krista (17:05): If they're really pushing themselves and their at the level that they are able to push themselves that hard. You know, they walk away just like spent afterwards and that's the, that's what a good HIIT workout does. And the type of like you can add so many types of different exercises for this, for HIIT workouts. But one of the things like I like said, do jump roping exercises or like we're talking about plyometric exercises, burpees, things like that where you really feel like you can just push really hard during that workout and yeah, it's kinda, it's going to really, really help your overall stamina helps your VO two max. It was all these scientific studies that show that a HIIT workout, between 10 and 20 minutes, has the same cardio benefits as a moderate intensity workout. That's more like 45 minutes or so. Or a HIIT workout might actually have more benefits, which is super cool.
Allan (18:10): Yeah. For the record, I do have a jump ropes at my gym. So little bitty gym, but I do, I did buy some jump ropes. And so you know, a couple of different things that you said there that I want to emphasize because you know, a lot of people misconstrue just interval training with HIIT training. And I think that that's kind of, you know, when I hear someone say, yeah, I did a 45 minute HIIT training, I'm like you can't do a 45 minute HIIT training. He's wiped. And so I think, you know, one is the intensity. And the way I like to describe it is imagine you're walking through the woods with your baby granddaughter and your arms, and you see a bear and you have to run from that bear.
Allan (18:59): And if your work sessions, 30 seconds, if you stop, if you slow down, that bear is going to get you and your grandbaby. So you're going to run with every bit of energy that you have, like there's nowhere else for you to go, nothing else for you to worry about. You're just going to run as hard as you possibly can. That's that intensity. There's a set period of time and then you're gonna have a recovery, you know, so now that you've read the bear stopped chasing you and you're walking through the woods when your rest is over, if it's 10 seconds or 30 seconds or whatever your rest interval is, oops, there's another bear take off. And typically for most people, you know, six, eight, maybe, maybe 10 of these rounds. It was about all the work you really need at that point. You're not recovering and you're just spent.
Allan (19:44): And I think if you're really doing HIIT right, it is, it's very short. It's very intense. And then it's done. And you know, one of the, one of the styles that I want to talk about this in just a second, is a style called Tabata. And that quite literally can be done in four minutes. And it's really, really cool. But there are all these different intervals that you can set of how you want to go about doing the work, doing the recovery and training yourself to, cause it's working, your cardiovascular, whatever work you're doing, you're getting some work. There it balance or endurance or strength cause I've seen all kinds of different exercises that can be done in the form of HIIT.
Allan (20:25): But I would caution if you're going to do HIIT training, do it with body weight. Don't, don't try HIIT training with equipment. You know, sometimes I've seen people try to do things like some barbell movements and things like that and the form just breaks down and the likelihood of hurting yourself does too. So you do not need equipment. This is a HIIT, should be a body weight training period. And that's just how I feel about it. And that's also very important. And then the other point is, and I'd like to talk a little bit about this is the recovery, because it is so intense that for most of us it's not something we want to do every day.
Krista (21:03): Yeah. For, for most people, you know, even two or three times a week is corny. I definitely try and recommend it at least twice a week and you could do it, you know, anywhere up to four times him to week would be ideal or if you're at a really high level, but you really don't even need that.
Allan (21:22): And so to me it's just making sure that you're giving your body the opportunity to fully recover before you try to do this again and you'll know it, you'll know if you're not doing it because your performance won't be nearly what it was before you are doing jump rope and you know, you realize, okay, I can basically, do you know whether you're doing the double unders or the singles, if you're counting, you'll start to realize, okay, the first interval I did this many, and then the second interval was a little ass and then a little less and a little less, but you come into that next workout. If you haven't really recovered, you're not hitting those same numbers. So pay attention to your recovery and you can get a lot of benefit out of HIIT.
Krista (22:01): Yeah. And that's, I mean, that's one of the reasons, one of many reasons, I really encourage people to track their reps. And as annoying as it can be to count during an interval. You'll know whether you're not recovered, whether you're feeling sluggish that they, and you'll know whether you're making progress or not. So if, you know, the first week you sit there and you're only able to do six, burpees in 30 seconds, and then a few weeks later you're able to do eight. That's awesome. But you wouldn't know that unless you turned it.
Allan (22:32): Yeah, absolutely. Now, I mentioned earlier about Tabatas, I love Tabatas because they answer the question, well, I just really don't have that much time. Tabata solves that problem. can you talk about what it's about is the kind of the origin story and then just, you know, it's the structure and some basic examples of, of how we can use that structure.
Krista (22:56): Yeah. So Tabata was developed by, you know that persons name, they are good friends. His name, he was, he's from Japan, I'm blanking on the his name.
Allan (23:04): Yeah I blank on his name all the time too. Don't ask me. The Japanese guy.
Krista (23:12): Yeah, it's definitely super cool. Anyway, he found that this specific structure where it's 10 seconds reps and 20 seconds work. So for eight rounds is incredibly effective. But the key is with those 20 seconds, like think of it like I liked your bear analogy. You have to go as hard as you possibly can for this to be effective. You can't just breeze through tabata workout and think that it's going to give you great results. You have to go super, super hard. And so like you said, with the interval workouts or HIIT workouts, body weight training is perfect for that. So it's classic bottle workout is sprinting. 20 seconds sprints, 10 seconds rest, eight rounds and like believe me you will be. You can also do it with various other body weight exercises, jump roping, burpees, all those types of fun things. It's not super fun, its really hard, but it's four minutes and you're literally done. So they're amazing.
Allan (24:26): Yeah. I've, I've structured workouts with using the Tabata and you know, it's like just something as simple as the body weight squat and I've seen, you know, people that I've been training and if I'm doing a group training, I'll tell someone if you're really, really fit and you want to make this kind of exciting, add little plyometric jump at the end. So you do jump squats if you're really, really, if you're, if you're less so than, than just just do the body weight squats, but just keep moving, keep moving. And invariably, after about round four, we start finding out who you know, was really what they thought. And anyone that started with jump squats is typically typically, slowing down and now just doing squats, body weight squats, and they get a great workout. And that's why they were hugely fit.
Allan (25:09): But it's again, the intensity of this and the short recovery periods, it's just something that's really, really gonna tax you. And there's one you had in the book that I really liked, an example of a way to adapt to a tabata because the original Tabata basically had four set exercises that you have to go through and we've adapted that now using different exercises. But the burpee mountain climber, is one good example you gave him. Could you explain how we can, we can basically do a Tabata using the burpee and the mountain climber as the exercises.
Krista (25:39): I don't know if that one in the book was the tabata, was it the alternate with the rest?
Allan (25:45): Yeah, you alternate. Yeah. You alternate. It was not the rest. The mountain climber was not the rest. It's just, yeah, it was just an alternating of the two exercises.
Krista (25:52): So all you're going to do with that one is start with 20 seconds of burpees, take your 10 seconds of rest and then 20 seconds of mountain climbers. And so you're going to end up going four of each and it's gonna feel a little brutal, but it's going to be really, really effective. And the other cool thing that I think about this type of training is it never gets any easier no matter how fit you get. It will never be easy because of it is, it just means you're not pushing yourself hard enough. So it's a way to constantly improve and progressing as an athlete.
