Dr. Cole: 05:12 But inflammation is so much more and it's impacting so much more, more in more ways than people realize. So when you dealing with autoimmune issues, that's inflammatory, diabetes and heart disease and cancer, those are all inflammatory. And then mental health issues like anxiety and depression and brain fog and fatigue. There's a whole field of scientific literature kind of circling around what's known as the cytokine model of cognitive function. It's basically how inflammation cytokines are pro-inflammatory cells, how inflammation is impacting how our brain works. So it's so far reaching a chronic inflammation is, so I wanted to really give people tools to help to empower them because are largely overcomeable and reversible and he liberal and man at the very, very least manageable things.

Allan: 06:04 Yeah. I, you know, I'll have a conversation with a client and you know, then they might tell me, you know, I've, I've got a little bit of swelling and soreness and it's a little warm in my knee because they're having gout. And you know, from that perspective, they know, okay, there's an inflammation there. That's what that, that's what that is. But understanding what we can actually do with our food to kind of solve that, I think is really a critical tool because sometimes the doctors can't do anything but give you a medication. And you hope that it's going to work.

Dr. Cole: 06:37 Right? Right. Well, yeah. I mean, I think the training in that model of care and mainstream medicine is largely that it's to diagnose a disease and match it with the medications. So with inflammatory issues, it's, you know, if you're on, if you have an autoimmune condition, you're giving steroids or immunosuppressants to lower the autoimmune and inflammatory response. If you have a blood sugar problem, a diabetes, you're going to be given a medication or an injectable insulin and so on and so forth. I mean, these are all, well, what's, what's actually causing these in the first place? These are not, these health problems are not due to a medication deficiency. So hello, it's actually find, okay, let's deal with the inflammation because the body is interconnected and inflammation in one area can be get inflammation in other areas. But also the question that I'm having in the book is what's driving the inflammation too. So looking at food and looking at chronic infections and gut issues and all of these things that can drive the inflammation

Allan: 07:38 And, and one of the concepts she got into early in the book, and I'm glad you did this because I'll be talking to folks in like, you know, everybody should eat this way. Everybody should do this thing. This is the right way. And I'm thinking, well, no, it's not because things that I do today you know, I couldn't get, you know, I, I can't do today that I was doing back when I was younger. So there's this concept you bring up called bio individuality that can get a little bit into that concept. And then one basic question I have beyond that is we change over time or something happens where we're able to tolerate less, or is it just that we've always had the sensitivity, it just built up to a chronic state?

Dr. Cole: 08:19 Well, I'll probably a bit of both depending on who you're talking to. I think these largely are chronic health problems is this is the inflammation spectrum itself where you have mild symptoms like mild fatigue or background anxiety maybe might allow some mild digestive problems on one end of the inflammation spectrum all the way to the other end, which is the autoimmune disease or the, you know, whatever diagnosis call you're talking about. And then everything in between. So part of that is just the fact that when you're on with the lower end of the inflammation spectrum, things are going to be less volatile and less prone to flares when you're on the lower end of the inflammation spectrum. But the more you're progressed on that road, things are more volatile and you have less wiggle room. You ha you have less leeway as far as what you got away with quote unquote, before when you were lower on the inflammation spectrum scale.

Dr. Cole: 09:14 So that's part of it. And by the, some, by the time someone's diagnosed with an autoimmune condition or diabetes or any other chronic health problem, the things were brewing, like the inflammation spectrum was brewing for four to 10 years prior to that. From that diagnosis, meaning when someone's diagnosed with, with autoimmune condition or diabetes or any other chronic health problem, it didn't happen overnight. It took time. So definitely that's a component to it. And one that I talk about at length in the book and then the other is that there's a lot of variables to consider. I think that bio-individuality is definitely the heart of functional medicine and we have to find out what our body loves beyond food tribalism or you know, like a, a trend or F bad, like what's actually right for you. And that's that self exploration that I wanted the reader to go through.

Dr. Cole: 10:08 And it's a process that I coach patients through and consult them with to start asking these questions, start looking at these areas around their life that impact how they feel, the impacts, their energy levels or the digestion or their inflammatory symptoms. No matter how it's manifesting in their life. So it's definitely the book is while it's giving people pointers and giving statistics on things ultimately I'm teaching the reader how to find out what their body loves and hates. It's all, I mean, obviously it's under the umbrella of real foods, but underneath the umbrella of real foods, what macros worked for. Somebody like how much proteins, fats and carbs, his bio individual, some people do better on one way, a macro ratio, some people do better on other, same with micronutrients and same with food choices. So we're kind of asking these questions in the book for people to get that food piece that I think a lot of people are really yearning for because there is so much conflicting information and dr Google is like quite a confusing physician when you, you can really use, use Google to substantiate anything that you want to, whether it's your worst fears or an agenda that you have at a click of a button.

Dr. Cole: 11:22 So I really want people to sort of get beyond the noise and really just check in with themselves to see what works for them.

Allan: 11:28 Yeah, dr Google scares me, but dr Facebook really just terrifies me. You know, I read the posts on there and someone's like, well, you know go on a dry fast. I'm like, well, okay you know, some of those things just scare me to no end that. And so, you know, understanding what works for you I think is critically important and not just doing what someone else does because they said at work, you know, that's their experiment of one and good for them. I'm glad it worked. But you know, there, there's an approach here. And I like your approach cause you take an, this is actually kind of I'm not gonna that was eye opening, but it was something I knew, but I guess it's intrinsically new, but just really hadn't put them all together to think of it in these terms. But there are eight primary systems that you talk about in the book where inflammation occurs. And as it starts to spike up and one if it's not managed, then it spills over. And so can you kind of talk about the eight primary systems where inflammation occurs?

Dr. Cole: 12:32 Yeah. and again, when I went through the book, it's interesting and you know, cause you read the book, but basically the symbolic meaning of eight and you know, seven is this sort of number of order and systems and completion that we have seven days of the week, et cetera. And, and eight is going to move and beyond that limitations and getting freedom from health problems or freedom from food, disillusionment or whatever. But, and then I saw all these connections like, okay, I normally put people on these, these protocols for like eight weeks. And then I saw, okay, these eight foods that I see clinically and all of the stuff that was born out of my clinical experience, I started seeing these similarities. I'm like, okay, this is a awesome way to make it easy to understand. And I think it was a, a really a powerful thing for me to kind of see the, the synchronicity of a lot of the things I was putting together for the book over the, you know, two years I'd been working on it.

Dr. Cole: 13:28 The so the eight areas of the inflammation spectrum are things that I just see consulting patients and that's my day job is, is not writing books. It's, it's consulting patients online via webcam and kind of seeing the different areas of inflammation in people's body. So we start the book off with a quiz so people can kind of see where they're at on the inflammation spectrum. We actually have the quiz for free on dr wilko.com too, for people who want to just take the quiz. But it's in the book and we look at the brain, we look at the gut. We look at hormones, we look at the blood sugar regulations system. You look at the musculoskeletal system, we look at the detoxification system, we look at the immune autoimmune inflammation spectrum as well. And then the eighth is the interconnectedness of the seven.

Dr. Cole: 14:21 It's the PO concept of poly inflammation or you know, inflammation in one area can have a ripple effect, a down like a, a cascade of inflammation and other areas of the body. So things going on in the gut can impact the brain. Things that happen in the brain can impact the hormones to the brain. Adrenal was the brain, thyroid at the brain, ovarian or to stickler access and so on and so forth. The body is brilliantly interconnected. So for example, if somebody with one auto, I mean conditions that have 50 to 70% risk depending on who you're talking to and the health problem you're talking about. A is at risk for other autoimmune type problems or what's called poly auto immunity, where I got the term poly inflammation. So it's just kind of looking at the different, eh, the types of inflammation. So, depending on your quiz score and where you fall on the inflammation spectrum, which again, this, the quiz is just adapted from questions that I ask patients. And then they, at that point, they can kind of have their own plan that's based on the quiz score that is adapted from protocols that I put patients on. So it is that's, that's what the inflammation spectrum is and those are the, the seven sections and then the eight section being the interconnectedness.

Allan: 15:36 And, and I guess, you know, sometimes it, it's probably difficult to, to know how bad inflammation is affecting, you know, perfect example I'll give you is when I first went on to Quito and all of a sudden, you know, I'm cutting out grains and I actually, I cut out dairy when I first went into ketosis and I was like, wow. I, I didn't realize how foggy things were. So while I didn't recognize that there was you know, there was some, it probably some inflammation there. I, I benefited. And so I think if you're, if you're dealing with stomach issues, like irritable bowel and you start working on that problem, you're probably gonna notice benefits and some of these other systems as well.

Dr. Cole: 16:18 Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. That's something that I sadly, I see on an almost hourly basis. This sort of, it's not one thing, it's a confluence of factors that kind of give rise to some why somebody feels the way that they do.

Allan: 16:32 But we, we almost take it as normal. It's like, you know, that Bob is how we were, you know, I, you know, I can't, I can't eat certain foods because I in all ended up with the stomach problems, so I don't go out with friends anymore. You know? So it's, it, it really is kind of a snowball in that, you know, you're, what you're doing, what you're eating is affecting your life, but what, what you're now not doing is affecting your,

Dr. Cole: 16:56 Your happiness. Yeah. Yeah. And so many people, you're right, just settle for it. Cause they're like, well that's me. Or that's just part of growing older or that's just, they don't even think about it. It's not even, doesn't even give rise to even have thought. They just know that's their limitation or what they struggle with, whether that's energy or a food issue or a digestive problem or any other inflammatory health problem is something that I talk about throughout the book. Cause ubiquity doesn't necessarily equate with normalcy. Just because you're going through something every day doesn't necessarily mean you should settle for it. And yeah, that's the case for a lot of my patients.

Allan: 17:32 Oh wow. Yes. now what you're basically doing with your, you call it the core four and the eliminate they're effectively elimination style diets. But you've set them kind of at two different levels based on how, how we score. So someone who's doing reasonably well, well they can just do the core four. It's an easier program. Someone who's done, I like having some major issues, they may want to go further into eliminate. Can you kind of talk about those two? Compare and contrast them?

Dr. Cole: 18:05 Yeah, sure. So core four is the people that scored lower on the quiz score. And that's for a time. We are removing grains, added sugar, high Omega six oils like canola oil, vegetable oil and dairy. And then we have quite detailed descriptions in the book, especially upon reintroduction of those foods, like the types of grains and the types of bad sugar and the types of oils and the types of dairy, like the [inaudible] fermented, all this different variables we cut. I cut the guesswork out of it as much as possible because I'm not making a blanket statement against those foods. I really want the person to find out what works for the body and what doesn't. Like I had do not have a horse in the race when it comes to that. And that's the heart of bio-individuality. So when people enjoy certain foods, some people feel fine on certain foods.

Dr. Cole: 18:55 Okay, let that be that, let that be for that person. I'm okay with it. But as long as it's not impacting your quality of life, as long as you're living the life you want to live and you're not having a negative impact in your life as far as health is concerned, then go for it. So that's the core four and then the four more core, four plus four more are the eliminate. See my play on words like does not end in that book. Too much fun with that. But core four plus four more is the night shades, nuts and seeds, legumes or beans and eggs. Again, all whole foods, all real foods. I am not demonizing any one of those foods, but I'm talking about the different proteins like lectins and alkaloids and albumin and casein and all the different stuff that we, that research shows for some people could be problematic.

Dr. Cole: 19:45 So we talk about bio-individuality with that. And you may find like through that experience of food, you do fine with the six of those foods, but not with the two or you do fine with half but not the other half. That is the clarity and the food piece that I want people to find. But you don't know when things are all the, when you're disillusioned, biochemically speaking, when you're having inflammation and imbalances and reactivities and you don't know what, what's way is up and which way is down. So the process, and you're right, I mean the elimination diet and the way that we targeting this is still the gold standard in clinical nutrition and functional medicine. As long as it's properly formulated and reintroduction is properly formulated too. So we put it all in there. So you know, like really the gold standard when it comes to knowing what your body loves and what your body hates when it comes to foods.

Dr. Cole: 20:38 So that allows whoever, however you prefer to eat, whether you eat keto or paleo or men at a training or more plant based or more carnivorous, you will know what foods work best for you under that paradigm. So I was very clear on this. This is not a Quito book like my first, well this is not a plant based book. This is not any type of way. This is just looking at the research, looking at clinical experience. And so you can eat the best Kito diet that you can eat. You can eat the best plant based diet that you can eat when you learn what your body loves. So that's what the inflammation spectrum is all about.

