Too often, we use a fixed mindset when we approach a challenge and struggle. As long as we have this victimhood frame we won't be successful with change. On episode 589 of the 40+ Fitness Podcast, we discuss growth and fixed mindset and how you can change the way you think and find success on your health and fitness journey.
Transcript
Let's Say Hello
[00:02:38.130] – Coach Allan
Hey, Ras. How are things?
[00:02:40.310] – Coach Rachel
Good, Allan. How are you today?
[00:02:42.480] – Coach Allan
I'm doing okay. We're having a water issue again, so I don't want to get into all that because it's just going to frustrate me again.
[00:02:50.040] – Coach Rachel
Oh, jeez.
[00:02:50.750] – Coach Allan
But we're working on it. But no, I'm happy to announce that I have a few things that I told last week. I started interviewing on different podcasts, and so some of those podcasts have come out now, and I wanted to share a few of them. I was on Paul Hanton's podcast called The Healthy Fit Life. You can find that one at 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/paul.
And then I was on Jillian Lockditch, which we had her on last week. I was on her podcast. Growing Older, living Younger with Jillian Lockditch. And that's at 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/gill. And that's Jill spelled G-I-L-L. Like from Jillian, but Gill and you can find that one.
So Paul, David, and Jill, I was on each of their podcasts. And so 40 Plusfitnesspodcast.com and then those names Paul, David or Jill. And you can catch those episodes there.
[00:04:01.180] – Coach Rachel
Awesome. That's exciting. I can't wait to give a listen to those.
[00:04:04.900] – Coach Allan
Yeah, it's interesting to be on the other side of the interview. Sure. Because even if we've discussed kind of what we want to talk about, I don't have a script. I don't go in this like, this is how I say these things. I listen to a question and then I say, okay, this is the best way to answer that. So it's a lot more off the cuff than a lot of the things that I do when I'm interviewing a guest on my podcast. I've read their book and I have specific things I want to discuss here. I go at it not necessarily knowing what they're going to ask me. So it can be kind of interesting. So, yeah, go check those out.
[00:04:46.960] – Coach Rachel
Awesome. That sounds fun.
[00:04:48.730] – Coach Allan
How are things up there?
[00:04:50.180] – Coach Rachel
Good. I just wanted to share with you and our listeners real quick. My doctor just told me some pretty important news the other day. I'm post menopausal. Yay, I made it. I made it. And kind of related to that, my thyroid is finally tanked out, so I'll be starting some thyroid medicine. I'm hypothyroid, which is now the reason why I've been so darn fatigued lately, just because my thyroid has not been functioning quite as well. And it's kind of funny because as an ultra marathoner, fatigue is kind of the name of my game to begin with. But now I really know why I'm actually as tired as I am, so I'll be starting that pretty soon.
[00:05:33.370] – Coach Allan
Man, you're going to be blowing out your PRS like nobody's business.
[00:05:36.350] – Coach Rachel
I'm hoping. I'm hoping to get some of my energy back, but I just wanted to share real quick as I learn more about what this means for me as a woman. And by the way, I'm 51, and I didn't know that 51 is the actual average age that women hit menopause. So yay, I'm textbook.
[00:05:57.890] – Coach Allan
I thought it was closer to 53, but yeah, okay, textbook.
[00:06:02.350] – Coach Rachel
Yeah. So as I figure some of this stuff out, I'd be happy to share my story with our listeners. But just for right now, I've got official notice I'm menopausal, and we'll see what happens.
[00:06:15.350] – Coach Allan
Basically, the way that I understand that they diagnose this is if you go without a period for a year, then they consider you in menopause.
[00:06:25.540] – Coach Rachel
Yeah, well, it gets kind of tricky because I had an Ablation done, so I haven't had a normal period in a couple of years. So that makes it a little difficult to figure that out. And I've had a lot of symptoms. The heat flashes during the day, night sweats at night, a little bit of moodiness. But again, those are kind of normal. And for pretty much any woman that actually either has a period or is going through the perimenopause and apparently now in post menopause. So it's important to know that some of these symptoms can get worse. My thyroid is probably in the mix with all these hormone fluctuations and changes, but it's important to spend time with your doctor as well. I go to my annual physical every year. I see a high risk breast cancer doctor, and now I see a women's health specialist who specializes in menopause and can give me a whole ton of information, but they did the right test at the right time. And now I know for sure what's happening with my hormones. And it's going to be very helpful as I navigate all these symptoms moving forward.
[00:07:38.760] – Coach Allan
We're good. I mean, you know, at least once a year I try to have a woman's health expert on. We're typically going to talk about perimenopause and menopause and that type of thing at least once per year, sometimes more. So I've had several episodes on, so there's lots of material out there. But this is going to be good because I'm going to have a pro on my side next time I do interview. That's right. Yeah. We can approach that one a little bit different, but cool. All right, well, are you ready to get into our episode about victimhood?
[00:08:12.420] – Coach Rachel
Sounds great.
Interview
You are not a victim. That's what I'm calling this episode. And it relates to kind of a cultural trend that I've been seeing out there lately where victimhood is being kind of almost touted like a virtue. And I'm here to tell you that if you're trying to improve your health and fitness, if you're trying to lose weight particularly, you're going to really struggle if you have this state of mind, this victimhood state of mind. So I'm going to go through some statements. These are statements that I've heard people say I've heard people or seen people post them on Facebook and or on Twitter. And it's so common that it was easy for me to find several different ways that this shows up. So the first one is I want something I don't have, therefore I'm a victim. So if someone has something you don't have, obviously you're a victim. The next one is, I struggle more than other people, therefore I'm a victim. And so this goes on, the idea that your life is harder than theirs and therefore you're a victim because you have to struggle so much harder to do the basic things that everyone else is doing or that you believe other people are doing to get their success.
Now, this is a very common one, particularly in weight loss areas. I'm addicted to sugar and carbs, therefore I'm a victim. And this one's really, really common. I see it a lot. Now, don't get me wrong, sugar and carb addiction is kind of a thing. But the reality of it is it's not as hard to break as some other addictions might be. And there are steps to take. You are not a victim. You chose to eat sugar and carbs, or at least you ate them when you were given them and you've continued to eat them and buy them. So having sugar and carbs around you is the same thing as maybe sending an alcoholic to a bar. It's just something you wouldn't do if you're trying to beat alcoholism and if you're trying to lose weight, being around sugar and carbs might make that very difficult for you, particularly if you believe you're a victim. I don't have the energy to work out. I love this one, therefore I'm a victim. Okay? I don't have the energy to work out. Now, there's this little known thing in our body that causes us to actually get hormones and endorphins feel good stuff in our brain when we work out, that gives us more energy.
When we build strength and endurance, we have more energy. So the not having energy to work out is really just an excuse to not get started, okay? Other people sabotage me, therefore I'm a victim. Now, don't get me wrong, there are plenty of people out there willing to sabotage you if you let them. But again, you're choosing victimhood. In this case, they're choosing to do what they do. They're choosing to try to take you off track in some cases. Sometimes they're not. Sometimes they actually think they're doing something nice for you. But if you feel like other people are your problem, you are the problem. You are not a victim. But you'll say you're a victim because those other people, well, they're in your way. And then I've tried everything, and nothing works. Therefore, I'm a victim. And again, this is just that concept that you've really given everything the best shot possible. You really worked your way through it, and all these failures have just become an evidence of your limitations. So we're going to talk about that a little bit about what victimhood is. Now, victimhood fits in the mindset frame of being a fixed mindset.
And this is a psychological concept that was developed by psychologist Carol Dweck. And so what she talks about in her writings and in her studies is that you either have a fixed mindset or a growth mindset. And guess what? Those aren't fixed. You can have the one that you choose to have. And there's a reason why these fixed mindsets are a problem. And one of the main things is that people with a fixed mindset, people who believe they're victims, they avoid challenges. And anytime there's a failure, even a little failure, you're more likely to see that as evidence of your limitations, okay? And so what that does is that creates fear of failure in yourself and you're not willing to take risks. So the signing up for a gym membership or hiring a coach or buying the food service that's going to be delivered to you, you don't want to take that step because if you fail, it's just more evidence that you're limited, that you're a victim, that you have a problem. And then another tendency that fixed mindset people have is to compare themselves to others. Now, in some cases, this is to seek external achievements so they can say, okay, well, at least I'm not as heavy as that person.
But they also end up with the negative and the limiting beliefs that they see someone else and they don't think they'll ever make it to that same spot. So these external comparisons are really holding them back on both sides. One is, well, I'm actually kind of normal. When I look at everybody else, they're all overweight. I'm overweight, therefore this is just the way it is. We're all victims, okay, and you're not. But that's a fixed mindset. Now, in contrast, a growth mindset refers to your belief in your ability and your intelligence that that can be developed, that you can improve yourself over time with hard work, dedication and perseverance. So the question you have to ask yourself is, do I believe that challenges and failures are opportunities for me to learn and grow rather than an indication that I'm going to fail? And if I fail, therefore I'm broke, therefore I have these limitations. So with a growth mindset, you always give yourself the best opportunity because you're willing to take the risk. You're willing to hire that coach, you're willing to join the gym, you're willing to try a diet or a way of eating or exercise program.
Again, even if you know everything else failed, you're going to go at it again. And you're going to go at it with the idea that these things that happen are teaching you something. They're giving you an opportunity to improve. And that's where the importance of this is. If you feel like you're a victim, you don't have control. But when you take on a growth mindset, you're suddenly taking on this idea that I am not limited by the mistakes and problems I've had in the past. Yes, I had problems with these donuts, and yes, I struggled when these things happened and yeah, with the stress of my job or the amount of time I was traveling, all those things, I could use those as excuses or I could try to find ways to improve my life despite those problems. And that's where the difference in these two come from. So to break away as a victim, there's a few things that you need to ask yourself, and these are important. So if you're not driving or running or doing something and you can get a pen out, this is a good time for you to write down these questions and really spend some time thinking about it.
Okay? This is not something you're just going to answer while you're listening to this podcast. So the first one is, are your actions consistent with your values? And here's what I mean by that. Let's say you want to be the best mother or the best father you can be or the best grandparent you can be. Okay. Are you living in a way that allows you to do that? You may say, I want to make sure that I'm there for my spouse, I'm there for my children. I want to be that person. Are you? Are you living in a way that makes that possible? Are you living in a way where you're going to be there for one and that you're going to be capable of doing the things that you want to do? How do you want to live the rest of your life? What are the values that you want to carry on? I've talked about it several times. I want to be there for my wife. I want to be there for my children. I want to be there for my grandchildren. I want to be there to run the bed and breakfast, to do the things.
I want to be able to physically train people for a long, long time. And I want to be independent my whole life. I do not want someone to have to take care of me. Those are my values. So then looking at your actions, ask yourself, are your actions consistent with your values? Because this can help you break through this. This can help you take that next step I'm going to talk about in a minute. Okay, the next question. Are you able to learn from mistakes or do you see them as evidence you're broken or flawed? So you go out for dinner and they bring around the dessert tray and it all looks awesome. And so you tell yourself, well, I'll just get a little bit of chocolate. I did go to the gym this morning, so I'm just going to go ahead and get a little bit of that chocolate death by chocolate thing. And they bring out this 32 ounce chocolate menagerie on your plate and you go digging into it. Now, the next day, how are you going to look back at that? Are you going to say, oh, my God, I failed, I'm a failure?
Well, no, you're not. That's an opportunity for you to learn. So ask yourself, do you really think you're broken when you do those things? And the short answer has to be no. That's an opportunity for you to see where you made a mistake. So you could just tell the waiter after you've gotten your meal, please do not bring that dessert tray by here. And if you're in the United States and you're listening to this, you can be very clear. If you bring that dessert tray by here, you will not get a tip from me, okay? Guess what that waiter or waitress is not going to do when you say something like that. They are not going to bring that dessert tray because they do not want to jeopardize their tip. So you just tell them, if you bring that dessert tray by here, I will not tip you. And guess what? You're going to get past that. So that's the second question. The third question is, are you willing to push outside your comfort zone? And this is a big one because most people want easy. They want the easy button. Tell me the diet.
Tell me what to eat. Tell me what not to eat. Tell me how to move. Tell me how to lose my gut. I just want to lose the belly fat. I don't care about anything else. I just want to lose the belly fat. They want the easy they want the thing that's inside their comfort zone. So they teach us. And when we go to coaching for our business, and they say, tell them that you can do X-Y-Z without them having to do this other thing. So you can tell them lose £20 without exercise or diet. And because people want to stay in their comfort zone, they don't want to exercise. They don't want to change the way they're eating. That sounds very appealing to a victim mindset person, to a fixed mindset person. So if I'm talking to you and you're feeling that way, are you willing to get outside your comfort zone? Because that's where the magic happens. The good things in your life do not happen in your comfort zone. Change does not happen in your comfort zone. You've got to be willing to push outside the comfort zone if you want to grow.
So again, the third question, are you willing to push outside your comfort zone? So those are three really important questions that you should be asking yourself over and over again to make sure that you're keeping a growth mindset, that you're not falling into that victimhood virtue thing, okay? So this can be very scary. Don't get me wrong. I know change is hard, okay? It's easier for you to stay in your comfort zone. That's where most people are today. Most people are very comfortable foods everywhere. Good. I'm never hungry. I'll never be hungry. I'll never try to be hungry. I'll never let myself get to a point where I'm hungry because food is readily available. But getting outside your comfort zone, saying, maybe I'm going to let myself get a little hungry from time to time. How about that? I'm going to feel what this feels like. I'm going to get out of it because I'm not starving. The words we say, I'm starving, but you're not starving. Starving takes days. Starving takes weeks. And so if you're a little hungry, you're not starving. And so, so many people are in that comfort zone that that's where we want to be.
The safety was safety with numbers, okay? And that's not where you need to be. You cannot be in your comfort zone and be successful. The other thing that makes change hard is it's so easy to compare yourself with others. I mean, look, 67% of Americans are overweight. Okay? What does that mean? Well, that means if you're overweight, you're in the majority. You're winning that vote. 40% of Americans are approaching obesity. So when you start looking at this, the vast majority of people out there are overweight and obese. And so you just look at that, well, I'm not as heavy as that person is, and, oh, look, I'm at the grocery store, and I'm actually maybe not the weakest person here. Maybe I'm not the fattest person here. And we justify where we are. So that's, again, that's a push against change, because staying where we are means we're just like everybody else, okay? And then change is really, really hard if you just decide that you want to change. And the reason is decision is really not a strong enough way to approach this. See, if you have a growth mindset, you're going to commit to this.
You're going to take that risk, and you're going to go all in. You're going to get outside your comfort zone, and you're going to make sure this happens. But that takes commitment. That takes that step, that daring, that knowing that, okay, I'm going to do this, but I'm not going to die. I'm going to get better, because I'm just going to keep pushing. I'm just going to be persistent. I'm going to do the hard work. I'm going to be dedicated, and I'm going to make this happen. Okay? That takes commitment.
Now, the one thing I'd like to leave you with on this is, yes, change can be scary, and change can be hard, and change is something that is not natural for a lot of us. But you're not alone. We have a wonderful Facebook community. You go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/group, and you can join our Facebook community. I do challenges. We're all there. If you want to share something, you need accountability, whatever you think you need. I have a group environment that's very caring, and we're not doing a bunch of that Flex Friday stuff and not trying to make others feel bad because we look good.
This is an environment where you can feel safe, and it's a private Facebook group, so it's not out on the interwebs for everybody to read. This is just for us to share and to support each other. I'm out there all the time, so I'll be answering questions if you have them. So you can go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/group to join us there. And if you're really ready to commit to this, I'd encourage you to get in touch with me. I coach people to lose weight. I coach people to get more fit. I only coach people over the age of 40. And I look to help people develop a growth mindset, so they learn from their mistakes. They get better, they get more comfortable being outside their comfort zone, and they change and they grow and they get better. And I know you can, too. It just takes that scary thing. You got to do that scary thing. And if you need help, I'm here to help you.
Post Show/Recap
[00:23:54.000] – Coach Allan
Welcome back, Ras.
[00:23:56.540] – Coach Rachel
Hey, Alan. Well, that was a lot that was a lot of good information. And as a fellow coach, I have encountered some people with a fixed mindset and just the absolute I can't run because or I can't work out because, I can't lose weight because fill in the blank. I've heard some of those things. And it's hard as a coach to go back to that person and say, well, wait a second, what can we do? If you've got a problem, what do we need to do to solve it?
[00:24:27.510] – Coach Allan
Well, I've definitely had clients that I would say didn't have a growth mindset to start with, but they had to at some point or else they wouldn't succeed. The reality is, if you have a fixed mindset, you're not going to get outside your comfort zone. If you don't get outside your comfort zone, nothing's going to change for you, and you're going to be right where you are. So it's the Harry Ford quote. If you think you can't or think you can, you're right. You have to have the mindset that you're going to get it done. For some of us, that might just be the commitment. For a lot of other people, it's a health scare. And so something has to shake you out of being a victim. Someone comes screaming, and they slap them in the face. I mean, kind of the whole thing is the people are panicking, and you just slap them in the face to get their attention, and it's like, calm down. You're not accomplishing anything. And so I think people sometimes need that slap in the face to make this happen. But if you're listening to this podcast, then you want something to happen, then you just need to transition that over to a commitment, not just a decision.
[00:25:53.810] – Coach Rachel
Right.
[00:25:56.050] – Coach Allan
And I can tell you that if you're not willing to deal with setbacks, which this is where the victims really struggle, is that if you do something, maybe you're doing something and it's working, and, you know, okay, well, I've lost this same £20 over and over again. And then you get to the lose the £20, and then something happens. You have a bad day, and you go do something you didn't want to do. You ate some things you didn't want to eat, and now you're going to blow off your whole weekend because, well, it's kind of screwed up Friday night. And then it becomes this thing, and then you start seeing the scale move back up. So you just stop stepping on the scale. And then yeah, you find yourself six weeks later right back where you were, if not heavier. You start running, and you feel a little bit of a tweak in your ankle or a little bit of tweak in your foot. You're like, oh, no, I can't run anymore. Instead of trying to do the things that are necessary to rehabilitate that, so you can start running again, doing the things you can do.
[00:27:02.380] – Coach Allan
So I can pedal a bike, I can get an elliptical, so I can keep my stamina up. But that takes this idea that you have a choice. This is not put on you. You are not a victim, right? And until you get past that, you're not going to be there. And so most of my clients that come in with this growth mindset, they're fed up, and they're like, hey, this is it. I'm doing it. I'm doing it. I'm doing it now, okay? And once that light clicks on, it's like, this is too easy. This is actually not that hard. It was scary, and it never worked before, but it's different this time. And it's different because now they're looking at this and saying, okay, I don't have to be perfect, right? I don't have to worry about if I make a mistake. I can always course correct that's, right? And it just keeps them on task, and they're like, okay. And then they get a win, and then they get another one. So just even just this last week or so, one of my clients, he had gone to this thing, it was like a government thing, and he was just really talking about how if you guys, if, you know, is wearing a tie, he couldn't button his top button in his shirt, okay?
