David: 03:54 And so to go back to your point, one of the most insightful moments was when I built that hideous spreadsheet and I called all four of my doctors. I had one in Boston, I had a couple in Canada, I had some in California. I put all my blood tests in a spreadsheet and that was a lot of work. You gotta be a pretty serious health nerd to go through an exercise like that. And Allan it sounds like you did the same. So we're kindred spirits there. But the first thing that happened was I could see the patterns and I'm like, wow, my doctor can't even see these patterns. You know, he's got one of these PDFs there's another six that have my medical history. And there were trends happening in the data that would be impossible to see otherwise, trends that actually needed attention.

David: 04:40 And I discovered those trends as a patient. And that was the moment where I realized how powerful the data can be when it was centralized. And that was right around the time that we were starting to get access to tools as individuals that were very, very sophisticated. And these were consumer grade devices that could do things like measuring heart rate variability, which 10 years ago you needed to go to a hospital to get and get hooked up to a massive machine. And now all you need is a Bluetooth heart rate monitor and a good HRV app. So I started seeing all of this information that we as individuals could monitor on ourselves, which was awesome. And then I saw how I could overlay it with my medical records. That's ultimately what helps us determine if we're really doing things properly or not. And I just became obsessed with building this system and making it available to everybody. And it's just kind of taken over my life since then.

Allan: 05:39 Yes, I can imagine.

David: 05:41 I guess that's the typical getting bit by the bug. It just becomes all consuming and you want to build this and create this and bring it to life. You know, you talked about people who've written books, and for me it's, I've written a piece of software.

Allan: 05:58 Yeah, and I think there's a, there's a ton of value there that is, it would be, it would be otherwise missed. I mean, you know, everybody likes simple, simple rules, you know, complete the circles on my Apple watch and I've done a good thing today. So you're getting a little bit of gamification, a little bit of information there. But that's just one little PISA data in just this huge sea of data that's coming at us. And there's more and more every year, you know, the watch that can look at your sleep patterns and the, you know the watch that can look at and do an EKG on you and obviously your lab results and, and you know, you go into your doctor and your prescriptions and you know, see you change your prescriptions and you see a change in your, in your trends. You know, what those prescriptions are doing to not just the symptoms that you're feeling, but your actual health markers. So I really liked that it's tying all of that stuff together in a way that is interpretable. I think that's the key. And that's where you've probably been spent spending a lot of your time, not just with, cause there's a ton of integrations, but then also just making sure that the data is interpretable.

David: 07:05 Yeah, we spent a lot of time on our user interface so that we could in essence, demystify a lot of these numbers. You know, how do you make it really simple for anybody to set up a dashboard and just look at some basic health stats even if you're not technically savvy. And you know, one of the interesting things Allan, is that our most active users on the system are actually the least technically savvy people out there. But they have a health issue. And we've made the dashboard intuitive enough that people can make some basic connections. They can test their blood sugar in the morning after they had a pizza the night before. And see how that's different from when they test their blood sugar in the morning after they stopped eating at 5:00 PM and just had a steak with veggies.

David: 07:49 And then these aha moments start happening for people. And these are aha moments that they may not actually get guidance on from the regular doctor. And that becomes exciting and that becomes fun. And then you get more into it and it starts to become very fun and rewarding. And you're basically just nerding out on your own health. And that's a win because I think the reason so many people are in a predicament right now with their health is because they haven't had the information and the insights and the tools, and they haven't had the knowledge about some of the risks of the foods we're putting in our bodies. And so we were kind of blindsided up to this point and now it's like, Oh wow, I have, I've got this microscope into all my health data and I can start figuring some stuff out myself. So making it simple and fun and easy and intuitive with big numbers, big buttons, easy charts, we just wanted to democratize it as much as possible. And as you know, we started this four or five years ago and I still read every single email that comes in our support queues. Most of our product direction is directly from our users. And we have our own private Facebook group where our loyal users are in there and they're testing the software and they're giving us the good, the bad, and the ugly, and, and we build in accordance with our users.