Allan: 21:12 And, and that's again, when, as I went through the book, I was like, this is, this has to be the best book I've ever read on elimination diets. It walks them through step by step. It gives them exactly a Y a and it provides a lot of information about these [inaudible] that I, you know, I didn't even know. I didn't know there were two types of cases. I suspected that there were good proteins and bad proteins at some level you know, we like to say there's good protein, good fats and bad fats and there's good carbs and there's bad carbs. And, and I've always said, I said, I think for each individual there's probably some bad proteins that they should avoid. And the only way we're really gonna know that is by eliminating them and then systematically reinduce re reintroducing them.

Dr. Cole: 22:02 Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And that's the thing. I mean, people can just put the time in to kind of really give their, give themselves to that feedback. Because once you're on the other side of it, it is a no brainer because you feel better. Inflammation is calmed, you are residing more in vibrant wellness. And at that point it's like, okay, I like feeling better more than I missed that food. Like I don't really think about it because that food makes me feel really lousy. Why would I want to go back to eating that way? So that's the paradigm shift and the sort of like you are able to see things a lot more clearly both physiologically because you have left brain fog and more energy, but also you just have more biofeedback cause you kind of know, Hey, best food makes me feel bad. But most people don't even know. Like we talk about the ketogenic diet, maybe people have problems with dairy or certain fats or eggs and they're eating it thinking it's great cause it's just Quito. Well maybe not. Maybe you need to reformulate your ketogenic diet in a new way. So we talk about all those nuances in the book.

Allan: 23:08 Yeah. And like I said, it, it really, it really dives deep into it, but it, it sets it out very, very simply along with putting in recipes. So, you know, you don't have to guess. And I liked, I like also you can you want through and kind of talked about different supplements that can protect us or help us deal with each and every one of these eight systems as we're going through that. Along with some, some positive mind stuff with the mantra. So again, all those, just like I said, it's like resonated with this book really, really well. Beyond the food though and I'm glad you did this. You talk about eight lifestyle habits

Dr. Cole: 23:46 That can also help us through this journey and you, and again, as part of this process that you go through cool before and eliminate you walk us through adding these into our lifestyle as well. Could you, could you talk about those? Yeah, it was such a big important part for me to include these because it's not just about food and you could have the perfect macros on point. You could have eating, eat cleanest, like foods amazingly like a good stuff. But if you're like not dealing with the non food things, like if you're serving a body, a big slice of stress every day or if you're consumed with your smartphone and you're scrolling endlessly. I mean looking at the blue light and the FOMO inducing content like stress and shame and social isolation, those are all impacting inflammation levels as well. So we have to look at all these, what I call in the book non-food and flamers that also instruct our biochemistry because that is the connection there.

Dr. Cole: 24:45 I mean our external life impacts our physiology. And then in turn our physiology impacts our external life. Like we in structs on what we do or we're not doing our thoughts and emotions and all that stuff. So looking at that bi-directional relationship between us and the world around us or epigenetics really. So it's that's the non-food inflame or so we talk about stress in detail and all its different forms. Like we made eight nonfood and flamers to go along those eight weeks for the people that are on the eliminate track. And then for people that are on the core four track, they can just go and pick the ones they want to work with. But I would encourage honestly any reader to go through the eight a nonfood and flamers because the things that most people, most of us are going through to various degrees and there are things that are in many ways more insidious than the food.

Dr. Cole: 25:39 Like it's easy to say go off of sugar for X amount of weeks or go off of nightshades for this amount of weeks and bring introduced them, but it's a little bit harder when it's like negative self talk or it's screen addiction or like social media addiction or whatever the case may be. It's a little bit more permeated into our daily life beyond just meals. So I really wanted to raise the awareness of people realizing the fact that it's not just about the food. We have to look at all this other stuff too. We have to look at things like sleep as well. I don't know if I mentioned that or not, but all of these things, just one night of poor sleep will spike high sensitivity, C reactive protein, HS, CRP, which is an inflammatory marker that we look at to gauge inflammation from a lab standpoint. So definitely important because I see it a lot of times with patients is they have the food down pretty good, but it's the non-food stuff there is sabotaging them. Absolutely. So Dr. Cole, I define wellness as being the healthiest fittest and happiest you can be. What are three strategies or tactics to get

Allan: 26:44 And stay? Well,

Dr. Cole: 26:46 I would say decrease the amount of sugar you're consuming. Increase the amount of healthy fats you're focusing on. Specifically things like all lobes and olive oil and [inaudible] and oil. Although avocado oil and third, I would be bring an act of stillness into your life. So whether that's mindfulness of breathing or just getting out in nature or just turning off all technology and just being, I think those are the three things that I would say impact people the most.

Allan: 27:17 I completely agree. Those are perfect. I'm in the process of developing another episode. I'm going to talk about my favorite health and fitness books. And I'm glad I waited to record that episode because you're definitely hot. I love this book. I do think you should get out, go out and get the Inflammation Spectrum. If you're, if you're feeling anything and you know, there's some inflammation in your life. This is, this is the tool, this is, this is what I would recommend you get. So a doctor called people wanted to learn more about you, learn more about the book Inflammation Spectrum, where would you like for me to send them?

Dr. Cole: 27:51 Yeah, and thank you again for the kind words and for having me back on. I really appreciate it. Is that everything's a drwillcole.com. And on Instagram it's our Dr. Will Cole, but we offer a free webcam or health evaluation for people. If they want a functional medicine perspective on their case. And we just launched it online in group class, which I'm really pumped about too. So yeah, we have all that going on. They can get that information and they can order the books at drwillcole.com too.

Allan: 28:21 You can go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/413 and I'll be sure to have the link there. So Dr. Cole, thank you so much for being a part of 40+ Fitness.

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Another episode you may enjoy

Keto for vegetarians and vegans with Dr Will Cole

Less...

Dr. Junger: 02:06 The life force on this man is compared to nothing I've ever met.

Allan: 02:10 Well, that was just a cool little side to the story, that story that you had in the book, but I liked your stories because it was the real realism of, okay, you're, you're a Western really trained medical doctor and you're getting into functional medicine and then you're seeing examples of [inaudible] medicine and you're with your program now clean seven. You blending those together to give people tools to get healthy.

Dr. Junger: 02:36 Yeah, well, functional medicine and an understanding of why your very good medicine didn't come into much later. You know, I got sick and I started looking for solutions that did not include seven prescription medications for my health issues at the time and, and I went blind just on a search and it was through my search that I stand. I started finding things. One of the pillars of what I found was the concepts and practices of detoxification. And then once I got into it at the beginning, not understanding the biology behind it or the science behind it, but really experiencing the benefits. Then in my obsession to really understand was when I came aware of functional medicine, which really explained detoxification in detail, right? A word that they don't use anymore because it's kind of being misused and it leads to confusion. So the word now is biotransformation, which is what is happening to the toxic molecules. They get bio transformed from toxic into nontoxic and from lipophyllic or or fat-soluble into water soluble so that they can be excreted and eliminated.

Allan: 03:55 Yeah. I think that we're a detox to scare a lot of people because you, you, you get these crazies selling these shakes or these, you know, there's these things you drink and messes with your system.

Dr. Junger: 04:07 Yeah. Even even in the medical world when, you know, when I first heard somebody that told me, you know, they did a detox program, I had only studied as what you send your patients to do when they're alcoholics or drug addicts.

Allan: 04:24 Yeah. So in your Clean 7 there, there are three pillars that you're kind of bringing together to help us improve our health. Can you talk about those three pillars?

Dr. Junger: 04:34 Well, the first pillar is functional medicine, and I use concepts from functional medicine. Basically, the concepts from functional medicine that I use are the elimination diets and the five R's, right? What? In functional medicine, it's called the five bars. So the elimination diet is basically a diet in which you eliminate any foods that are processed, that contain any chemicals or toxic molecules or any non-natural ingredients, right? And he's based on whole foods, primarily vegetables and fruits. But there's other things too. And in my experience, the elimination diet alone is really, really powerful. When in my practice, people come and I, whether I have an idea of what they have at the beginning or I have no idea, will what they have in my first course rotation, while we wait for an blood tests and other tests, I put people on the elimination diet in about 60% of the people when they come back for the test results have experienced immense benefits, if not complete resolution of their problems.

So that alone is really, really powerful. The five R's are the first art is for remove, which means removing everything that hinders physiology. Right? Not only toxic molecules, but, but also bad bacteria or other organisms in the intestines, but company stress, stress, and by situations, right? So the second R stands for re introduce or replace, which is basically talking about reintroducing or replacing the bad things that we eat with nutritious foods, with foods that contain nutrients. Because what happens is the liver and other tissues that do the detoxification processes and reactions need substrates need elements need nutrients in order to attach to the toxic molecules to render them nontoxic. The third R is for re inoculation. As you remove the bad bacteria and other organisms in the gut, you want to reinoculate with good bacteria and organisms. The fourth R is for repair. And this specifically talks about the repair of the intestinal lining, which I called our Achilles heel because mostly all, if not all of chronic diseases of the modern world begin in the gut.

And one of the first things that happens in the gut, apart from the disruption of the, of the biome and leading to dysbiosis. The second thing that happens or concomitantly is the breaking of the intestinal lining. The intestinal lining should be made of cells that are stuck together in what is described as tight junctions, making it impermeable. Oh, for, for anything that is not actively and specifically chosen by the cells to be absorbed and thrown into the circulation. When that integrity, when that continuity of, of the barrier is disrupted, leads to what a lot of people now know as leaky gut or hyperpermeability. And the fifth R is for relaxation because apart from the toxic molecules that we are exposed through the air, we breathe the water, we drink and shower with the medications we use, the cosmetics, we use, the cleaning products that we use in our homes, but mostly through the foods that we eat.

The biggest factor together with those toxic molecules in our modern world is stress. So relaxation is really an important factor as well for restoring your body's ability to heal itself. Okay. And then beyond that functional medicine piece, you then get into the second. Yeah. The second pillar of, you know, the clean seven program are concepts and practices that come from Ayurvedic medicine. And even though I'm not an Ayurvedic medicine expert, I've learned from one of the legends of Ayurvedic medicine who really boil it down to me, made it really simple and taught me how to enhance the detox processes through certain Ayurvedic principles, right? One of them is the dosha system and the other one is the use of Ayurvedic herbs. And this is specifically as it relates to detoxification. So by using the dosha system, you further individualize the approach and you tailor the approach to the different doses, right?

And now Ayurvedic medicine, there's basically three doses or body constitutions. And this refers to the way that your body works energetically. And it's based on the distinction of the influence of the different elements which make everything fire, earth, wind, water and eat right. And each one of us has all the elements within us, but there's one or two that are predominant and the predominant element is the one that is most prone to go out of balance. So by determining your dosha or your predominant element, you will know what foods, what activities and what other things in your life are influenced most by the element that is your predominant element. And that will most likely throw your predominant element out of balance. For example, if you are of fire predominant constitution, anything that is of predominant fire country station will be adding fire to fire and throw your fire.

So for example, fiery foods will be the ones that you would need to limit yourself or eliminate at least during the times where when your dosha is out of balance. So by using this system of doses, this doctor dr Narendra Singh from, from India, who was worldwide known, taught me that the detoxification processes will be enhanced, right? The dosha system is applied to many other things of which I am only peripherally aware, right? But since I was really focusing on enhancing the detox processes in people and supporting the detox organs and systems, he said, if you use the dosha system, you will enhance the results, you will improve the results. The other thing that comes from Ayurvedic medicine is the use of Ayurvedic herbs, which not only provide people with a world of nutrients, antioxidants, and fiber, but also affect the body energetically through their product and prioritize the, the live energy within them.

That really helps to shift things around and mostly what I use in clean seven are what are called adaptogenic herbs, which really improve your balance physiological balance. For example, if you are adrenally exhausted, they will help recharge and that will help the adrenals work better, but if you are hyperactive in a way your adrenals are, are hyperactive, they will bring them down so they help your body adapt to whatever situation your body is in at the time. Right?

The third pillar of the Clean 7 program is intermittent fasting and this is something that now has become part of the mass consciousness. Everybody's trying some kind of intermittent fasting. But to boil it down to the basics for thousands and thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of years, depending on who you talk to. Our way of life was much like the animals that are now living in the wild according to the way that nature designed them to live.

And living in the places where nature designed them to live and eating in the way that nature designed them. To me, and if you look at animals in the wild, what is life about? It's about looking for food feasting when food is found and then taking a rest and then starting to look for food again until they find one. And until they find one, they will have imposed episodes of fasting. So in that way, our genes evolved for thousands of years, let's say. And the time, if you draw a line in evolution, the time in which we had food 24 seven available to us is a dot. A microscopic. Dot in the timeline. So the concept that I'm trying to make people aware is that our genes have not had the evolutionary time to adapt to eating all the time. So the body and the and your genes treat food as and the whole thing around food as it was thousands of years ago, which means when food is found that your genes say, okay, this is what life depends on.