[00:28:25.220] – Coach Allan
And so he was like, that was part of what his self and that was affecting his self image, and he was unhappy with it. And then he's three weeks into my program, and he's like, I had to wear that suit again, and I could button the collar, the neck. And he's lost £10. And he's feeling great, and he's doing more and more now. He's getting ready for some exciting things, like 100 miles, bike ride. This is the way it works. Another client was a very similar situation. She got called in for an interview. She wasn't really thinking so much about doing work, but she heard about this position. She puts in her name, and they call her, and then it's this panic. How am I going to look in my clothes when I go in for this interview now? Because we have a kind of a weird self image sometimes of ourselves. She didn't recognize that she had lost a good bit of weight and that she was smaller. So she puts on those clothes and they fit perfect, and that boosts her confidence. And she goes in and. Aces that interview and pretty sure she's going to get that job.
[00:29:39.930] – Coach Allan
Okay. That's growth. That's a growth mindset. And sometimes we're not always 100% behind ourselves or we don't see it happening for ourselves, but we just stick with it.
[00:29:52.900] – Coach Rachel
Yeah.
[00:29:53.490] – Coach Allan
And the good things are happening.
[00:29:55.250] – Coach Rachel
It does. And the benefit to having a coach or like the run club groups that I have is that you get to see these types of examples. It is possible. And maybe when you get to see examples like with your clients, that other people are losing weight at a later age or under these difficult circumstances, it's possible for you, too. And if you just pause for a second and reevaluate your situation, you might be able to think through what you need to do next, whether it's hire a coach or not or join a run club or not. But you do have options, and sometimes you just need to think a little bit outside the box to see what might work for you. But that's the great thing about hearing stories, like with your clients. And as I see my runners develop in the run clubs I participate with, it's totally possible. It just shakes what your norms are.
[00:30:48.110] – Coach Allan
Well, if someone had first told you when you first started running that you were going to be doing ultras oh.
[00:30:53.350] – Coach Rachel
My gosh, I would have laughed.
[00:30:55.870] – Coach Allan
Yeah.
[00:30:56.850] – Coach Rachel
Or running 50 miles right before I turned 50, I would have laughed. It's just inconceivable for me.
[00:31:03.350] – Coach Allan
I remember you sitting up on a couch with your foot in a cast, and you were so upset, and you're like, and I'm losing it, and I'm losing it. And that was a very down time for you.
[00:31:15.520] – Coach Rachel
It was.
[00:31:16.250] – Coach Allan
But as soon as the doctor cleared you, you started working your way back up and way past where you were. You just blew that away after you got yourself healed. And so it's just understanding where we are and saying, okay, I can't make that up in a day.
[00:31:36.080] – Coach Rachel
Right.
[00:31:37.010] – Coach Allan
But I'm going to grind it out. I'm going to do it and then see what happens. And that growth mindset that you had going back into your training, training smarter. You don't do it again.
[00:31:49.970] – Coach Rachel
Yes.
[00:31:51.970] – Coach Allan
That's made all the difference.
[00:31:53.620] – Coach Rachel
All the difference, yeah. For sure.
[00:31:57.030] – Coach Allan
All right, well, Rachel, I will talk to you next week.
After dealing with a health setback, Gillian Lockitch made some changes to reclaim the joy of her life, dance. On Episode 588 of the 40+ Fitness Podcast, we discuss how she did it and about her book, Growing Older, Living Younger.
Transcript
Let's Say Hello
[00:02:42.690] – Allan
Hey, Ras. How are you?
[00:02:44.370] – Rachel
Good, Allan. How are you today?
[00:02:46.580] – Allan
I'm good. I've been kind of busy and I know I've kind of come on this show every week. I'm busy, I'm busy.
[00:02:54.400] – Rachel
You are always busy.
[00:02:56.710] – Allan
But it's like, you know, there's just there's all these different things that I want to do for my business, for myself and whatever. And so I did get the level two Master Health Coach with precision nutrition. But another thing that I've been doing on this side when I had time is I've been getting on other podcasts. So I'm being interviewed on other podcasts, and I was recently on one called Fit MIT turo. Now MIT in German means with. So fit with turo is the English translation of fit mit turo.
[00:03:32.070] – Rachel
Okay.
[00:03:32.900] – Allan
And so I just share a bunch of tips, and I do focus my tips on things that are beneficial to people over 40. I think he just turned 40, but if you go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/turo, that's T-U-R-O that'll take you to his episode. I was on episode 89 that just went live a week or so ago. And so you can listen to that there as I hear about the other ones, Erin, because I did over been, like twelve to 13 interviews over the last three months, but for one reason or another, a lot of them haven't been published. So, as I hear about one being published, I'll try to let you guys know.
[00:04:10.590] – Rachel
Awesome.
[00:04:11.420] – Allan
And I'll probably start posting this stuff on Facebook, too. So if you're part of our Facebook group, you can go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/group. You can join our Facebook group, and I'll be posting links and things there as well.
[00:04:23.960] – Rachel
Great. That's awesome. Sounds fun.
[00:04:27.050] – Allan
So, how are things up there?
[00:04:28.710] – Rachel
Good. I think I told you last week it was spring. Now we're back to winter again. I know we had some snow over the weekend, but we just had a lovely weekend. Anyway, we did a lot of outside chores before the snow started, but it's nice to have kind of spring and to be able to spend some time outside. Now I got a break from it.
[00:04:52.030] – Allan
Well, you know, Lucy is going to pull that football away, right?
[00:04:55.170] – Rachel
As you exactly. Yeah, that's exactly what happens up here in Michigan. So hopefully spring will come back pretty soon. But just staying busy, doing things around the house, getting the yard ready. Yeah, it's fun stuff.
[00:05:07.920] – Allan
All right. You ready to have a conversation with Gill?
[00:05:10.700] – Rachel
Sure.
Interview
[00:06:07.990] – Allan
Gill, welcome to 40+ Fitness.
[00:06:10.960] – Gillian
Thank you. I'm delighted to be here.
[00:06:13.940] – Allan
Now, your book, Growing Older, Living Younger: the Science of Aging Gracefully and the Art of Retiring Comfortably. I love that title because it kind of blends some things that kind of been a theme here, and a lot of books that have come out recently and books that have been around for a while is think all of us look at getting older with some trepidation. There's this aging curve that we're going to fall down and then we're going to end up at the bottom of this thing. And in many cases we're not doing it gracefully, we're not doing it gracefully. And then we're looking at retirement. And what we see is most people who are in retirement age are not living well. Their health span is gone and their lifespan is long. And so they're going through all these health issues. And many of us now, particularly in our forty s and fifty s, are kind of in that middle zone of our parents at that point where we're seeing these things with our parents, or in some cases unfortunately, have seen these things with our parents because they passed and we're still busy raising kids.
[00:07:25.710] – Allan
So we're in this sandwich generation and I think there's some blessings in this because we get to look back, look forward, literally. Our parents are our look into the future if we live the way they live. And so I want to talk about that. And I think that's one of the cool things about this book is your story and then your experience as a doctor and a scientist and how you've pulled this all together to kind of give us the tools to really look at that in a good way.
[00:07:55.620] – Gillian
The premise behind the book is that we do not need to age as our parents and grandparents did because we have tools and mechanisms and strategies. Now that we're aware of that, we can change things. And again, the premise is that instead of going on a steady downhill to old age, we actually keep healthy, active, vibrant right until the end. And then just go clunk. That's my philosophy.
[00:08:27.500] – Allan
Just go clunk. Now to start out this book, if we're going to understand the science, then we have to understand the human body. And to me the science of the human body is probably the most complex science of any of the sciences out there. We keep learning new things. I know when I was in school, all the way up until college, we were learning about genetics. And it was the simple certain genes are going to make your eye color blue, some of they're going to make them brown. And if you have four kids and this parents, then you're going to have three with brown eyes and one with blue eyes. And that's kind of how genetics work. And then we got into Epigenetics and when I first started learning about that, these are like the dip switches on our old computers. I had an Epson, which is a clone of an IBM. It had all these little dip switches in the back. So if you wanted the computer to function a certain way, you had to move the dip switch. So it was either on or off. So we were taught genes were either on or off.
[00:09:30.140] – Allan
Recently though, we've learned that genes are more like a dimmer switch and there's tens of thousands of permutations of each gene, which means there's billions and billions and billions untold billions, maybe trillions of options, if you will, of how our operating system, our genetic genome, is actually going to function. And so you start getting it, it's like, wow, this is so complex. How is someone going to learn what this is? And I've read a few books, a lot of them lose me. But you had this analogy of a corporate factory that I think gives us kind of this gives us enough of a picture of this to really kind of understand how much control we have. So can you talk about your corporate factory analogy of epigenetics?
[00:10:22.070] – Gillian
Well, I thought that the absolute key to understanding our bodies and our metabolism is the realization that we are in fact a factory that operates 24 hours a day, nonstop basically from the time of conception until the time that we die. And so I think about it as if you think about a factory. First of all, it's a business, right? So there is a CEO who is responsible for setting the vision, setting the goals, setting the direction. And I think of our mind as that and I'll go back to that in a bit. Underneath the CEO is somebody who is responsible for actually keeping the factory operating. And I call that the COO. Chief Operating Officer. And it's really fascinating that everything, all our metabolism, all our activities are really controlled by our COO, which is a master clock that is located in the hypothalamus of our brain. And that master clock directs all our circadian rhythms and sends messages to minor little clocks in every single organ that basically regulates how our metabolism works. So the next component, the chief operating officer is responsible for workshops. So I sort of think about the individual organ systems, for example, our heart or tissues, muscles, that sort of thing, as an independent little sub factory or workshop within the overall business.
[00:12:18.750] – Gillian
And in each of those factory workshops there are a number of units where all the business of the factory happens. And those are our cells. Within our cells we have tools that build things, break them down, detoxify. And those all require building blocks and nutrients. They require energy to perform. They require messages and signals to tell them how much they need to make when they need to stop making things. And then finally they need to figure out exactly how much to make. So if you sort of think about the factory, your body is a factory that's working 24 hours a day, nonstop. Every single cell is active. Then you realize that there's a lot of things that your body needs to function efficiently. So you need to be able to generate the energy for all of those cells, you need to supply them with the building blocks, whether it's amino acids to make proteins or micronutrients to make the reactions work well. So that's basically how I sort of conceive the metabolism and the functioning of the body.
[00:13:54.010] – Allan
The reason I like that is because it gives you a picture of how complex this is. Because if one part of the factory keeps making stuff when the other parts of the factory don't need it, you've got a dysfunction there. And when we get dysfunction in the body, it tells us in one area we start feeling bad, our energy levels are low, we start dealing with different problems, chronic diseases, things like that. And so by us doing the right things for ourselves, we're helping with that signaling. Like, an example would be if we don't sleep well, then we don't close down certain factories for them to be cleaned up, like our brain. And so if we don't sleep well, then we don't have time in the brain, which is a pretty important part of this factory, to do the cleaning that's necessary. The cleaning crew can't come in, and if it can't come in, eventually the brain doesn't function as well. The brain is not functioning as well, then it's not doing its job as the CEO and COO of this factory, and therefore the whole factory doesn't function well.
[00:15:04.980] – Gillian
Exactly. Yeah. So it goes even a little bit further. And sleep, obviously, is one of the absolutely critical things, because we know that that whole master clock is essentially controlled by light and dark that sets the circadian rhythms. So if you're not responding to that signal that you need to sleep again, it disrupts the entire system. And this is why people who have sleeping disorders, or why jet lag, for example, affects the way people can perform and basically feel during the day.
[00:15:49.470] – Allan
I'd like to get into your story a little bit because I think it shines a light on how we can kind of approach this. Some of us are younger than you, some of us might be a little older than you, but you found yourself overweight near that Obese line, and you made some pretty hard decisions at that point in your life. I think, similar to my story, I made a decision, but it took me eight years before I really clicked in and actually got it. I think in your story, you said it took ten. So can you tell us a little bit about your story? Because I think it's important for us to see that a lot of us are finding ourselves in our middle age, and we're all in the same place, and there's a way out.
[00:16:38.910] – Gillian
Well, I think it's important to realize that I actually was very conscious of being fit and healthy. I exercised, I ate well, and I didn't realize prior to this catastrophic event that my weight was still creeping up bit by bit by bit. So when I got married, I weighed about 112 lbs. I was in my 20s, and by the time this sort of catastrophic event had occurred, I'd weighed a lot more than that. But what happened was that I experienced a period of extreme sciatic pain as a result of spinal stenosis, which is when your vertebrae, the area through which the nerves run close down through extra bone buildup and compress the nerves. And I had this experience of this catastrophic sciatic episode where literally for four months, I was unable to really do much walking. I was a couch potato and depressed and couldn't do all the things that brought me joy in life. And that was when I really had a major increase in my weight. So I found myself basically 40 lbs over what my ideal weight was and really wasn't sort of I was too depressed, quite honestly, to think about the impact that it was having on my health.
[00:18:14.660] – Gillian
And then I ended up having an emergency spinal surgery. And it was only when I was recovering from that with a determination that I wanted to be able to go on a ballroom dance cruise ten months later, that I really started realizing that I was on a downward trajectory from a health point of view, and that I had to do something about it. And that was the genesis of what is now my roadmap to aging youthfully and keeping well and getting rid of all the what we call age associated disorders. They're not really age associated, they are unhealthy living associated disorders. So that's basically my story of how this all came about.
[00:19:08.510] – Allan
Okay, now, one of the things I think that I read that you was kind of driving you was your parents history of heart disease. Can you talk a little bit about that and what that meant to you?
[00:19:21.090] – Gillian
Right, well, both my parents died of coronary artery disease and then heart attacks. And the experience, particularly of my mother's death was amazingly impactful for me because she literally had a heart attack, died in front of me, and I was unable to resuscitate her. So I had been aware of our family history of heart disease and attending a preventative health program. I've got a lot to say about that because mainly what they were trying to do was get me onto a statin. And also the nutritional advice that I was given at that time I thought was really poor. So basically one of the things that I realized I had to attack as I was creating my roadmap to age well was to figure out what were the things that were putting me at risk for heart disease. And so for me, the primary thing is nutritional obesity, inactivity. And so those were the kind of things that I focused on to create a heart healthy me.
[00:20:43.530] – Allan
Well, you weren't 29 years old when this happened. This was later in your life because a lot of people say, oh, well, of course she lost £40 because she was 20 something years old. And that's when it's easy to lose this weight. You're a wee bit older than that, right?
[00:20:59.860] – Gillian
I was a lot older than that. It was well past I'd been retired from medicine for, gosh, I can't even remember how many years. Probably about ten years at the time. So I was certainly not the I was I was in the age category where it it's almost inevitable if you don't watch it, that you will massively gain weight.
[00:21:24.730] – Allan
Right. The reason I wanted to bring that up is I've had a lot of people say, well, it's impossible to lose weight. It's impossible for a woman after the age of 50 to lose weight. And proof positive, no, it's not. You just have to do the right things for yourself.
[00:21:39.970] – Gillian
Well, I described very clearly how, when I was recovering from the surgery, and I realized I had to lose weight. And I started initially, I had followed all the wrong nutritional information, which professionally and intellectually I knew was wrong, but the recommendations were so pervasive. Eat three meals a day and keep your blood sugar level. My first step was to realize that essentially what I had to do was cut out carbs. And I went on I would call a low carb diet almost keto, but not keto. And immediately the effects that I saw from that was my mood was improved. I didn't have that hangry sort of anger, hunger sensation. Around about 10:00 in the morning, I sort of describe how I was working at one stage when I was trying to lose weight, and I had these amazing muffins that I made, which were brand muffins packed with delicious dried fruits, apricots and everything, and that was my breakfast. So I would head off to before work, I would head off to the exercise class, come back and my breakfast would be this muffin, some yogurt. And by 10:00, I was so hungry again that I sort of make the comment that anybody who sort of dared walk into my office was in danger of being cannibalized because I was so hungry.
[00:23:21.610] – Gillian
And that was the rebound from high carb. Insulin goes up and boom, you crash a little later. But as soon as I started on the low carb diet, basically cutting out potatoes, pizza, rice, anything like that, I found that the first thing that happened was brain fog completely disappeared. I lost all of that hunger and that anger. I just wasn't hungry. And my energy level increased and the weight just started coming off. And then ultimately, I had to go completely keto. And that was when I lost the remaining, I guess, 10 lbs that I wanted to lose in a very short time. And quite honestly, I've adhered to a ketogenic diet, I don't want to call it a diet ketogenic lifestyle ever since, basically eating whole foods, a lot of protein, no carbs other than those that come from certain vegetables and the occasional berries and healthy fats. So I eat all the foods that I love and feel great.
[00:24:37.690] – Allan
Great. Now, your mother had a bout with skin cancer and we really haven't I really haven't talked about skin cancer, but for those of us that were sun lovers when we were younger because it made our young bodies look at least we thought makes our young bodies look nicer, having a nice tan. Many of us are starting to see some of the ramifications of that, be it the age spots, but then of course, every once in a while these things that come up and we have to go see a dermatologist. Your mother had one of those episodes and so as a result you made some changes to the way you care for your skin. Could you tell us about that?
[00:25:20.580] – Gillian
Yes, well, my mom was sort of blonde, blue eyed, and we all grew up in South Africa and I spent a lot of time on the beach slathered with oil, really getting tanned and as you say, brown and feeling it was really cool and sexy. And then we had moved to Canada by the time this episode happened with my mum and she basically said to me jill, there's a funny little sore on my leg and I'm not sure what it is and I didn't know what it is, I'm not a dermatologist. But I thought this is not you're.
[00:26:02.800] – Allan
The doctor in the family, come look at it.
[00:26:05.190] – Gillian
Right. I was an intellectual doctor, all about biochemistry and metabolism. Anyway, it turned out that she had a melanoma and fortunately we got it early, it was removed. But again, my concern because of all these sort of early exposure to sunlight, obviously I am at risk and I've tried to tell my kids to be careful. And there is a dermatologist here who came up with a really interesting slogan and it's on your birthday, check out your birthday suit. To remind people, particularly people who are what we call Fitzpatrick groups, sort of one and two, the blonde, blue, wide, red haired groups of people. But I want to make one interesting point about that. So we haven't really discussed the fact that there is an epigenetic supplement which resets something like 1200 genes throughout your body. And when this particular supplement was introduced, one of the studies that was carried out was a study of 40 people who were in this Fitzpatrick group, one and two, and basically they were looking to see if it could in any way protect against sun damage. And so they basically, on an unexposed part of the body, did three sort of focal areas where they put really small doses, focal doses of UV light in increasing doses and in the one where there was the highest dose, did a little skin biopsy and looked to see count the number of damaged cells.
[00:28:09.170] – Gillian
And then for eight weeks, these 40 people took this one particular supplement that has things like the carotenoids, which like lutein that actually protect against blue light. And at the end of the eight weeks, they repeated the experiment and they found that there was a diminution of the area that looked burnt, the reddish area. But the key thing that was a total surprise and really significant was the fact that in the first biopsy compared to the second biopsy, the number of dead cells were double. So after eight weeks of this particular protection through these carotenoid supplements, the number of dead cells or damaged cells was almost half. So that was really interesting because it was showing that something that one was taking internally had a protective effect on the cells. And I found that really fascinating. So I've been very meticulous about keeping up that particular supplement and touchwood. So far, I'm well older than the age at which my mom's Melanoma was discovered, and so far my skin looks great. So Prevention obviously don't get these huge sunburns. There's recommendations about sun screens. You've got to be really careful because some of them have some toxic ingredients.