Allan (26:29): And as you mentioned earlier, if you're counting your reps, then at the end, you know, okay, when I first started doing this burpee mountain climber Tabata, you know, I was maybe doing six, like I said, maybe in the 20 seconds, maybe four burpees, and maybe eight mountain climbers and now, you know, I noticed when I started, I'm actually getting the sixth one and you know, or the 12th one in and then I'm still doing more at the end because my stamina has improved so much. So yeah, it is something that, you know, when you're, when you're training and even training with someone else. So if you've got someone else you're training with and there maybe you're maybe more fit than they are or they're a lot more fit than you are, it doesn't matter because you're, you're in your own battle, you're in your own head and soon enough you're not paying attention to anybody. But just trying to catch your breath.
Krista (27:17): Yeah. You don't care what the other persons doing.
Allan (27:20): Not at all. Yes.
Krista (27:24): People of all levels can train together, its great.
Allan (27:27): And I think that's what's really cool. You know, like I said, we all train together or we can train at home. And we're using our body weight and we're using the benefits of HIIT training to basically come away with being better athletes. And by athlete as we mentioned earlier, its just being able to perform better in everything we want to do.
Krista (27:45): Yes,
Allan (27:46): I define wellness as being the healthiest, fittest, and happiest you can be. What are three strategies or tactics to get and stay well?
Krista (27:55): I liked that definition of wellness. I mean I guess my obvious first answer is movement. So move a little every single day and you know, do some sort of workout on a regular basis. Whether it's you just try to figure out what works for you. So if you start out with a couple of HIIT workouts a week and then maybe do some slower body weight movements and walks the other days, whatever it is, just really make sure that movement is built into your life cause it's going to make everything better.
Krista (28:29): And another thing that I really highly recommend, especially for people who maybe be struggling with anxiety or overwhelm or things like that, is paying attention to breathing. So I really like this style of breathing called box breathing. And that's essentially where you're breathing in through your diaphragm and out with an exhale for you can start with an inhale, a four and an exhale, a four. Do it for five minutes or something. You don't have to do it for very long. And it's gonna really help calm the anxiety, calm your nerves, reset your nervous system. It's a great thing to start your day with. I highly recommend it for people who haven't tried it. It feels a little weird at first, especially the diaphragm style breathing because it's like you're breathing through your stomach more than your chest, but it makes a big difference.
Krista (29:32): The other thing that I recommend is kind of, I consider wellness but to always be learning something. So whether that's learning a physical skill or you know, training for something like a tough Mudder, or taking an online class of something that you've always wanted to learn, reading a cool new book that you're excited about. Having something like that going on at all times. It's really great for your mental health and all of this is great for your physical health too. So all of the physical, mental well being. So it's in my mind it's all connected.
Allan (30:16): Great. The book is called the 12 Minute Athlete. And what I really like about it is that it is bodyweight. It is something you can do at home. You've put the progressions there. They're images. And I can say this, I train, I train a lot of blind individuals with my online training. In fact, they now a large percentage of my clients are vision impaired and you do a really good job of explaining each exercise, each movement along with the images, but just the explanation itself is really, really good to learn each of these exercises and their progressions. If someone wanted to learn more about you and more about the book, Krista, where would you like for me to send them?
Krista (30:55): You can find 12-Minute Athlete pretty much by searching anywhere these days, which is great, but you can go to 12minuteathlete.com or an app or at 12-minute athlete on social media, the book you can find on any online retailer, Amazon, all those good places. So it's pretty easy to find now.
Allan (31:17): Okay, well you can go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/435 and I'll be sure to have links there. Krista, thank you for being a part of 40+ Fitness.
Krista (31:27): Thank you so much for having me. This was awesome.
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Transcript
Allan (01:06): Garrett, welcome to 40+ Fitness.
Garrett (01:08): Hey, how are you?
Allan (01:09): Doing all right. I'm doing all right. Getting by, I guess sad. I'll just, I'll just put that out there. You know, your book is called Self Care for Men, How to Look Good and Feel Great. And you know, as we've kind of gone through this last, bit of time, the virus and locking ourselves away and not interacting as much. I find that I'm not shaving as often. I'm not doing a lot of things as often. And yeah, so this is a good time for this book to be coming out for me. I mean, it's just something I hadn't really spent much time thinking about until your book brought it to my attention. So I'm glad we're going to have this opportunity to talk about your book.
Garrett (01:49): Me too. Thank you for having me.
Allan (01:51): Now the first question and you know, I have my own opinions on some of this, but why, why do we find it so hard as men to do some of these self care things?
Garrett (02:02): Well, I think ultimately it comes down to a lot of generations of marketing. I mean, you know, so many of the things that we think about when we, when the word self care comes up are we've been told for many, many years that these are feminine things to do, right? Like so I'm talking about things like taking a bath, going to a spa, you know, interacting with skincare, all of that kind of stuff has for some reason been kind of skewed throughout the years as feminine pursuits. But I think that it also has to do with the fact that men are kind of raised oftentimes to be, you know, to, you know, not show emotion, not admit that they have emotion. And you know, it goes back to that kind of strong silent type kind of stereotype. And I think the reality is that men have feelings, men have emotions they need, they have stress and things that kind of fall under the self care umbrella can really help with that. And ultimately it doesn't, you know, I think self care in itself is a very misleading term because so much of that kind of the wellness machine has adopted self care as kind of a blanket term for a lot of “relapsing” things. But self care is really anything that can make you feel better. Right. So I think men in many ways are already doing things that can be considered self care, but they might not even know it yet.
Allan (03:45): Yeah. And you know me, as I kind of looked at it, I thought, you know, I tend to not solve a problem until I know there's a problem. So like if you know, I don't take care of my feet, wintertime comes along, they get dry, invariably they crack and so there's pain and so then I'll, I'll, I'll deal with that pain. But it's not something that I consciously would think about caring for my feet on a day to day basis.
Garrett (04:09): Yeah. I think that, you know, one of the differences between women and men is that I think women have grown up kind of understanding the importance of prevention. And you know, it goes into a lot of things that goes into health. It goes into aging, it goes into skincare, it goes into grooming. And I think a lot of men are like you and I, you know, like they start doing something when they first see the problem, right? So they might start noticing wrinkles around their eyes and that's when they start using eye cream. Or like you said, the, you know, your feet, when they start hurting then you start doing something about it. But you know, I think that a lot of self care is not, you know, that's what kind of what I was kind of saying before about how you know, you might already be doing some things but you, but men can oftentimes benefit from reframing how they think about stuff. So like, you know, the, I think one of the big things about self care, especially when it comes to things like, you know, skincare or grooming specifically is, you know, you're not doing it to solve a problem per se. You're doing it for the benefit that you get from the process and less of like, you know, pursuing like an end goal.
Allan (05:28): Yeah. I kind of equate it, you even said this in the book a little bit. We do, we do these things. We lift weights or we go running. We try to lose a little bit of weight before we get to the summertime. So we look better with a shirt off. We're doing things, we're just not as proactive as women tend to be with some of these things.