Let's slow everything else down so that we can utilize as much of what we are eating as possible and store as much as we can because we don't know where the next meal is coming from. This is how it used to be. Our genes right now cannot know that in two hours or in two minutes you're going to be eating again. So the moment you put something in your system, the moment your digestive system detects food, your whole functioning mode will shift into utilizing that time and the energy in your body will be directed mostly towards digestion, absorption, assimilation and storage, stealing energy from other systems. For example, everybody knows that after a huge meal you fall asleep or you've, you know, you become lethargic. And this is the prime example of what I'm talking about. Why? Because as long as there's food in your intestines, as long as your intestines are digesting, that is given priority and the energy is stolen from thinking, from moving, from detoxifying, right?

So as we live these days, we are mostly digesting all the time. We don't finish digesting one meal and we introduced another one. So there is not a time where we're not digesting. So the physiologic machinery is always turned into the feasting mode and he's never led be in the fasting mode. And it's like in a way, living with the sun is shining all the time without, without going into the dark and having the opportunity to sleep. And this is instead of having a ying and yang in your lives, only having yet it's non-sustainable. And this is one of the reasons that humanity is sick. This concept of breakfast, lunch and dinner and snacks in the middle is something that's new and it's mostly driven these days by economic interests. So we need to rethink the way we live up to the basic things that we take for granted, like breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And this is why intermittent fasting is part of the clean seven program because it really makes your genes happy and accelerates everything that we're trying to do by detoxifying or doing a detox program or a biotransformation program. And it also enhances not only the detox processes, but the healing and repairing processes as well. Yeah, I mean, because if you go into a fast, you're going to get some autophagy, which is where your body's going to actually start

Allan: 17:50 Getting rid of some bad cells and re-purposing them, and then also you're going to increase your human growth hormone. So it's, it's actually scientifically proven that the fasting process is a healing, restoring process.

Dr. Junger: 18:04 Yeah. Now, now you are going kind of deep into the subject, but the thing is, the thing is you're jumping the gun because when you talk about apoptosis or the process by which your body starts eating itself, starting with the disease cells, I don't think it happens within 24 hours of being in the fasting mode. I think it takes, and this is just my opinion and from what I've been observing, because there's no studies that categorically determine this, right? But I think it takes a few more days of being really in a fasting state in order for that to start happening. So this, I don't think this is part of why intermittent fasting is beneficial because people, when they intermittently fast, they fast forward 16 hours, 18 hours, 20 hours, 24 hours. But nobody goes further than that.

Allan: 18:56 Yeah, the only reason I think that it's some of that is naturally occurring is I'll watch bodybuilders that'll use intermittent fasting and they're not losing body mass. You know, they're still gaining body mass at a time when they're not intaking as much protein as they normally would. And I know there's going to be some amino acids circulating in your bloodstream, but for them to continue to put on muscle while doing intermittent fasting tells me that there's something going on where the body's reusing body cells at some level and the body is still able to be strong, get strong and gain muscle. So I know, I think some of that stuff is, is starting to happen. But maybe like you said, yeah, it's a third day or the fourth, you know, second or fourth day, somewhere in there where their body really starts to kick in with some of those.

Dr. Junger: 19:41 Listen, and you may be right or I really don't know because nobody has really determined this through serious studies, but let's stay tuned and find out what he does.

Allan: 19:53 Right? So, so our three pillars here are functional medicine that looks at the body holistically and does some elimination diets such that we can get the bad stuff out and give our body what it needs to restore and heal. We're basing it on [inaudible] principles of the doses so that we're eliminating the right foods for our own personal being and we're including some of the herbs that will support then our systems and processes in help get us into balance. And then the final bit is we're introducing intermittent fasting as a means of giving our body the time to have the processes and the restoration occurs. So

Dr. Junger: 20:31 That's right. And don't forget on the first one also the five RS.

Allan: 20:35 Yes. So now you take all of that and you put it into a program and the program includes some shakes. You've got recipes in the book. Could you kind of walk us through the process of what the

Dr. Junger: 20:48 Seven days are going to look like here? Yes. So, so what we're trying to do is to decrease the workload of the digestive system. And for that we replace many meals with liquid meals because they're easier to digest. They're kind of like fuel injection. They don't need too much work, they don't need too much prophecy. The nutrients just shoot directly into your bloodstream without the need of a lot of digestion. Right. And that is why we replace solid meals with liquid meals. Then the solid meals that are allowed during the program are to be chosen with a combination of the elimination diet, which is the same for everybody. And the dosha system, which is individual, right? So, so there's a list of foods that you cannot eat during the elimination diet. For example, dairy, sugar, alcohol, coffee and, and gluten. And if you are of fire constitution, we will also eliminate the fiery foods, right?

So like spicy foods and mango and there's very specific foods that will trigger your fire, right? And so you add both of the lists of foods to avoid and you follow that during your solid meals and also doing a liquid by the way. And then what we do is in my first book clean, which is a 21 day program, every day is the same. There's a shake for breakfast, lunch from a set list of foods and a shake for dinner. And there's supplements in between and it's the same and there is 12 hours between dinner one day and breakfast the following day, right? And every day is the same. And the 12 hour window between dinner and breakfast is because 12 hours is the minimum time in which you allow the body to at least go into a little bit of a more intense detox, right? Because eight hours is what is what it takes to digest a meal and then you give it four more hours for the body to really do the detox mode.

Now in this, in the Clean 7 program, the first day is shake lunch, shake. The second day is also shake lunch shake. But the second shake you do two hours before the first day so that they, instead of a 12 hour window between the second day is dinner shake and the third day's shake breakfast. Instead of 12 hours, there's 14 hours on the third day you do again shake for breakfast, a smaller lunch, and then the shake for dinner. You even do two hours earlier than the second day. So it's four hours earlier than the than the day. So that you, instead of having 14 hours between that dinner and the first and the, and the next shake in the morning on day four there is 60 now and then on day four do you do your breakfast shake. Then you do a small lunch and then you have nothing until the next day's lunch. So no dinner and no breakfast the next day. So you do a 24 hour fast now because you're sleeping part of the time it seem less is going to be less hard to do. Right. But there's still 24 hours and then and then you break your break your 24 hour fast with a shake. Then you have a dinner that night, a solid dinner, and then slowly you go back to what it looks like the first day.

Allan: 24:38 Okay. And so this one will kind of blend them into a day for 24 hour fast. You're incorporating these shakes which you have lots of recipes in the book for. You have recipes for their lunch meals and dinner meals, so it's all, it's all pretty much wrapped up there. I guess the one question is like you said, your clean program that you had before was 21 days. Most of the elimination diets that I see out there are anywhere from, like I said, 21 days to eight weeks. Is seven days really sufficient for someone to to get the results that thereafter with something like this?

Dr. Junger: 25:12 That's a great question because in my first book I talk about the need of 21 days to really cause a significant change in habits. Not only lifestyle habits but also physiologic habits. Right? And the 21 day program is life transforming. But the problem that I've seen since I wrote that book, and it's been 10 years, is that most people do not commit to a 21 day program. So, so even though I gave this incredible tool to the world to really transform their health, only a very small percentage of the people that would could benefit from it are actually doing. So I needed to find something that was shorter but wasn't just the first, the seven first day of that program, I needed something more intense so that in seven days you can really get a taste and in the hope that people after that won't want to jump back exactly what they were doing before. Right. So you're right, it is not enough. Seven days is not enough for a therapeutic plan. You using the elimination diet in order to reverse certain chronic diseases or improves it, but it's better than nothing. And together with everything else, it's a, it's pretty remark.

Allan: 26:39 Yeah, it does give them some pretty awesome tools to know how their body and the foods that are giving them trouble because as they try to reimplement some of those foods, they're going to pretty much pretty quickly understand if they can do gluten or not. If they can do dairy products or not, that'll come back pretty quickly to [inaudible].

Dr. Junger: 26:57 Yeah. There was a very famous guru in India who I personally met who used to say, you know, used to give people jewelry and other shiny objects, you know, and materialize those things out of thin air, right? So people would ask him, you know, you are, you're a guru of spirituality. Why do you, why do we give the shiny objects to be? Isn't that BS? And he will say, I give people what they want in the hope that one day they will want what I really have to give them. Right? And this is how I think about the seven day program. You know, people want something fast and easy and then they want to get results, right? So I give them that in the hope that then they would take it seriously. And they will take it to you know, to heart and really do the work that it takes to transform one's life, which you cannot, cannot do in seven days. And then just go back to what you were doing before.

Allan: 27:55 Well I agree. This is a, this is a very well prepared and set up program with the recipes. Everything in there for you and a lot of other stuff. There's a lot of tools in there. So I do hope folks will check this out and at least commit to the seven days. Cause I do think that it, I think it will do a lot for a lot of people. 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. Junger: 28:20 Well, I'm going to go away from your definition of of wellness, right? Because you know, because the truth is there's 7 billion people in the planet and not everybody can get to the fittest. They can be right. There's many different reasons why people are not able to be fit. Right. For example, myself, I had an accident four years ago that completely destroyed my knees and caused the problem in one of my hard vowels. And, and I, you know, I was, you know, I had a six pack before that and I used to be in tiptop shape and now I can't. So I had to learn how to live without being fit. Right. And then still be happy. So, yeah. And, and, and in a way, you said it before because you say the fittest, they can be right. Yes. No, that's not the fit. Not the fittest in the planet.

Right, exactly. Yeah. But when people hear the fit is you can be, they, you know, they, they, it's like it makes them anxious in a way, right? Because they imagine themselves being in perfect shape and a lot of people will never achieve that. So I defined wellness mostly as the state that one lives in. Right. And this is something that you feel [inaudible], you know, the maximum expression of wellness to be to for me is to be fully present. Right? And this is what, this is what I understand as enlightenment and this is really what I'm looking for and we, you know, even though I'm not a spiritual teacher, this is what I tried to make people aware of that regardless of your level of fitness, if you are in a present state of mind, okay, I mean you, you would experience peace and this is the best level of wellness that one can have because I've seen gurus that are completely at peace and they're not necessarily the healthiest, right?

Then sometimes they have a lot of health issues including severe ones, but their life is full and their wellness in my eyes is full because they're completely at peace. Now having said that, most people in the planet are not going to achieve the state of full, full presence continuously. Right? So then you do need to have your body functioning well because when it is not functioning well, it is hard to cook, to achieve a complete presence also. Right? So I think that we should strive for a combination of things and having your body functioning the best level possible. Right? And I believe strongly believe that we live in such a toxic world these days, that learning how to enhance your own already existing detoxification processes is something that is going to benefit the word greatly until we are able to make the word less toxic. Right?

Allan: 31:40 Well, I don't want it, that's going to happen anytime soon.

Dr. Junger: 31:43 I listen, I have three kids. I can't lose hope that things will continue that will at least start or continue to improve.

Allan: 31:52 Well, awareness is there. I think that's the core of that. We know that these chemicals are not good for us. And so where we can within our own control systems, we can start eliminating them. And if we're, if we're purchasing products and stop purchasing other products, that's a cool signal to the people that make this stuff. So not make the toxic stuff anymore. So

Dr. Junger: 32:13 Yeah. And it's like, let's remember, it's not only about toxic chemicals, right? It's about toxic relationship, toxic governments, toxic work spaces, toxic situations, right?

Allan: 32:23 Yeah. I go through Facebook now and I snooze anyone that posts anything political. So I don't see them for 30 days. And my Facebook feed is a lot nicer these days.

All right, well if someone wanted to learn more about you, learn more about the book Clean 7 where would you like for me to send them?

Dr. Junger: 32:42 So the, the book is on Amazon and every other online store. They can also go to our website, clean program.com/clean seven and learn. Because what happens is in the book I describe for people to do the program without the need to buy any products exempt except Ayurvedic herbs that, you know, you're not going to go and pick up from the fields if you want to use those. So people can, you know, follow the recipes and get everything they need. But you know, website, we do provide a kit in which we provide the shakes already prepared. You only have to blend them with water or almond milk or whatever and, and drink them up and they contain all the nutrients needed in there. You know, they're designed to really enhance the aspects of the program that needs to be enhanced and provide every nutrient that that is needed. And so people that don't have the time or the interest or the commitment to go to the supermarket in front of the recipes and then then they can just do it in a very user friendly way.