[00:29:51.780] – Gillian
They have to be really selective about what you use. And I also think we need sun exposure for vitamin D. I'm not a dermatologist. I'm not practicing medicine. I don't treat or prescribe or anything. I have retired. But I think that that's something preventative things that people should consider.
[00:30:17.910] – Allan
Okay, now I want to spring back a little bit. You were talking about your back surgery, and for a lot of folks, we're going to have an injury. I think your injury you kind of traced back to probably when you were way younger, and then this was just something that progressed from that. That's what I sort of read into the book. I'm not absolutely certain that was the history there, but you always had some aches and pains in your back, but then you had basically a medical emergency, and that's when you had your surgery. Can you talk a little bit about that? And then what's more important, I think, here is to actually talk about your approach towards recovery, because you did a lot of things that I think are very different from the way a lot of people would approach recovery.
[00:31:05.420] – Gillian
Right. I think the first thing is, although I kind of attributed the spinal stenosis to the early back injury that I had when I fell off a horse, I think, in reality, so many people, as a result of osteoarthritis, which is one of the things that sort of happens in the spine, as in all other joints, many people end up with spinal stenosis and severe sciatica. In fact, in the last couple of years, one of my clients and one of my family members has needed to have the exact same surgery for spinal stenosis. So it's far more common whether or not you've fallen off a horse at 17. So for me, I think the key to recovery was mindset because I was bounded and determined that I would not have to give up my ballroom dancing, which was my hobby and passion and my fitness activity. And so I had this surgery in February and to my absolute amazement, it was like a seven hour surgery. I've got metal rods all the way down the right side of my spine still in place. And no, they don't set off anything at airports. But the interesting thing about that was the next morning when I woke up after the seven hour surgery, a physiotherapist came in and said to me, how's the pain?
[00:32:54.200] – Gillian
Do you have any pain? And I thought that was absolutely hilarious because it was the first time in forever that I had absolutely no back pain because I was so doped up on all the intravenous painkillers and things. Anyway, so she says to me, you're going to get out of bed and walk? And I'm thinking, wow, I've just had major spinal surgery. But she got me out of bed and we took the first sort of tentative walks around the ward. So that seemed to me something really important. You don't have to go and sit around and lie around waiting to heal. The most important healing thing is going to be activity. And so when I was discharged after two days from the hospital, having expected to be in there for at least a week to recover, I was really fortunate in that one of my sons had come to be with me for the recovery period. And he said to me, mom, you want to get back on the dance floor? We are going to work at it. And so we started a program of I would go down in the elevator. We have a lovely SeaWalk around the False creek where I live.
[00:34:13.650] – Gillian
And we started off doing 5 minutes in the morning and 5 minutes in the afternoon and then increasing it gradually so that by the time he left, I was walking very tentatively and very terrified. But walking for I think it was about 20 minutes either way. And then gradually I increased that. I also was very fortunate in that the physiotherapist had recommended a particular type of rehabilitation walking pole, which was actually invented by a local occupational therapist and she's now built this up into a significant program for aiding in rehabilitation. So with the walking poles, I was able to safely and comfortably go out walking by myself. And gradually, basically, my mindset said, I want to be back dancing. And I think it was by 16 weeks I saw the spinal surgeon and he was amazed at the progress and sort of said, yes, everything is in place, kind of go away, I don't need to see you again. So I think the essence of that was I was at a point in a journey I knew where. I wanted to go, I knew where I was. And so it was really the mindset and the determination of how I could get from point A to point B safely.
[00:35:52.530] – Gillian
One of the other aspects to that is I worked out with a trainer. And for me, the most valuable aspect of that was not that he was saying one more, one more, one more kind of thing, but that he helped me understand that I didn't have to be afraid that what I was doing was going to re injure myself. So again, mindset, having a coach is absolutely critical.
[00:36:24.090] – Allan
What I took away from that was that you put a team together and you had your mission, your passion, you knew where you were going and you got a team together. So you had your physio, you had your trainer, you had your doctor, and you were listening to them and doing the right things for yourself to get yourself where you are. And as a result, you're dancing again.
[00:36:46.290] – Gillian
Right. And I had a dance teacher.
[00:36:49.350] – Allan
And you had a dance teacher. Exactly. Cool.
[00:36:53.010] – Allan
Gill, I define wellness as being the healthiest, fittest and happiest you can be. What are three strategies or tactics to get and stay well?
[00:37:01.930] – Gillian
Well, basically, I sort of encompass all of that in what I call, similarly to you, my roadmap for aging youthfully. And the components for me are sort of mind, body, and for one of the better words, spirit. So from the mind perspective, you need to know where you are and where you want to go. And so initially I get people to really understand what their risks are. What is their genetic blueprint that they've inherited, what among those things are foundational that they can actually change? I mean, none of us can predict being knocked over by a car or developing a particular cancer, but there are a lot of things that we can change through lifestyle. The second important component is body. And you've already mentioned the three things that people need to really consider. Sleep is absolutely essential. Eating well is absolutely essential. And the last thing is keeping mentally and physically active all of the time. The third component is what I call spirit is the recognition that you are actually part of many larger things. So you can make your contribution by being of service to others. You can challenge yourself, you can become part of a community.
[00:38:43.750] – Gillian
So those are sort of the three ways in which I phrase the way in which one can live youthfully and age well. The one thing that with my particular group of people, don't really have a chance to talk about because usually by the time they come to me, they're my age kind of thing. But I realize that most of the problems that present in later life we know have their genesis much earlier, as you say, 40 plus. So one of the things is I didn't really take notice of the fact that how I was basically accumulating body fat bit by bit by bit so that you're not suddenly one day obese, but you're sort of getting there. So really paying attention to nutrition early, early on. The second thing is, we know that osteoporosis, osteopenia and muscle problems, sarcopenia all start early. And had I thought about it, I felt healthy and I was active, I was exercising. I never ever for a minute thought about making sure that my calcium and phosphate are adequate when I was in my 40s and preventing osteoporosis. So those are the kinds of things that I think we all know prevent cancer, don't smoke, don't drink, kind of thing.
[00:40:35.450] – Gillian
I would say don't skydive. But there are preventative things that should become part of our life that we really never talk about until it's kind of too late. That's why I love your whole concept of 40 plus, because that's when it all starts.
[00:40:59.810] – Allan
Yeah, well, I'm going to argue with you there and say it's never too late. Start today. It's never too late. Start today. I don't care if you're in your 40s your 50s your 60s your 70s your 80s your 90s, if you got another breath in you, you can eat the right food, you can move the right way, you can start doing things to improve your health, improve your fitness, and be happier.
[00:41:25.930] – Gillian
But I think the key to all of that is mindset. You have to know what you want and it has to be important enough to you for you to make changes. So most of the when I talk to people about what is their current fear, what is their long term fear, most of them say they want to be able to be mentally and physically active and independent toward the end of life so that they don't have their family and friends worrying about them. They don't have to go into a home. And so it's a decision that, that is important to you, that will make you do things like look at your nutrition, make sure you have adequate sleep, and that you keep active. Because one of the complaints that I get from a lot of people is I can't fast, I would be hungry all the time, I can't give up my sugar. Which tells me that they haven't made the decision to achieve what they say they want to. So I believe it all starts up here with your CEO.
[00:42:46.190] – Allan
I agree. Jill, if someone wanted to learn more about you, learn more about the book Growing Older, Living Younger, where would you like for me to send them?
[00:42:56.570] – Gillian
Well, to get the book, which is a paperback book at gillianlockitch.com, so just gillianlockitch.com, that is for me to be able to send books directly to people who are anywhere in North America. So the USA or Canada, anybody else at this stage would have to get the digital Kindle edition, which is online.
[00:43:32.690] – Allan
All right, you can go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/588 and I'll be sure to have the links there.
[00:43:40.340] – Gillian
If anybody would like more information from me, I'll just give you my email. It's askdrgill@gmail.com, askdrgill@gmail.com and I will answer you, it may not be immediately because I get a lot of emails, but that's where you can contact me and find out what information there is about my programs, et cetera.
[00:44:09.070] – Allan
Gill, thank you so much for being a part of 40+ Fitness.
[00:44:13.330] – Gillian
I'm honored actually, Allan, that you invited me and it's been delightful talking to you. Thank you.
Post Show/Recap
[00:44:30.230] – Allan
Welcome back, Ras.
[00:44:30.950] – Rachel
hey Allan, that was a really neat discussion. There's so many things I want to ask you about, but you started talking about how genes are like dimmer switches, but I don't think you went fully into the concept of why a gene is like a dimmer switch that you can raise or lower or whatever.
[00:44:50.060] – Allan
Well, if you remember we had Dr. Hood on and he was the one, he's one of the guys, he developed the equipment that they used to sequence the human genome. And prior to all that, there was a strong belief that once we knew the human genome, we would defeat disease entirely because we would know which genes are causing which diseases and as a result we would figure out who was going to get sick long before they ever got sick. Well, it's a lot more complex than that. And so what it is, is they came up with they realized, okay, it's how the genes are expressed. And so initially they thought they were like on off switches. And so if you're really old school and you owned a computer back in the 80s, they used to have dip switches, which are these little on and off switches. And so, depending on how you wanted to run your computer, like if you were going to be doing video games or something that was high in certain video stuff on your screen, high resolution stuff, you had to do the dip switches a certain way, and then it would work better for that.
[00:45:57.090] – Allan
And then you could change it up if you were going to use it for something else. So basically these dip switches helped you kind of manage the computer. Now that's all automated, it does it itself, but the reality of it is that's not how epigenetics works either. It's not an on or off thing, it's a dimmer switch. So it's not zeros and ones like binary. It can be anywhere along that spectrum just based on exposures, based on all kinds of things that are going on in the world. So if you're doing the right things, the five core things, you're exercising, you're eating well, you're sleeping well, you're managing stress, and you're basically being social and enjoying your life, having purpose and people and all those things. If you're doing those five things, you're communicating to your body through epigenetics that you're okay. And then your body functions the way it's supposed to. So to kind of give you an idea. Okay, so someone who smokes all the time yeah, they're putting stuff in their lungs and they're messing up their epithelial cells throughout their blood vessels and everything, but they increase their chances of cancer, particularly lung cancer, esophageal cancer, heart attack and stroke.
[00:47:17.770] – Allan
And it's because they're basically that epigenetics. They have the genes that can allow them to get those cancers. And then they're feeding it. They're basically dimming that switch and saying, no, I don't want you to do your job, buddy. Because if you're over 50, you have cancer cells in your body. You just do. Our cells, particularly as we get a little older, they're going to mutate, they're going to have some problems. So a mutated cell is a cancerous cell. Now, 99.99% of the time your body sees that and you have an immune response and it kills that cell before it can become something worse. But if we're not living right, if we're not doing the right lifestyle things, then we're turning off our ability to heal, our ability to fight that. And that's how this stuff happens, is literally, if you're smoking, if you're doing these other things, you're literally communicating to your body, don't worry about that cancer. We got other things to worry about. Your body doesn't. If you're not eating enough food. So someone who's trying to lose weight and is on this extreme 1200, 1000 calorie or less diet, you're basically telling your body, turn off nonessential functions, which your body assumes the immune system is a nonessential function because it's not something that we used to have to have turned on all the time.
[00:48:45.980] – Allan
You get a little cut. You want your immune system to work. You eat something you're not supposed to eat, your immune system starts to work. But in today's age, when we're eating non food stuff, when we're smoking, when we're doing drinking, when we're not exercising, when we're not getting sun, when we're not doing the things that are necessary, our body shuts off functions and it just doesn't work. And so a lot of the things that she's talking about in here, they were from South Africa, I think, initially. So when you're from the southern hemisphere and you have white skin predominantly, that sun exposure is pretty intense. Apparently the ozone layer is thinner there. And so it just kind of creates an environment where extreme sunburns can happen. And so she was always in the sun wanting to get the tan, wanting to look a certain way when she was younger, which is, again, why she would have such a big concern. Her mother got skin cancer and she wants to do the things that are necessary to make sure her body is able to protect itself. So that's eating certain things. She is taking a certain supplement that the preliminary science on.
[00:50:00.290] – Allan
It says that this would help from an epigenetic perspective. And she wears sunscreen and she doesn't get let herself get burned anymore. So there's things that you can do to reduce risk, particularly if you know when you're at risk. And so we had Dr. Hood on and they strongly believe that within a short amount of time here, we're going to have kind of a huge blueprint at a single person level to be able to catch these things early. And early detection is a key to not letting it get to a really bad disease state. Now he's not talking about you go in for your annual look at your skin birthday suit event and you see something unusual, so you go see a dermatologist. He's talking about catching it before that even happens. Because if we know that you're someone who's predisposed for skin cancer and your history was you got burned several times, extremely badly when you were younger, we just know that you have a higher likelihood. So they can be scanning you for the very first indications of that cell, a mutated cell that has the potential to become skin cancer and can begin doing things then.
[00:51:21.180] – Allan
So it's not like they have to cut a chunk out of you to solve this problem. They can literally do it before it's even that.
[00:51:28.730] – Rachel
Yeah, there's a lot of good science being done right now in terms of melanomas. Even just on the news this week they talked about a custom vaccine where they do a biopsy of these cells and make it into an mRNA vaccine just like what we had recently. And that combined with another immunotherapy product has shown to reduce reoccurrence by, I think in the 40s 40% or so and catastrophic reoccurrences at that. So there's a lot of good science. That's an important one. Skin cancer is something that's really easy to be screened for and pay attention to.
[00:52:09.500] – Allan
Yeah. If you have an unusual mole and it's changing sizes or it's multiple different colors, then that's worth having a conversation with your doctor. That's one of the advantages that all this stuff is going to have is just recognizing that that data and how you manage yourself are all going to be a part of this whole formula. And that's really where she comes off. Is she's like one of the living examples of someone who got to retirement age and realized that her life is probably not over yet. There's things she wants to do. She wants to go dance. And that requires a lot of stamina and strength and capacity and mobility and balance. And so she wanted to do that. And she doesn't just do it like going to the rec center in her town. She goes and gets on a cruise somewhere around the world and then they dance. They dance at night, I guess, when the boat is going where it's supposed to go. So instead of sitting in a casino or whatever else people do on cruises besides she's dancing. And so that was one of her things, and she and her husband had a bucket list, but unfortunately, he passed before she did, before even her retirement.
[00:53:30.440] – Allan
And so all the things that they had planned to do together, she still wants to do. She's going to still do those things. And that's really what this book is about, is someone claiming control of themselves, claiming control of their lives. Using what we know today with science and everything and doing it, she's able to do all the things she wants to do. And I would dare say there's quite a few people out there her age that would never be able to do that because they're just not doing the work. They're not doing the thing, they're not eating the right way, they're not moving the right way, and therefore their retirement is not nearly as nice as what she's able to experience.
[00:54:13.550] – Rachel
Well, I'm glad that she figured out that she had goals, and in order to reach those goals, she needed to make some changes. And it sounds like she'll have a wonderful retirement.
[00:54:23.510] – Allan
Looks like it. Although she already has enough, because it's the same with me. I probably technically could have just retired, get a little bitty place and just retire, but that's not my nature to do that at the 50s. So I'm still working. Tammy's still working. And the same thing here with Gill is she ended up still working, still doing things. She's got her own podcast, which I'm going to be a guest on.
[00:54:50.000] – Rachel
Cool.
[00:54:50.330] – Allan
I interviewed on her podcast. I don't know when that's going to air, but again, it's one of those things. And so it's just yeah, she's just doing this stuff and keeping herself busy. And basically any money she makes from her new career, which is basically her third career, is going into her buying these cruises.
[00:55:12.770] – Rachel
That's awesome. I find the people that I've known recently to retire, speaking of my parents and some of their friends, they don't sit still. Who can sit still? When you think of retirement, you don't think of just sitting in the lounge chair watching TV all day long. At least my parents and my friends of our family, they don't they stay busy. They got things they need to do, and it's pretty exciting.
[00:55:37.870] – Allan
It is. But you're making that decision today.
[00:55:40.460] – Rachel
Yes.
[00:55:41.950] – Allan
You're making that decision today. We're going to have Tomas Hine on soon.
[00:55:47.980] – Rachel
Cool.
[00:55:48.860] – Allan
Or no, he was already on last week, I think. Yeah, last week. Basically, he's a financial planner, but he looks at his clients and says, if you follow what you're doing right now and you're obese in your 50s or overweight in your 50s then you're going to carry that till retirement, you're probably not going to have a long retirement. So having seven figures in your bank account on the retirement date, that's all admirable, but you may not get to spend any of it because he's had clients that passed even before they retired. They work work. They're 60 years old, they have a heart attack, and they're done. And so we're making those decisions every day, and it's our epigenetics in our bodies that's actually making that happen. That's the communication to our genes of how to express themselves. And so the more you do that's good for yourself, the better off your genes are going to be at taking care of you.
[00:56:51.250] – Rachel
Right. And the more you'll enjoy your retirement.
[00:56:55.190] – Allan
There you go. All right, well, Ras, I will talk to you next week.
Most of us work and save our whole lives to have a comfortable retirement. In his book, The Balanced Wealth Approach, Thomas Hine teaches us how to have the health and fitness to truly enjoy that retirement. On episode 587 of the 40+ Fitness Podcast, we discuss how to put your health plan together.
Transcript
Let's Say Hello
[00:02:40.370] – Allan
Hey, Ras, how are you doing?
[00:02:42.180] – Rachel
Good, Allan. How are you today?
[00:02:44.550] – Allan
Well, it's been kind of a rough week. We had to say goodbye to angel. Her nerve issues in her back and then the hip dysplasia. She pretty much declined pretty quickly and was not able to walk on her own, couldn't stand up on her own. So we would stand her up and sometimes she could move around a little, but she was so hobbled, and you could just see it on her face how miserable she was about the fact that she couldn't get out and do things. And seeing Buster go off and run around and do his thing. And Mama's going to walk Buster, and Daddy's going to walk Angel. She wanted to be with them. That's what they did. They go for their walks together. And it just got to a point where she couldn't and she knew it. And she was starting to see you could see it on her face that she just was not where she needed to be. And laying around all day long, it was causing other health issues for her, so we had to help her pass on. First time I've ever had to dig a grave for a pet.
[00:03:45.630] – Rachel
Oh, wow.
[00:03:47.050] – Allan
Well, I can say it's a pretty good workout.
[00:03:49.380] – Rachel
I can imagine.
[00:03:50.450] – Allan
Especially when you have to dig through two and a half feet of clay. So I was a little sore for a couple of days after that. Not just sore outside, but sore all the way through. So it was a tough week, but we're recovering and mourning and moving on.
[00:04:11.720] – Rachel
I'm so sorry. So sorry for your loss. It is hard to lose a loved pet. Someone's been in your family for so long. I'm sure the house has been a little bit quiet this week without her there, and my heart goes out to you.