Allan: 09:09 Yeah, it's Drucker that said what what gets measured gets managed. And you're, you're providing a pretty valuable tool for folks that really want to get in there and manage their, their health. I was interviewing Dr. Will Cole last week. Yeah. We had him on and he, in his book he talks about the kind of the bio-individuality of us and how each of us is going to operate differently. Know even when we're doing things exactly the same. You know, I sleep eight hours, you sleep eight hours, you know, I have a glass of orange juice for breakfast. You have a glass of orange juice for breakfast. My blood sugar shoots up over a hundred. And your stay stable as a rock. You know, this is going to give us some of that data if we're checking our blood sugar and putting it in there for taking the time to, and some of this is automated. So if I go to a certain lab to get my blood tests, I can actually have that auto connected. So it's going to integrate right on in. So there's not the data entry to build those massive spreadsheets. And then there's the ability to interpret it on the backend. As far as the business, one of the reasons that I, I think this is kind of top of mind for me today is my wife and I moved down to Panama and we were going to go to a doctor here instead of going back to the United States to see her normal doctors, she's going to try to get a doctorate here. Um and she's like, well, I just saw my doctor, you know, three and four months ago and I have the labs for men. I'll just, I'll just call my, email my doctor and say, Hey, send those to this doctor. And they're like, no, we need a signed form and we need to either do that, do it in our office or fax it to us.

David: 10:44 And yeah, I mean, let me plug in the old fax machine there.

Allan: 10:48 Go find grandpa or somebody on this Island that has a fax machine for us to fax that document. And then fortunately there are some, but it was just such a pain in the butt. So just get the data and I told my wife, I'm like, let's just pay for another blood test because you know, I don't want to fly somewhere just to get to a fax machine, just to sign a piece of paper to ask your doctor to do something that you know you're asking them to do. They know what you and you know. So when you're, when you're doing these interactions, obviously, you know, we're, we're connecting a lot of things and we're pulling a lot of data in and that's a convenience. So you know, in a ways your service is a convenience. How is that data protected then? Cause I think that's what the concerns are. The doctor's like, well, I've got HIPAA and I've got these other regulations. That's why the fax machine, we need that security. How do you manage some of those security issues?

David: 11:44 Well, we don't use fax machines, unfortunately. Allan. Our system is, is considered a personal health record. And so the FDA treats that as being data that is owned and operated by the individual and the individual themselves. So if I am inviting my doctor to access my profile, that's a patient initiated action and that's different than the doctor initiating the request to the patient for data. So those are treated a little differently under HIPAA. That being said, one of the benefits of being a startup nowadays is we can build everything from the ground up on state of the art, HIPAA compliant technology. So all of the services inside Amazon AWS are HIPAA compliant and they use absolute state of the art technology. We have a very, very small footprint inside of Amazon. So we use all their HIPAA compliance services. We have to play by the same rules as everybody else does.

David: 12:54 One of the things we're working on starting in Q one is going to the next level of certification beyond HIPAA, which is called high trust. And that's an even more robust layer of security and compliance than HIPAA is. So we, we do everything we can on the security and the compliance side. We don't ever use the data for external use marketing purposes or anything like that. And that's all really, really clear inside of our terms of service. It's yours, you share it with whoever you want. And that's how we run the business. We're not in the business of making money on people's data. We make money on your monthly subscription.

Allan: 13:38 Cool. So you know, we've talked a little bit about tracking health data. Can you talk about some of the sources of health data that would reside in a tool in your tool? Uh,I know, you know, like we're talking, you know, certain integrations with things, certain things with upharmacies, but you know exactly what data would I be collecting and putting into your tool?

David: 14:00 So that's a really, really great question. And we look at the world and we categorize the data into three buckets. And the first bucket of data would be things that Allan is tracking at home. And so that's also called patient generated data. And that could be the heart rate data from your Apple watch. It could be the measurements when you step on the scale in the morning. It could be your blood pressure, maybe you're measuring that periodically. It could be your blood sugar, it could be more sophisticated health tech, like some of the new wearables like woop and bio strap and or ring.

David: 14:38 All of those do really, really sophisticated analysis on how well we sleep. How much cardiovascular load we're putting on our bodies during the day. So there's heart rate variability, which is becoming very popular because it helps us measure our stress. So everything you measure at home that helps you essentially gain biofeedback about yourself, the devices, the apps, the watches, everything like that. And so that's kind of what we call lifestyle data. That tells Allan, okay, how much am I sleeping? What's my calorie intake? You know, what's my blood sugar been over the last week? So that's the lifestyle data or what we call a patient generated. The second part is what you talked about earlier. Your wife's data, the clinical data. When you go to the regular old doctor and they run the blood work cholesterol, HDL, hemoglobin A1C white blood cell count inflammation markers.