Allan: 33:56 Cool. You can go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/412 and I'll be sure to have those links there for you. Dr. Junger, thank you so much for being a part of 40+ Fitness.

Dr. Junger: 34:07 You're very welcome. It's been my pleasure and I'm, I'm going to come visit you in Panama.

Allan: 34:13 I've got a spare bedroom for you. So I'm looking forward to that.

Challenges

Thank you for being a part of 40+ Fitness Podcast. I'm really glad you're here and that you stuck it out with me. I hope you learned something wonderful from Dr. Junger.

We are going to be doing challenges at the podcast a little bit differently than we have in the past. I don't know if you know we do challenges, but we've done a lot of 28-day challenges with a lot of great results. I really enjoy them, but we're going to change things up a little bit and I'm going to start doing weekly challenges on our Facebook group so you can get a 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/group and there you'll find where we're going to be doing weekly challenges starting December 30th so check it out, 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/group these will be weekly challenges dealing with mindset, with food, with exercise, the whole bit. It's a great opportunity to over the course of 52 weeks in the year 2020 for us to do something exceptional for our health and fitness.

I am going to keep doing the 28-day challenges if there's an interest in it. So the way you'll let me know you're interested is you will become a patron of 40+ Fitness. Now you can do that for as little as a dollar. Go over to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/january become a patron of the show. And then I'm gonna ask you what kind of challenges you would like for us to do. And then I'm gonna make sure you get the challenges that you enjoy the most that you'll get the most from. So go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/january Thank you.

Patreons

The following listeners have sponsored this show by pledging on our Patreon Page:

– Tim Alexander	– Judy Murphy	– Melissa Bell
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Thank you!

Another episode you may enjoy

How to make disease disappear with Dr. Rangan Chatterjee

Less...

10 – The Setpoint Diet by Jonathan Bailor

Number 10 on the list is by Jonathan Bailor and I interviewed him on episode 363. In that we talked about his book, The Setpoint Diet. It's a very important book because I think a lot of people get caught into plateaus and they don't understand how to break them. Jonathan Baylor gives us some ideas on exactly what our body needs to break through those set points. So if you're finding yourself in a weight loss plateau this is a really good book for you to change some things up and get your body moving in the right direction and get your body weight moving in the right direction if that's your goal.

But set weight point is a very important concept within the physiology of our body. So it's really important to understand if you're trying to accomplish a health or fitness goal.

9 – Michael Matthews – Bigger, Leaner, Stronger

Number nine on my list is by Michael Matthews, episode 382. Now, Michael Matthews has written the book Bigger, Leaner, Stronger. This was the third edition we were interviewing. He also has a ladies version, so it's leaner, slimmer, strong, something like that. But there's a woman's version of this book as well as a men's version of the book. This guy does his research. If you're looking to get bigger, to get stronger this guy has the right ideas. He's really done some deep, deep, deep-diving into this, a lot of research, and he keeps updating what he knows with what the new science is saying. That's why he does new additions of his books.

He does. He doesn't just issue more books. He actually takes the book and rewrites it for the new science that we're getting. So this is the top of the top for an education, for weightlifting to get stronger, to get bigger and get leaner. That was episode 382.

8 – Dr. Pat Luse – The 7 Systems Plan

Now on episode 359 for number eight, we met Dr. Pat Luse. Now, Dr. Pat Luse won the author Academy award in 2018 and I was lucky enough to meet him there. His book is called The 7 Systems Plan. And basically this is talking about the holistic health of our bodies that we can't just address one problem, one symptom, and expect overall good health. So he looks at the seven different systems within our body and if we optimize each and every one of those systems, our body starts to equalize to a healthy state.

People lose weight. Some of his clients in his clinic have lost a ton of weight. He does offer some online programs as well, but the book is, is awesome. And it really helps you understand why you can't just go from one dimension to try to solve the body's problem because we're much more complex than that. And The 7 Systems Plan really is a good holistic, whole view of how the human body works and what you can do to optimize your health and your fitness.

7 – Dr. Marc Bubbs

Number seven was Dr. Marc Bubbs, and that was episode 385 and his book was Peak. Now he wrote most of this working with athletes, but I can tell you is I went through the book, I saw this as how we can reach peak performance in the things that we want to do. If that's running a 5K, if that's wanting to hike a mountain, if that's wanting to play better tennis, or just being a better grandparent. So you can keep up with your grandkids at the zoo.

Peak performance is what we want. Even if it isn't at just an elite athletic level, but you can learn so much from him through his book peak because he's been studying performance in a way that really is applicable to everybody. So I encourage you to check that out.

6 – Dr. Ben Lynch – Dirty Genes

Number six is by Dr. Ben Lynch. 327 is that episode number. And his book is Dirty Genes. So this gets down into the science of why we get unhealthy, why we have chronic diseases and how our genes are part of that, the epigenetics of what goes on inside our body that defines who we are. And the diseases and things that we're potentially going to develop. The cool thing is while there is a written code in your body, you can change that code.

If you do the right things in his book, Dirty Genes is going to help you clean up your genes so you can live a healthier, happier, and fitter life.

5 – Lyn Lindburg – Couch to Active

Number five is Couch to Active by Lynn Lindbergh and she, her episode was 374. So she works with folks that are really not doing any exercise whatsoever. You know, the, the constant couch potato, if you will, and she helps them slowly integrate into being a more active individual. It's amazing what a little bit more activity each day can do for your overall health and fitness. And so just getting a little bit more active with Lynn's approach is a great way to to look at this. So I encourage you to check that out. Couch to Active episode 374.

4 – Dr. Jason Fung – The Obesity Code

Number four on my list is Dr. Jason Fung, episode 77. I'm going way back in the way back machine of podcast interviews. In fact, this was when I first really got deep into podcast interviews. I had done a few before that, but this was one of the biggest and The Obesity Code is the name of the book. And it is, it is brilliant. If you want to understand why our body holds onto fat and how we can answer to that the obesity code is going to help you see that. A little I guess I'll break the news to you. It's, it's about the insulin. Okay. So go in there and check out the obesity code. Listen to Dr. Jason Fung. He's, he's direct. He's fun. I really enjoyed the few times I've interviewed him. I've had him on the show a couple of times and I've had his partner Megan Ramos on as well to talk about The Diabetes Code.

So Jason Fung is a good one to check out Episode 77 about The Obesity Code. Again, one of the core books that's kind of, I shaped the way I look at health and fitness. If you don't have your insulin under control, you don't have your health, you just don't it is the leading cause of what's going to cause you the problems in your body. So you've got to get insulin under control. And The Obesity Code is a good tool to kind of get you started on that.

3 – Dr. Will Cole – The Inflammation Spectrum

Number three is by Dr. Will Cole. It's episode 413. I hang up, so before 11 right now. So obviously episode 413 has not come out yet, but it's coming out in a couple of weeks. And his book that we're gonna be talking about is called The Inflammation Spectrum. It is a brilliant book.

So in two weeks, send alarm on your clock, whatever you gotta do. Don't miss that episode.

If you're looking for something by Dr. Cole between now and then we did The Ketotarian book a few episodes back, several episodes back (https://40plusfitnesspodcast.com/keto-for-vegetarians-and-vegans-with-dr-will-cole/). You can just do a search on the website for The Ketotarian on the, on the podcast. And you find that episode if you're looking for something from him to kind of get an idea. He was looking at a predominantly plant-based ketogenic diet. And it's a really interesting look at things because I think everybody thinks there's just the straight-line continuum about how you're going to eat and what you're going to eat. And it's not that simple. You can be a vegan or vegetarian or pescatarian ketogenic eater if you choose the right foods. And he helps you do that there.

In The Inflammation Spectrum, he talks in depth about what are the things that cause inflammation in our body and what are the eating habits and things that we can take on, the things we can put into our, our diet that will help us you know, do those things.

2 – Dr. Jonny Bowden – Smart Fat

Number two is Smart Fat. Was the book by Dr. Jonny Bowden. It's episode 338. Smart Fat was actually the funny thing was of all the books on here. I obviously doing the podcast. I've worked with their publicist to get a copy of the book so I can review it before the interview. I do read each of these books. Smart Fat was one. I actually bought myself before I did the interview with Dr. Bowden. I had done and read that book and then there was another book out by Dr. Bowden.

And so I'm like, I wanted to get them on the show, but I so enjoyed his, his book Smart Fat from before I started the podcast that I'm like, I have to talk to him about that book too. So I did get him on to talk about Smart Fat and I think, you know, it's, it was kinda one of the first times that we were realizing that there are good fats, bad fats, there are good carbs, bad carbs. There's even now, I believe if you think about it, there's, they're, they're coming to this conclusion that there's good proteins and bad proteins. Actually Dr. Cole and I talk about that a little bit on episode 413. It's coming up. But it, you know, food is not just as simple as saying, don't eat this, don't eat that. And then you can do elimination diets and understand food.

But there's a lot of complexities to these things. And Smart Fat is kind of one of those good books where you can kind of get that idea around the fact that all food is not created equal. And there's a lot of things behind why certain foods are pushed on us, like sugar and certain, you know, vegetable oils and things like that. They're pushed on us for money. So Dr. Bowden kind of breaks through some of that and helps you understand that fat is not the enemy. Even though we've been told that for decades, fat is not the enemy. You just have to be smart about the fat that you're eating. And so I encourage you to check that out. Dr. Jonny Bowden, and that's going to be episode 338.

1 – Dr. David Friedman – Food Sanity

My number one favorite. And if you've listened to podcasts at all you'll know that he was the winner of the Author Academy award this year.

Dr. David Friedman met him in Columbus for the award ceremony. And I did not win, but I did make finalists, which I was very happy about his episodes 311. And he is just one of the coolest guys out there in this space. He's interviewed thousands of people. You know, I feel like I've done a lot with my career as a podcaster, but he has really shined. He does a lot of great interviews. He really knows his stuff.

In his book, Food Sanity, he breaks through kind of all the problems that there are with food. And he gives us some pretty simple tools. And in fact, I liked his approach so much that I even included part of it. His dig method in my book The Wellness Roadmap it was just so good. I didn't want to recreate the wheel.

And Dr. Friedman was courteous enough, nice enough, generous enough to let me share that with you there. So go check out food sanity. It's a great book. It's award-winning book. It's a bestseller and well-deserved cause David did a great job with that book. And I'm looking forward to reading the stuff that he's caught coming out soon. But check out Food Sanity and episode 311.

Bonus – Maria Emmerich – Keto Comfort Foods

And then I always have to throw in a bonus. I'm gonna throw in cookbooks because I've had Maria Emmerich on the show a few times. I had her on the show with her husband and with just a basic keto book. But her cookbooks are the best by far keto cookbooks on the market. My favorite of hers I'm going to mention was episode 256. We talked about Keto Comfort Foods.

And there's a, there's some recipes in there that I, I just love. I mean, they're, they're just, they're just wonderful. Her restaurant foods book keto book is also great. They just sent me her stir fry book. I mean air fry books. So I might have to buy an air fryer and I actually have an interview scheduled with a cause. I think her husband Craig co-wrote the next cookbook that's coming out. And that's going to be carnivore keto. So I'm very interested in talking to Craig and maybe Maria, I'm not sure she's going to be on that call but that'll be coming up in early January. So look for that. In about a month time I'll have another episode with the Emerick's or, or an Emmerich and we'll talk about their new cook foot book, carnival art, which is kind of an up and coming thing that I want to learn a little bit more about.

Get the Audio Book Versions

Check those episodes out. If you've got some downtime over the course of the next couple of weeks, this is a probably some really good books for you to dive into. I know that Dr. Friedman's book is available on audio book and I think the inflammation spectrum is available on audio book. Some of the others probably are as well. So a good opportunity for you to buy a book, a get an audio book if you're not a part of Audible. If you'll go to the show notes at episode 411. So it's a 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/411. I'm going to put a link there that will connect you to Audible and you can join Audible and get your first book free. Now, I'd love that that was The Wellness Roadmap. But I understand it, but if you've already read it or you're not interested, but go to Audible.

And if you do that, the show gets a little bit of a boost for bringing you to audible if you stick around. So check it out. I love audio books. I listen to audio books all the time. That's my favorite way to consume a book. Particularly when the author is reading the book, which I did for the wellness roadmap. And Dr. Freeman did for food sanity and Dr. Cole did for inflammation spectrum. So again great audio books, great books. I encourage you to check it out. And again, if you want to help support the show, just go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/411 click on that Audible link towards the bottom in the notes where I'm talking about this because the full show notes will be there and that'll let you sign up for Audible. Give the show a little bit of a boost and I really do appreciate it. Thank you

Thanks for sticking around so far. I hope you found these 10 but with the bonus 11 books to be very, very enjoyable and that they teach you a lot about health and fitness. I know I really enjoyed talking to each and every one of these authors and these are of course my favorite books and I'm sure you're going to get some great value if you didn't catch them the first time. So go back and check out those episodes. And of course pick up the books because there's a lot of information we couldn't cover in a podcast that you're going to get from each and every one of those books. And they're all brilliant. So strongly encourage you to check those out over the holiday season. So we're getting ready to launch our January challenges and I'm going to change things up a little bit for this next year for 2020.