[00:04:27.430] – Allan
Well, Buster is making sure that we stay entertained.
[00:04:31.150] – Rachel
Good.
[00:04:32.790] – Allan
He's a good dog.
[00:04:34.200] – Rachel
Good. Well, I'm glad to hear that.
[00:04:36.350] – Allan
How are things up there?
[00:04:37.840] – Rachel
Good. We have spring at least today. The weather has been great. And I had mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I was tapering for my big race, which last week I ran my big race, and now I'm in a reverse taper. I'm just taking my time getting back to running, which is wonderful. Now that the weather is turning, it's really easy just to go out there on a beautiful day like today and just get a mile or two in. I'm just taking my time and enjoying the run and the weather until I feel strong enough to get a few extra miles in at a time.
[00:05:13.680] – Allan
Awesome. Well, congratulations on that run. I know you got a PR and all that. Now you got to do the recovery, right?
[00:05:21.000] – Rachel
That's right. Yeah. Taking my time.
[00:05:23.430] – Allan
All right, well, are you ready to talk to Tom Hine?
[00:05:27.390] – Rachel
Sure.
Interview
[00:06:16.810] – Allan
Tom. Welcome to 40+ Fitness.
[00:06:19.710] – Tom
Thank you, Allan. Welcome. And I'm glad to be here with you and your audience.
[00:06:24.020] – Allan
The book is called The Balanced Wealth Approach: Secrets to Living Long and Living Rich. And I think I was growing up in college and everything. I went to college for accounting, became a CPA, worked in that. And it was always the thing of you don't want to outlive your money. Most of us today don't actually have that problem. We have the other problem of not living long enough to enjoy our money. And so that's kind of what this book talks about, is finding that balance of saying, okay, build wealth so that you have what you need when you're older, but at the same time build health so you're actually able to enjoy those years. It was always kind of, I guess, a trope, if you will, where people would live, they'd work to 65, they would retire and die at 67. And I think now with with longevity happening the way it is, better medical care to keep us alive, not necessarily keep us healthy, we're living longer. And again, from someone from the financial planning, you're basically probably telling your clients you can't expect to die at 67 like people did 40 years ago.
[00:07:30.370] – Allan
You've got to expect to live to 90 or 100, and you want your money to last that long, but you want to be able to enjoy those years as well.
[00:07:37.720] – Tom
Correct. Yeah, it's about values clarification. I like to say these markets will heal, recessions come and go, but when your money recovers, will you be there to enjoy it? And there's a big talk today, as you know, about lifespan versus health span, right? It's how long you live, but how long do you live healthy? And one of my messages to my clients and your audience is you really want your health span to equal your lifespan. Right? We don't want the last ten or 15 years to be hooked to tubes and running from doctor to doctor. Not to say that doctors don't help us, but like you've said, so many other podcasts, we want to be proactive. We want to be CEO of our own health so that we try to do the best we can before the doctors have to intervene with more severe measures. So, yeah, I'd love to have people balance it. And also, more importantly, if you look at longevity and what's going on today, I heard on one of your other podcasts about Alzheimer's is type three diabetes, right? We talked about the MCT oil. We know so many more things today than ten years ago that those of us can take advantage of or at least bounce those ideas off our physicians and medical people to say, is this something I should consider for my own longevity?
[00:08:53.930] – Allan
I was having a conversation with Ras, who is my co host, so we have some conversations around these. And when I said this next statement, I got a visceral response from her, which I think is actually brilliant. It's a seven figure portfolio. Doesn't really matter if you're six foot under but you said a little differently in the book. But it's that concept of, okay, you did this great thing, you built this great portfolio, there's your big chipstack, and then you're out of the game. And the concept I wanted to take out of that was, okay, if you were running a seven figure business, you would want to run it well, meaning that the business is operating well. It's a healthy balance sheet in addition to a healthy business. So your relationships with everything and everybody you work with. And so the concept you brought up in the book was being the CEO of your own health. Could you jump into that concept a little bit? Because I've talked about being an advocate before, but I think the way you put it was really on point.
[00:09:55.040] – Tom
Yeah, thank you, and I will. One of the famous quotes that jumps out to me from doing the research was, and you'll appreciate this is, a healthy man has a thousand dreams, but a sick man only has one. Right? So the idea is, while you're building this seven figure portfolio or business, we like to say and doctors have shared this with me there's what we call acceptable level of optimization. There's an acceptable level, and there's an optimized level. So if you think about it from a business standpoint, you could have the auditors look over your books and records and cash flow and say, hey, things are going well, but these are the things you want to do to optimize your company. Whether it's R and D tax credits from my end, it's helping clients save money, convert to a Roth IRA, whatever it is in the financial planning end, when you make that parallel to health and wellness about being CEO of your own health, it's don't just go once a year to your own primary care. That's a great starting point. But add those extra measures that you would learn from podcasters like yourself.
[00:10:56.560] – Tom
Be proactive. Why? Because we know that diet, sleep, exercise, and stress reduction, those are some of the key pillars that every doctor will tell you we have to manage better. And then you add into that, what are people doing on a daily basis? I wear my oura ring all the time. That's one of the things I talk about, actually. I'm actually wearing the whoops wrap, too. I'm trying to compare one versus the other because they have different metrics. And then in addition to that, what can you do with diet, sleep, exercise? We have a lot more control, as you know, Allan, over what we eat today, right. How we exercise. I just attended a great seminar on grounding and red light therapy and EMF. I mean, that's a whole another generation of research, but we know so much more how to take care of ourselves, and yet some of us get so busy, we actually don't tender the store. And so that's what I want to remind the listener, is you actually have a lot more control today over what you eat, how you sleep, how you track it. And then don't let yourself get so busy building that mega company that you neglect your own health and end up spending all that money to recuperate the very health that you were trying to preserve.
[00:12:06.770] – Allan
Yeah, you may not know a lot about my story, but I had made it up to C suite at 39 years old as a top auditor of the company, had all the trappings of success. I had the money, the stock options, the restricted stock, the 401k, all of it. And I'm going through this process of realizing I'm completely miserable and unhealthy. I spent eight years trying to find balance in all of this, and it finally came about when I was willing to do some of the things you talked about in the book, about your own story, about how I flipped it and said I've got to spend more time on my health. And so at that point, for me, it was diet and exercise. And then once I kind of got that built up, then it was okay. Next thing is sleep, and I kind of got that zeroed in. But I felt as long as I was the C suite executive of a large company, standard Porsche 500, I was never going to hit that fourth pillar of stress management. So by good fortune or bad fortune, however you want to look at it, I got laid off.
[00:13:18.660] – Tom
Right.
[00:13:19.500] – Allan
And I made the decision at that point to not go back into corporate because I said this fourth pillar of my health is more important than me adding more to my wealth. And so, in a sense, I did my scorecard and I began to weigh the health side a lot more than the wealth side.
[00:13:44.380] – Tom
And congratulations, Allan. You're exactly right. And the challenge we all have, I just had it happen to a client six months ago. They had saved up all their money without getting the details and doing a review and dies of a heart attack. And now the spouse has all this money and no one to enjoy with the grandkids. It's nice, but not her spouse. And so you're right. But here's the thing. It's often tough. As I said in the book, mine was in the go go 1980s when they told me to quit martial arts and burn the midnight oil. And I said, luckily for me, I can't do that. It would be against the grain and against my values clarification. But it took that moment for me to realize I had to go left or I had to go right. And like you, I said, I'm going to take the turn that enriches and nourishes me. Looking back, I never regret a day. In fact, many of my peers did work themselves, ultimately either to an early grave or more importantly, to unhappiness. And at the end, that wasn't the journey they would have wanted either.
[00:14:44.060] – Tom
So congratulations to you on that.
[00:14:45.920] – Allan
Well, it took me a couple more decades than it took you to draw that conclusion, but I did eventually get there. But you have a tool that you put in your book. It's called the balanced wealth scorecard. And I know you now use this with your clients that you're counseling or advising on their wealth strategies, but you're having this additional conversation with them of what else about your health? How are you going to live well and retire well? Can you talk about your balanced wealth scorecard? Not so much. I mean, we can talk about the financial side a little bit, just so they know what's in it. But obviously this is a health and fitness podcast, so I'm not going to give them financial advice on this show other than they might want to reach out to you if they've got some money they need to manage. But beyond that, can you talk about your balanced wealth scorecard and how that's used?
[00:15:42.260] – Tom
Yeah. Thank you, Alan. And it's a joy for me because the scorecard and first of all, my disclaimer, I always tell even my clients that know me, I say, I'm not a doctor. I play one on TV and they laugh. But nothing is proprietary. Nothing violates HIPAA. They're not sharing any medical information. The scorecard is subjective, so the input comes from the user or the client. What I like to do is ask them. There's four topics on finance, which we don't really have to get into in detail, but the other four are on health, right? Hence the term balance. What I asked them is, if you were looking back over three years from now, one year from now, five years, looking back, what would you like to achieve in that space that would put you further along the line of health and wellness? And a lot of times, the first thing is, nobody's ever asked me that from a financial planning end. But what I just got an email yesterday from a client out in the Midwest, which I love. This client said, I finally got why you kept asking me about an oura ring, which she finally ordered one.
[00:16:41.870] – Tom
She said, I understand now why I said, I don't get any benefit, but it may help you and your journey on tracking, exercise and sleep. So the scorecard is designed to have them input on a score of, let's say, zero to eight or twelve on a scale on where they feel they fall. Obviously, the lower numbers mean they've not spent much time thinking about diet, sleep, exercise. The higher numbers mean, yeah, I've spent some time, but I haven't systematized it. And you and I know, based on all your great work, too, on podcast, once you create a system, it's easier to follow it, and then you can always insert something new. And so typically about twice a year, at the end of a regular review of their portfolio or their tax situation, I'll say, let's take out that scorecard. And what would you I asked them, what would you like to talk about next? One client recently got rated on his life insurance because his A1C is too high. So I said, okay. Great. What's your primary care telling you? And then what are his next steps? So that he knows, as a reminder, I'm there to coach him on, to encourage him on that step if he wants to share that.
[00:17:48.230] – Tom
So we typically use it as an accountability partner. And then for those people, Allan, that really want to do a deep dive, obviously, I have doctors that I've worked with that I can always refer them to. There's no finders fees. They can go right to these doctors and inquire and like many of your great podcasts, these people are experts in a deep dive, whether it's Alzheimer's, brain research, Parkinson's, I mean, you name it, they've all done their homework and they've got peer reviewed work in that area. But that's if somebody needs to do a deep dive more than the traditional. So it's an accountability partner, we like to review it. And more importantly, I love it when the spouses or their partner weighs in, because I like it to be where it can be a couple's thing. And as you know, when couples are both on the same page, the goals, the odds of reaching a goal are multiplied when you've got someone there cheering you on. So that's a big part of it, too.
[00:18:42.260] – Allan
Yeah, well, beyond cheering you on, it's the whole concept of, okay, if this is a lady and her husband doesn't want to eat the foods that she's eating and she's trying to commit to increasing or improving herself in this area, she's going to need his support at some level. Otherwise it's going to be a struggle. And it's not that he has to eat the way that she's eating, but at least at that point, if he's on board to help her reach these goals and understands that these are important to her, which includes she has to communicate these things to him. If you're doing that, if you're doing that, if you're communicating this, look, I've done this scorecard, and these are the things that are now kind of my priorities. They're my values. They're what I want to be. You can take that scorecard to your doctor. You can take that scorecard to your spouse or significant other. You can even share that because most of us are in our 40s. Our kids are going to be old enough 40s and 50s. Our kids are going to be old enough to understand that we want to be healthy and be there for eventually their kids having those conversations,
[00:19:44.500] – Allan
This is a really good tool to say, okay, I want to be financially secure. I want to be healthy. And so these are my priorities going into this next quarter, next year, however we want to approach it. But that gives you a great tool. And you mentioned something else that I think is really important is I don't like to talk bad about doctors. So I'm not talking bad about doctors. Please don't hit me up and say you're not listening to your doctor. Well, look, there are doctors that are in the current process that follow standard of care. They know the basics. They had the education that was necessary for them to be a doctor and do what they do, which is great. There are other doctors and very smart people who are on the other side of this. And look at this more from a well care perspective and they've raised the bar well above the sick care that most of our doctors currently have to practice. There are people out there, there are these experts, if you will, in the way that you can deal with nutrition. There's experts in the way that you can deal with supplementation.
[00:20:50.580] – Allan
There are tests that you can do that only these doctors are going to do. Because your doctor isn't going to necessarily say, just because your A1C is high, we should do a genome test so we understand if there's some genetic predispositions for that, or whether this is just something that's based on the fact that you're eating McDonald's every day and should just cut it out. Your doctor is just going to say eat better. And that's about all they're going to say. And then you got to figure that out. And then again, I'm a nutrition coach, I'm a fitness coach. And so there's people like me. I know what an ETF is, I know what stock is, I know what bonds are, I know about what is it? Diversification. I even know a lot about cryptocurrency and all those other things. Now, a lot of people don't. So they come to someone like you who's an expert to get advice so that they can optimize, so that they can do better than they could do on their own. Can you talk about how someone should go about picking an expert, knowing it, finding an expert, picking an expert and then working with one?
[00:21:55.510] – Tom
Yeah. Thank you. And also I'll give the analogy, which you'll certainly appreciate, health and wellness, just as I say in the book, when you diversify your portfolio, stocks, bonds, cash, real estate, I also mentioned diversify your health care, right. If you've been a good saver, maybe you don't just have primary care. Maybe you have a massage therapist or I say a chiropractor approved by an orthopedic surgeon. Maybe you have these other people in the background because we know that there are many different experts that can weigh in and you don't have to have pay a king's ransom for all this. I mean, a lot of these great health practitioners aren't always at the very highest end, but they have really great knowledge. But to answer the question, we believe the basis of everything should be a financial plan, right? Just the way that Chatbot, GPT and OpenAI have taken the world by storm. A financial planning software that's robust, literally incorporates long term care, Social Security, Medicaid planning, estate planning, roth IRA conversion, all the things that are important. And I often tell clients, ten years ago the software wasn't that advanced or what they call in fintech.
[00:23:04.110] – Tom
Well, now we literally get updates from the companies every week on we've changed this module because Secure Act 2.0 was passed last December, right? Or we've changed it. So number one, the basis of everything should be a financial plan, number two, and that's easy to do. But the second thing is the plan should be reviewed a couple of times a year when life conditions change. And that's where we add that balanced wealth questionnaire at the end or what do they want to do on that. But the third thing to remember is along the way, the government is really forcing people through this Secure Act 2.0. They want people to take more money out and get taxed now because we know the government sadly, is broke, right, the deficits, and I'm not blaming one party over the other, they both contributed to it. So our government is going to be reaching into your pocket, Allan, and your listeners and my pocket. Not that we don't want to help the government to protect us and there's some good things the government can do, but there's also some inefficiencies, right? And I tell my clients, if you don't do the right tax and financial planning, you're volunteering to give more money to the government rather than doing the right amount for your fair share.
[00:24:12.240] – Tom
So financial plan, a review on top of that. And ultimately, even though people are in their 40s and 50s and relatively young, I still want them to get a Will durable power attorney. I've had too many stories and I know you probably have known people who died unexpectedly and all of a sudden their spouse or their kids are left with a situation where you got to go through probate, which is basically salt in the wound of that. So we believe that's part of a traditional financial plan as well.
[00:24:40.560] – Allan
Yeah, well, I live in Panama country on an island. So yeah, when people pass here, it's fun. It's fun. And so one of the things I wanted to bring up, because you are a financial planner and coach, but the health savings accounts, I think what a lot of people think is, well, this is when I go to my doctor and I have to pay the deductible, I can use that against my health savings account. If he gives me a prescription and I have to pay for part of that, that goes against that. Certain other things that I would buy for my health would be in that. But what about things like coaches and nutritionists and things like that? Those are included in that whole model as well, aren't they?
[00:25:25.540] – Tom
They are. And the key thing about it I'm glad you brought that up, a lot of people don't know they've got, I'll never say free money, but money set aside for coaches and people like that, absolutely, it's allowed. And I suspect even more. This is where people really want to get in the nitty gritty of their planning. If you're smart about your own 401k, and we can't get into details here, but what they call Roth conversions and all, you can generate tax free money and retirement that can also be used to pay for these services. So a lot of people, if you're listening and you're over the age of 60, you might think it's too late. No, it's not necessarily too late in your 40s and 50s and still adding the HSA accounts are absolutely one way to do it. To allocate to that. It's a smart move
[00:26:09.910] – Allan
because I had a client and she's like, I need you to do these jump through these little hoops for me, and I can claim this on my HSA. And I was like, cool. And it saves her some tax money, too.
[00:26:22.170] – Tom
Yeah. And I would also share Allan, although I'm not a tax expert, but this is something for your audience, because a lot of times a little bit of research goes a long way. One of the reasons why I enjoyed writing the book for my current and future clients is I am and my accountant blessed that I'm able to expense this healthcare R and D research, because it's not just about me, it is for the benefit of my current and future clients. So I cleared it with him before the book even got published, and he said, it's your line of business. So for your audience, if people love what you do and others, and you can make it part of your business and integrate it, then you have the ability to ethically and legally deduct these expenses as part of R and D and all, whether it's for you or your training clients or your coaching clients. That's certainly within the purview of what's allowable under the IRS law.
[00:27:11.610] – Allan
Tom, I define wellness as being the healthiest, fittest and happiest you can be. What are three strategies or tactics to get and stay well?
[00:27:21.150] – Tom
So the three that I like to focus on, and the big one is sleep, right? There's no question every book's been written about it. There's some great ones about sleep. And again, whether you use your Apple Watch, I like to use the oura ring. I have no investments in these companies. I'm just sharing what works. But I love to be able to track the deep sleep, the REM sleep, your HRV, all these critical aspects of it. And if. You don't know all the details. There's plenty of websites. I know some of your podcasts have covered that. So number one, and I just listened to, by the way, a very well known military expert give a talk on another webinar and they asked him regarding all of the challenges in school violence and all that stuff like what's the one thing people can do to take advantage of being alert and responsive and healthy every day? And this is a military person. He said sleep. Sleep is the thing that people really need to focus on. So that thought that was fascinating coming from a lieutenant colonel. The second thing, clearly I would add, and I've done more of this work out in the last month, is this idea of circadian rhythm, sunlight, grounding.
[00:28:28.630] – Tom
The fact is, a lot of the way we evolved over 10,000 years and more was a lot of our artificial light. Today we're in buildings a lot. The research has clearly shown that if we get back to nature and where you are is a perfect place to get back to nature, right? And they said the blue zones, a lot of people in the blue zones around the world, guess what? Outside, near the beach, near the ocean, near the sand. So I think a second one is just be mindful of how many hours you spend indoors versus the natural sunlight and the circadian rhythm. I'm learning a lot more about that for me. So when I have my travels and I think the third thing is, for me, it's been again, I'm not a nutritious like you, but clearly the keto diet has been I didn't come into my program a lot of overweight. But I dropped a lot of weight doing the fasting and keto diet, and I realized I could live on a lot less calories and have the energy. The key thing is, as you know, is training your body to burn to that glucose before you get to the ketosis stage.