Garrett (05:49): Yeah. And you know, I think that like what, you know, what you said, you had, you said something completely correct, which is like, you know, one of the things that men are already doing oftentimes is exercising. Right. But most men are doing that because, Oh, I want to look good. I want to, you know, have some muscles. I want to look great on the beach this summer. All of that kind of stuff. And that's part of it. Of course, you know, exercise does make you look better. But you know, I think coming up something like exercise from a self care perspective is all about kind of switching your mentality. So it's like I'm exercising because of how it makes me feel. I feel better, I have more energy, I sleep better, I am a little bit happier. All of all of those, you know, reasons are great self care reasons to do things like exercise. And they're, you know, they're real. It's, it's been proven that, you know, when you do exercise, you, you release endorphins, you sleep better you know, all of that kind of stuff. So it's not, it's not necessarily, that's kind of going back to the whole like end goal thing. I mean ideally we would exercise because we want to right, not because we feel like we have to. And I think that's an important shift that we can make from a self care perspective.
Allan (07:17): Yeah. Now, one of the core reasons I think a lot of people do get into this and you mentioned a little bit was we start to, we start to see our age, particularly on our face but pretty much everywhere. But the face tends to be kind of one of us first things you wake up in the morning and start noticing, you know, wrinkle here, something there. What can men do to look and feel younger?
Garrett (07:38): I mean, when it comes to your face specifically, I mean I think that when guys start to see wrinkles, that's when they start thinking about anti-aging. But one thing that I've noticed lately is a lot of, you know, men are starting to interact with this younger and younger. And the thing is that it's basically impossible to completely reverse wrinkles just from products. But some of the things that are really beneficial are, you know, wearing sunscreen every single day. That's a huge thing for men of all of every age. I mean, sunscreen is not only the most important anti-aging product we could possibly use, but it also prevents, you know, skin cancer and sun damage. So that's a really important thing. I think every single dermatologist would recommend daily sunscreen, no matter if you're going outside or not. You know, things like vitamin C can be really good because they're antioxidants and they have been shown to really prevent aging, using eye creams are really great.
Garrett (08:48): A lot of times most men notice the first signs of aging around their eyes. So using eye cream at night, you know, maybe in the morning can really help kind of prevent further for their wrinkles. And you know, honestly just like using a, you know, daily moisturizer, those are really when when your skin is dry, it looks older and it has a harder time kind of rebuilding itself. So I think a lot of men, especially older men, don't necessarily think about wearing something like a moisturizer every day, but they really should.
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Allan (11:47): Now a lot of the things that we would do for self care, like you had said earlier, we are doing them, we just haven't really put them in the category of self care. And one that was really important, I'm glad you covered in the book is improving our sleep. If someone wanted to go through a practice and start doing some things to improve their sleep, what would you recommend?
Garrett (12:06): I mean that's the sleep is a really, really important thing and I'm not going to say that I am like the best sleeper. I think we all have issues around sleep. And I do notice, I think you're right. Sleep is a really important thing, not just for from a self care but from a health and wellness perspective. I mean one of the biggest buzzwords right now is sleep hygiene. And I just think that has to do a lot with how you kind of set yourself up for success when it comes to sleep. You kind of think about it as kind of like your, your nighttime routine, just like you would, you know, brush your teeth, wash your face, you would start kind of setting yourself up for success when it comes to sleep. So some of the things mentioned in the book that are kind of blanket things that you can do.
Garrett (12:57): You can kind of tweak these based on what you kind of find works for you. But some of the classic things are, you know, shutting off your phone about two hours before bedtime. Blue screen light from screens, has been shown to kind of stimulate your brain more. So people that are on their phones or like watching TV right up to bedtime tend to have a harder time falling asleep. Other things like, you know, stopping caffeine earlier in the day. I just read something recently that said up to nine hours before bedtime. I don't know how true that is, but I, you know, I find that if I have caffeine later in the afternoon, I have a really hard time sleeping. So I've been making a conscious effort to do that. You know, one of the biggest things is light.
Garrett (13:49): I think people underestimate how much light pollution impacts their kind of sleep cycle. I know a lot of people use kind of blackout curtains. They'll do their best to kind of block out all of the natural light. Especially if like you live in a city where it never really gets truly dark. I'm in Brooklyn right now and it's really hard to really find a like truly dark place. But you know, that's a really important thing. And then also keeping your bedroom cool. I mean I know that a lot of people like to kind of be cozy and you know, have a warmer room, but you know when you're sleeping, your body temperature lowers. And so some, you know, studies have shown that if you kind of keep your room cooler, it helps your body cool down and reach those kinds of deeper levels of sleep quicker.
Allan (14:48): Now, a lot of the things that you talk about in the book far as self care, baths, skincare, you know working with your face and things like that, these are things that we can build into that sleep hygiene or our evening ritual as you will, to kind of get our body ready to go to sleep. So kind of a double hit in some cases with these if you pair them together and can work them right.
Garrett (15:12): Definitely. I mean, I think there's a few studies out there more from a psychological standpoint that if you kind of cultivate you know, nighttime routine, not just from a sleep hygiene standpoint, but you know, if, you know, for instance, if you brought in, you know, you brush your teeth, you wash your face, you use like a specific, nighttime moisturizer, you might do, you know, put something in like your hair overnight. You kind of start training your mind to know that once you start those steps, you're leading up to sleep. And so one of the things too is if you kind of cultivate this nighttime skincare grooming regimen, it can actually, subconsciously start winding your body down. And also, you know, those things feel good. They really relaxe you. Like putting a lotion on at night that it just, it's just straight up feels good. So it's gonna start chilling you out. It's going to start relaxing you slightly. And then that just kind of primes your brain for great sleep at night.
Allan (16:24): Now, another area that you went into in the book, and I'm glad you did, is about getting outside and doing things like forest bathing or earthing. Could you spend a little bit of time talking about those?
Garrett (16:35): Yeah. You know, that's something that I really love too, and it's, it's hard for me to do myself because of where I live. But, you know, there are, you know, forest bathing and boasting and all of those things. There've been kind of buzzy in the wellness world for some, some years now. But there is actual science behind it. I mean, people think that, Oh, it's, you know, it's just getting outside. I, I already do that. I'm always outside when I'm, you know, walking the dog or I'm doing this thing. But it is different because it basically depends, I mean, these Japanese studies about forest bathing are so, are so cool because they basically show that plants and trees produce these things called fights inside, which is basically protective oils that plants use to kind of protect themselves from infection, disease and all that.
Garrett (17:34): But they actually have a very measurable effect on our immune system and brain. They're kind of emitted in the air. So these molecules, when you're walking around plants and in the forest they were like breathing them. And so one of the comments of forest bathing is kind of going into nature with no intention oftentimes where, you know, we're hiking, we're walking, we're running, we're doing all this stuff, which is great, but we're kind of doing, we're outside with another purpose. So one of the things about forest bathing that I find so cool is that you're going there just to be, right? So you're going out in the forest, or the park or wherever you are, and you're really just spending time there. You're not like trying to get to the next point. You're not trying to reach the top of the mountain. You're not trying to run 15 miles. Like you're just there. Right. And that's really where you've got most of the benefits of, you know, something like forest bathing because you're, you're slowing your body down, you're letting it kind of interact with all of the things around you, like these flights, insides and all that stuff. So you're really getting more benefit from it if you're kind of going there with the intention of actually just, you know, walking or sitting or with just, you know, just to be there in general.
Allan (19:11): Now could you talk a little bit about earthing, cause that's a slightly different topic. It's similar but it's a little bit different.