I want to focus on some weekly challenges so we can get some quick hits with mindset, with fitness, with food. So over the course of the 52 weeks of 2020, we're going to do little mini one week challenges over on the Facebook group, so you can go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/group. And that's where I'll be posting each Monday with the challenge of the week. And we'll go through the entire week kind of discussing that topic and addressing each of those topics. And I hope you get something really, really valuable from that, but you've gotta be a part of the group to get a part of it. So go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/group.

And if you want to do the monthly challenge, the 28-Day Challenges, there's an easy way for you to do that, but you're going to have to become a supporter of the show. You're going to have to become a patron to do that. So I'm going to limit my 28-Day Challenges to patrons of the show. You can go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/january. And that'll take you the patron page there. You can just go ahead and, and pledge even a dollar and that's going to be enough to get you on the list to be a part of each of the challenges. And I'm actually gonna send out a poll to the patrons so they can choose the challenges that we do. So not only do you get to participate in the challenge at being a patron, you actually get to choose which challenges we're doing. So I'm going to start that in January and see how that goes. So go over to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/january to get in on Patreon and get on our challenges. Thank you.

Patreons

The following listeners have sponsored this show by pledging on our Patreon Page:

– Tim Alexander	– Judy Murphy
– Randy Goode	– Debbie Ralston
– John Somski	– Ann Lynch
– Wendy Selman	– Jeff Baiocco
– Bill Gioftsidis	– Leigh Tanner

Thank you!

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Allan: 02:33 It is, you know, it's kind of a core tentant of Buddhism is that, you know, that's what life is really kind of about. And it's more about embracing that than running away from it. And yoga kind of gives you a tool to do just that.

Beth: 02:48 Yes, it does. It really, it gives us the opportunity, um, you know, not only to heal but also to be the witness to our own process.

Allan: 02:57 Now in the book you shared something, it was called the ACE test that I spoke about a little earlier. Can you kind of go through this ACE test and what it, what it does and some of the questions that you ask and that would be asked in that test. So, you know, we can kind of figure out where do we lie on this and what are some of the things we may want to address as we go forward with, using yoga as a therapy?

Beth: 03:21 Well the adverse childhood experience test is a simple test, with under 10 questions. Basically asking if anyone was abusive to you, uh, in your household while growing up. If there was violence in your household, if you had a parent who died, you know, if he was a witness to any type of trauma, if you had any head injuries. So it kind of, it's the opportunity for us to index ourselves physically and emotionally and just answer yes or no questions. And, and typically if you have more than five yeses on that test, uh, you are susceptible to a lot of trauma related issues, including addiction, suicidal thoughts, depression, anxiety and so on.

Allan: 04:15 Okay, and I guess that's why we really kind of piqued my interest because I took the test and I'm like, okay, this is not a test you want to score high on. But I did and so as I got into.

Beth: 04:26 Allan, I just wished that that one, I wish that I had had that test when I was 18 years old. And two, I wish that they would give this test to everyone who's, let's say a junior in high school. Um, because, you know, had I've understood myself better as a young adult, my life, of course probably would've been a lot easier.

Allan: 04:50 And I agree with you, I think, you know, some of the choices and decisions I made, you know what I mean? We kind of sit there and tell ourselves, uh, when we're at that age, it's like, Oh, I would never do that. I would never act like that. Uh, you know, that's not who I'm going to be. Uh, and then you find yourself 10 years later doing some of those exact things you said you would never do. And so I think that's how, you know, and in a sense, you know, I, I had always told myself when I was younger, it's like, well, I'm always going to be fit. I'm always going to be in shape. Um, I'm always going to take care of myself. Uh, but my kind of my drive to perfection with my job, cause I think maybe that's where I buried a lot of this stuff was just okay, I need to be successful.

Allan: 05:32 That's how I'm going to be a measure of, you know, difference is to be successful. And I applied a lot of that energy to my job and I didn't apply it towards some of the more healthier pursuits like eating right and doing yoga. And so eventually kinda things fell apart for me. Uh, and it wasn't until after I kind of rebounded and said, okay, I've got to fix this, but I started doing some of these things. And I think I was able to turn it around. But from your book, I'm kinda getting an idea that I, you know, I may need to do a little bit deeper exploration. Guys don't tend to want to do that that often, but I think it might be worth it for me to do a little bit deeper dive. And one of the areas that I was…

Beth: 06:18 They said that they say that the unexamined life is not worth living. And yeah, I think it's good for anyone at any age to continue diving because sometimes even workaholism can be just another way of escaping one's pain. It's perhaps healthier than you know, being an alcoholic. But nevertheless, and this is just speaking from someone you know, I'm a workaholic. I excessively exercise their coping mechanisms.

Allan: 06:52 Yes. So when we're trying to do this, obviously trauma, trauma is not just a, it's not just an emotion. It actually physically changes our body and our brain. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Beth: 07:05 Yeah, trauma really does affect both our body and our brain in terms of what it does to the brain. It overstimulates different parts of the brain in particular the amygdala. And this is an almond shaped mass located deep in the brain and is responsible for survival related threat identification as well as tagging memories with emotion. So after a trauma, uh, this part of the brain can become highly alert and activated, which makes us perceive threats everywhere and also can make us hypervigilant. Also it affects our hippocampus and increases, uh, cortisol levels. And this, you know, can cause a whole variety of problems. Inflammation in the body, keeping the body and mind stimulated in a reaction mode constantly. And, also our prefrontal cortex shrinks and this is our decision making part of the brain. So we're not always making the best decisions for ourselves. Uh, so there are lots of changes in the brain and you know, your brain is really responsible for a lot of things. So it becomes problematic because of the very motor that's running us is not functioning properly.

Allan: 08:23 Yeah. Now, so obviously, uh, you know, as, as folks can go through the ACE test, is that something they could find online or is it available.

Beth: 08:31 Yes, they can find it online. They just need to Google adverse childhood experiences test and it will pop up.

Allan: 08:37 Okay. So if someone goes through that test or they suspect, okay. There, there was some or know that there was some trauma in their, in their past, uh, because of various events that were still kinda there. How has yoga going to help them with this journey?

Beth: 08:52 You know, well, first of all, yoga in its very is calming and relaxing. It lowers blood pressure, it lowers the heart rate, it gives us a pause. So it's just going to kind of take you back to a more neutral place. Um, it also gives you the opportunity to witness the body and the mind so you can kind of see what's going on in your body. If you're, you know, with repetitive practice, you'll be able to observe mental patterns that perhaps are not serving you. Perhaps you can then if you're a more contemplated person, witness patterns in your life that aren't serving you, you know, whether it's with relationships, friendships, job, and then also it, uh, helps our bodies produce GABA. And GABA is a calming agent produced by the brain. And when we're really stressed out our GABA levels are really low. So yoga is actually one of the only, it's not the only way other than if we take a GABA, you know, supplement or, or pharmaceutical, which strips you of your emotions. By the way, this is a great way to get GABA active in the body.

Allan: 10:04 Now when, when you start talking about trauma, this is just one of the things that kind of hit me because you have some case studies in the book that are really, really good and men, men and women, uh, and some with PSTD and other things. And I was just thinking, um, because one reason to hit home was I was in that unit, that guy, I can't remember his name, the plane crash. I was in 82nd airborne. I mean not not 82nd a hundred force airborne. Just right after that I joined the military and I was stationed at Fort Campbell. So we were hearing about the plane crash, you know, cause it was a peace time thing. And so you know, you would have these accidents and it was a question what's going on? Because we had some helicopter accidents, we weren't actively involved, but it was some people in our unit.

Allan: 10:51 So you kept, we kept having these, these series of accidents and you're like, okay, we're in peace time and we're, you know, we're at risk. And so every time you're getting on the helicopter, everything doing something, you just, like you said, hyper villaging you're, you're, you're watching out for your buddy, you're watching out for yourself. You're like, okay, we don't want to be the ones that had the accident. So it was, that's when I say it was kind of drew me in because I was like, okay, I can, I can feel with this guy's feeling at some level. It's hard sometimes to kind of lean into those feelings though. So you know, you're thinking about going into yoga. It just seems to be that there has to be a trust factor between you and the Yogi that you're learning from to take that step.

Beth: 11:31 Well, yes and no. If you know, we take that test and we decide, okay, I recognize that I do, you know, I have, I have this issue. Um, and I just want to explore a yoga practice. Cause I also recognize that, you know, I've got high blood pressure, I'm hyper vigilant. Uh, I'm highly reactive, you know, or, or whatever the case may be. Um, you know, you can go to yoga, you can partake in the practice. You don't have to discuss any of your, uh, trauma with the instructor. Um, if, you know, if you were the victim of a violent attack, uh, you're gonna want to make sure that, you know, you're not getting any surprise hands on the chest by your instructor. Uh, we really focus on this a lot at yoga fit. In fact, there was a reason article in the New York times about yoga teachers who are, uh, let's say getting a little too handsy with their students. Um, that just came out in the New York times, uh, over the weekend. But we teach our students at yoga fit too, to make sure that, um, they tell students that they're going to make hands on adjustments if they do and, and give the student an opportunity to refuse because for people who have had physical or sexual trauma in their lives, the wrong touch at the wrong time can trigger them be highly triggering.

Allan: 13:06 Yeah, I could see that. So as we talk about yoga fit, cause you mean your training, you've trained hundreds of thousands of instructors, uh, there's seven steps of yoga fit. Could you kind of go through those to get us a little bit more familiar with the yoga fit?

Beth: 13:21 Uh, well, the essence of yoga fit is breathing, feeling, listening to the body, letting go of judgment, expectation and competition and being present in the moment. And we encourage anybody who takes a yoga fit workshop, retreat or training to really embody these principles in themselves because yoga is a practice and it's a process and it's not a a one, one time event, nor is it a one size fits all proposition. So, um, you know, allowing that to be our foundation. Uh, and when we practice to, you know, we don't want to be competing with the person next to us or competing with the body that we had 10 years ago. Um, we just want to show up for ourselves in that day. And just, you know, when I practice, I'm just, some days I have an injury, some days I'm tight, you just kind of, it's an opportunity to just be with what is and do a little inquiry into the body and see what's going on.

Allan: 14:25 You know, I as a hyper competitive person, I could, I, I would, I would still struggle a little bit. I think it would take me a long time of practicing to get comfortable with just not competing against myself. I'm not going to compete against anyone else, but I, I still do have this strong inclination in myself to just want to see if I can be a little bit better tomorrow. So I, I like the seven steps. So I think, you know, the, the, particularly when you're talking about breathing and just kind of being aware of yourself, I don't, I don't think we give ourselves enough of that on a day to day basis, but I do see that this is a kind of a process that you'd have to practice for a while to really get comfortable. I would have to practice for a while to get comfortable with.

Beth: 15:05 Yeah. And you know everything's a practice in my usually. So, um, I just think that engaging in the process is very beneficial. Whether it's your first time doing it or your 1000th time doing it, it's just you're always going to get some benefits. And that's the beauty of it.

Allan: 15:24 Yeah. Awesome. 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?

Beth: 15:35 Well, I believe, uh, listening to the body is very important. I believe in setting an intention and action plan and then you have to follow your plan. And then lastly, be a little bit flexible.

Allan: 15:52 I really, I really liked those, especially the action part. So many people plan, plan, plan and don't act. Thank you for that. If someone wanted to learn more about you, learn more about your book Healing Trauma with Yoga or about Yoga Fit, where would you like for me to send them?

Beth: 16:09 Healing Trauma with Yoga, which is now out and available and shipping from warehouses everywhere and available in bookstores also can be ordered off of Amazon or off of yogafit.com if you're interested in the yoga fit workshop, conference or training, we have over 50 different educational programs as we run over a thousand trainings worldwide every year and 15 conferences across North America. They can go to yogafit.com. If you're interested in more health and wellness articles, anti-aging hacks, uh, information on dealing with depression via supplementation, red light therapy, weighted blankets, and all the other alternative and not so alternative things that I'm up to. You can visit me at bethshaw.com.