[00:29:30.960] – Tom
And a lot of people never can get over that hump because there's social challenges. I'm sure you know this, friends and family and people stop in and you're like you can't tell everyone that you're fasting all the time, right, because you got to eat meals. But I found that if you can work around that, those are the three things that have helped me now. A year from now, I may change them up a bit. But those are the three that I found that keep me on a mindset of health and wellness and more importantly, allow me to be CEO of my own health and not sit there and be frustrated by schedule changes, airline delays, or whatever's going on in the world.
Thank you. Yeah, it's thebalancedwealthapproach.com. It's literally the title of the book.com. And they can learn about the book. There's a questionnaire, there a scorecard they can fill in, and then that can begin their journey, as we like to say, we can bring you to the door of health and wellness. We can open the door, but they have to walk through that door. And the great work that you've done, listen to people and the experts that you have on. And I'll continue to gather information from my clients because I think this is just the first inning of what's going to be a great long term run for all of us.
[00:30:53.730] – Allan
Great. Well, you can find that episode at 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/587. Tom, thank you so much for being a part of 40+ Fitness.
[00:31:03.870] – Tom
Thank you, Allan. And thank you very much for sharing some time with me. I enjoyed it immensely.
Post Show/Recap
[00:31:17.370] – Allan
Welcome back, Ras.
[00:31:19.010] – Rachel
Hey, Allan. This is a topic that we've talked about a little bit lately. It's so important to just like Tom said, be the CEO of your own health. I mean, when you prepare for retirement, there's more to retirement than just having enough money to live on. You need to have the health to take you through those retirement years.
[00:31:39.330] – Allan
Yeah, that whole live part.
[00:31:41.490] – Rachel
Yes. That's pretty key.
[00:31:46.450] – Allan
Yeah. I think a lot of people look at retirement and they're like, okay, did I save enough money to last? And how long am I going to be here? We started it years ago, probably most of us. Put a little bit away in your 401k, do a little bit here, do a little bit there. And then as you start getting into your forty s and fifty s, you really start thinking about socking away a little bit more, pushing up that amount so that you're kind of building this portfolio. But so few people think about their health and fitness in a similar light of, what am I investing today for my health and fitness? And it's time. It's effort and sometimes money when you need that assistance and accountability. And so few people are doing it, they're sort of just coasting along and it's like, ho hum. And it's sort of like, I guess I'm going to work for the rest of my life kind of mindset. But that won't be nearly as long as you think if you're not taking care of your health and fitness.
[00:32:48.560] – Rachel
Oh, that's so true. Just to play devil's advocate here, I can tell you that in my 20s, I was also focused on my career and didn't have to think too much about my health. In my 30s, when I was having kids and raising young children, my time and attention was focused on them, and my husband Mike was focused on his career. So it's like years tick by before we really even needed to think too hard about our health. And then before it's too late, you want to get into that. It's just important to maintain that focus. And it's better in your younger years. It's easier to start a running regimen or a weightlifting regimen or any sort of program when you're younger and healthier and you can bounce back faster.
[00:33:37.040] – Allan
It is easier to be fit and stay fit. So maintenance is an easier way than starting later in life. But the point being is you can. It's the whole point. They'll tell you it's like, don't think you've lost it. You can still be putting money away for your retirement now, whatever you can. And it's sort of the same thing with fitness. It's like what you can with what you have right now, because every little thing you do, every little investment chips away and puts a little bit in that bank to make you healthier and make you more fit. And so as you start looking at not just how you want to live that other part of your life, the second half or the rest of it, however you want to line that up, basically, what quality of life do you want to have? What do you want to do and enjoy? You know, I've talked about my grandfather, 80 years old, had to quit playing golf because he couldn't. And he kept living. He kept living, and he lost the most important thing in his life, which was golf, and he lost it, and he lived for another 15 years.
[00:34:45.610] – Allan
As you kind of look at this and say, I want the life and I want my retirement money to last as long as I live. But you should also want your health span to last as long as you live.
[00:34:57.920] – Rachel
Oh, gosh, yeah.
[00:34:59.220] – Allan
Because I can't even imagine sitting there and withering away.
[00:35:06.320] – Rachel
Oh, yeah.
[00:35:07.250] – Allan
As an older, frail person losing independence, looking at that jar of pickles I bought that I can't open and waiting for someone to come by and open it for me, not being able to take care of myself. I can't even imagine spending years, potentially years and years of my life in that state. But if you're not doing something today, you're setting yourself up for stuff just like that.
[00:35:35.040] – Rachel
Oh, for sure. It's so easy to get busy and focus on our careers. But what's going to happen when you don't work anymore, when you actually quit work to be retired, and you've got all this time on your hands, and what are you going to do?
[00:35:50.510] – Allan
We're going to go to the Mediterranean and do these hikes, and we're going to go to Machu Picchu and do that thing, and we're going to do all those things right, but then we're not doing anything now. So it's like you get to 65 and it's like, wow, I can't walk up the stairs without getting winded. There's no way. And then, yeah, you go on that cruise. But leaving the cruise ship. Someone's got to drive me to the top of the volcano because I can't walk there. So now it's not the same experience, it's not the same as what you thought. And it just becomes harder and harder because you're just not doing the things necessary to be ready for those. So if there's something about your retirement that excites you, start working on it right now. Yeah, it's the whole thing. It's like, yeah, I'd love to do these cruises and do this thing. Well, you got to save the money for it, right? Well, it's the same way you've got to build your stamina and your energy and your strength to be able to do those things and enjoy the life that you are meant to enjoy.
[00:36:49.760] – Allan
You worked hard, you worked hard your whole life to save for that retirement. And as you said, seven figure portfolio and you're 6ft under is not the plan. So you got to start doing things on both sides. But health and fitness is probably an area where many of us might have be falling short. We're probably saving plenty of money in our 40s and 50s because we know it's coming. We a little bit behind the curve on this stuff, but we're doing it. And this is the same way. Start investing the time and the effort and in some cases money to get where you want to be.
[00:37:24.880] – Rachel
Yeah, for sure. That sounds great.
[00:37:27.630] – Allan
All right, well, Ras, I will talk to you next week.
I'm doing okay. Got some news. I've been really quiet about this over the last 20 plus weeks. In my meantime, when I'm not doing anything else
[00:03:06.090] – Rachel
when is that, by the way?
[00:03:08.910] – Allan
I set up to take the Precision nutrition level two on my way to being a Master Health coach. But I I passed my final last week for my level two.
[00:03:20.100] – Rachel
Congratulations.
[00:03:21.160] – Allan
I basically been so I was for the last 21 weeks, I've been spending about 8 hours per week on this course. It's pretty intense. I would basically kind of put it up there and say I was taking multiple college courses at the same time to do this because it was pretty deep. I printed out their text just from the lectures. It was 180,000 words.
[00:03:48.490] – Rachel
My gosh.
[00:03:50.650] – Allan
Just to kind of give you an idea of how much content was in this. And then it was a final 100 multiple choice questions that you go through. So I passed that test, and by the time you're listening to this episode, I'll have my level two and be working towards my Master health coach with precision nutrition. So I'm pretty excited that that's over.
Thank you. And it basically ups my game a lot, because from that coaching perspective, it kind of gives me the it's not so much the credentials, it's just the things I learned during that 20 weeks and how I can apply that for my clients and get them even better results. That's what I'm excited about. I know when I'm doing my coaching that I'm doing kind of that highest level of coaching that I can possibly do, because there's nothing harder. I mean, there's nothing higher, like getting to that point where it's okay, I'm the most credentialed I can be as a health coach, so health and fitness coach. So that's pretty exciting. Put all the tools in place for me.
[00:05:06.370] – Rachel
That's wonderful. Congratulations.
[00:05:08.550] – Allan
All right. How are things up there?
[00:05:10.370] – Rachel
Good. I mentioned last week that I was going to be running an ultra, and I did. It was 34 miles, and I had a great run. Earned first place in my age group. Set a two minute thank you. Got myself a two minute PR on this course. This is my fourth time running this course, and it was a great day with really terrible conditions. We got rained on at the beginning, and then it only got colder from there. You had snow in the afternoon, so it was kind of a muddy mess, but it was wonderful. Painful, but wonderful. It was a good run.
[00:05:49.870] – Allan
Yeah. You add the poor weather and the PR, that's pretty impressive. You you must have trained really hard for this one.
[00:06:00.070] – Rachel
You would think so, but not nearly as hard as when I trained to run this the first time. But it's been four or five years since my initial PR on this course, so it's not so much the training as the wisdom from the last few years. I really know what I'm doing, so I can persist through some uncomfortable conditions. And truthfully, this kind of gets me a little bit fired up for pushing my limits on a good weather day. I mean, if everything went better, then how much faster could I have been? There's just a lot of room there to ponder that, so I'm pretty excited about whatever might come next. I have no plans, but I am definitely thinking about something.
[00:06:48.660] – Allan
Good. I saw Mike had post a picture of your prep and then his prep. I think he had a PR too.
[00:06:58.600] – Rachel
Yeah, that was a good picture. Yeah. I've got a lot of gear to run 34 miles. I need quite a bit of food. And I had a couple of wardrobe changes because I knew that it was going to get rained on and they provide drop bags. So I had a change of clothes as needed on the course and everything. And Mike had all the celebratory beer ready, so his prep was a little different than mine.
[00:07:24.370] – Allan
Some of it was left when you got done.
[00:07:26.370] – Rachel
At least I got a beer out of it. Yeah.
[00:07:28.160] – Allan
Okay.
[00:07:30.370] – Rachel
Well deserved.
[00:07:31.850] – Allan
All right. Well, are you ready to have this conversation with Dr. Hood and Dr. Price?
[00:07:37.860] – Rachel
Sure.
Interview
[00:08:29.570] – Allan
Lee, Nathan. Welcome to 40+ Fitness.
[00:08:33.100] – Dr. Price
Thanks, Allan.
[00:08:33.740] – Dr. Hood
Great to be here.
[00:08:35.000] – Allan
Yeah. Your book is called The Age of Scientific Wellness. And as I was going through the book, I just had a whole lot of thoughts. And what I liked about it was I would be thinking something like, well, what about what about what? And then here you guys go and answer that question. So you answered a lot of my questions about health care and well care and kind of the direction some of this stuff is going or very much could go. And even though it sometimes has a feel of science fiction, I see enough around me otherwise to say that you guys are probably spot on. That change is coming fast, and it's going to be kind of interesting how the next, I would say one or two decades shapes up as far as how our visits to our doctors go and how we personally can step in and make some changes for ourselves. So I appreciate this book because it's a lot of food for thought and it covers a few things that I really want to get deeper on. But this is a really good book.
[00:09:42.170] – Dr. Hood
Thank you.
[00:09:44.570] – Allan
Now, in the book, you compared and contrasted health care, which is what we have pretty much today, which is get sick, have a symptom, go to the doctor, take a medication, usually for the symptom, not always for the cure, and then rest and repeat. Literally, we just keep going back and then for a lot of us over the age of 40, it's counting how many pills you have to take in a day. And then we sit down and start having those conversations. Well, I'm on seven, I'm on eight. My doctor changed this one and put me on these two, and this one gave me that, so I took that. And it just seems like a case of whack a mole, if you will, and you go into that and then the look forward of what we could have is what you call wellness care, which speaks to wellness, the transition, and then disease. Can you kind of talk through that and why that different paradigm can completely flip the way we look at medicine?
[00:10:52.990] – Dr. Hood
I think the fundamental idea is that health care in the future is going to be data driven. And the idea that we will follow each individual on a regular basis every three months or every six months, and we'll assess blood analytes and the gut microbiome and do digital health measurements. And these measurements will let us assess the three different features of health. So I see your health trajectory as made up of three components. So most of us start in wellness, whatever that means. Then often we will go through a transition to disease that will progress and then reverse itself and take us back to wellness. So the data driven transitions we can assess are wellness are the transitions and disease itself. And what's exciting about data driven approaches is they let us optimize health for each of those three phases. For wellness, typically, we would guess that ordinary person, even appearing well, would have maybe 30% of the potential wellness. And there are many actionable possibilities that come from data driven wellness that can further optimize that. And a very interesting question is it's up to you and how far are you going to go in being well?
[00:12:36.770] – Dr. Hood
The second point that's really fascinating is because we can detect in the blood transitions that occur years before you get the clinical disease, there is now the opportunity to think about reversing disease when it's simple at its earliest stage, so that you never get to the disease. And a really attractive idea of data driven wellness is we can deal with many, if not most, chronic diseases in this fashion. And then, of course, for disease itself, the enormous data density gives us fundamental new insights into how to deal with disease more effectively. And many people are doing that. But the whole idea is, in the future we will follow you, whether it be with fitbits and aura rings and things like that, and or with blood and your microbiome analyses. And they will give us the power to optimize your health.
[00:13:47.190] – Allan
So, Lee, on a simple basis, just to kind of walk us through this, can you go at a high level and say, okay, we know that there's a transition that occurs that puts us into diabetes. We've identified it now as prediabetes. But can you kind of talk through that line of how that would work for someone who's maybe going in that direction and how that transition would appear?
[00:14:09.320] – Dr. Hood
Nathan, do you want to take that one?
[00:14:11.390] – Dr. Price
Sure, I'd be happy to. One of the ways that diabetes is a great example because it's probably where we've worked this out the best just in medicine today, because there is at least a diagnosis that you can make or an evaluation of prediabetes and that relates to the ability for us to control insulin. So to look at controlling sugar via the secretion of insulin primarily. And so when you look at that, you can transition from waiting to some late stage disease and late stage diabetes care is pretty horrific, right? It's foot amputations. They're up like 40% in the United States over the last decade or something like that, which is just terrible. But if you're looking at prevention and earliest on, you can deploy new kinds of devices. So continuous glucose monitors, for example. You can wear a device on your arm, you can go in it's painless for a course of two weeks, and you can monitor how your body's response to sugar is being managed. You can get a sense for how good are you at that. You can actually look at exercises and changing your diet or even some supplements or drugs or different things like that that can have an effect on trying to blunt or get yourself to be better at controlling glucose.
[00:15:29.010] – Dr. Price
And as you improve that metabolic health, as you focus on wellness, that then reduces the likelihood that you would transition to diabetes. Now, if you want to broaden out from that and this is some of the things that we get into in the book. So we did a paper for the Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences a few years ago, and we looked at the genetic risk for 54 different diseases and conditions. And what you find is that even if you look in asymptomatic people, you can identify differences that manifest themselves as a function of being at high or low risk for a disease decades before the disease manifests. And in many of these cases, they relate to mechanisms that are happening early in the process that might be reversible. Just to give one example, we looked in the blood of people and stratified them by risk for coronary artery disease. Turned out there was only one protein whose concentration of the blood was correlated with that strength of genetic risk. In this case, that was PCSK nine. Well antipcsk nine drugs are the biggest that's the biggest blockbuster drug in that space in the last decade.
[00:16:37.810] – Dr. Price
And you could see that, and it's the only signal when you look early. And traditionally in medical research, we're always looking late. And you have these hundreds of changes, maybe thousands of changes that you're trying to suss through to figure out what matters but you're seeing a very complex picture at the end when you look early and you have more of a movie where you're starting from wellness to the early transition. The number of signals is small and the interventions are easy. So going back to diabetes, late stage can be loss of pain sensitivity, and all the problems that come with that early is fixing your diet, eating more fiber, things that are very simple. And that's kind of the whole paradigm, which is to shift healthcare much more towards understanding these fundamental processes and how good we are at them, like the control of glucose. But it could be combating oxidative radicals. How good are you at how well is your DNA repair happening? Are your telomeres shortening faster than they should, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, aimed towards how do you live as long and healthy a life as possible?
[00:17:43.910] – Allan
Now, the term scientific wellness actually appeals to me a lot because we've seen a lot of things, I think, over the last few years and through nutrition my whole life. That really wasn't science. It was marketing, if you will. But that said, in looking at scientific wellness and you talked about data driven, which I think is important, there are three bits that you got into. One being the genome, which is just basically our genetic makeup. The phenome, which is the first time I've heard that term, actually. My spell check on my computer doesn't even know that word. I guess I'm not that dumb. And then digital measurements of health, which I think you brought up a little bit, was the fitbit or the continuous glucose monitor, those types of things. Can you go into those and how that data is going to because it sounds like a lot of data.
[00:18:45.910] – Dr. Hood
Sure, I can start on scientific wellness. The idea there is that humans are terribly complicated. And if you want to be able to assess that complexity, the best single approach is this belief that blood is a window into health and disease. Because blood bathes all your organs. They secrete molecules, be they proteins, or metabolites into the blood. And if you can learn to read the quantification of those analytes, you can assess the health of at least 25 different organs in the human being. So the idea then, with scientific wellness is we can look at proteins and we can look at metabolites that give us deep insights into how biological networks in different organs and for different physiologic functions actually operate in what state they're in. And we can begin in a scientific fashion to ask, are there ways that we can cure this kind of deficiency? And simple example of that was when I had my analytes analyzed. I found I was incredibly low on vitamin D. And vitamin D is really an essential vitamin for preventing diabetes and cancer and cardiovascular disease and aging, a whole variety of things. And what I was shocked at is when I used the normal doses on a regular basis of 1000 international units to bring me back to normal, it didn't phase my blood levels at all.
[00:20:45.620] – Dr. Hood
And it turned out that in addition to low vitamin D in the blood, I had two genetic variants that blocked the uptake of vitamin D. And the one effective way of getting around that was to use very large doses, 15,000 international units. And that brought me up to normal. And then I had to use more than normal to maintain that kind of level. And those are all beautiful examples of how we assess assay blood analytes and could change the dimension of wellness in a single individual. And in fact, in our initial studies for scientific wellness, we were able to correlate six different types of data and come up with 2500 correlations. And going to the literature with some of the correlations between those various combinations led to actionable possibilities that could be then given to individuals. And if they did them, they improve wellness in a voided disease. But the ability to quantitatively assess the blood and draw inferences about general functions and specific organ states, I think is a very important idea. Nathan, did you want to continue with the rest of the question?
[00:22:20.110] – Dr. Price
Sure. So there's many things that you can get into that I think really guide a person as they're trying to implement something like this in their life or have an impact. So one of the really interesting elements that came out of analyzing these data and it does bring together genetics and the blood measures was when we looked at people who were going through a program aimed at improving their wellness, this scientific wellness program that we were running as we did that, what we found was that you can take a genetic prediction, let's say, of something like LDL cholesterol in your blood. Right.
[00:22:54.730] – Dr. Price
Millions of people are on statins to control this. And so when we looked at that, it turned out that you could predict in advance who was able to lower, for example, their LDL cholesterol by lifestyle interventions. And the key variable turned out to be that if your genome predicted that you could be low but you were high. In other words, if there was a gap, you could change it. And if your genome predicted high and you were high, there wasn't a gap, you couldn't. Now, one of the things that's really fascinating is that if you think about medicine, and something as common as that is in our healthcare system today, essentially no doctor uses the genetic information about what the genes say about your level of LDL cholesterol. It's everyone is treated the same, and it turns out that their responses are totally different. That's also true for HDL cholesterol, so called good cholesterol you're trying to raise. It's true for things like hemoglobin, A1C, for the transition to diabetes, because there are genes that predict the residence time of red blood cells, for example. So the average is 120 days. But some people will be more at 110 or 130.