Garrett (19:18): Yeah, I think earthing is cool. I mean it's really, it's hard for me to do in a city setting, right? But I think if anyone has like a backyard or somewhere that they can just take, you know, take their shoes off and walk around with bare feet or just stand with their feet. It's been shown it has kind of like a, you know, how electrical current or circuits need grounding to, you know, for them to work. It has a very similar effect on our bodies because our bodies have, you know, electricity, they have circuits, they have things. We have constant things, you know, running through our, our nerves in our body. And so energetically it will kind of ground everything and it kind of creates this connection to the earth that as modern humans, we don't typically have because were I was wearing shoes where, you know, we may not even wear, you know, we may not even have like a bare feet in our own homes. And so that can be a very kind of important connection to make every so often with, with the, you know, the ground with nature and it's really just, you know, you could go out to your backyard and take, you know, take your shoes off and just stand there. You don't have to, you know, be in this special place that can, it's just a matter of getting that direct skin to earth connection.
Allan (20:49): Yeah. When I was growing up, one of the things that hit me fairly, fairly early in my adult life was a receding hairline. And by receding, I mean just going away. So I went with it. I just said, okay, if that's the direction we're going, then I'm just going to go with it. And fortunately I look okay. I think I look okay. With a shaved head. I started shaving my head before it was really all that popular. In fact, I don't know that I saw many bald headed men under the age of 60 back when I started shaving my head. But you have a section of book, you kind of get into hair loss and some things we can do if we don't want to go that route or we don't feel like we have the head to have a shaved head. Can you talk about hair loss, and some things we can do to, to keep that from happening?
Garrett (21:35): Definitely. I mean within grooming men being a men's grooming, hair loss is the number one concern for all men. I mean basically think about it, if you're losing your hair, you're not really sure what's happening. It's really stressful. And so that's why something like hair loss can really benefit from like a, you know, self like targeted self care practice because it can not only help actually reduce the hair loss itself, but it can also like, you know, make it less stressful. So I mean ultimately we know that most male hair loss, which happens to almost two thirds of, of men by the time that they're 35 is, you know, it is genetic. So there's not a whole lot you can do to change your genetics. I mean, listen, that's the golden, the golden rule would be like you didn't have to go with it, right?
Garrett (22:32): But I think that understanding what's happening on as soon as it starts to happen can really make a huge difference. I mean like, like you said, one of the options certainly to just shave it all off and just go with that, which I really applaud you for doing that. Because that's not easy for lots of, of, of guys to do, right? We're so attached to our hair, we really put lots of stock and how our hair looks and how full it is and all that stuff. So taking that leap is definitely one of the more extreme things that you can do. But other than that, you know, I think the number one thing that I would always say is to always ask someone, you know a professional because they have options that you might not have access to and they're really experienced in understanding what is causing your hair loss.
Garrett (23:31): I mean, obviously genetics are really, are a huge factor, but there are other things like diet, stress, sleep can even, you know, lack of sleep can even cause it. Lifestyle choices, pollution, there's a whole plethora of things that can contribute to hair loss. I mean, and then they might recommend kind of treatment plan that has various elements to it. One of the classics is obviously Rogaine and Propecia, which are, they've been kind of the most scientifically proven. However, a lot of guys now are really kind of not into those two medicines because they do have lots of possible side effects, one of which is, like lower libido. So a lot of times younger guys don't necessarily want to start on that super early. And then, you know, there's more natural supplements these days. There's one called anyway,anyway.
Allan (24:37): You talked about biotin in the book.
Garrett (24:39): Yeah. Oh yeah. So biotin is like a naturally occurring substance that actually makes up part of what hair is made from. So things like biotin has been shown they won't really regrow hair. I mean, it is impossible. Once hair follicles die, it's impossible to bring them back to life, but they're, you know, it will strengthen your existing hair and kind of make it stronger and build up those follicles and you know, hair shocks so that they're slightly stronger. And some people say that they're less likely to fall out if they're, you know, rooted better in that, in that skin. Some other things too, I mean, diet is obviously a huge part of it. I mean, a lot of guys don't want to hear about things like diet and sleep because they want something that will fix it pretty quick and things, you know, changing your diet and your kind of lifestyle habits can take a really long time.
Garrett (25:43): You know, there are some really cool kind of newer scientific treatments, one of which is PRP. Which stands for platelet rich plasma. That's not something that you can do yourself, but certain providers, certain doctors will be able to do that. And people in the hair loss world are really excited by the results that they're seeing. Basically what it is is they draw blood, they spin it in a machine that will extract the like plasma from your own blood and that's, it's basically like growth factors, right? So then they'll take that plasma and they'll re inject it in to your scalp. And what that does is if you think of your scalp as the garden and you think of your hair as the plants, the PRP is kind of like fertilizer. So it will help kind of stimulate growth in those dormant hair follicles that might not be producing hair at the moment but haven't completely died off yet. And you know the numbers and the studies coming out are really positive so that, you know, that's a more extreme example of something that you could do. But for men that are really concerned with it, it's definitely worth looking into.
Allan (27:13): Garrett, I define wellness as being the healthiest, fitest, and happiest you can be. What are three strategies or tactics to get and stay well?
Garrett (27:21): I think that one of the things that everyone can do is slow down. And whether that means, you know, trying to get a little bit more sleep, trying to start a meditation practice, trying to, you know, change your diet and eat slower and eat healthier, I mean, we're living in this world that really prizes constant momentum and constant work and you know, more, more and more and more. Right? But I think to really kind of attack stress from a self care angle, you need to have at least some time during the day that you slow down. You know, given the current, the last few months here, it's like we're all kind of being forced to do that, which I think is not necessarily a bad thing. And it's about learning how to kind of have some time to yourself and just be without any sort of distraction.
Garrett (28:26): I think another one would be to talk about your, you know, to think about what you're doing for your physical body. I'm not just talking about internally, but I'm thinking externally too. I think we really, you know, men specifically tend to neglect our bodies in a pretty major way. So I think a lot of those things could be, you know, starting like an exercise practice if you don't have one. It could be changing what you do to exercise and do something that is more focused on self care then losing weight or getting muscle, you know it could be, you know, stretching. It could be yoga, it could be all, you know, anything like that. The other thing too is I'm a big fan of skincare and haircare and all of those things for the sake of it and not, like I said earlier to so you know, to reverse wrinkles or make myself look better. You know, I get a lot of pleasure personally from, you know, doing face masks or taking a bath or going to a spa or things like that. And I think to really think about self care as a, I'm doing this for the benefit of just doing it, right.? So I think starting some sort of skin care routine or starting some sort of like regular hair care regimen could be really beneficial for a lot of guys who don't already have that in their lives.
Allan (30:00): Yeah, we're you know, we're in probably one of the most stressful toxic worlds I could possibly imagine at this point. And this is just a good time I think for people to really take a step back and look for ways that they can care for themselves better, particularly men. And so the book is very timely, Self Care for Men, because you have a lot of ideas in there. Some of them don't necessarily attach to self-care straight off the bat getting a tattoo or as you said, like taking a bath. But in the end it is, it is all about looking and feeling our best.
Garrett if someone wanted to learn more about you, learn more about the book. Where would you like me to send them?
Garrett (30:43): My Instagram is probably the best way to reach me. My Instagram is just Garrett Munce. And there's links there to my website, which is garrettmunce.com the book is available on Amazon and Barnes and noble and target and a few other retailers across the country. You can find all of that and so on my Instagram.