Allan: 17:03 Great. You can go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/410 and I'll be sure to have all those links there. So Beth, thank you so much for being a part of 40+ Fitness.

Beth: 17:14 Thank you. It was my pleasure and I wish everyone a fit and peaceful day.

Are you enjoying the podcast? Good. Now if you just do me one favor, go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/support. That's going to take you to our Patreon page. Now, patrons are really cool service that lets you support the podcast with very small donations and for every new patron we get during the month of December, I'm going to do a special bonus episode during the first quarter of 2020 and in that, I'll make the special dedication just to you. So please go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/support and help keep 40+ Fitness charging on into 2020 thank you.

Patreons

The following listeners have sponsored this show by pledging on our Patreon Page:

– Tim Alexander	– Judy Murphy
– Randy Goode	– Debbie Ralston
– John Somsky	– Ann Lynch
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– Bill Gioftsidis

Thank you!

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And there's basically three aspects to set points that I think people forget. They try to focus on just one or two of these. And they don't really get to the meat of what's going to help you break a plateau. This is your body, your environment and your mind. So I'm going to go through all three of these today and talk about why these affect your set point and what you can do about it. Okay. The first one's body, and it's kind of obvious, you know, the human body is meant to keep itself healthy. And to do that, it does a thing called homeostasis, which is basically balance. Now balance is really, really important in the body when we're talking about things like body temperature that has to stay within a very tight range or blood pH. It's like a very, very tight range. Or blood sugar.

Parts of our body basically adapt and they try to stabilize so that we can stay in a healthy state. And if it gets out of this state, then bad things happen. So how does that affect body weight? Well, body weight is also one of those systems. Our bodies were designed to store fat for famine. So we went through a period of feasting. Our body would allow us to put on this body fat for a future fuel for the times when food wasn't so plentiful cause our, our Hunter-gatherer ancestors didn't always have access to plentiful food. So they often would put on weight in the and, and in summer and fall when a plant matter and vegetables and fruits were much more abundant. And then when they weren't we would start to shed that body weight over the course of the next several months.

But if we started losing weight too fast, our bodies set wake would come in and say, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa. You can't burn through all the fat that fast. We need to slow you down. And so your system start to change. And systems are basically all the things that are going on in your body to include the hormones, the, the catalyst for transactions for w there are happening in your body, their chemical reactions vitamins and minerals. Because your body is just basically this series of chemical reactions. And so if you're starting to lose weight too fast and your body senses that your hormones are going to adjust a and your body is going to start functioning differently if you have a professional athlete, women will see this a lot with professional athletes at the elite level. They start training really, really hard and they get their body fat percentage down to a very low number.

They do this because carrying weight, particularly in an endurance sport is costly. It slows you down. So losing a few pounds as an elite athlete could be the difference between winning and losing. So the women will get down to an extremely low body fat percentage and as a result they'll stop their period because their systems are basically telling them this is not a good time to rear children. If we're in a famine period, we're not going to have children. And the same kind of thing happens within the systems of men to It's just easier to explain this one because it's so apparent what's happening. But our body is a function of systems and those systems are always seeking to find that balance. And so if you've been eating a certain way and you start losing weight you body might stabilize and that's okay.

We just to have to put some strategies in place to try to break through that before I go too far down that rabbit hole of the body and talk about those solutions. Let's talk about the other two aspects of setpoint. So the second aspect of setpoint is environment. Now, every day we're in, we're in an environment of, of different things and some of them are very easy for us to notice, like the temperature of the room or if we're in an elevation, we might notice that the oxygen level is a little low. So if we walk out in the cold as many of you are experiencing right now and you're not wearing enough clothing, you're very likely to start shivering. That's, that's your body's reaction to your, your environment and it's, and it's very noticeable. If you're trying to do an endurance event and you move from from one elevation up to a much higher elevation, you may find that your performance drops.

And again, you can usually attribute that performance drop to your environment. So there are things in the environment that are definitely noticeable immediately. And then there's things that we don't notice, the chemicals, the, the pesticides, all those things that are out there in our food, in our household products. And then just general pollution. So I want to talk a little bit about that. There's a few that you know, I think are really, really important. One is the plastics, you know bisphenol a is in so many plastics and if you're heating and using those or allowing those to get warm, it's very likely you're taking in that chemical, which is a kind of an estrogen in our bodies. So it creates problems for us particularly for trying to get stronger or lose weight. So understanding if you're being exposed to things like that.

What's in your household cleaners? What's in your skincare products, what's in your hair care products? All those chemicals that we're applying to our body or using in our home they have the potential to disrupt our systems and as a result, send us into a kind of a cascade against the balance in the, in the wrong direction. So if we're trying to lose weight or get stronger and I'm going to keep going back and forth on those cause I think they're both very, very important. And I think you can do both at the same time. You're going to want to start paying attention to your environment. Another part of the environment that we don't pay a whole lot of attention to is light and UV rays. If we're not getting adequate sunshine during the day, which again, during the winter that's, that's a little bit tougher, then our bodies are not going to react the way that they should.

Our circadian rhythm is just not gonna flow the way that it should, which is going to disrupt our hormones. It's going to disrupt, potentially disrupt our sleep. So we might find that if we're not getting the sun, we're not getting the vitamin D, we're not getting all the different things that our body needs. So getting good natural light during the day turning off the computers earlier at night, all of those are environmental things that could potentially be disrupting your, your systems and, and if you're not taking care of those, very likely it is jeopardizing your performance and your ability to lose weight and get stronger. The final aspect of setpoint that I'd like to talk about is the mind. And you know, the mind is probably the most powerful aspect of the, of them all. Because if you don't believe you can do something, you absolutely can't.

It's just, you're not gonna be able to do it. So if, if you're stuck and you feel stuck and you say, well, I can't lose weight, I always lose weight and then I gain it back, you know, that mindset is going to hold you back. So if we're going to police our mindset, we've got to look at two things. The first is the things that we're listening to, things we hear, the things we see, the things we read. If you're on Facebook, reading all these articles about obesity and the crisis and how you know, this is making you fat and nights making you fat, and it's all that stuff's driving you crazy and it's, it's actually stressing you out. Stop. Just stop. The best way for you to know what's going to affect you is to just try it. Whole foods, natural foods, people will tell you, you can try this supplement or try that thing or take this pill.

None of going to be a longterm solution for you. So what's your listening to? What's your, what's your reading? What's your seeing? Let some of that go, you know, focus on the things that will definitely move the needle for you. You're in a plateau right now, and if that's the case, you need some action. You need to find that big rock as we say, and, and go ahead and start working on that. But if you're on all these little goose hunts about, should I be taking vitamin D, should I wait? Should I be vegan or wait? Should I, you know, drink eight glasses of water a day? If you're running around looking at all those tactics, it's very easy to get yourself lost in them and not really see which ones might be actually beneficial to you. You can't throw 13 things that at, at this at once and understand what's going on in your body.

It's just the too much and you don't, you can't parse through that data. There's too many confounders. So slow down. It's cool when you like to read and understand health and fitness. Believe you me, I'm reading about a book a week in health and fitness and I'm much more as far as I go on the internet and read blog posts and things that are going on there so I can keep kind of stay abreast of what's going on. But as it comes to applying it in my own life, I like to keep it simple. So I'm not necessarily acting on all of these activities and all these things that folks are talking about in their articles or to me personally, I try something. If it works, they use it. If it doesn't, I, I throw it out. And then finally within the mind, there's the inner dialogue.

How do you talk to yourself? What's going on in your head when things aren't going your way? You're in a plateau or you know, for weight loss. And so you haven't lost a pound and maybe even you went up a pound last week. And what's your inner dialogue telling you right now? Is it being nice to you? Is it, is it forgiving you? Because the step forward for any stumble at all is three. It's three things. The first is you have to forgive yourself. And then you have to come up with a plan of action to go forward. And then you have to act. And if you don't do all three of those, you're, you're destined to repeat exactly what you just did. So don't beat yourself up so much. Try to have a kinder, nicer inner dialogue. And if you find yourself, you know, not hitting a PR when you go to the gym every time, that's OK.

You're going to have good days and bad days. The fact is you were there and that's better than most. So look for the good of what you're doing and try to have a nicer, kinder inner dialogue. It's going to go a long way towards helping you be successful. So we have the body, we have the environment, and we have the mind where, where should we spend our time if we want the most bang for our buck. And I'd say, if your mindset's off, I would start there. I really would because if you don't have a good mindset, a lot of this stuff is just not going to happen for you. You don't, when my book, I go through wellness GPS and in there I'm very specific that you've got to have self-love to do this. You've got to make a commitment to yourself. You've got to want this really, really bad.

And when you do, then you have to just wake up and you gotta say, okay, self-awareness. You know what, what is going to hold me back? What has held me back in the past? Have I lost 20 pounds and then plateaued and then just gave up. And you know, pizza party for everybody is if that's how you've approached it in the past, you need to put in some strategies to kind of think about, well how do I reverse that trend? How do I not cause then I'm going to hit a plateau. It's going to happen. There's no way around it that, you know, any kind of changed. Your body is just not going to be linear. It's just going to balance out. It's going to plateau. That's what our bodies are designed to do. So if we want to break it, we gotta change it.

And so at some point we, we know we have to adapt, our body adapted. Now we have to adjust, adapt, adjust, adapt, adjust. And that's the path forward. So starting with the mind, get that right first. Now, once you're comfortable that you have a good mindset for what's necessary to break this plateau. Now we want to focus on the body. What are the tactics and things that we're already doing and are there any other tactics that we should consider doing? For example maybe a, I've lost down to a certain weight and I, and I want to lose a little bit more, but I'm not. And I say, okay, well, you know, I, I noticed that I pay attention when I drink milk. I feel a little bloated. And now that I've been having more milk I feel bloated more often. And so maybe the, I've got a problem with milk.

And so I said, okay, well I'm gonna eliminate dairy products for three to four weeks just to see if, if that makes me feel better. And low and behold, what you might find is three weeks slit, well eight are you weigh less and then you go ahead and you have a glass of milk or some cheese and boom, a pound hits the scale. You're like, Oh got it. I have an issue with dairy. And if that's the case, you probably in weight loss is your goal. You probably want to start eliminating dairy and keeping it out of your diet or at least keeping it to a very, very low amount such that you're not hampering your results. So, and maybe what I'm finding is I'm just not getting stronger and so it's time for me to mix my program up cause it's got kind of plateaued on my, my squad, I've kind of to it on my bench press.

So it's like, okay, well I'm going to go ahead and do now is I'm going to do more a weighted dips. I'm going to get on that leg press, I'm going to start pressing some really heavy weight. And I'm gonna start doing some front squats so I can really get my core strong. And by doing those things for a period of time, I'll cycle back around and find out my squat has now improved. And so periodization is what we call that in the weightlifting world. And so if you're, if you're stagnant, things are not happening. It might be to change up just your lifting programs. Something as simple as that, but your body is going to adjust and I mean adapt and then you adjust. And so when you do that adjustment, now you're putting your body into a different series of events and your body will likely change.

So that's the body. Now, the last one, the environment, those things that you know are around you. Let's eliminate those. You know, make sure you're getting good sleep. Make sure you're turning off the computer early enough. Make sure you're getting enough natural light as much as you possibly can to keep your body in good function and in a good circadian rhythm. If there's chemicals around your house, consider changing those out, get some, get some cleaner cleaners. You know a lot of people around here on this Island particularly like to make their own cleaning solutions and their own care, hair care and skin products. So that's not uncommon for people to do that with essential oils and coconut oil and things like that. Lemon juice and you know, vinegar, they make a lot of their own stuff and so that can come out to be a lot healthier for you in the long run.

The more of these chemicals that you can eliminate for your life because that might be one of those kind of like final things. It's probably not going to be your big rock initially, but at some point it might just be the reason that you're plateauing. So take the time to go through all three of these. That self-awareness practice that we do in the, in the wellness GPS is exactly geared for you to take the time to do this. So if you find yourself stagnant, it's time to pull that GPS back out and go through it one more time. Get yourself really set, get that self-love going and then start getting into the self-awareness of what do you think is actually the problem that's keeping you on this plateau. And then now you're ready to set some proper strategies to go forward.

Patreons

The following listeners have sponsored this show by pledging on our Patreon Page:

– Tim Alexander	– Judy Murphy
– Randy Goode	– Debbie Ralston
– John Somsky	– Ann Lynch
– Wendy Selman	– Jeff Baiocco

Thank you!

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• New Orleans,
• Asheville, North Carolina,
• Asheboro, North Carolina,
• Merrillville, Indiana and
• Pensacola, Florida.