David: 15:34 That is, that is the second bucket of data. And that's also really, really important because as you change your lifestyle habits, what you can measure in bucket number one, you're going to see the numbers in bucket number two, change. You know, prime example of that is hemoglobin A1C. And if you go on a really low carb ketogenic diet, you, you could easily just through dietary change alone have a significant impact. Maybe you bring it down from 6.5 to five or below just through a dietary change. So that's where one, you're looking at your, my fitness pal logs and your blood sugar from bucket one and your hemoglobin A1C from pro bucket two. So that's how that feedback loop goes. And then there's a third category of data that we focus on inside Heads Up that is a little nuanced and that's what I would call functional health data.

David: 16:26 And Dr. Cole probably may have mentioned this, but that would include things like heavy metal testing for some people is an issue. Mold exposure testing. It would include things like your microbiome and a lot of people who have digestive issues and they're testing the microbiome. It may include your genetic data. So that's like the third category, functional health organic acid testing. There's, there's a ton of information in urine and stool, which can be really helpful for people who have tougher cases with their health. So we're working with a lot of individuals and health coaches who do functional testing as well. It's not something you can get from your regular GP that's going to bill insurance, although insurance might cover some of the testing. So it's lifestyle, clinical, functional. Those are the three categories that we, that we integrate.

Allan: 17:23 Cool. And this is the tool that you've built out, not just for the end user to have access to share and use and see their data and analyze it. Practitioners can also use this with their patients, right?

David: 17:37 Yeah. Health coaches. We're, we're really focused Allan on the the cash pay wellness market. So these are doctors that you pay cash, functional health doctor, nutritionist an integrative specialist personal trainers. So we have a coaching portal where, and these are the people who want to see your Fitbit data and they want to look at your functional health data. They're going to spend an hour with you during your console and they're going to go over all of this stuff. And in a traditional medicine world, that system's not really built in a way where that data is, I would say, as valued or as part of the care plan.

David: 18:16 So we have a portal where health coaches can log in and they can log in and very quickly look at who of their clients need some extra help in terms of blood sugar. And they can look at dietary intake and personalize a protocol and they'll have access to Allan's labs going back 15 years. So your wife could show up to a functional doctor and, and provide access to the Heads Up profile and all the data. Is there all the labs, not just the most recent ones. Yeah. So we, we have a portal for health coaches as well and we want to be able to use the information as part of the treatment plan and there's awesome data out there. My doctor to look at it. I want to ask him like, why was my HRV higher this day versus that day and why, how, how do I personalize this?

David: 19:05 You've got my genetic data, you've got my lifestyle data, you've got my medical tests. Like they can dial it in for you.

Allan: 19:13 Yeah, that's, that's 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?

David: 19:26 Oh, that's a great question. Three strategies and stack and tactics to get and stay well, I would have to say that understanding how to regulate your metabolism would be number one in terms of getting and staying well. And I say that because so many of the illnesses we have are metabolic in nature, sugar and foods that destroy our blood sugar and then cause a host of downstream effects. So getting a staying well means healthy blood sugar regulation. That will be my number one number two would be a high quality sleep and that's high quality sleep that you're measuring with something that can tell you the, there's a subjective component to sleep where you may think you're getting a great night's sleep, but you might have severe sleep apnea and you don't even know it and your sleep is actually incredibly disrupted.

David: 20:26 So getting really high quality rest would be the other one. And then the third one I would have to say would be probably related to community and spirituality. And I think that's essential. Having people around that love you and being able to give and receive love to people. It doesn't have to be a partner, it doesn't have to be a family member. There's lots of ways to give and receive love. It could just be through volunteering. But having community and ways to express and offer and receive love. I would say that's more of a spiritual than it is anything quantifiable and I think that's really important. So that will be my number three.

Allan: 21:09 Okay. Thank you David. Thank you for sharing that. If someone wanted to learn more about you, learn more about Heads Up Health, where would you like for me to send them?

David: 21:18 Well, first of all, I offer everyone to just contact me directly. I'm an open book. My, my inbox is a little backed up, but I'll do my best. I'm David Heads Up Health and if you're interested in the software we provide, it's at Headsuphealth.com we have our own podcast, Data Driven Health Radio where we break down a lot of these numbers and demystify them and teach people how to use them. So much like yourself, Allan we're providing educational content and then you'll find us on all the regular social media channels. We share all the good information we find out there on the interwebs as well. So there's lots of ways to track us down. And if you want to give the softwarea try, it's 30 days. You can try it free. There's no credit card required, just no pressure. If you like it, hopefully it can make a difference in your health. The data was hugely transformational in my own health and so that's my life's work at this point.