Allan (31:09): okay, you can go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/434 and I'll be sure to have links there. So Garrett, thank you so much for being a part of 40+ Fitness.
Garrett (31:19): Thank you so much for having me. This was awesome.
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Dr. Anna Cabeca blends the benefits of the Ketogenic diet and eating alkaline foods in her new book, Keto-Green 16.
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Allan (01:45): Dr. Cabeca, welcome to 40+ Fitness. Again.
Dr. Cabeca (01:48): Great to be here with you, Allan.
Allan (01:50): I'm pretty excited to have you here because you know when, when keto first came out, people started calling it the bacon diet and of course all the people that were on keto were like, yeah, you get to eat bacon, isn't that great. But it's not a bacon diet and your book, Keto Green 16 I think really is a good guideline for how you can eat keto and eat healthy at the same time.
Dr. Cabeca (02:15): Yes. And the intention was that through my experience going keto and then really struggling and going keto crazy as I like to say, was finding a really healthy way to do it because really getting keto in the healthiest way possible after, during perimenopause and well beyond is essential, is essential for women.
Allan (02:37): Yeah. And I think that's one of the things that is kind of a differentiator out there is whenever something like this comes up, be paleo or keto or even vegan, we like to batch everybody together and say, this is the diet, this is how you need to eat and keto is very much that way too. It said, okay, you eat this amount of fat, you eat this amount of carbs, you eat this amount of protein, go. And it really didn't give anybody any guidelines on how to get proper nutrition.
Dr. Cabeca (03:04): Right. Exactly. And one of the things I've done is, create a keto calculator, especially again for women. Women have to do keto differently than men Allan. And it's important to understand that because men have 10 times as much testosterone as women. But looking at our healthy fats and the kind of fats we eat, but always balancing it with high quality protein and lots of fiber from low carbohydrate greens that just, that's a shift. There's so many physiologic and chemical reasons for the shift. But for me it was game changing. And this was, gosh, way back when I was 48 and I was hitting what I like to call my second menopause because I was diagnosed with menopause at age 39. I have not had an easy medical, personal life, but at age 39 diagnosed with early menopause and then reversed it to go on and have a baby at age 41 and then at 48 experiencing these really harsh symptoms of weight gain despite not doing anything different. That weight gain, despite not doing anything different. Man, it is a complaint that patients would come in and tell me about. And until I experienced it myself humbly, I admit this to you, Allan, is that, you know, I was like really sure. How could that be possible? Right? But that happened to me,
Allan (04:26): right? And I think that's one of the kind of the misnomers out there. I guess myths out there is that, Oh, if you're, if you're gaining weight, you must have obviously be eating more. But the reality is that's not necessarily true in many cases. It just means that some of our key hormones are out of balance and we're not managing those well. But The keto green diet that you have, it can really help us manage these hormones in the book you identify and the 13 key weight loss hormones. And I would love to go back through those cause I think most of them I've talked about at one point or another on the podcast, but it'd be really nice to just kind of have them like wrapped in a bow right here. Could you take just a few minutes to go over what I call it, the weight loss hormones?
Dr. Cabeca (05:08): Yeah, absolutely. And I think like, you know, we just go over, these hormones work intricately individually and so they're so interconnected. They are so interconnected and we start with cortisol, and so really call it the weight gain hormone versus a weight loss hormone. But it is when we get cortisol and balance that can really help trim us down. But cortisol being our, it's the hormone of precedence right now during our stressful times and our stressful situation that we're in right now. And this is the stress hormone that increases glucose in our body because we need more fuel when we're stressed to survive, thrive, Brian move. And also it is, you know, whether it's a physical stress or mental stress or perceived stress, that inreases, increases cortisol and that will also cause weight gain. Cortisol will affect our thyroid and will affect our decrease our progesterone or neuroprotective hormone.
Dr. Cabeca (06:10): So we can have more emotional swings during this time, more moodiness. And it can also be when cortisol goes up, oxytocin goes down and that's one of the other hormones. Now oxytocin is one of my favorite hormones. It is the love connection hormone bonding hormone. It's the hormone we experience in abundance with orgasm, with pleasure, with laughter, with play. And it is a powerful alkalinizing, anti-inflammatory and regenerative hormone. We've looked at studies and older population looking at oxytocin on muscle cell growth and increased oxytocin, increases muscle cell regeneration, which we need, especially as we're getting older. So that hormone oxytocin, it's really important to understand. And in my first book, the Hormone Facts, I spent a whole, I spent a lot of time discussing the interrelationship between cortisol and oxytocin. And it's worth mentioning now, Allan, because in this stress time we're often, we're increasing cortisol, which also breaks down willpower.
Dr. Cabeca (07:27): So if we're experiencing cravings or I've had some clients who have relapsed and we have this discussion was like, look, this is a function of the physiology of what you're experiencing. So let's, you know, right back on, let's create the practices and principles that are going to keep us healthy, sane, and on course during this time. So it, you know, it's really that big, it's really a big deal. And when cortisol goes up, oxytocin goes down. It's kind of like the Seesaw. Cortisol goes up, oxytocin goes down. And so we feel more disconnected, less enthusiasm. And you know, we're really struggling already. Our healthcare providers are really struggling with burnout. And so add on the added stressors, we're experiencing that even more. But when cortisol is up for a longer time period, and this is really important, is that cortisol is up for a long time period an area in our brain are basically is saying, okay, shut down, you're frying me out.
Dr. Cabeca (08:28): So cortisol goes low and oxytocin goes low at the same time and we get into this dangerous disconnect, this dangerous cortisol. So I went oxytocin, slow burnout. It's the physiology of divorce, it's the physiology of burnout, it's the physiology of trauma and PTSD for a long period of time. And you know, and so it's often what I see very much in my clients who've experienced trauma or PTSD. I see this physiologic condition and oxytocin though as far as when it comes tying it back into weight loss hormone, we know when we fall in love, like we're not hungry, we lose weight, we feel better. That's oxytocin and we want to keep that stronger. And so the next hormone that I talk about in my book is insulin. The more insulin sensitive we become, the more resilient we become. And this is needed now more than ever.
Dr. Cabeca (09:27): Blue coasts can affect your immune system negatively. Too much sugar in your system. Yeah, and insulin. As we become more insulin resistant, that also negatively affects our immune system, but the more insulin sensitive we become through going Kito, Keto Green and intermittent fasting and extended fasting. That impact that again increases insulin resistance. What I've seen in my clients in that following my new book, the keto green 16 plan I've seen in in just as little as one month a woman at 50 year old woman's hemoglobin A1C go down from 60 to 5.4. 6.0 sorry, 6.0 to 5.4 in just one month, which is huge because if we move a point like a 0.1 if we move that work static, she went down six points in just one month so..
Allan (10:28): And so she's no longer diabetic.
Dr. Cabeca (10:30): She is no longer pre-diabetic. This is exactly right. Exactly right and just one month and so what a shift and the lower hemoglobin A1C, the less inflammation in our body, a gold target number for hemoglobin C is 5.0 and again a huge marker of insulin. So in Keto Green 16 we've really come a long way and to creating this in, you know, this increasing insulin sensitivity and the more insulin sensitive we are, the less hungry we are too, the more willpower we have, the less inflammation we have.
Allan (11:05): And that's because our body's able to pull our own body fat to basically give us the energy to do the things we're doing. We don't necessarily need that sugar for fuel to do it.