[00:24:05.460] – Dr. Price
Totally predictable by genetics. So the main diabetes marker is hemoglobin, A1C, which is a molecule that's circulating, and it accumulates these sugars, essentially, that go onto the edges. And the amount of time you have makes a difference in how long that accumulates. So based on different genetics, a person could have the same readout and be at high risk for transition to diabetes, and another person could have the same readout and be at relatively low risk for transition to diabetes. Totally predictable by genetics and so forth. So there's many, many things that you could get into.
[00:24:38.810] – Allan
Now, Lee, you came up with the concept of 4 P medicine. Could you walk us through that? Because I think this is where the rubber hits the road. This is where we actually start getting this stuff done.
[00:24:53.390] – Dr. Hood
I agree with you completely. Back in the early 2000s, when we were just starting the Institute for Systems Biology, and the mission of that institute was to take a systems or global holistic approach toward both wellness and toward disease. We also took a systems approach to thinking about health care in what are the most fundamental elements of health care we need that are absolutely necessary. And we came up with the four P's. So prediction, the ability to predict whether or not you might be susceptible to a disease, and if so, the second P was prevention. How can we deal with that disease and maybe deal with it before it ever manifests itself as a clinical entity? The third one was personalization because it was clear from day one that humans are a unit of biological organization and health had to be focused at individuals because different individuals differ in every way, and their genetic and their genetics, their behavior, their environment and so forth. So these first three PS, prediction, prevention and personalization, really are the scientific meat of what this data driven health care is all about. We think after the Air Veil program, where we, over a four year period, brought 5000 people to scientific wellness and accumulated data clouds, we think we understand very well how to approach the science end of things.
[00:26:48.500] – Dr. Hood
But the fourth P is participatory, and the question there is, how do you get the system to change? How do you persuade patients to actually have the initiative to participate in scientific wellness? How do you persuade physicians to take advantage of it? Many have skepticism about it, they don't see it as real science or I think others are actually intimidated by the fact, namely genetics, that it entails a lot of things they don't understand and they're very hesitant to get involved. How do we persuade the physicians, how do we persuade the healthcare leaders? How do we persuade pharma and the technology companies that this is going to be the future and get them to focus on wellness and prevention rather than just on disease by itself. How do we get those that are the FDA, that are Adjudicating drugs and all of these things? And how do we get the whole educational system? The training of MD's has to change in a really radical way. When I went to medical school many, many years ago, I was appalled later to learn I never had a course in genetics. Fortunately, I was an undergraduate at Caltech and I had a good background, but I never had a course on diet or the gut or any of these kinds of things, or I never had any kind of course that ever mentioned the word wellness.
[00:28:28.860] – Dr. Hood
And frankly, I think a lot of things I was taught then is what our students are getting taught today. And there is enormous resistance in the medical schools to say, well, we're all filled up. We have all these courses because we have all these requirements and we don't have time to think about anything new. So anyway, how do we get the senators, representatives, the executive to realize that if you spend money today on prevention and wellness, tomorrow you'll have enormous savings and strikingly increased quality of health care? So those are the challenges of the four P, science on the one hand, but sociology and economics and psychology and so forth, on the other hand. So how do you get a system that's embedded in paying doctors according to how many times they touch the patient to change to one that's value based, where the doctors get paid on how well they keep all of their patients? And these are the challenges that come with data driven health.
[00:29:49.950] – Allan
Well, kind of. One of the things I took away from it was this is proactive rather than reactive. This is an opportunity to get out in front of everything and just tap it out before it becomes a fire. There's a hot spot and just tap it out now. Don't let it become a wildfire later. And I think the last P is really the answer. And the thing is, we have to participate. We have to be our own advocates in the way that we're taking care of ourselves and the things we're doing. And I think as tools become available to the patient, then the patient is really the one that has the best opportunity to drive a lot of this because generation before mine would have gone and the doctor says, okay, we're going to have to amputate your foot. It's like, okay, which one? And then you weren't going to say no. You were going to say, can I get a second opinion? You weren't going to question it. It's like, well, the doctor said so, therefore we are. And it's the jump, how high kind of mindset. And now we are a lot more likely to question things and do that.
[00:31:06.540] – Allan
But it goes back to the doing because if your doctor does come to you and says, okay, look, you have these analytes and this biology, this genome that's going to basically says that if you don't do something you're going to get diabetes. And for most of us that that's happening to, we know someone in our family that went down that aging curve and it's not pretty.
[00:31:36.510] – Dr. Hood
No, the other thing I would say, I think a big part of fourth P is education and we have really focused on that in very important ways. One, Nathan and I with others have written a textbook on systems biology and systems medicine and it's an ideal textbook for medical students and graduate students of various kinds to take up. It's written for someone who doesn't understand all the intricacies of biology. A second thing we've done with an education group I started more than 20 years ago at ISB now is we've created from the systems biology text on the systems Medicine chapter, a 20 module course for high school students that gives them deep insight into systems medicine and P four, healthcare. And I'll argue that and we'll be starting to use that course this year and be able to distribute it to many schools. I'll argue that that course will train students who will know more than 95% of physicians about the future of medicine and really where it's going to go. A third thing that we've done is the book that we're here talking about. And a fourth thing is that I've persuaded an Italian film director to make a 90-minute documentary on wellness over the last 5000 years.
[00:33:18.030] – Dr. Hood
That in a general sense talk about how our perceptions of wellness has evolved and where we are today with data driven health and what it means for you and in an artistic fashion try to appeal to people to activate this fourth P. That is I will participate in this kind of process. So we have lots of things going on that I think will be important in the educational process. But diving in and getting done these transformations is what we're all about. And I'm doing it from an academic side and Nathan obviously is doing it from the side of a wonderful company that's trying to bring health and wellness and prevention to people in small bits and pieces, which is one very effective way of doing it.
[00:34:24.290] – Allan
I want to thank you guys as I was going through your stories and what you guys have done to date is exceptional. But when that video comes out, when that's a documentary, when they get that done and they're ready to publish, that get me back in the loop. I'd love to have everyone back on the podcast and we can talk about that documentary because I think that's going to be extremely valuable and I'd like to help spread the word.
[00:34:53.310] – Dr. Hood
Okay, we'll take advantage of it. Thank you very much.
[00:34:58.590] – Dr. Price
Yeah, maybe if I can just add a little bit on that participatory piece, then, because one of the things that I could imagine listeners may be thinking, or if you start to encounter scientific wellness, I think you can see a lot of promise in it. But there might be questions of how do I easily implement this right? How do I make that something that's real in my life, that affects my wellness, my health, all those kind of things? And I think that so much of the onus of dealing with complexity of the kind we're talking about, really has to fall on the side of those of us who are working on the algorithms, the products, so forth, to try to make this as simple as possible. And so that's one of the areas that I think we're really focused on, on trying to deliver that out to people. And so some of the elements can also just be very minor, practical. I'll just share one example. So microbiome testing, lee and I are both big believers in microbiome and its future, and it's turning out to be important for so many health issues that people are getting into.
[00:36:04.980] – Dr. Price
But the process of getting a sample, for example, is not typically the greatest, right? So listeners that aren't thinking, what do. You have to do?
[00:36:16.710] – Dr. Price
You get a bucket or a piece of paper, poop on the bucket,
[00:36:20.510] – Allan
plastic bag,
[00:36:21.890] – Dr. Price
take a little shovel. You got to dig it up. You got to put it in a little bile. You got to close it. Some of the tests require freezing. I don't know what you keep in your freezer, but I tend to keep food there, so it's not like the greatest spot, et cetera. So just to give an example, then. So that's an issue. So one of the things that we sat around and this was some work that we did at Thorne but basically to just say, well, what's the easiest way we could do a microbiome sample? Which led to the invention of something that we call the microbiome wipe, which is basically what it sounds like. It's basically toilet paper made out of a special polymer. So you wipe like normal. You throw it in a vial, you shake the vial, within 10 seconds, it dissolves away. So what that was was a way to get, like, the easiest way we could possibly think of to get a sample. Now, what that does is that lowers the barrier to people doing it. And we saw a big uptake. In fact, on another podcast, Sarah Godfrey was interviewed. She's a prominent physician and she's treating a bunch of NBA players.
[00:37:24.260] – Dr. Price
And she shared this anecdote that the NBA players would never do the microbiome samples for the reason we just talked about. Because it's gross, I guess. Or they didn't want to do it, but when switching to the wipe, they all did it and it was like, not a problem. So, anyway, not to get too bogged down by that, but ways that we can make the blood sampling easier so we can do this now, fairly painlessly at home. You can get your microbiome sample. You can wear a CGM, you can wear your wearables of all the various kinds you've got. There's so much of an ecosystem that's growing up around this where a person has to take ownership of their own health. But the number of companies and groups that are working to try to take so much of this science and make it available to people and give them things that are science backed and easily accessible is just growing immensely. So there's a whole enterprise on the discovery side that we're talking about. And also on the delivery side in.
[00:38:32.390] – Allan
The book you brought up Flexner's report, and this was a report basically on the medical system way back when. Nathan, what would your thoughts be of something like that actually happening today? That there be someone just sit down and say, okay, we're going to look at this holistically to make a change because I just see so much opportunity for pushback. And you even mentioned that in the book. Pharmaceutical companies are not going to want to make 24 different types of medication for an item when they know, okay, this is only going to work for one of 24 people, and each of those other 24 people are going to need a different medication. They'd rather just sell 24 and then have those people that it didn't work, switch to something else and work their way through it.
[00:39:19.010] – Dr. Hood
The simple extrapolation from that is just to say we have to fundamentally change how pharma discovers drugs and we have to do it at a different scale and with different selective processes that can generate drugs extremely rapidly and make it well within the cost structure of the rare disease genes, which is one in 200,000 people. We want to be able to treat them. So I think that's one really important thing that we have to think about.
[00:39:54.750] – Dr. Price
Yeah, and the point you bring up is really important because there are so many entrenched interests that are centered around our current healthcare system, which is totally focused on disease. And I was on a panel right before the pandemic with former chair of Harvard Medical School and I really like the way he said this and he said that healthcare is the only industry that does not study its own gold standard, which is wellness. And that's really what we're talking about. But because that has been set up the way that it is, you do, you have billions and well, it's healthcare, right? You have $4 trillion in the US alone set up around that kind of process. So trying to change it is an incredible enterprise and undertaking. So we have to do both. Try to advocate because as individuals, there's no doubt that a healthcare system centered on wellness is better. Like if anyone could make the trade off between a drug that slightly improves your decline during Alzheimer's versus never getting it as a person. Any of us would take never getting it right. I mean, the value prop there is incredibly simple, but getting there is very hard.
[00:41:11.100] – Dr. Price
So there are certain things you can do within the context of the certain system. Lee was alluding to this in terms of you can help drug companies have much higher hit rates on getting favorable drugs. One interesting thing that people are waking up to now is the microbiome metabolizes away about 13% of drugs. So you could be taking a drug and it's never even getting to you. Your microbiome changes, it eats it, and it doesn't get to you. And it depends on the kind of species you have in your microbiome. That's like one small example. There's all the others that we've gone through in genetics and so forth. So it does help the drug companies upstream if they have drugs that are failing for these unknown causes. You're exactly right on the market segmentation, which segments their market, so they're not financially incentivized towards that. And so we get into a number of these things in the book. But this was also partly the point of writing this book, honestly from Lee and my perspective, where we're trying to advocate for a lot of this change in how medicine is done. Part of that is that we have to create a movement of individuals, of the patients and individuals themselves that basically demand a health care system that does much better for them.
[00:42:31.360] – Dr. Price
And we're so much in the situation in healthcare of a very uneven power dynamic between, say, the physician and you as a patient, and there's an element of trust there, and there's an element that's happening. But it does put you in this situation of if you really want to take advantage of the revolutions that are happening right now in medical science, in delivery, in ways that we can optimize our health spans and all these things, you do have to be an active participant and sort of seek that out. And then as more and more people are seeking that out and demanding that, that changes the underlying economics, and then that is what will really drive the top, so to speak, of the medical hierarchy to have to pay attention to this. I don't think it's going to be a top down driven revolution. It really has to be bottom up. I don't see there's any other way.
[00:43:24.690] – Dr. Hood
You know, the other thing I'd add to this, Nathan, is another way of looking at it is data driven health really is going to achieve two things. One is enormous increase in quality of individual health care, and we need it as the top 20 developed nations, we're right near the bottom, even though we spend much more than anyone else. But the second really important point for converting the system to a health and prevention mantra is the idea that we can save the health care system enormous amounts of money. And I would say if you take the five major cost driving things that we have to deal with today, they are one, the quality of health care. Two, the aging population. Three, the explosion of chronic diseases for the inequity that arises from data being generated only in the Caucasian race for the most part so far. And then five, this impossibly escalating crease of cost. But on the quality, scientific wellness is going to be transformational. On the aging, we now have a metric for aging that not only tells you your biological age, the age your body says you are, its metrics actually tell you how you can optimize your aging process.
[00:45:02.930] – Dr. Hood
And more than that, the ability to prevent chronic diseases before they get started could be a transformational event in cutting down the frequency of those kind of things. And of course, with big new programs, we're going to balance up the equity equation, which is utterly critical because different races have really strikingly different genetic consequences for disease and so forth. And our feeling is, with these things together, you're talking about saving trillions of dollars, especially because chronic diseases alone cost 86% of our health care dollars. And suppose we cut to very small fractions of major chronic diseases and things like that. So that's going to appeal to the payers. And in many ways, the payers could really be the catalyst for driving a transformation from a sick health care to a wellness and prevention health care.
[00:46:08.310] – Allan
So a relatively small investment today is going to pay off big time for us in the future.
[00:46:13.380] – Dr. Hood
Big time for us. Absolutely.
[00:46:16.410] – Allan
Now, I have this question I ask all of my guests after reading your book. I'm so super excited to ask you gentlemen these questions because you've seen the data, you've seen more data than just about anybody else that I've ever asked this question. So, Lee, I define wellness as being the healthiest fittest and happiest you can be. What are three strategies or tactics to get and stay well?
[00:46:46.450] – Dr. Hood
Well, I would say that one strategy to go after wellness is scientific wellness. We now have what will be an exponentially increasing analysis of wellness trajectories and they'll lead to actionable possibilities. From the era Fail 5000, we had perhaps 200 actionable possibilities that we validated by taking correlations and going to the literature and verifying them with the data that we're proposing to do. We're putting forth the idea that we should do a million person project with a genome phenome analysis, and in a sense, it's a second genome project. Do it over ten years, we'd have all the validation we need for everything I said about quality improvement and decrease in cost and things like that. I'm arguing that we'll have tens of thousands of new actionable possibilities that will have to be delivered by AI to do two things to physicians. One, explain what it is and what's necessary. But two, give the validation in a simple way they can understand and of course they then can bring these things to their patients. I think a second thing that's absolutely key is aging is absolutely the strongest correlation with all chronic diseases. If we can cut down aging, we can cut down strikingly the transition to chronic diseases.
[00:48:30.170] – Dr. Hood
So, I mean, not only will you keep yourself younger and healthy, you can begin to imagine that many people could go into their 90s or hundreds and be mentally agile and physically active. And we'll have to redefine what retirement means. We'll have to redefine how many jobs you have during your lifetime and so forth. And of course, the data driven part will deal with the racial inequalities and data that exist out there. And the million person project could formally prove in very powerful ways literally trillions of dollars we could imagine saving in health care. I think scientific wellness, I think optimizing aging process. I think avoiding the chronic diseases and dealing with the racial diversity. Because to give you a simple example, japanese are three to four times as likely to get Alzheimer's if they have two copies of a bad gene called ApoA four than Caucasians do. If you look at Latinos, they have almost no probability of getting Alzheimer's from two bad copies of that gene. So that shows you the striking differences that we must take into account for health for individuals of different origins.
[00:50:07.170] – Allan
Nathan, I'll ask you the same question. I define wellness as being the healthiest fittest and happiest you can be. What are three strategies or tactics to get and stay well?
[00:50:20.150] – Dr. Price
Yeah, so I'm just going to put aside at the moment like the three big obvious ones that we all know about physical exercise pretty much every day, sleep 8 hours every night and eat a nutritious diet. But then I want to give three that are more focused towards the kind of things we're talking about. So one is get a genetic profile so that you understand the probabilities of what are the most likely factors that might inhibit your health. The second is to measure the dynamics around especially blood and the microbiome that can be interpreted in the context of those genetics. And then by those comparisons, we've got to make this easier for people. But those comparisons make a huge difference in understanding where you're at relative to your potential and where you're at in the manifestation of the things that are likely to be the biggest problems for you. That gives you a personalized map for a return on your health effort investment, roughly. So where do you put your time and effort? That kind of a map lets you navigate around the most likely issues that would end in you're not having the long healthy life that you really want to.
[00:51:41.400] – Dr. Price
And then finally, I'm going to reiterate something that Lee talked about, which is do everything you can to reduce the pace of aging. And there's a lot of interest in this right now. And this involves both things like the various lifestyle things that we've talked about, but also there's a lot of interesting compounds that are available now that have the kind of evidence that they extend lifespan in a bunch of different animals. And we know they functionally hit very conserved pathways in humans. We're not far enough along to where we know for sure that this is going to have an impact on human longevity, but we won't know that until it's sort of too late to be useful for some of us because it just takes a while. But there are a lot of these that are coming out. And so if you look at all these different hallmarks of aging, if you want to try to control senescent cells, well, there's data that shows that quercetin and dosatinib can kill senescent cells. Like, that's an interesting one. NAD right. There's different molecules. NR disclosure Thorn sells that one, or NMN or things like this that you can use to try to increase NAD well, that's an important element of aging.
[00:52:57.670] – Dr. Price
Metformin is an interesting one because there's a big trial going on, the Tame trial nerve. Barcelona at New York is leading that to look at its effects on aging. So if I'm in this space, you want to keep yourself educated and look at the data as it emerges. But there are a lot of possibilities, including things like intermittent fasting and so forth, to think about how do I slow down that clock. And because of different biological age measures, and there are multiple of those, there's the epigenetic ages that are probably the most famous now. We do one based on clinical labs that I think just gives more actionable possibilities right now. But there's a lot of these abilities to monitor that and just track that over time and try to stay biologically as young as you can as that science is moving quickly, and it's not there to where we kind of where we would like to get to in a Sci-Fi type future. But you can do things that materially reduce your risk of dying. And that's the definition of aging that I'm using here, which is just what's the likelihood and give any given year that you will die.
[00:54:06.050] – Dr. Price
And that goes up as you get older. And so if you can just flatten that curve, it makes the likelihood of a long, healthy life much higher. And so those are the three things I'd focus on.