Allan: 22:11 Good. So you can go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/414 and I'll be sure to have links there in the show notes. So David, thank you so much for being a part of 40 plus fitness.

David: 22:23 Thanks for a great discussion.

David: 22:31 Did you know that we have a 40+ Fitness Podcast Group on Facebook?

Yep, we sure do. You can go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/group. That's a great place to interact with me and other listeners of the show. I'm on there all the time. Trying to put out great content, trying to make it fun. It's a really cool place. We have weekly challenges. Go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/group and request to join the 40+ Fitness Podcast Group

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Another episode you may enjoy

Undoctored with Dr. William Davis

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!

Another episode you may enjoy

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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
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– 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.

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

– Tim Alexander	– Judy Murphy
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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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Dr. Wilson: 02:06 So I've been working with people with slow metabolisms for about 30 years and I have seen over and over again where people are trying to lose weight and they still have trouble losing weight even though they're doing quote unquote everything that the experts tell them to do. And it's really frustrating because here's a person who's doing what their quote-unquote supposed to do and they're still not getting any results. And a lot of people will accuse them of not following the program correctly. You know, they don't want to be, take the blame for this person's poor results. So they blame the person's a lack of compliance. But anyway, I've seen these people struggle sometimes on 600 calories a day, sometimes on 1,012 hundred calories a day, and they're still not able to lose weight. So I went back to, I was trying to figure out a way to help these people and I've been trying to do that for a long time now, but there some research available now in the last 10 years that wasn't available 30 years ago.

And it's just fantastic because I call it, um, there's a lot of research done on, on hormones and signaling and messengers and, uh, so there's a lot of things talk in the literature, uh, known as signaling and chemical signals. And so I call Fastercise basically signaling exercise because it takes advantage of the signaling processes that already occur in the body. But if you understand these processes, which we haven't for many years and we're starting to understand it much better now, but if you understand those processes correctly, then you can send just the right signal at just the right time to make just the right difference to unlock the key to actually getting the results you're looking for.

Allan: 04:05 Yeah, I think that was part of what was fascinating about this is because, you know, I think most of us already know when the hormones are signaling to our body what to do. So, you know, um, testosterone is making us want to build some muscle and be more masculine. Uh, cortisol is a catabolic and actually wants to start breaking things down because we're in stress mode. But your approach is actually saying, well what are the, what are the things we can do ourselves that will cause that hormone to be in the right place at the right time.

Dr. Wilson: 04:36 Exactly.

Allan: 04:37 So as a, as a part of all this, I guess the base goal is, you know, we're, we're going to want to try to a loose fat you can gain muscle. And so as we, as we get into that, one of the concepts that you get into the book is this concept called the unfed state. And can you tell me a little bit about that and how that's going to affect our hormones?

Dr. Wilson: 05:00 Absolutely. And um, there's really, as opposed to the unfed state or non-fed state, there is the fed state. And so an easy way to conceptualize that is, it's like a charge. It's like a cell phone having two States. Number one, you can charge the cell phone and then it's in the charging state or you can unplug the cell phone and start using it. And then you, it's in the using state. And that's the way it is in the fed state. We're like charging up our energy stores and in the non-fed state we're using those energy stores. And so since the goal of weight loss or fat loss is to use up those stored energy reserves of fat, that's why the non-fed state is so critically important because that's the time that your body is uncharging or using up those to power your body.

Allan: 05:59 Okay. And so it's effectively, I mean, I guess in the book you kinda got into it from the perspective of says if we keep eating all the time and we stay in the fed state, we're kind of putting ourselves in one role of body, in one role of always charging. And we're never discharging or able to get rid of the energy that we have now stored.

Dr. Wilson: 06:25 Exactly. And it doesn't take a lot of food either. So if somebody is snacking just a little bit, let's say every couple of hours they have, even though their calories don't add up to a lot of calories in the day, if they're eating every three hours, that's enough eating just a little bit of food is enough to drive up your insulin levels or in other words puts you in the charging mode or the storage mode. And so when your insulin levels are up, you're not going to be burning stored fat and because insulin will shut that down immediately. So you do need to let those insulin levels come down. You need to be in the non-fed state so that you can encourage the burning of those fat stores.

Allan: 07:15 Now I think when, when people kind of go into, or they hear about intermittent fasting or maybe even longer extended fasting, so we're trying to get into an unfed state, although you know, they're like, well, I'm going to get hungry, but Fastercise is built and designed to help fight that hunger. Right?