Dr. Cabeca (11:15): Right. Right.
Allan (11:17): Now you also talk about the other sex hormones, estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone, can you talk a little bit about those?
Dr. Cabeca (11:25): Yeah, it's estrogen, progesterone, testosterone and DHEA. These are really well known as our reproductive hormones, our sex steroids, such as estrogen and testosterone specifically. But these are all involved and these are the hormones that we think about predominantly when we're thinking about reproduction. And as a gynecologist and obstetrician, these are hormones that I spent, and their pathways, I spent years studying. But this is where it kinda, you know, when I think about when it goes back to it, you know, cortisol, insulin and oxytocin are the major hormones and these kind of in under those. And so with all of these hormones, estrogen, progesterone and testosterone and DHEA, they all have a role in our metabolism and are, you know, they either they help to build us up, especially testosterone and DHEA, our more androgenic hormones and DHEA being pro- hormone that is needed to make testosterone and estrogen. So, and DHEA is a hormone that is depleted in times of stress, in favor of producing cortisol. So when we need to make cortisol, we're going to make cortisol over DHEA.
Allan (12:38): Yeah. Because we don't need to reproduce. If we're, if we're running for our lives, then we're not thinking about offspring at that point in time.
Dr. Cabeca (12:45): Exactly. Our body is conserving our reproductive potential. It's conserving everything to go towards the production of cortisol. And cortisol also will cause the depletion of progesterone because cortisol is made a derived from progesterone. So as we make cortisol, this very important progesterone is one of our mother hormones, not as it only, it's in men and women pro. It's comes from the words pro life essentially pro gestation, pro pregnancy, pro life. And progesterone is a neuroprotective hormone in both men and women. There have been many studies with progesterone in traumatic brain injury. Initial studies were done at my Alma mater, at Emory university in the ICU and the intensive care unit at Emory's, the neuro intensive care unit and looked at giving IV progesterone in clients with traumatic brain injury. And what the preliminary research showed is that when given bioidentical progesterone, patients who had traumatic brain injury fared much better. It's really fascinating on this aspect. This is a little tangent, but you don't mind Allan, do you?
Allan (14:00): Not at all. Not at all. I'm always out to learn something new.
Dr. Cabeca (14:04): Well it's so fascinating about this experience with pedestrian is that when they noted that women who were pre-menstrual had and had a traumatic brain injury, fared better than others who were not. So that's where the original research, a very observant clinician, made the observation and that led to the study of progesterone as a resuscitative measure, essentially in traumatic brain injury, both men and women. And from there, there's so much research on progesterone. We are in the infancy. I have no doubt that progesterone will be used and more highly recommended in the perimenopause menopause time period as well as a little bit for men. As we get older, for neuroprotective ability. It also boost our immune system supports TH2 immunity. So I just thought that was a fascinating point about progesterone in the brain.
Allan (15:04): It is. It is.
Dr. Cabeca (15:06): And so, so that's, that's pretty much that. And then when I talk about other hormones in the book, it's also the hormones of Thai tea and hunger. So leptin and Ghrelin are two other hormones that I talk about and we can be them resistant. I mean leptin resistant. So just like with insulin, like we never satisfied there in that song. Have you seen the musical Holton?
Allan (15:31): I'm sorry I haven't, no, I'm not a big, I'm not a big musical guy.
New Speaker (15:38): Oh my gosh, you've gotta listen to this musical. The music is bull and actually the producer perform for the white house for a bog, you know, and, and it's been, see, so it is, it just spending way, there's a song that I will never be satisfied that that's leptin resistance. That's leptin resistance. So that feeling of never actually like, okay, I've eaten. Why am I hungry again?
Dr. Cabeca (16:05): I'm never feeling satisfied. And that's kind of where leptin resistance comes in too. And then Ghrelin is our hunger hormone. When we start fasting, we can get really, really hungry and we know we're not going to die, right? We know that we're not going to die. We can go a long time without food. We can really go months without food, not without water. But we can go months without food. And Ghrelin hormone though when you're fasting peaks at day two of your fasting. So just like anything else, when we start doing more of the intermittent fasting and prolonged fasting, note that that is like increasing Ghrelin sensitivity so to speak is a muscle. Like anything else that we're going to exercise, we are going to work to build up to do longer and longer fast. But day two, Ghrelin this hunger hormone is peaking, making us think that we're going to die because we're, we're so hungry.
Dr. Cabeca (16:55): Just take some deep breaths, drink plenty of water and, do you know that will go away by day three you're like, Oh man, I continue fasting for quite awhile. So that's that Ghrelin hunger hormone. Okay.
Allan (17:09): And then you also in the book, I think you talked about adiponectin?
Dr. Cabeca (17:14): Oh my gosh. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks. Yeah, I left adiponectin now. I love adiponectin. This is really fascinating. I really just began to learn, I think there's so much to learn about adiponectin, but just like our sex hormones, adiponectin decreases as we age. There is an internal clock somewhere that manages adiponectin secretion because I think this is the reason why we gained weight as we're getting older without doing anything different. I mean there's a combination, but adiponectin to play right into this. This has to relate to our metabolism. And the higher adiponectin is the higher our metabolism is. So intermittent fasting can, and getting Keto Green, getting into ketosis in a healthy way can really help improve levels of adiponectin to we're actually increasing our metabolism.
Allan (18:05): Now, one of the things about the Keto Green 16 is that it's an alkaline style of eating. Can you explain why that's important.
Dr. Cabeca (18:15): Yes. Well, you know, it goes back to kind of my story. As I turned 48 and I was gaining weight without doing anything different, I knew, and I had been well over 240 pounds in the past. I've lost 80 pounds, kept it off for nearly that decade and just started gaining weight and anyone who's lost a significant amount of weight and starts gaining weight, often you feel like, Oh my gosh, when is this ever gonna stop? Like, I'll be 300 pounds before this weight gain stops because I, nothing I'm doing is causing and I'm not, you know, I'm like, I'm not going through Starbucks. I'm not going through Dunkin donuts. I'm not doing anything different than what I've been doing. And it's very frustrating. It has to do a lot with these hormones. And also again, the stress hormone, the stress hormones as well.
Dr. Cabeca (19:03): But I went straight keto. I'm like, okay, I've used this for my patients with neurologic symptoms and basically a modified form for my patients on candida protocols and, or who have had chronic yeast infections. And so I just really restrict carbs, increasing fats and protein. And within a few short days, I was feeling very, you know, it's not keto flu. It was really, I call it keto crazy. I was irritable, agitated on edge, and I was a single mom of teenagers. There's no way that I or my daughters could survive me going keto. And I was very interested. I'm a scientist. I was a scientist for the us Navy before I went to medical school, I studied metabolism and I worked in research and metabolism and I was like, well, what is going on here? Really what is going on here? And so I started doing what I asked all my patients to do when I detox them.
Dr. Cabeca (20:00): And as part of like a principle for like another vital sign is to check urine pH. And as I was checking my urine pH, I was acidic as the pH paper would read. And this is something everyone listening really should do. It tells us so much about our body, how we're nourishing our body and how we're controlling our stress. Cause lo and behold, the more stressed we are, the more acidic our urine pH is. So it's not just about what I, what we eat. But you know, I did not study that. I observed it. So as I was, you know, as I've recognized how acidic I was, I added in all these very low carbohydrate greens based on science for hormone balance. So the dark leafy, the charred, the collard, the kale, the beet cranes, and then the cruciferous vegetables. This is part of my Keto Green, 16. 16 key foods, scientifically studied and shown to help with hormone balance.