[00:54:17.170] – Allan
Well, gentlemen, I agree with your conclusion and your book The Age of Scientific Wellness that we're right on the cusp of something exceptional happening. You've convinced me. If someone wanted to learn more about you and learn more about your book The Age of Scientific Wellness, where would you like for me to send them?
[00:54:39.610] – Dr. Price
Yeah, so for me, obviously, just pick up a copy of The Age of Scientific Wellness wherever you get books. In terms of my work on trying to drive product development to make scientific wellness accessible, thorne.com thorne.com is where you'd find that.
[00:54:59.150] – Dr. Hood
For me, I would just say that I think our book really is the best place to see what we've done in the last 15 years in terms of pushing this idea of scientific wellness and so forth. But I can be reached at lhood@phenomehealth.com.
[00:55:22.230] – Allan
Gentlemen, thank you so much for being a part of 40 Plus Fitness.
[00:55:27.370] – Dr. Price
Thanks so much, Allan. Great to be here.
[00:55:28.990] – Dr. Hood
It was a pleasure. Enjoyed your questions.
Post Show/Recap
[00:55:33.850] – Allan
Welcome back, Ras.
[00:55:35.490] – Rachel
Hey, Allan. That was a great interview. And I probably could have listened for another 20 30 minutes. I love listening about genetics and the potential that it could deliver in our existing health care system. I actually prefer the word wellness care, like they had mentioned in the beginning. I mean, there's just so much potential for getting patients healthier earlier with a personalized insight into their genetics and other data.
[00:56:06.070] – Allan
Yeah, I actually had another question on the plan, but we've gone so far. It would have probably gone another 20 30 minutes if I'd ask my final question. So it was what it was. But, yeah, this was really interesting because the technology with AI and data and knowing the genome and all the other data points that we can collect now relatively inexpensively with a watch or a phone or ring, there's a ton of opportunity here for us to do something. And kind of what was really interesting we didn't go deep on this, but Flexner's report was back before there were really good medical schools, there were medical schools. And for the time they were what they were. He did a tour around the country looking at all of our medical schools, and he tore them a big one. He ripped them up in some bad situations. Like, he went into one and he asked to see their lab. See what lab? The lab. And the guy says, Well, I can bring it to you. And he carried in one piece of equipment. This is for a major medical school. Not like a no name medical school either.
[00:57:22.820] – Allan
Like one of the better ones. People thought it was the better one at the time, and they didn't have a medical lab, which means all of the doctors that they were graduating had no idea how these labs were run. They had no idea how to read the results because they had not been trained to do these things. So he wrote this report, and it changed the way medicine worked across the country and the way medical schools were set up. But like most things, you solve one problem, you kind of create another one. And so now we have standard of care and we have all these rules, and so our doctors have to follow these things. And it really kind of hand holds them to say they see a problem, the symptom solve the problem. The symptom it's the symptom based sick care. That's binary. Are you sick or are you well? And it never really looks at as a continuum to say you're well, but you're moving maybe towards getting sick. If we catch it early, we can reverse this. So it's the difference between catching it when it's stage one cancer or even before that.
[00:58:27.810] – Allan
I mean, once there's like, the environment for cancer to form and they know that's happening, reversing that environment versus catching it when it's stage three or four when symptoms finally start showing up.
[00:58:43.620] – Rachel
I love that concept. Early detection, especially in terms of cancer, is so important. Everybody knows that. But they also mentioned we know pre diabetes. That's the exact same thing. And we're trending towards pre not we, you and I, but people are trending towards pre diabetes. But what if we could even go earlier than that to make some other assessments of our blood sugar levels? And not even just diabetes. There's the cholesterol situation.
[00:59:15.800] – Allan
Well, I picked diabetes because it was the perfect example that everybody can understand. You go into your doctor and you're like, okay, you're watching your A1C tick up each time you get this blood test. And the doctor is like, don't worry about it. Don't worry. It's ticking up. Don't worry about it. Until it hits 5.2, we don't care. Well, the fact that it went from four six to five, you should care. Something's going on. Your blood sugar is not being cleared as effectively as it was before. Something's changing. That's that thing, that's that transition where your body is starting to get to a disease state.
[00:59:54.910] – Rachel
But I want to sit on that for a second because I think I only have I'm 51, and I think I only have two, maybe three years of an A1C, because I don't remember how early you can be for them to take that test or to test for that. What if I could have had it when I was 40? What if I could have had it when I was in my 30s? And it's not even that. It's the cholesterol numbers and iron numbers and my thyroid situation. And there's just so much information if I had known it earlier.
[01:00:27.280] – Allan
That's the cool thing, is that data and the ability to get those tests is becoming more and more available. And so someone in their 30s can have this test. If you have children in their 20s, you can say, hey, for Christmas or for your birthday, I'm going to pay for this blood panel. And they're like, oh, thanks.
[01:00:50.190] – Rachel
Yes.
[01:00:51.710] – Allan
But the whole point is to say, yeah, I'm going to pay for this blood panel because I want you to have what you need to be next. I'm interviewing this guy now, and he's actually a financial planner, but he's looking at health and he's saying, a lot of my clients, they build up a seven figure portfolio, and then they drop dead before they even retire. He's like, so they care about the return on their investment every year. And so he's talking about in terms of what we talk about, generational wealth, how can I give this money to my children? Well, how can I give health to my children? How can I find health for myself and give health to others in my family, people I care about? And it's like, give them a blood panel. At least at that point they have data, and it's like, well, what does this data mean? Well, your A1C is already over five, and you're 31 years old or you're 40 years old. It's like, okay, we don't know what it was before, but that's a number to look out for and to tell your doctor the next time you see them, which should be soon, my A1C is already over five.
[01:01:53.940] – Allan
It's like, okay, you're approaching pre-diabetes. Don't worry about it. That's what the doctor is going to say, because the standard care says that's not a problem. It's not a problem until it gets over 5.6, then you're in pre-diabetes, and now we have a problem.
[01:02:08.650] – Rachel
That's the frustrating part, right? It is
[01:02:12.750] – Allan
but I don't think there's going to be a Flexner's report now, just based on the way culture of medicine is done, there won't be someone to step back and say, let's redo all this. What this has to happen. And the reason I kind of press down on the participatory part of the four P medicine is this is on you. This is on you to make decisions for yourself and to say, I would really like to know what my genome says. I would really like to know what my blood panel says and if my doctor is not asking for it. But I kind of know there's a family history of diabetes or I kind of know there's a family history of kidney problems or heart disease or this or that. Go get your calcium score. Go check out your cholesterol. Check out your blood pressure on a regular basis. It doesn't have to be perfect, but finding the data points that you think are important based on what you know about your family history. And unfortunately, I have a friend that was adopted. He didn't know any of that at the time, and so he went and got a genetic test and went on ancestry and things like that and found family has found his siblings and his mother.
[01:03:27.880] – Allan
And so not that that's what it's for, but I guess it is what it's for because that's what they're using it for. I have all these fourth cousins all over the world, everybody's my fourth cousin, I guess, thousands of them, hundreds, millions of them. But anyway, the point being is this data can be your friend, and there are some ethical concerns about how the data is going to be used by businesses and this and that. But right now I would just poo poo that. And I'd say, look, being afraid and cowering and not doing something for yourself just doesn't make sense in my mind. Take a moment. Get the data that you know might be important to you based on what you know. It doesn't have to be everything. You don't have to go do the genetics things if you don't want to, but at least go get a blood test, check your blood pressure, have a blood pressure monitor at home, almost nothing. A blood sugar monitor at home, almost nothing to invest in these little pieces of equipment. Test your blood sugar. If it's over 100 much after a meal, after you had some cake, it's going to go over 100.
[01:04:38.170] – Allan
But if it doesn't fall right back down, that's a warning flag. If your blood sugar, you wake up in the morning and you haven't had anything to eat and it's over 100, that's a problem. That's the transition to disease.
[01:04:51.910] – Rachel
Yeah. And it sure would be good to know that catching it early. I mean, we talked about early detection. The earlier you can figure this out, the better you can make the changes in your lifestyle to adapt or get earlier medical care, if that was really necessary.
[01:05:08.460] – Allan
And for some of these, we just know, okay, yes, if I exercised more, I am because I'm sedentary, or if I stop eating the crap and drinking the beer and doing all the things I'm doing, smoking or whatever else, you know, quitting, that is going to improve your blood panel. You just know it. So get the low hanging fruit out of the way. But then if you really want to start optimizing your health so you're here for your grandchildren and maybe your great grandchildren and you want to live the last half of your life well, then start working on making the easy changes, the ones you know about.
[01:05:48.740] – Rachel
Sure.
[01:05:49.200] – Allan
Get the blood panels, get the data, and then really start working on refining this. And it's not that you're going to be running ultramarathons or working out 6 hours every day, but it's just knowing the little things that you can do that are going to improve your health outcome. And I'm not going to say it's not medicine because there are some medications like metformin that have shown real promise. Vitamin D supplementation. Again, like our guest said, sometimes just a little bit of a supplement isn't enough. But you don't know if you need vitamin D until you get a blood test and you check, you see your blood levels are low, your iron level is low, your vitamin D is low, then supplementation might be the right thing to do.
[01:06:34.030] – Rachel
Sure.
[01:06:34.740] – Allan
And I mean, I'm not a doctor, so I can't tell you that it is the right thing to do. But I can say it might be. The right thing to do. Get the blood work to check, the blood work to check, and then talk to your doctor, and your doctor can say, yeah, supplement, and then we'll get it checked again in about three months. And then you might find, yeah, there's a reason why that supplement is not absorbing the way that it should. I need to maybe do more or look at this from a different perspective. And so having the data lets you make better decisions.
[01:07:04.480] – Rachel
It does. At the very end of your conversation, you talked about being more proactive than reactive. And if you can act early and faster to the results of your blood work, then it will save you a lot of time and money in the outcome. Later on in life, you don't have to sit and wait for heart disease or diabetes to come get you. You can be more proactive and make changes right now so that you don't have to get there.
[01:07:30.560] – Allan
And I would say every single one of us knows what that low hanging fruit is in front of us. Yeah, if you need help doing that, get help doing that for sure. Get the low hanging fruit out of the way. Movement, nutrition, it's not rocket science. It's simple, simple stuff that's hard to do. But once you start doing it, you feel better. Once you start feeling better, you have more energy. Everything feeds on itself. It's a self fulfilling loop that just gets better and better if you're doing it right. And then the fine tuning and the knowing that, okay, I can be super healthy, but still drop of a heart attack. Well, get your calcium score, talk. If your family has a history, then understand that history. Get your genetics. If you need to look at your blood work, do those things so you have the data to make the right decisions for yourself.
[01:08:26.480] – Rachel
Yeah. Allan, I've been wanting to do genetic testing for a long time. It's been a little bit expensive, and no doctor, I think would give me a calcium score at this point. But paying for that out of pocket might actually be worth the investment just to have this data at this particular age that I'm at. So I mean, I know that insurance doesn't cover all this stuff for sure, and even doctors may not be willing to write up a prescription for certain blood work, but if you're willing to pay out of pocket for it, I bet different labs can help you with that.
[01:09:03.170] – Allan
They can. They absolutely can. And there are labs. I have some relationships with one or two. So if you're thinking about you want some labs, just message me and I can hook you up with one. They have doctors on site. Doctors will write up the lab request. Sometimes you can just go to your local Quest drawing center or some of them actually, they ship it and you have the test at home. If you want for some of these tests, not all of them, but if you want a panel, you can get a panel. If you want a calcium test, you can pay for one. You just have to go out there and get one done, something I'm going to be doing. And so the question I asked is, okay, so you have $1,000 in your bank. Great. And then you have a heart attack. Guess how much that's going to cost? And so it's an investment now to basically say, I'm not paying my deductibles and my 20% of everything for hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills ten years from now. What they call it? Pennywise, pound foolish.
[01:10:02.260] – Rachel
Yeah.
[01:10:03.330] – Allan
In many cases it is. If you're not willing to make the investment in your health, then you won't keep it. And that's time, money and effort, all those if you're not doing the work, if you're not putting in the time, and in many cases, getting the things done that you need it done and spending the money where you need to spend it, then you could be pennywise and pound foolish.
[01:10:25.500] – Rachel
Yeah.
[01:10:26.150] – Allan
And that's kind of sad, but nobody's going to do it for you.
[01:10:30.720] – Rachel
Right. It's definitely a hard decision, but I think that it's worth it in the long run, especially if you have plans to live long.
[01:10:40.270] – Allan
I do 105 wiping my own butt. I'm there.
[01:10:45.470] – Rachel
Yeah. I got goals.
[01:10:47.670] – Allan
I got goals. All right, well, Ras, I'll talk to you next week.
Everybody wants to be healthy and fit, but what does that really look like and how do we get there? On episode 585 of the 40+ Fitness Podcast, we discuss how to get functionally fit so you can live the life you love.
Transcript
Let's Say Hello
[00:02:42.440] – Coach Allan
Hey, Ras. How are things?
[00:02:45.420] – Coach Rachel
Good, Allan. How are you today?
[00:02:48.220] – Coach Allan
Busy, as always, but enjoying it. Bringing on some clients for my new program, and I'm actually doing a little bit of in person stuff. One of the reasons I wanted to do the retreat was I kind of missed having someone in the gym lifting and doing the thing, so I went ahead and brought on some local clients, working with them. They're all over 40, so I'm not breaking any rules, so I'm kind of doing that. And then our daughter Summer is getting married in really just a few short weeks. So also planning a trip back to the United States for a few weeks, see family do the wedding thing. Second and final, daughter married off. All kids married off. Done. Scratch that.
[00:03:39.180] – Coach Rachel
Nice. That's fantastic.
[00:03:43.250] – Coach Allan
And enjoy some time with Tammy while we're up there traveling.
[00:03:48.150] – Coach Rachel
That sounds wonderful.
[00:03:49.760] – Coach Allan
How are things up north? Way up north
[00:03:52.870] – Coach Rachel
Good. Yeah, way up north. I'm the exact opposite of you. I am doing my best to relax and rest this week. I'm kind of in taper. I've got a big race this weekend, so I'm doing my best to get a few miles in, but not too hard, and to do all my recovery and rest tricks and tips that I tell all my athletes. So I'll be ready and ready to go this weekend.
[00:04:18.420] – Coach Allan
So for folks that really haven't done a whole lot of training for running but are interested, can you explain what taper is?
[00:04:27.340] – Coach Rachel
Yeah. So the taper would be the few weeks between your last big week of training and the run, your actual race, and it depends on how much time you need to taper, depending on the run. So if you're doing maybe a five K or something a week, taper would be plenty of time. You kind of taper down the amount of running and the intensity, and you rest. You focus on fueling, you focus on nutrition, you focus on getting your head right, strong and confident and ready to go. And I'm actually tapering for an Ultramarathon, so I've been tapering for a couple of weeks now, but my big race is this weekend, so same thing. I'm still running, but fewer miles and less intensity, and I'm pounding in all the best nutrition and hydration I can so that my body is ready for this weekend, for the miles.
[00:05:21.900] – Coach Allan
How far is this ultra?
[00:05:24.860] – Coach Rachel
This one is about 34 miles, so a little over 50K.
[00:05:29.630] – Coach Allan
Cool. I know you got this.
[00:05:32.290] – Coach Rachel
Looking forward to it.
[00:05:33.280] – Coach Allan
We'll talk about it.
[00:05:33.950] – Coach Rachel
Oh, I know it'll be fun. Yeah. I'll let you know how it goes.
[00:05:38.590] – Coach Allan
All right, great. Are you ready to talk about functional fitness?
[00:05:44.260] – Coach Rachel
Sure.
Episode – Get functionally fit to live the life you love.
What I'm going to do on this episode is I'm kind of kind of wrap up a whole lot of different topics around fitness and mindset that I've discussed over the years. I just haven't really ever done it in a full wraparound thing, and so we're going to be bouncing to a lot of different things. But if some of this resonates with you, I definitely want you to check out the quiz that I'm going to talk about at the end, because that'll kind of help start you on this journey or get you further down the line on it anyway. So now a lot of times the reason that I'm talking to a potential client or a new client is that they really struggle to stay motivated when it comes to fitness. In some cases, they hate exercise at all. They don't like working out. And even some say, I just don't want to get sweaty. I don't like being sweaty, or I don't like the gym, or I don't like. There's a lot of things that they're using as these barriers that are keeping them from being fit.
And some of that's real and some of that is imaginary. But we're going to talk about these in a way that you can explore this thought, this process, and find a way to stay motivated to work out and get fit. So one of the core attributes for the way I approached training, it's the way I fixed myself, was commitment. Getting away from the levels of decision and resolution and willpower and all of that and really just drilling down into commitment. Now, commitment has two parts. There's the why. Why do you want to do this? Why do you want to be more fit? And the why kind of usually has about two aspects to it. Sometimes it's a little bit more, there might be something exciting in your future that you want to be ready for. But in general, the why relates to people. Almost always relates to people. We don't do this typically for ourselves, although sometimes we do, but there's usually other people involved, the people we care about. We want to be fit so we can be there for them and so that they don't have to take care of us. The second aspect of that is what we want to be able to do.
And that gets a little bit overlapped into the vision. But sometimes just having that big goal is reason enough. I wanted to do a tough mudder and I wanted to do it with my daughter. I wanted to be fit and be able to participate in her life. And so that was my why. That was a very compelling why for me. And so it pushed me to do more. Now, before I got started on the journey, though, I had to understand my vision. What does that mean? What does it mean for me to be fit? And so initially there were some capabilities that I needed to have. I needed to be stronger, I needed to weigh a little less, I needed to have more grip strength. So there were these capability, things that I wanted to have related to that race. My capabilities that I need now are actually much the same. I'm the guy who lifts things at Lula's. I have to be there when I'm working out with my clients in person. I also have to be able to move the equipment around and I need to be able to be strong enough to protect them if they were to drop a weight or make a mistake.
So there are certain capabilities that I need to have in my life also. Your vision can be driven around lifestyle. We've talked a lot about things that our parents used to do or grandparents used to do that they no longer do, and their lifestyle changed. My grandfather loved to play tennis, and then at the age of 80, he couldn't play tennis anymore. And that changed his lifestyle significantly. Not being able to take care of himself changed his lifestyle significantly. So thinking about the capabilities and the lifestyle that you want to have kind of starts to give you a clear picture of what your vision is. And then the final bit is about values. And this is where we tie the vision to the why. The values are who you are. They're how you want to be seen in the world. So you don't want to be seen as someone who's dependent. You don't want to be seen as someone who's not capable. You don't want to be seen as someone who's weak. And so those values of you wanting to be a contributor, wanting to be a part of things, wanting to be independent, those values that you hold dear are the wraparound.
That's how we form this commitment, because it ties the vision to the why. Okay, so now when you think about that vision and you think about what you need to be able to do, the lifestyle you want, the values you have, now, this is not so much about working out. Working out doesn't sound fun. It sounds like a job. It sounds like another thing to do. Exercise. That word sometimes even sounds worse. Sometimes exercise just sounds like we're doing something for no apparent reason at all, like running on a treadmill, going nowhere. I'd like you to introduce the term training. When you're doing something that's improving your fitness, you're training. You're training to be the person that has the capabilities that you want to have. You're training to be the person that has the lifestyle you want to have. So you see how now it changes the complexion of exercise, working out, movement in general, because now it's done on purpose. You have a purpose. And so for us to meet that purpose, for us to accomplish this vision, we need to start training in a way that builds just that. So no longer are we just going into the gym for half an hour and piddling on that and doing a bit of this.