Dr. Wilson: 07:33 That's right. And it takes advantage of the survival mechanisms that are normally built in the body and the body. There's two ways that the body has of surviving. One is to run off of the stored energy that you already have stored and I call that storage mode. And the other way of approaching it is foraged mode. In other words, going out and getting new food. So when a person eats, then the food that they eat, will stop, will fill their body with nutrients so that it stops their hunger and they go into storage mode. But the other option, the other way of doing it is by doing a special kind of exercise and to direct your body or to signal your body that you're actually going out and foraging for your food. And they actually go into obtain food. And when your body sees that you're in the business of obtaining more food, it stops, it mobilizes stored energy in your body. And that stored energy that floods into your system provides the energy you need to get more food and also to get rid of your hunger.

Allison: 08:49 So if I can just jump in here really quickly, just going along with what my dad was Dr. Wilson. It's amazing how when you tell your body, Hey, we're trying to get some food here. Yes, you're going without eating anything, but you have the ability to stay quote-unquote fed because you're not hungry. You feel quite satisfied. At least that's been my experience. And so it's not a chore. It's not challenging, honestly. It's invigorating and it's saves you a lot of time in the kitchen because you can spend your time doing other things.

Allan: 09:20 Okay. So Allison, yeah, take just a moment because you did this predominantly lose some baby weight. Um, you'd put on some weight when you had your baby and you took your father's program fast for size and you executed on it and was able to do that. Can you kind of talk us through that? How, how this would in a normal day or a normal approach that you went through as you were getting yourself Fastercised.

Allison: 09:45 Yeah, absolutely. Like you said, I, I gained some baby weight when I had my son Titus and I was probably sitting at about 35 pounds beyond where I wanted to be a thought. You know, I've got nothing to lose. Let's see how this goes. And so primarily my dad told me when you get hungry, push it off with shiver size, which is the shivering exercise for Fastercise. Push your hunger away with shivering, uh, once or twice before you eat and then after you eat, do around of tightening your muscles as hard as you can so your body knows how to develop the muscles. So which ones are most important on how is this going to help you? So I started a shivering before I was hungry and then I also incorporated a lower carb diet. You don't have to have a low carb diet with Fastercise.

Allison: 10:31 But I found that that worked well for me and I was able to lose about 30 pounds in three months, which completely blew my mind, especially considering that I was working a full time job, 40 hours a week. I was taking care of my baby, we had just moved across country and we were buying a house. So my life was kind of kind of all over the place and I really didn't have any hope of being able to lose the weight. Um, but you know, in the morning I woke up, I would shiver sized and then when I get hungry again I do it maybe once more. And then I would eat my lunch because usually I wouldn't be hungry until then. And then after ate my lunch I would do about you know, two minutes of tightening my muscles as hard as I could just going through each muscle group. And then I would wait until I got hungry again and the cycle repeat itself. So I did that about two or three times a day. And just those small changes, I was able to lose weight very quickly and then I ended up entering a bodybuilding competition eight months after delivery just with doing Fastercise.

Allan: 11:32 Wow. That's, that's pretty impressive. Now. So, just to kind of recap a little bit there, there are basically two variations or two things that you would incorporate as a part of Fastercise. One is the shiver size, which is effectively moving alternating muscles very quickly. And then the, the tighter size basically just as tight, tighter, tighter size is just basically where you, you, you contract the muscle in an isometric way to just really get an intense muscular burn. Right?

Allison: 12:02 Right.

Allan: 12:04 Okay, and it's, it's two minutes, or less typically. Right?

Allison: 12:09 Right. Yeah, so I clenched my muscles as hard as I can want like one muscle group at a time for about two or three seconds a piece. So clench my biceps as hard as I can and then move on until deltoids or whatever the case may be. It really doesn't take much time at all.

Allan: 12:25 Okay. Um, you know, Dr. Wilson I've, you know, obviously I'm in this space, I do a lot of reading and I really appreciate all the studies and the, and the links you had, uh, to, for me to go out and actually look at some of these studies because they were fascinating and I love this stuff, but I'd read a study not too, too long ago, uh, that, uh, said, you know, if you, if you walked after you ate, just go for a five, 10 minute walk. It keeps your blood sugar from going up. So I think there's, you know, there's some of that, but you know, most people will say, you know, if you want to lose weight, you got to do this, this cardio thing and you need to do it for at least 30 minutes and get your heart rate up to a certain point. Uh, but what's you're doing with this as just a very short but very intense period of time. Can you kind of compare and contrast them of why this, the shorter version is better then maybe the longer, slower cardio?