Dr. Cabeca (21:00): And so, you know, the cruciferous vegetables like broccoli and cabbage and cauliflower. Oh my gosh cauliflower mash. So good. Yes. And so incorporated these in. But I also noted that on the mornings I walked on the beach or did my gratitude journaling and had my prayer time. My urine pH was more alkaline all day. So I recognized quickly like, okay, well what's the connection here? And that's where I found out that cortisol create by increasing hydrogen ion secretion across the renal tubules, it creates an acidic urine pH. So here we can use urine pH as a vital sign for how, we're affecting ourselves basically epigenetically even. So just that concept of how we are interacting with our environment, not just with what we eat, but with how we think about how we're living, how we're perceived, perceiving life, how we're appreciating each other and how that affects our physiology.
Dr. Cabeca (22:06): So the alkaline piece, I started shifting, getting more of the greens and becoming more alkaline and then pushing into ketosis. And that was like a light bulb moment because I felt so clear that, you know, the keto crazy went completely away. I felt like what I call energized enlightenment. I felt a higher connection to God. I felt just the sense of peace and calm and nothing in my external environment had changed, still had teenagers. Still was a single mom raising kids, solely supporting my family. But my peace and biblically we talk about the peace that surpasses all understanding the peace, which surpasses all understanding. I have a glimpse of that for the first time. And the first time I would say, yeah, basically a decade since I lost my son, I experienced this peace and profoundly so I also got my memory back cause from stress and you know, acidity.
Dr. Cabeca (23:07): I had brain fog and was thinking I felt like this early signs of dementia and as so many of my patients would come in and say this to me, right. But, like they were experiencing these symptoms. So that's this combination of getting an alkaline urine pH, getting more alkalinizes in your body, using it from the nutritional and lifestyle approach and getting into ketosis, getting into ketosis. Oh my gosh. That combination, energized, enlightenment, clarity. I could never have written a book, let alone two. And you know, I probably, you know, and even run my business. I just want to say exponential from near broke to a very, very purposeful and profitable business.
Allan (23:54): Yeah. And, and I'll also attest if you're, you know, writing a book is not an easy task in and of itself, but doing that while you're also running a business and doing the kids and everything else and trying to keep it all together that is a huge, huge thing.
Dr. Cabeca (24:12): Oh, I second that too. And I know you're writing a book right now too. I mean, it is a challenge. Kudos to you. Because for 10 years, for over a decade, I wanted to write a book. I never was able to get a page done. And this state of being and this clarity is just hugely transformative. And which is what we need. And especially for women. That's my area. Women are my area of focus and my priority, sorry Allan and all you men who are listening, but when women are better, you guys are better too. You know that.
Allan (24:44): True story. True story and I think the other thing that I'd like to mention is the foods that you're talking about, the leafy greens and the cruciferous and you also in the book you talk about some of the fermented foods as well. All of those are feeding your gut, which is a big, huge, I mean, it's a huge part of our immune system. So in addition to the clarity and the other things that are going well for you being in this keto alkaline state, you're also making sure that you're giving your body what it needs to protect us.
Dr. Cabeca (25:19): Absolutely. Absolutely. It comes down to the micro nutrients over the macro nutrients.
Allan (25:25): Now this diet, I mean, I again, I look at keto and I say, okay, you can't, I don't like to call keto diet because in effect it's, it's, it's more than that if you, if you want to stay this way. I mean, if you want some short term results, yes you can get it. But in the book you talk about 16 days and I see that as a kind of a bite size start where we're going to really learn some things about our eating and our health and our body. Can you talk about why you said 16 what's, what's the key there to 16 days.
Dr. Cabeca (25:55): Sweet 16. I love that number. 16 candles. All girls. All girls.
Allan (26:03): Well girls. Okay. Okay. All girls. Okay. There you go.
Dr. Cabeca (26:07): All girls, one son. Yeah. And and so the 16 has a lot of, like I was thinking about what number would really characterize this plan the best and how quickly can we get results. Right. And also something that's different. So we don't have like patterns of your 14 day or 21 day, so 16 is different. But also from a numeral logic perspective, it's a time of new beginnings. Really. It's time of like claiming your own strengths. And you know, for me it just resonated in a really way that in 16 days, you know, what's the shortest amount of time? Cause we always hear 21 days to change a habit. But I didn't buy that. So I went to the research and I also played around with all different types of programs and lacks of programs. And in 16 days we can get really tremendous results. And so that's my 16.
Allan (27:05): Yeah, and, and I completely agree. If you, if you get past two weeks eating keto and at that point you're keto, somewhat fat adapted, your body's starting to use body fat for energy. You're giving your body that the micronutrients that needs to do the style of eating here. Basically, yes, you're going to start seeing the initial results for this. And most people that I've worked with that go into keto and myself, when I go in and out of ketosis, when I go into ketosis, I'm almost guaranteed to lose five pounds the first week. And then by the 16th day I've probably lost anywhere from 10 to 15 pounds if, if I'm really on it and doing what I'm supposed to be doing. So I agree with you. I think you can see some tremendous results in just the 16 days. In the book you get into keto, clean and keto dirty. Could you take just a moment to get into those two concepts?
Dr. Cabeca (28:02): Well, yes. So when we, as you started this podcast with, you know, the concept of when we think about keto, keto dirty eating bacon, bacon and butter and processed foods and processed cheeses, it certainly will get us into ketosis, but it's not providing our bodies the micronutrients that we need to thrive on. Yes. Can we survive? Sure. But will we thrive, no. And so that's what I call keto, dirty. So there's again, so, so many ways to be keto right? We'll go into ketosis by eating nothing. Right. That's fascinating. We'll go into ketosis by eating nothing but with keto I say Keto Green, keto, dirty versus keto clean, which clean eating healthy food, ideally free range, wild caught, fresh, organic, grown in your backyard. Now I don't know about you, but I'm growing a garden and it is keto. So keto clean is Keto Green and that's the concept of a really balanced, nourishing approach to keto.
Allan (29:03): Yeah. Now you define those other way. I saw you list them in the book, I think you called them the 16 sexy, slim younger foods. Could you take just a minute to kind of go through those really quickly?
Dr. Cabeca (29:14): Yes. Yeah. Happy to. So the 16 foods that really can help support our bodies. Definitely the, I'm a fan, it's an omnivore diet, but in Keto Green 16, I also have a 16 day vegan plan. So substituting out my first three foods, which are B for bison, chicken and fish substitute and got out for black beans, white beans and chickpeas in my vegan plan or Tempe or tofu can always be a non-GMO, can always be substituted. So B or bison, chicken, fish are the key protein sources. And for healthy fat we're looking at our oils. So as another ingredient, for example, our olive oils or nuts or seeds, oils are fine, but olive oil in particular has so many great oleic acid is good for our heart. It's good for our flexibility or blood vessels. So I incorporate that in there as well as healthy fats from avocados.