So if you're in any of those areas, hit me with an email, Allan@40plusfitnesspodcast.com. Love to spend just a little bit of time with you, get to know you a little bit better and we can talk shop health and fitness of course, but as we get into the holidays and things are going, typically what happens is our whole schedule kind of gets turned on its ear. Our whole routine, the things that we do on a day-to-day basis become very, very different as we're spending time with family, as we're preparing meals, as we're doing office parties, the whole bit. And so I'm going to go through each of the four kind of pillar areas of fitness and health. That's gonna include food, exercise, or training, sleep and stress because all of these can be adversely affected by the things that are going on during the holidays.

And as I have this conversation, you're going to hear me kind of go back to two basic tenants. The first one is that we need to plan. If you don't plan, you know, the quote, failing to plan is planning to fail. Okay. So we're gonna talk about planning for each of these and then we're also gonna talk about strategizing because your approach to things could be very, very different than my approach to them based on our needs and based on our past. So let's go through each of these and kind of talk about what's going on with each.

Okay, I'm going to start with food cause that seems to be the big one that I think a lot of people struggle with is that, you know, now there's all these kinds of different foods. There's the, the cookies and the pies. And the potlucks and the parties and the, you know, the family get-togethers and all the traditional meal things that we would, we're eating that we wouldn't eat normally. Okay. Plus just the volume, you know, it's very easy to overeat. It seems to be a basic theme that happens every Thanksgiving for most people.

And so as I said with food, you need to have a plan. Okay. And that plan needs to include what you are going to eat and what you're not going to eat. Because to say that you're not going to eat aunt Mabels dessert is probably a falsehood. You are going to eat it, but you need a plan to make sure that you don't overindulge. So how do we do that? Well, that's where we fall back on the strategies. Okay. Now what I know is if I go in to Thanksgiving dinner or a potluck or a party, I have to be very clear about managing my plate.

Okay. And how do I do that? Well, one is I make sure that at least 25% of my plate is a protein source. So I'll look for a Turkey or ham. I'll try to make sure I get something that doesn't have all the glazing and all the other stuff on it. And so it's just basically trying to get a meat. Okay, that's 25% of my plate right there. 50% is going to be vegetables and not vegetables with goops and stuff on them. You know, there are none of these, uh, the onion crumbles and that kind of thing or not mixed up in some kind of a soupy mix. Basically vegetables. And if I can't find the vegetables then that's going to lead me to my next one though we're to talk about. But I'm going to try to fill my plate about half of it with vegetables and that leaves me with about a quarter of my plate where I can kind of sample some of the other things.

So if there's a, you know, a little bit of yam, it's got a little bit of a marshmallow on it. Okay, fine. I'll have a little bit of that. If there's a dessert Aunt Mabel made, I'm going to have a little bit of that. But at this point I'm showing her I don't have much room on my plate. So they're little dab of that. That way people see the you're at least paying attention. You're enjoying yourself and it doesn't look like your not eating or not participating. So manage your plate. I know it's very difficult all that food's in front of you, but if you have this strategy in front of you where you say, okay, this is the lineup for my plate and I'm allowing myself this little quarter to have those little indulgences, that's your detour. That's the detour that you chose to take and it's a much better one.

Now, I talked earlier about what if these foods aren't available? Well, I typically like to either try to host or bring a dish so when I go to my mother's for Thanksgiving, one of the things I'll do is I'll request that I make turkey. Okay. And this way I know how it made the turkey. I know you know that I've made it in, in the way that it's a better quality turkey, typically organic. So I know what I'm getting with the turkey. And then so I'll have the turkey, my mother will also cook a ham, so there'll be ham there and they'll be Turkey. And I typically just stick to the turkey. I will probably have a little bit of that ham, but as I said, that's my quarter where I can kind of go do a little bit of that. And then I will often also bring a vegetable dish.

And so this will be something like where I'll go out and I'll, I'll steam some broccoli and maybe I'll go ahead and make a cheese sauce that they can pour over it if that's how they want to eat it. But I'll do mine without that. Maybe I'll put a Pat of butter on there just to give it a little bit of flavor, sprinkle it with some garlic powder, something like that. So basically at that point I have my vegetable. I also, and I sent this recipe to my mail list and you should have gotten it a couple of days ago. About about two weeks ago was on a cauliflower rice. And so sometimes I'll do things like that, make a cauliflower rice or something like that that'll go with my meal pretty well. And so if I'm doing those things, then that's three quarters of my plate and now I can go around and I can have some of the other things that my family traditionally makes for Thanksgiving and it doesn't look like I'm not participating, I'm there with them and I'm enjoying the meal.

So have a plan, have a strategy, know what's made you fail in the past and try to work things out that are going to help make sure that you're staying on track. We get invited to a lot of things. Just because you get invited to something doesn't mean you absolutely have to go. If you have to show face like Christmas party with the company, you kind of need to be there. Great. But try to manage what you're doing while you're there. Go in with that plan. Go in there with that strategy so you know that the foods that you're eating is not gonna derail you too much. Okay. It's a, it's a departure you've chosen, but don't just go wild.

Then the next thing I wanted to talk about was activity. Obviously if you're traveling out of town or you're off work, you kind of set your routine different, maybe the gym that you work out at as closer to your office and not so close to your home. Maybe the gym's closed certain days that you would normally like to work out. So again, it's the plan and strategize and the planning means I, if I know the gym's closed on a particular day, maybe I need to do a body weight workout. Maybe that's a good day for me to consider doing something cardio or balance or mobility related that I don't do on a regular basis. But that need to do, I know I need to do more. Then I'll do those things. If you're traveling, pack those a resistance bands and plan yourself a resistance band body weight workout in your hotel room before you go over to the family or in your bedroom before you come out and spend time with family. Go on one of the Thanksgiving Turkey trot runs. Uh, that happen almost everywhere. Do some things like that that you wouldn't normally do, but do them with a plan.

And then the strategies would be if there's things that would typically keep you from working out, again, have that accountability, have those strategies, whatever that might look like for you. You know, you might tell a friend, okay, we're having the week off and we're both going in these two directions and we were going to promise each other that we're going to work out three times this week, even though this is a holiday week, we're going to do three workouts, and then you email each other or text each other and say, Hey, did you get your workout in? Yeah, I've got mine. You got yours. Okay, great. I'll call you on Wednesday. Those kinds of things. So you've got an accountability, you've got a strategy that's going to keep you moving forward rather than falling back into that quicksand that the holidays can often become. So just make sure that you have a movement plan as you go into the holidays so that it's not just sitting around and talking to family.

I used to set up a football game with the kids after the meal and sometimes my brothers and sisters would come out and play and that was so much fun. But as the kids have gotten older, as we've gotten older, fewer and fewer people would go out there. And so standing up there by yourself with a football in your hand isn't a whole lot of fun. So I'll probably be going on, probably doing some cardio work and probably do some mobility work during that time, uh, because that, that tradition went away. But have a plan, have a strategy and know what's gonna work for you as you go into the holidays to make sure that you're continuing to move. You need that movement. Okay.

Sleep. Often during the holidays, there's a lot of activities going on, but we have days off and so I'd encourage you to use this as an opportunity to focus on the quality of your sleep. This is a really good time of year to do that. The sun setting, you know, the days are shorter. This is a good time for you to figure out a good time to go to bed, to wake up when you want to wake up. And so I'd encourage you to take advantage of the time off. Don't make it all about chores, all about family going around and doing all this stuff. Try to figure out your sleep. Sleep is highly under utilized as a tool for health. We are mostly sleep deprived. If you're not getting seven to nine hours of good quality sleep each night, you are sleep deprived. Even if you say, I don't need as much. I'm telling you, you probably do, you just don't get as much. You can still function but you're not functioning optimally. So when we start talking about plan and strategy, okay, the planning would be trying to figure out the bedtime.

The plan would be trying to know that you, you want to avoid certain things that are going to disrupt your sleep. Like staying up watching TV too late, having the lights on instead of using more of uh, natural light. And then of course alcohol. If you're having more alcohol during this time of year than you normally would, that's probably adversely affecting your sleep and it's just something to consider. So as you get into the strategies, it's like, okay, how do I not sit down and binge Netflix or the lifetime channel with all of the Christmas movies, which I'm pretty sure my wife's gonna start playing pretty soon here she can find a Netflix series where she can start watching all this Christmas stuff. I'm pretty sure that's what's going to be happening around my house. So let's not binge on the TV and the Netflix.

Let's use this as an opportunity to really get to sleep earlier, get the sleep we need, try to figure out a strategy or an approach that's going to not only work for us during these holidays, but something that we can actually carry forward into the new year and say, okay, when I go to sleep, it's at 8:30 I typically wake up between four and six and I feel great. I get a good night's sleep, I get the good sleep cycles in and I feel really good. So 8:30 is my bedtime. Now, do I always go to bed at 8:30 no. Sometimes things come up. My wife wants to do something. We want to go out and have dinner and dinner kind of stretches a little long. So I don't make my 8:30 all the time, but generally I now have that routine and that's, that's more normal for me than not. And the holidays are really good time for you to try to figure that out. What works best for you?

Okay. The final one is stress and the holidays in and of themselves can be very, very stressful. I for one, can put my hand up and say, yeah, first time I made broccoli or bought broccoli to cook for Thanksgiving dinner. And my mother was a little frustrated with me. She's like, well, we all have all this food now. We're going to have all this wasted food because you're making an extra vegetable. And I was thinking, well, I still want these vegetables. So I did. I cooked the broccoli low, frustrated, but there was a little stress there. And so just recognizing that getting together with people, going to office parties doing this and that is kind of stressful on the body. So take some time. You know, a lot of us do holiday time, we get vacation, we're away from work.

We're away from a lot of the stressors in our lives. But in the background that stress still runs in our head. I know if I'm going to be away from work for two weeks, I'm gonna have to, I'm gonna have to pay the Piper for that one because there's gotta be a lot of work to catch up on when I get back to the office. I was one who liked to work right up to Christmas day and most people had taken those days off that week. I like to work those days because the office was slow. I was able to get in and get a really well organized going into the new year. And that actually allowed me to enjoy my Christmas a lot better. So my plan had always been go ahead and work up to new years, I mean Christmas Eve and do these things that are going to make the next year easier. So that was scheduling, cleaning out my inbox, answering any like lingering little things that I had put off and it was a very, very productive time for me.

So that strategy paid off, you know, go on into the office, work your regular days right up until that point. And then when I took the week off, I felt so much better. Now when it came to family stress, I just had to realize what I can control and what I can't control. And then I also came up, you know, I use this mantra and I've talked about it a few times I'm sure, is if something is not going to be affecting you in five years, then it's not worth worrying about for five minutes. It just isn't. There's nothing that's going on now. If it's not going to be affecting you and your not going to remember it in five years, it's not a big deal. It's a, it's a little deal. And you're making a big deal out of a little deal. So take some time to think through what are the, what are the real things that matter in your life?

That's, that's one of the cool things about the holidays is the time with family and a time or doing these things. It really is a great opportunity for us to get our straight to get ourselves organized, to find ways to maybe have less stress next year. And so if you can do any of those things, then that's a win in your health and fitness. So try to stay in control, try to be relaxed during the holidays, enjoy the holidays, don't let stress rule you. And then when you get to a point where you can get ahead of stress, boom, now you've got something going on. So that's kind of it. You know, as we go into these holidays and I call it the holiday quicksand, you get into there and sink, sink, sink, sink, sink. And unfortunately most of us as we get into the holidays, we're going to gain some weight.

We're not going to move as much because our routines busted. We're not going to sleep as well. We're not gonna, we're gonna be even more stressed because there's still the office stuff and then the work stuff and then there's everything else that we've got to get done and everywhere else we gotta be, you know, you'd think 3000 miles of driving, I'd be all stressed out about it. Not a bit. I'm going to be downloading all kinds of audio books and podcasts and I'm going to enjoy that time. And yeah, that's a lot of time to be sitting in a car. But I'm going to make sure I have movement built around that. I want to make sure that the food that I'm taking in nourishes my body. I'm going to still be getting all the sleep that I would normally be getting the same way I would get it.

You know, just I'll get up early and we'll hit the road. My wife can sleep in the car, I can get the driving done and we can get to our next destination in time for me to get to bed in time. And then the stress again is, you know, just have, I have plans and strategies, things I'll be doing. For me, sometimes driving is actually more meditative, particularly when you're on the interstate and you're just driving down the interstate. It's just for me it's just a good time to get into my head and just relax and think about all the good things that have happened this year. Like you like having you on this podcast. A podcast has grown this year and I'm just really excited about that. We're going to coming up on our four years of of doing this podcast and this is, this is episode I think 408 so pretty excited good things are happening and I want you to have a wonderful holiday season.