Dr. Wilson: 13:21 I think the human body is miraculous. And I think there's a lot of, a lot of things work really well for a lot of people, so I know that you know, it just depends on what you're wanting to do and what signals that you're sending the body. For example, if you think about a long walk, let's say a 45-minute walk, in a way you're, again, I'm going to go back, my point of view is that it's all about survival. You know, a lot of people talk about the balance between calories in and calories out and I talk about a survival balance between storage mode and forge mode. And I think, I think our bodies, from what I gather from reading, reading, studying, all the physiology and all the research and studies on this, if you kind of look at all of them and put them all together, to me, it leaves me with a feeling that all of these mechanisms are about survival.

And so and I like to call one, one mode of survival as storage mode and the other is forge mode. And that has all to do, that has everything to do with us preserving enough or obtaining enough energy to function correctly. So if you think about the storage mode is going to be important if there's a famine in the land and if it's hard to obtain food. Or let's say you had to walk 45 minutes to find something to eat, let's say you had to, let's say you had to run four miles a day to cover enough territory to find something to eat. So in a way you're by doing that kind of exercise, you're almost sending your body the signal that food isn't that easy to come by. But on the other hand, if you can go outside and run around for a few minutes or run out, run around for a few seconds, or tighten your muscles and contract your muscles and climb up a tree just in a few seconds, you can obtain food, then that sends the signal that that food is plentiful and it's a lot easier to come by.

So, and that foraging is working for you. And so basically you're telling your body there's no reason to store fat. And if you, if you do something different, like, um, these, these long cardio exercises, in a way, you might actually be extending your body, there's a thing that happens when you do that kind of cardio exercise. You actually, instead of your appetite going away, you can actually build your appetite because your body, you, you build your appetite and your body says, Oh, well, you know, we need to conserve energy and we need to burn some muscle and we need to store some fat and so it can be counterproductive. I mean, it's great if you're gonna if you're, if you're training four or five K or if you're training for an ultra marathon, you know, then of course, that kind of training is fantastic. But if you're trying to lose fat and build muscle in just a few minutes a day, then a cause that, that's one of the huge advantages of the Fastercise is that it doesn't take all day. It doesn't, you don't have to go to the gym any, you know, if you're standing in line at the, at the grocery store, if you're driving, if you're in a meeting, uh, no matter where you are or what you're doing, you can do this.

Allan: 16:46 Yeah. I think if I started flexing muscles and posing in a meeting, um, I get a lot of weird looks, but, uh, you know, um, you know, and I think that's just one of this, I mean, from my practical experience, you know, I know that if I, if I do that, the basic hit training and by hit training, I mean really intense and actually really short because you can't, you just can't keep doing it. If it's really high intensity, high-intensity workout after that workout, I'm, I'm definitely not hungry for an hour or two. But when I was training for marathons, I would always put on weight because I was always hungry. And then of course, because I was training, I justified that I could eat what I wanted to eat. Uh, but almost invariably, every time I did the training for a marathon, I would start putting on weight.

Dr. Wilson: 17:31 Interesting. Yeah.

Allison: 17:33 I'm just, you know, you were commenting about flexing in a meeting. Just wanted to share that. I have done that multiple times, but trick is to clench your muscles in the position that you're already seated in so you can like clench your abs or maintaining eye contact with someone and they would have no idea that you're building your muscles.

Allan: 17:55 Yeah, yeah. I'm, I'm just thinking about, you know, bicep pose tricep, but now there's a concept in the book and I actually love this concept because I tell my clients this and I, and I've actually experienced it myself. Uh, but have you talked to the calorie in, calorie out folks? They're going to tell you that you have to cut and then you have to, you know, bulk. And then so you can build muscle, which is, you know, antibiotic to add the muscle, but you're probably going to add a little bit of fat when you do that. And then you can cut and you're probably gonna lose a little bit of muscle when you do that. But by going backwards and forwards on this, you can inch yourself up to more muscle. But in the book you propose that we can do both at the same time.

Dr. Wilson: 18:39 Yes. And I think, I think there's a lot of instances, I think a lot of people, well there are studies that show the results in a number of patients who go through different programs and they'll show that as a group they've lost this much fat and they've lost and they've gained this much muscle so they can, you can see that this happens as a group over let's say an eight week period of time they have lost fat and gained muscle at the same time. So that, so we know that can happen over a period of, of, of weeks or months. But I believe it can actually happen at the very same moment. Not just the same month, not to same week, not the same day and not the same hour, but at the same moment. That you can get your, because when you have, he things that stimulate muscle growth include concentration or availability of amino acids and, and energy.