Dr. Cabeca (30:12): Avocados get a special place in my heart. They're just amazing. They go from making a hearty sandwich to like a key lime pie dessert. I should share my key lime pie avocado recipe. It's really amazing. And so, you know, avocado put into your smoothie just makes it so creamy and delicious is seriously a super food. So, and then nuts and seeds, so nuts specifically that I recommend are Brazil nuts cause they're rich in selenium or pinoli nuts, which are high in fat and fiber. But zero, low, very lowest carbs. And it's just a really delicious nut, and so the certain nuts are available, but also then the cruciferous vegetables and then the dark leafy greens and they each get their own category because I really like the incorporation of a variety of foods. And then we have some citrus lime or lemon as another key ingredient.
Dr. Cabeca (31:12): And I'm missing, and then of course the alliums for sulfation such, so allium such as onions and garlic and the different groups to understand the reasoning for my composition of my recipes as well as choosing these foods. I wanted to cover every pathway for our body to helpfully detoxify our hormones. And so again, whether we're getting hormones exogenously through like hormones we're taking or Xeno estrogens from, even pesticides, herbicides, plastics, parabens and cosmetics and stuff that we're detoxifying them as safely as possible and efficiently as possible. So the food groups I chose were to help with these detoxification pathways, methylation, sulfation and glucuronidation. So that's the, the bulk of the 16 sexy, slim and younger foods.
Allan (32:12): And you do, you have recipes in the book, you have a full meal plan. So it's, it's all out there laid out for us. And again, the vegan version as well. So it's not like you have to go through and decide that you're going to eat the beef and the chicken and the fish if you prefer. You approach us from a vegan perspective, which I think is a new relatively new concept when we start talking about keto. Is that they don't seem like they get along, but you can in fact be keto and vegan.
Dr. Cabeca (32:39): Yeah, you can. And it's, it's really good periodically to lay off the, you know, animal meats, I say at least once or twice a year. I mean, we can all do that, you know, and its just to give your body and a chance to rest and increase the fiber to help with Kalanick health and that can make a big difference too, to do periodic fasting from meat in general.
Allan (33:04): Well, there you go with that. There you go with that F word again. And I just want to explain why you have another F word in the book. So you do talk about fasting, but you also talk about feasting.
Dr. Cabeca (33:14): Yeah.
Allan (33:15): Because we don't just fast or we don't just eat keto. You do have periods of time when you kind of, I guess for lack of a better word, the way we would say it in the bodybuilding or the exercise field is, is that you basically carb load or you actually do bring in more carbs for a period of time. Can you, can you talk about that process?
Dr. Cabeca (33:33): Yeah, that's essential. It's essential. That's what bodybuilders know, right? The importance of carb loading, but also metabolic flexibility and that's the reason we feast metabolic flexibility. Plus I'm a natural glutton. I love my feasting. I love it.
Allan (33:52): Now you are a big fan also of measuring, so measuring your glucose, measuring your ketones and as you mentioned earlier, your pH. You talk a little bit about that measurement and how we should go about that, particularly during these 16 days.
Dr. Cabeca (34:05): Yeah. You know if anyone has access to get the freestyle Libra prescribed by their physician, it should be over the counter, but it's not, it's a continuous monitor that goes in your arm. It's like a patch basically that sticks on your arm. It has a small filament that goes into the tissue and stays there for two weeks. But that's a way to continuously monitor your blood sugar. I wore that, I've worn that basically on and off for the past year, almost continuously for measuring the food and the food choices and the menu combinations and my plan for Keto Green 16. And it's so fascinating to see how, what increases your blood sugar and what doesn't. So in the keto world, you'll often hear, we'll have a cup of coffee while I had, you know, also in where, you know, I knew that coffee was impairing me from weight loss.
Dr. Cabeca (34:58): It was creating a plateau and I struggled with it. Cause every time I would take my coffee break, I would easily lose three to four pounds in a week. And I was like, how does that make sense? Coffee has no calories. But yes, in some of us it increases and most of us it increases cortisol, which will then increase glucose. So that was by theory. But when I started wearing this patch, Allan, I saw my blood sugar in the morning just drinking a cup of coffee. And even if I was reading or whatever, but just to drinking a cup of coffee, my blood sugar was going up 20 to 30 points, easy in the morning. Isn't that fascinating?
Allan (35:32): You're right and it's taxing your insulin because now your pancreas has to pump out a bunch of insulin to say, Hey, let's fix this problem. So the brain doesn't freak out because you know, no one wants to get mom mad. So we gotta clean up this mess. And yeah, so you, you're not losing any body fat at that point. And it's actually probably then putting you back into a point where now you're, your blood sugar drops too fast because you didn't actually eat anything. And then now you're wanting to, you know, now you're hungry now, now you're hangry. You're wanting to actually add that sugar. So yeah, I could see that being a big trigger for folks to know. And so measuring your blood glucose, measuring your ketones, measuring your pH will give you kind of the, the general scope of knowing that you're on track with this.
Dr. Cabeca (36:19): Yeah, it absolutely will, and you know, I'm a big fan of exactly what gets measured, gets managed. And so periodically, you know, weighing and definitely measuring urine pH and ketones to start is essential to discover what's working for you and what's not working for you and personalizing your nutritional and lifestyle plan.
Allan (36:44): Yeah. And you actually have on your site, I think you have, you sell some strips that you can measure your pH and your ketones all at the same time.
Dr. Cabeca (36:54): Yeah, I made them, I had them manufactured for me because I didn't like having two separate strips. And what's really unique about these, then I found out because ketones and pH, that's an acid and a base. They were running into each other. So I had to put a blank strip in between, blank pad. So on one strip you can measure both your urine ketones and your urine pH.
Allan (37:14): Okay, good, good. Now I define wellness as being the healthiest, fittest and happiest you can be. What are three strategies or tactics to get and stay well?
Dr. Cabeca (37:24): You know, we just talking about test don't guess, and I'm going to tell you that especially now in times of increased stress is really getting control of our mental and personal mental atmosphere by testing, testing, urine, pH. I mean, it's just easy to do. It's so enlightening. So that's number one. And number two is that second part is gaining control of our mental atmosphere. Where we direct our thoughts is where we go physiologically. So shifting that to being the healthiest, most brilliant, sexiest selves we can be is key for resilience and managing cortisol and increasing oxytocin. So that's key. And the third part is regarding a strategy or tactics to get and stay well is it's, you know, so many, but you know, I'm trying to debate between sleep and, and movement. And I would just say movement, movement, flexibility on a regular basis, working out, dancing, exercising, getting up and moving together is so critically important. And especially now as the first couple of weeks of quarantine, I was like, I was, you know, definitely not moving so much. And now I've made it a principal to get on my walking desk treadmill to get outside when I can and to really make sure that in my life and in my children's life, we are moving and moving together.
Allan (38:55): Cool. Well, Dr. Cabeca, thank you so much for being on the podcast. If someone wanted to learn more about you and your book and all the things that you're doing, where would you like for me to send them?
Dr. Cabeca (39:06): Ooh, I would love them too. I would love them to, so come to my, DrAnna.com. That's my website. And there's lots of good information plus the book bonuses and information you can get Keto Green 16 anywhere books are sold. But one thing that I do encourage also is creating this healthy community. So join me on my Instagram page and in Facebook where I have my, keto green community and it's just likeminded people working through this together.
Allan (39:37): Okay. You can go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/433 and I'll be sure to have links there. So Dr. Cabeca, thank you for being a part of 40+ Fitness.
Dr. Cabeca (39:48): I'm honored. Thank you for having me.
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