Patreons

The following listeners have sponsored this show by pledging on our Patreon Page:

– Tim Alexander	– Judy Murphy
– Randy Goode	– Debbie Ralston
– John Somsky	– Ann Lynch
– Wendy Selman	– Jeff Baiocco

Thank you!

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Allan: 02:22 Oh you got the rights back to him. Okay, cool. That's totally cool.

Denise: 02:25 They're all on my website now, which is so cool. I picked my favorite 200 shows that I did and, and most of them of course are in the Caribbean cause the water's so turquoise so beautiful in the background.

Allan: 02:40 Oh yeah. And that must been hard picking your top 200 cause I know I just recently went through an exercise trying to pick 10 out to talk about on episode 400 of the show. And it was like, you know, choosing my favorite baby, its hard.

Denise: 02:56 I know, and it makes you look at your career too. It's like wow, I did this many shows.

Allan: 03:02 And helped and helped thousands and thousands and thousands of people. Maybe millions. I mean as like I said, your shows were at, your shows were totally awesome. And like I said, it was just one of those things where I knew that people of all ages would just feel really, really comfortable doing what you are asking them to do because of the approach you had. Uh, and then even now, today you still focus on helping everybody but a little bit more bent towards folks our age, the 50s and sixties range. Uh, but still it's over 40 is great. Um, and, and so, you know, in all this time, I mean, it's over 30 years. Uh, you've been in the fitness industry. Uh, things have changed from, you know, we're no longer were that girls are no longer wearing leg warmers and, uh, your, your videos are no longer on VHS. Um, but what else can health and fitness has been like what you'd say is the big changes over the course of the last 30 years.

Denise: 03:54 Well, the biggest change now is all about wellness and recovery and taking care of your body and really tuning into, um, being, you know, gentle like yoga, pilates and foam rolling and really, uh, you know, yoga, a little more meditation. That, to me has been the biggest change. But of course I'd been through all the different trends from high energy aerobics to step aerobics to, you know, all of the trends in the last 30 years. But the key thing is, you know, we have one body, we have to take good care of it. We have 640 muscles of the body to keep strong and tone and firm and um, to find something that you enjoy in exercise or it becomes part of your lifestyle. And to me, walking is one of the best and most easiest ways to really get in great shape. And you truly could get in wonderful shape if you walk fast for 30 minutes. So I'm really into walking and I come back into my house and I do some targeted exercises for my arms, my tummy, my legs, and then stretches too. So all three components are important. And throughout the years they've just changed up mainly through, you know, boxing was hot for awhile. So there's been so many forms of fitness, which are all great because they kind of keep you motivated.

Allan: 05:24 Yeah. You know, I actually miss a step aerobics. I, when I was in the army I would, I would take a step aerobics class. It's just a way to continue to improve my fitness beyond what we were doing as our normal training. Um, and I really miss, I kind of miss it cause I still see the steps sitting around as some of the gems but they're not being used for the same thing anymore.

Denise: 05:43 Yeah. Now it's more used for interval training, jump box. You know, you jump up on it and do lunges off it. It's not as choreographed, which is fine too cause you're still working your hips, thighs and butt step. So my daughter now is falling and my fitness footsteps and she uses my old step that I used to use in step aerobics. Now she uses it as a prop for, you know, some pushups, more targeted exercises but more like interval training.

Allan: 06:15 And I think you touched on something that was really, really important and that is finding something that you enjoy. You know, the variety that's been offered over the course the last 30 years from, you know, now there's the hit training or like you said, some of the box and the jumps in the pile of metrics to some of the old stuff like now that they can log onto your website and see some of those, those videos, uh, you know, they've got their 30 years worth of, uh, some really cool variety to keep themselves engaged. Plus, like you said, um, you're really big on the walking, and just the normal movement to keep yourself in shape.

Denise: 06:48 Yes. And also, um, I really think it's important that everyone knows that how important stretching is to keep our muscles and our tendons and the bones and the joints healthy and stretching and target toning, lightweights are so important. It really makes a difference, especially as we age to stay strong and keep our joints healthy and the muscles surrounding the joints are so important. So that's why I do, you know, all new workouts also for her, for women and guys after 50. And those are more straight training and more stretching. And then you could get your cardio from so many variety ways. And then long as you're getting two to three times a week, some type of targeting strength training for your muscles.

Allan: 07:39 And I think that's one thing I read as I was going through some of your stuff is that, uh, you're not, you're not one that says, okay, we need to spend two, three hours a day, uh, doing this to get fit.

Denise: 07:52 I only work out for 30 minutes a day, but I do it most every day and I'm very consistent. And consistency pays off, I promise. 30 minutes, that's all it takes in a, usually you're awake about 16 hours of a day. So what's 30 minutes for your health, your well-being, your mental, your emotional. It truly is a, one of the best ways to get rid of stress, to help fight heart disease, exercise every single day if you can, it is fabulous. I truly do try to get 10,000 steps in a day. And when I do, I feel so proud to go, you know, 12,000 steps. I'm like, yes. So it's also a great way to, you know, track yourself to see how well you're doing and keep, you know, challenging yourself.

Allan: 08:40 Yeah. Now you've, you've always generally taken care of yourself, that was your career. Uh, so you don't want to know first I guess you were an athlete, you're an athlete in college, and then it was your career. And what has changed the way that you train today versus when you were in your 20s and 30s?

Denise: 09:01 Well, you know, I pay attention to my body every day, more in a different way than I'm 62 now. And I feel fantastic. I can do everything. I still do cartwheels and hand stands and, but I, I truly do believe I, uh, I've changed just as simple things such as recovery, things like I do use a foam roller. I love to stretch. I use stretch bands. I do love a massage every month, I tried to get a massage. So self care is important and especially as you age and if you're exercising, you want to feel good. And these are some of the easier ways I take an Epsom salt bath. Never did before in my life. So there's these little things I do, but the main focus is the same that I continue working out most every day. And I honestly feel like I change a little that I do more yoga, I do more pilates for strengthening of the abs and the course as it is, you know, menopausal time for women is so important to keep our abdominals nice and strong, keep our tummy flat and it keeps your back healthy.

Allan: 10:16 Absolutely. Now let's talk about nutrition. What's, what's changed in your nutrition since you 20s and 30s had any major changes there?

Denise: 10:24 Yes, of course I eat differently in the way of, I made sure every day I have a little bit of either chia seeds or flax seeds cause it's Omega three that they're so good for us helping inflammation. I also make sure I have anything Omega threes in my diet. I'm really into salmon twice a week and I eat mostly in the certain, you know, top 10 organic fruits and vegetables. I make sure that I'm eating the good clean ones and I eat 80% very well and very healthy and then I still have 20% treats and that would be a glass of red wine. It would be a little bit of ice cream. So I do enjoy treats and I do, um, treat myself every day and little something and I don't overdo it though. Portion control as I age is very important and um, as we all know, you know, our metabolism slows down as our muscle tone slows down. So we need to up the muscle tone and you know, lessen the amount of calories you eat. So portions are very important to me now and I do watch them more than I ever did.

Allan: 11:41 Okay. Do you, do you track macros or anything like that?

Denise: 11:45 Yes, I eat healthy most of the time anyhow, so I'm very aware of um, the proteins I'm eating, how many grams of protein I eat. I try to eat 70 a day, um, and I'm trying to get more plant protein, but I do have once in a while. Um, you know, grass fed red meat once in awhile and I only buy organic chicken and grass fed chicken and grass fed eggs. And, um, I love avacado I love healthy fats and as you age, I believe in, you know, nuts. I do eat a lot of nuts and more plant based. I will, I have a uh, lettuce grow, which is like a farm stand at my house outside and I pick everyday basil and I'll just eat it right. Leaves the, uh, also parsley. So I make sure I you get a lot of greens and of course of a day more than I ever used to. So, you know, we know now through research how important eating and food is medicine and as we age it's even more so. So I've been very conscientious about that. And um, all my new eating plans on my website have included some new ideas. I have a whole eating plan. If you're a vegetarian, if you're gluten free, if you want to eat heart healthy. So I have seven different ways of an eating plan for 10 weeks to give it a try.

Denise: 13:18 Or you can eat just like me. Very portion control and eating many of the food groups, but everything in moderation.

Allan: 13:26 Yeah. I tell people, I'm basically food agnostic. As long as you're getting good quality whole foods, you can be vegan, you can be, you know, carnivore if you really want to. But just making sure you're getting good variety, making sure you're getting good quality. Um, and then, which recognizes food cause so much of what's available to us in the grocery stores. Um, it isn't, um, that's another big change in the last 30 years is you walk into a grocery store and I don't know that my great grandmother would recognize 90% of the grocery stores as actually food.

Denise: 14:01 Well, I know, and especially, I love it now because I tried different foods, you know, Swiss chard and I do, Oh, of course, kale. And I look at my older books that never had any of those types of vegetables as part of my meal menu plans. So, um, I have updated everything because it's so hard to find good foods, you know, years ago I never ate lentils. I love lentils and humbleness. So many, um, new foods that I enjoy more than I ever used to or more than I knew about. So that's the beautiful part about now.

Allan: 14:41 Yeah. So if you were going to outline like the perfect fitness nutrition week for someone over 40, what would that look like?

Denise: 14:50 Oh, Oh, okay. So exercise wise, Monday, Wednesday and Friday I would do something for 30 minutes cardio like either outside fast walking, it could be one of my workout videos that are on my website, which is 30 minute fat burning and I have over a hundred to choose from new and my TV shows. Oh. And then I would target Tuesday, Thursdays and Saturdays for concentrating on muscle conditioning, strength training and yoga. And then Sundays I would do a self care day, which would include a epson salt bath. I would do some foam rolling, even get some lacrosse balls or any kind of balls and you know, work out your muscles. If you can't get a massage and then eating. Eating in a course of a week, I would make sure you're getting, of course seven fruits and vegetables every day. I always strive for seven and then, um, protein, you know, in each meal and also try not to eat late at night because eating late at night is, um, I found through my own experiment and my own life, uh, that that's where I start to gain the weight is if I eat late at night. I tried to eat all my good healthy carbs in the course of a day and then in the evening slow those carbs down and make sure I'm just not eating late at night and I think it really helped.

Allan: 16:23 Good. Good. I like that. Uh, I define wellness as being the healthiest, fittest and happiest you can be. What are three strategies or tactics to get and stay well?

Denise: 16:36 Well, the first I would say is change your mindset, get positive thinking, get rid of any negative self talk. Think about the first part is your, your mindset. How to kind of turn some of the negativity in your life into simple ways to be positive and be more optimistic. Then second of all, it comes with the food we eat because I believe in lots of water. I do drink eight, eight ounce glasses every single day. I really try to, you know, eat healthy foods, you know, lessen all the packaged process. And third is think good posture throughout the day. Posture is so important, especially as we age to really sit up and stand up tall, pull in those abs, retrain and educate the abdominal muscles to pull in like a tight corset. And the more you practice that it will be there naturally nice and flat. So I really believe good posture and everything you do when you're exercising, when you're sitting, you are your own architect by the way, you're moving and sitting in idle time. So make sure it's in a good position. Good body alignment is very important as we age. It's muscle conditioning without even picking up a weight.

Allan: 17:57 Yes. Now, anyone that's seen any of your videos knows that they can't watch one of your videos without leaving with a good, happy mindset for the day. Uh, if someone wanted to learn more about you and your programs, where would you like for me to send them?

Denise: 18:13 Oh, I love everyone to come to my website, Deniseaustin.com and there I do challenges all the time. I'm coming up with a new one next month. So go onto my website, follow me on Facebook at Denise Austin, Instagram, Denise Austin, and follow along. I do three challenges that get people started and it's a really great way, especially for men and women over 40. I really truly focus on our age group because this is the time we need to focus on. I always, I believe in good health, but now the most important time that we need, we have some time to dedicate to our bodies. And this is your time.

Allan: 18:59 Perfect. This is going to be episode 407 so you can go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/407 and I'll be sure to have links there. So Denise, thank you so much for being a part of 40+ Fitness.

Denise: 19:12 Oh, I love it. Thank you guys. Remember, sit up tall on the dummy and have a happy smile. Love it. Thank you. Thank you. Stay fit.

Patreons

The following listeners have sponsored this show by pledging on our Patreon Page:

– Tim Alexander	– Judy Murphy
– Randy Goode	– Debbie Ralston
– John Somsky	– Ann Lynch
– Wendy Selman	– Jeff Baiocco

Thank you!

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