So if you have, if you have stimulation or the exercise stimulation number one, and then you have amino acids number two, and you have energy number three, then then you can build muscle. And um, the interesting thing is that we have plenty of muscles stored in fat. And one thing that I think is fascinating is to give you an example is that a lot of times one of the things we use for quick energy is glycogen. And glycogen is a stored carbohydrate that's stored in the muscles and in the liver. And when our energy supply is low, typically that's a sign that our glycogen storage is low. But they found that people, uh, when you, and then when you burn up all your glycogen and then you have to rely more on fat. But they've, they've found in research that certain, um, long distance athletes, they will, they are able to replenish their glycogen stores even when they're on a low carbohydrate diet. So even though they're not eating carbohydrate and they're eating mostly fat and protein, they're still able to replenish their, their glycogen stores. And that's largely due to something called docgluconeogenesis where the body just, uh, uses raw materials, I guess to begin to remanufacture or recycle, recycle. It's, um, blood sugar back into glycogen for energy stores.

Allan: 21:12 And, and that's typically once they're fat-adapted cause it experience, it doesn't work that way when you first start a low carb diet at all. So once you do get to that point, yes, you have the energy that you need and your body actually gets really, really efficient at using fat. So, depending on the intensity of the work that you're doing, um, you, you have the stamina to continue to use body fat and your body's going to restore that glycogen even if you're not eating significant carbs.

Dr. Wilson: 21:42 So, yeah, exactly. And so in a way, this, you know, because of this mechanism, there's a way that you can get fat adapted or you can be breaking down your muscle. I mean, I'm sorry, breaking down your fat stores and losing fat, but at the same time providing enough energy as long as you have enough of amino acids available that not only can you rebuild your glycogen at a point like that, but you can also, you can also rebuild your muscles as well.

Allan: 22:13 Yeah, and I think one key point of this that, that I think's important is that this doesn't just, this doesn't mean that you, you're always eating protein to get those amino acids. In many cases your, your body through a tophi G can actually recycle cells and pull amino acids. We always have amino acids running through our system. Um, it's just a function of making sure that everything else is working the way it's supposed to. So our hormones and everything else is in line to allow us to build that muscle.

Dr. Wilson: 22:40 Right.

Allan: 22:41 Okay, cool. So Allison, um, you guys are developing an app for this. Can you, can you tell us a little bit about that?

Allison: 22:47 Yeah, so this app is available right now with Android and Apple and we just called it Fastercise. So it's easy to find. Uh, basically it tells you everything that you need to know to successfully accomplish your Fastercised program. So we have what we like to call the laws of Fastercise, which basically tells you exactly what you need to do every day. But then we also have lots of content to show you how to Fastercise, maintain a diet management. So lots of recipes and sparking inspiration for, for your foods. We also have a journal section and a social media and resources. So with this, we are pretty sure that you could do this on your own. But then we also have the availability to have personal one on one coaching, uh, with our staff. So you can get not only the help from the app, but then on top of that help from an actual person if you have more specific questions and would like a little bit more specialized attention.

Allan: 23:47 Yeah. I liked that you, you had the videos in there so they can, they can literally look and, because sometimes you're trying to visualize. I'll work with my clients and I'm like trying to explain an exercise to them and it's just, it's, it's sometimes it's very difficult for them to get the concept of exactly what you're doing. So I like that the videos are there, uh, the support, the journaling, all of that, um, and the meal plans and the recipes. I think you've put together a really, really cool app.

Allison: 24:12 Thank you. We, we, we'd like to think so. We hope everyone else does too.

Allan: 24:17 Cool. 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, and I guess that we'll start with you, Allison.

Allison: 24:30 Yeah, so for me, I think my top three strategies are first, find a way to spark joy in your life every day. I think when you can give yourself something to look forward to, it just makes your whole outlook on life so much better. Um, my second recommendation is to be intention focused, not feeling focused. So if you have a goal, make sure that you make your actions line up with achieving that goal rather than own. You know, I'm tired right now. I don't want to do that. Make sure that, that your actions are fulfilling your goals. And then lastly, stay as close to what nature has provided or intended for us as possible. One of the things that I like most about Fastercise is it lets me tap into what my body does naturally and what the world around me has provided by eating natural foods and doing natural exercises. I think that, you know, nature and the earth have done a lot to help us through the thousands and thousands of years that humans I've been hearing. And I think that it knows what it's doing. So those are my top three.

Allan: 25:34 Cool. Dr. Wilson.

Dr. Wilson: 25:36 Thanks Allan. So my first strategy would be, uh, increasing the size and number of our mitochondria and what that the mitochondria are in ourselves. And that's basically the power plan of ourselves. And one thing we haven't talked about that I actually think is, is really huge. It touches on what you were saying about autophagy and rebuilding and refreshing, refreshing your body, uh, Fastercises is a simple way that people can refresh their fitness in just a few minutes a day. And one of the ways that we do that is by doing this kind of Fastercise, what we can do is we can use up energy faster than our mitochondria can produce it at least for a short time. And you mentioned with that high-intensity interval training exercise that you do is that you can only do that for a certain amount of time. You can't keep doing it. And the reason why we can't keep doing it is because our energy will, the reason why we can't keep doing it as that we use up ATP or energy faster than our mitochondria can, can produce it.

And that actually has a really great stimulatory effect because your body says, wow, he used up or she used up energy faster than we could make it today. So we're going to have to generate more power plants for tomorrow. And those power plants are fantastic because those are the ones that, that do refresh your body or do rebuild your body. When we sleep at night, all the chemical reactions that we build and refresh our body are using energy produced by the mitochondria. So to have to feel energetic during the day, to feel refreshed, to be rebuilding, to have your skin tightening up and for you be able to move and function and everything.

But mitochondria are, are really important for that. And this Fastercise is a fantastic way of doing it. And you know, that you've sent your body that signal quite strong is when you get winded enough from Fastercise that you have to take a deep breath if you actually can catch a deep breath that's your signal that you Fastercised enough for that day to expect tomorrow to be better. Uh, I totally agree with Allison as far as the next, my next recommendation as far as the natural foods go and natural foods and natural activities and to stay true to the design of our bodies or how they're built or the blueprint as it were. So it's so, it's so critical to try to just like, just like you want to drive a screw with the correct end of a screwdriver so you know, we want to use our bodies the way they are built to be used.

And if we go contrary to that, putting in there things that aren't found in nature and, uh, it's, it's not gonna work out as well. My third recommendation is to, uh, the adaptations that, that people go through, like whether it's diet or exercise or fitness program, when those work, as long as you're doing them. But it might take four to six weeks or more actually months and even years of training for your body, to build up all the adaptations and, and, and to develop all the, to develop all the benefits from the exercise you're doing. But when you stop that training, you can lose those adaptations or that, that progress if you will. You can lose that and as short as two weeks. So my recommendation isn't the diet and exercise that you can do that makes a difference.

It's the diet and exercise that you can keep doing. Cause you, you've mentioned like you're, you're looking for a strategy where someone can be healthy for life. So really what they need to do, I think what people need to do is they need to find a lifestyle that they can do for life, uh, health, promoting lifestyle that they can do for life. And, and I love Fastercise for that because it's simple time efficient and it can easily be done by pretty much anybody in the world. Even people who are disabled, people who are uh, elderly people who are obese, uh, just about anybody in any circumstance can, can get a lot of benefit from this approach.

Allan: 30:19 Well cool. I appreciate you sharing both of you sharing that. If someone wanted to get in touch with you, learn more about the book and the things that you're doing in the app, where would you like for me to send them?

Dr. Wilson: 30:31 So our book, uh, The Power of Fastercise is available in bookstores right now and it's also available on Amazon. Listeners can also get it direct from our publisher@chelseagreen.com and they can also go to our Fastercise website. It's fastercise.com

Allison: 30:52 Yeah. So I recommend going and checking out our website at fastercise.com. And you can order the book there. You could also go on Amazon and look up The Power of Fastercize and then you could also go to Chelsea green publishing to get the power of fast your size. If you'd like to download our app, it's available in both Apple and Android and just search Fastercize.

Dr. Wilson: 31:22 Allan, I just wanted to say one more thing about the app does that, what we had in mind when we designed the app was so that one person can tell another person so that one friend could tell another friend, Hey, just go and download the app and follow the instructions or all you have to do is download the app and follow what it says.

Allan: 31:47 Cool. You can go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/405 four zero five and I'll be sure to have the links there. So Dr. Wilson, Alison, thank you so much for being a part of 40+ Fitness.

Dr. Wilson: 31:59 Thank you so much for having us.

Allison: 32:01 Thank you. This was great.

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