We literally go in with a mission. We go in working on what we call functional fitness. And functional fitness is where we're able to build a fit for Task body. It's where we're able to get ourselves in the condition we need to be to do the things we want to do. And that could be something special. Like, I did a tough mudder. I've talked to people who want to do Mitchell pushu and other hikes and other things, races and whatnot. And so you're training for those things, and you're also training to have what you need to succeed in all of your life, to have the lifestyle and the capabilities that you want. So let's break that down. What does that look like when you start training for your vision, when you start training to be functional fit for task? Well, first it's important for you to consider this from three different optics, okay? There's a short, a middle and a long. Now, initially, we need to be playing this from the long term perspective, okay? What am I going to be like when I'm in my 80s? What am I going to be like when I'm in my 90s?
What am I going to be like when I'm over 100? And so we don't want to do short term things that break us too far away from our long term goals. So I know some people want to have six pack ABS. It sounds cool and all, but a lot of times when you see the actors or you see the bodybuilders with the six pack ABS, they're doing unhealthy things. They're doing things that are actually messing with them in the short run to have those ABS, to do that movie or win that show. So when you're thinking about this from a long term perspective, first priority, it changes things a little bit. Now you're doing things to maintain health. Now you're doing things to maintain this over time. We're not damaging joints. We're not doing things that are silly for the sake of a short term thing. And then you can start looking at the short term things. So you may want to run a five K. You might want to lose a little bit of weight, whatever it is. Those short term things, being able to pick up a tennis racket again, being able to play volleyball again, those short term things are the quick wins.
They're built in such a way that you should use them to know you're moving forward and help build confidence. So the Couch to Five K program tends to be a really good approach for someone that wants to build stamina so they can keep up with their grandkids. And they use that as a training mechanism to start building that stamina. The Couch to five K. You can go in and start a basic strength program initially for the short term of putting on some muscle so you look a little better for the summer coming up really quick here. But you're looking at your long term and you're going to be able to do more. And so as you watch the weights go up, as you get stronger, there's some confidence building there. You know you can get stronger. You see yourself getting stronger. So your long term drives the whole thing. The short term are these little stepping stones that are going to show you how you're moving forward. So they're basically mile markers. And I'll talk about goals in a minute. But this is a way that you build a program that works for you because you get the short term wins building towards the long term.
And then there's sort of this midterm. And this is where when I said I want to be a participant in my daughter's life and not a spectator, that's where this comes in. So the midterm things are where you look at life tasks. When you look at bucket list items, you look at things that you want to be able to do ten years, 15 years, 20 years. You're looking at the midterm of your life and saying, if I'm going to be on this planet for another 50 years, I don't need to be training the whole time just to be stronger, stronger, stronger. I need to have some things that I'm going to enjoy. I want to be able to enjoy my retirement. I want to be able to enjoy grandchildren. I want to be able to enjoy a lot of things in my life. So I'll have these midterm goals that are basically where I expect to be on the aging curve at any given point. Because we have control over our aging curve, we're still going to age, but we can do it quickly and peter out, or we can slow that down, stay strong, keep our stamina, and be able to do things for the rest of our life.
There's zero reason my grandfather should not have been able to play tennis in his eighty s, I mean, golf in his 80s. There's zero reason if he had started training in his thirty s and forty s and fifty s, he would have been able to play golf. But he played golf, and that's all he did, and then he lost golf. So training would have helped keep him in the game much, much longer. Okay? When we look at the long term, we're looking at healthy aging. We're looking at maintaining our health and our independence. We're looking at being able to do the things that are necessary. So I make the joke I want to be able to wipe my own butt when I'm 105, but that's on purpose. That's my long term. I vision the long term. And I've heard I'm kind of weird for doing this, but vision the long term and build your programming to think in terms of the long term first, then the short term, and then we break out the midterm and say, how does that look? And we manage that, and we have training programs, and we take those steps, and there's always the short term.
We keep looking at building towards the midterm and then the long term, but we got to keep that all in mind so we're not sacrificing one for the sake of the other. Now, a few weeks back, I guess maybe a couple of months back, I talked about smart goals, where we add the extra A, making it smart goals. Now, if you've worked in business, in a corporate environment, I know you know what smart goals are, and they're typically listed out as specific measurable, achievable, relevant, and time bound. Okay? I added action based, because if an outcome is your true goal, which it's a vision is an outcome, if your outcome is the goal, it's really hard to measure, it's really hard to achieve, it's really hard to make it time bound because the outcome isn't 100% in your control. You could have an outcome goal of wanting a PR on your next half marathon or your next five K, but if you twist an ankle that's out, it's not going to happen. So smart goals are about actions. Smart goals are things about actions, things you can control. So the way I want you to think about it is to have what I want, what do I need to do to get there?
So if I want to get a PR on a five K, well, I need to work on my running, not just running the five K, maybe running a little further than a five K in some of my training runs, maybe running a lot faster on some of my training runs or running hills. So the actions are certain training mechanisms that I want to do in a given week and the weeks leading up to that five K. So if the five K is eight weeks from now, I might have a training program that says, okay, week one, I'm running two to 3 miles a day, five days a week. And then I say, okay, the next two weeks, maybe I go ahead and take one of those days and I bump it up to a three mile, I mean to a five mile run, and I take one of those days and I turn it into a speed on the Hills speed and Hills Day. So now I'm building more endurance so that the five K, which is 3.1 mile, is actually easier for me because I can run further and I can go faster because I've worked on my speed.
And so my smart goal would be, here's my training program. I'm going to do this training program for the next eight weeks. It'll include these runs these days and here's why I know I can do it. Now, this is relevant to my short term goal of being able to get a PR on my five K. So it works. And I'm running these five KS just as a measure of building stamina so I can keep up with my grandkids when I take them to the zoo this summer. So you can kind of see how you can break all this down and build these smart goals. And then each of those workouts, you click them off. It's like, I did my five miler, I did my Speed hills day, I did my runs for the week. And so each of these is that little step. The training you're doing is the step, it's the next thing. And so that becomes more motivating because you're seeing it happen. Some people even like Tony Horton was on the show a while back, and he pulls out a paper map and just basically says, let's start checking off workouts. So if five runs happens to also correlate with your five days of the week for the weekdays.
Then literally, you should see an X or check mark on every one of those days during the calendar. And maybe you have a couple where you see, if I miss it, I'm going to do it, make it up on Saturday or Sunday. You can do that too. But you see the check marks, you see them happening, you're getting a streak going. You're getting it going, and you're seeing the results. And so that's where this all kind of comes together. Now, all that said, this sounds practical and easy when I say it right. And you've probably gone down this line a few times of setting goals and starting the workouts, and then something happens along the way that derails you, okay? And that something is us. It's our own mindset. And so that's where the rubber hits the road on. A lot of this is going through that self awareness practice. So we know what our tendencies are. We know what's going to go on. I wake up in the morning and I'm supposed to do my run, and it's raining, and then I don't do my run. What happens? Well, maybe I miss the next run too, or I eat like crap that day because I messed up.
I didn't do my run. I should have got on the treadmill and done my run, or I should have run in the rain or whatever, but I didn't. And so a lot of times we get in our own way now in doing that self awareness work. And this is really work you'll do for the rest of your life. We don't really ever solve ourselves. We just learn more and learn more, and that makes us better at being ourselves. And so as you go through your self awareness work, and you keep going through your self awareness work, it's worth going back and kind of relooking at it and reanalyzing it. So as I've worked with clients over the years, I basically come up to about five different mindsets as people approach fitness. And each of these mindsets, if they're not worked toward and understood, tend to get in the way. So they can block you from being more fit. But many of them are also superpowers. If you know them, you can lean in. You can lean in and figure out how that mindset can make you stronger, how that mindset can make you faster, how that mindset can help you build stamina so you can go longer.
So all the fitness things that you want, once you know your fitness mindset, it makes it a lot easier to stay on course and get where you want to go. And so if you want to learn about this and you want to learn what your primary blocker is, you can go to 40 plusfitness. COMFIT. This is a free quiz. It won't cost you anything. It takes about 60 seconds. So quite literally, if you started right now doing the quiz online at 40 plusfitness. COMFIT, you'll finish that quiz before we finish this episode, okay? And now this will tell you what your primary blocker is and then you'll know what you need to do to get past it and use it to move forward. I don't run all my clients through this, but I have a good conversation with them at the very beginning of our sessions, and we talk about what they are and how they work. And nine times out of ten, I could just call out their primary mindset at the beginning because the words they use and how they approach it and what they've done in the past, it becomes apparent to me.
So this quiz is going to help you a lot, figure out what your fitness blockers are so you can go to 40 plusfitness. COMFIT. So let's take a step back and kind of recap what we've talked about today, okay? You need to be a certain person. You need to be a certain person today, tomorrow, and maybe 50 years from now. And to be that person, you need to train. And so when you train for a purpose, a function of who you're going to be, that's functional fitness. So you should look at your training, not exercise or workouts or sweat sessions or whatever they are. You doing something to train yourself to be something else. Like we went to high school, to graduate high school, to be adults and live in the society and know how to speak and write and read and everything else, right? This is training. It's the same thing, okay? Now when you're looking at your training, you want to focus on all of your needs across your entire lifespan, your aging, span. Start looking at the long term so you have a good picture, mental picture of where you're going overall.
Then you can start working on the short ones that are going to give you kind of that quick hit, confidence boost, easy win, quick win. So that's the thing you can do that's going to happen this month. So not this huge long term thing, but what can I do this month? What's important to me this month that I know is also kind of moving me in the right direction for my long term goals. And then you can start peppering in the medium one. So maybe you are retiring at 65 and you want to go do Mitsubishu. And so you want to be fit from a stamina and strength perspective to be able to do that at 65. So your medium term goal is to make sure that you build and maintain stamina and strength and balance and that you're ready for when that day comes. So you see how you can take your long term. You can mix in in short term wins and then build out your medium term to make this all fit together into a long term program that serves you your whole life. Now, the way we get these short term ones done and that just builds the blocks going forward is the mile markers to keep us moving forward are the smart goals.
So we're specific measurable attainable or achievable and action based relevant. So they tie back to who you want to be long term, medium term and short term. And they're timely. So again, most goals need to be a month or maybe a quarter, but usually a month. And when you're doing the month to month, it allows you to adjust. As your life changes, you can adjust them. So timeliness needs to be in your face, it needs to be now. And so if you're writing your goals for your short terms that are driving towards your medium and long terms, you've got everything set out in front of you. And the only thing left to do beyond that is to look for those blockers and do some self awareness work so that you know what could get in your way and what could prevent you from reaching those goals and therefore hitting your short, medium and long term visions for who you need to be. So I hope this was helpful for you. If it was, go ahead and email me or message me on Facebook and let's have a conversation. I'd be interested to know what your long term vision looks like and how you want to build a program for yourself that's going to take you there.
So message me on Facebook or you can email me. Coach at 40plusfitness.com.
Post Show/Recap
[00:29:22.010] – Coach Allan
Welcome back, Ras.
[00:29:33.900] – Coach Rachel
Hey Alan. I always love talking about functional fitness and being fit for task. And the other thing I like to talk about, especially something I've been reflecting on lately myself, is having this level of fitness later in life. We spend a lot of time planning our careers, our families. We plan, we know we're going to retire, we put money away in the account for that, but we don't spend quite as much attention to detail or planning on planning a healthy retirement. Like, I want to travel, mike and I want to be busy when we do get the chance to retire. And we want to be healthy enough to hike mountains and do all sorts of fun stuff in our retirement. So we kind of need to start planning now so that we're active and healthy and good to go today. So that a decade or two decades from now, we still have maintained a level of fitness so that we can be as active as we want later in life.
[00:30:32.420] – Coach Allan
So, yeah, way I kind of equate that is, is your fitness paycheck to paycheck or is your fitness are you investing in a 401? So there's going to be something there later, right?
[00:30:43.620] – Coach Rachel
Sure, yeah, that's a great way to look at it.
[00:30:47.140] – Coach Allan
And your fitness should never be paycheck to paycheck because that just means that. You're going to age and you're going to dwindle and you're going to lose. You're going to lose in this thing because you've got to put something in the tank and you got to be consistent about it. You got to be doing it now and a little bit, a little bit, a little bit. It's not like you got to kill yourself. And it's not like you have to train for a 34 miles ultra, but just a little bit. And thinking, what do I need? What am I going to need? What kind of stamina will I need to keep up with my grandkids? What kind of things will I need to be able to be there for my family, be there for my wife when she needs me? And so it's making a small investment now that, you know, will pay off and being consistent about making that every single time, the same way you do your 401, it just becomes automatic. You just do it and you don't think about it anymore. You just do it. And there are times where you step it up a little because you can, and it makes sense.
[00:31:42.970] – Coach Allan
And there's times you back it up a little bit because you just can't. But you're always putting something in and you're always on it and not looking at this like, well, I'll do that tomorrow. It's paycheck to paycheck kind of fitness.
[00:31:57.340] – Coach Rachel
Yeah, well, you also mentioned the word exercise. And who likes to exercise? Nobody likes that word. It's a terrible word. Well, you know, we do, but we're not really exercising, like you said. We're training. We're doing something that we love. And I love to run. You love to lift, heavy things other people might like. Tennis or pickleball is a really growing sport right now, and there's all sorts of things that are out there. And when you're doing something you love, pickleball is not exercise. Hiking the Appalachian Trail is not exercise. You're training to do these things, and it just gives it a whole different connotation. And I'm sure that there's something out there that somebody would love to do, maybe not running like I do, but there's got to be something out there.
[00:32:46.830] – Coach Allan
Yeah. And if you find that there's just something holding you back and you're just really not wanting to do this, then I would definitely look at that quiz I talked about, the 40 plusfitness COMFIT. So 40 plusfitness COMFIT, it'll take you 60 seconds, and you'll learn something about what might be keeping you from making that investment perfect.
[00:33:09.640] – Coach Rachel
That sounds like a great thing to do.
[00:33:11.670] – Coach Allan
All right, well, Rachel, I'll talk to you next week.
When you optimize your movement, everything you do gets easier. Juliet and Kelly Starrett have put together a manual to help you do just that with their new book, Built to Move. On episode 584 of the 40+ Fitness Podcast, we dive in and learn how we can improve our movement and our life.
Transcript
Let's Say Hello
[00:02:46.790] – Allan
Hey, Ras.
[00:02:47.770] – Rachel
Hey, Allan.
[00:02:48.990] – Allan
How's the last few minutes of your life been?
[00:02:51.460] – Rachel
Pretty quiet.
[00:02:52.690] – Rachel
It's nice to be holed up here in my office.
[00:02:56.150] – Allan
Yeah, our hello section. We're doing two episodes at the same time, so nothing's changed other than a few minutes on the clock since we did the last one. But just thought we'd take a moment to have our little hello session anyway. So, Ras, are you ready to have a conversation with Juliet and Kelly Starrett?
[00:03:13.750] – Rachel
Sure.
Interview
[00:04:13.650] – Allan
Juliet, Kelly, welcome to 40+ Fitness.
[00:04:16.940] – Juliet
Thanks so much for having us, Allan.
[00:04:18.590] – Kelly
Thank you.
[00:04:19.140] – Allan
Now, your book is called Built to Move: the Ten Essential Habits to Help You Move Freely and Live Fully. And the interesting thing was when Becoming a Supple Leopard came out, loved the book. When the second edition of it came out, I bought it again and gave the first edition away. And then when Deskbound came out, I bought that. Those are both sitting on my bookshelf over here. And then this one comes out and I'm like, how did you write a better book than the best books that are already out there? And you guys did it. You did it.
[00:04:52.720] – Juliet
Thank you so much. Thank you so much. We're really excited about it.
[00:04:56.480] – Kelly
Well, I think what you can see is some evolution in our thinking that we maybe have been very keen on our roots are high performance, that's where we came from. But as we've progressed and gotten a little bit more old or mature or wise or our lives have gotten up, we're looking around and seeing that we had to have a slightly different conversation because some of the things that we were talking about ten years ago really haven't come to pass. And if we were going to take a crack, honestly, at saying, hey, fitness and wellness has left a lot of people behind, what does that look like to us and what's important to us now as we start to crest 50? And it turns out that all of that experience has been integrated into this book. And if we were going to be honest, something that Juliet I talked about is that those other books really lacked this blueprint, this daily manual about how to go about your life. That was what was missing from our writing.
[00:05:47.910] – Juliet
In some ways we think of this book almost as a prequel to Supple Leopard because this is sort of again, we think of them as base camp practices and Supple Leopard is sort of like the advanced class.
[00:05:59.890] – Allan
Yeah, well, I always talk to my clients and we talk on this podcast that fitness is not CrossFit. I mean, CrossFit is great. I love CrossFit, but they call that the fittest person on the earth when they do their competitions. And that's great. But for us, fitness is fit for task. So it's being the best grandmother you can be. It's being out with your friends and feeling confident and comfortable that you can play tennis or pickleball. It's being late for the bus and having to take a little sprint there to catch the bus stop before the bus pulls away. It's the things we do in our everyday life that is what real fitness is about. And I've always also said there's not a user manual for us, but built to move. Well, there it is. You've basically given us the user's manual for how to move our bodies. And if our bodies are not moving the way they're supposed to, we can evaluate and then we can do something about it. And that's the beautiful part of this. It's not just saying, here's your diagnosis, good luck. Your doctor says eat less and move more, then you're like, okay, but you guys are actually giving us more of a manual of how to do it and how to actually improve it and if it's already working, how to keep it going, which again, I just think it's brilliant. Thank you.
[00:07:14.350] – Juliet
Well, and I really love how you're framing the idea of fitness. And one of the things we really wanted to do with this book is make it as accessible as possible. And one of the ways we frame fitness in our own minds is just simply being able to do the things you want to do physically for as long as you want to be able to do them. And that is really wide ranging, as you said. I mean, that can be just having the stamina to walk 25,000 steps with your grandchildren at Disneyland or that can be you want to be a 65 year old triathlete. I mean, it's very wide ranging. But I do think we've overly narrowed the definition of fitness to people think it is sort of like the CrossFit body or whatever that means. But to us it's really much broader. And I think that's how our own thinking has evolved over the years.
[00:07:58.760] – Kelly
And let me say that one of the things that we know was the truth about some of our earlier work was that we had objective measures. And our objective measures were your native range of motion. That's the underpinning of sort of our old work. What is it that everyone agrees the shoulder should be able to do? How can we get you back to those positions? And then the proof was in the output, the wattage, the poundage. And one of the things that we realized was that we hadn't given people clear objective measures or vital signs, physical vital signs, around some of the other features of our behaviors, whether it's nutrition or sleep or walking or moving. So what we've done here is recognize that if anyone can know what decent blood pressure is 120 over 80. That's not great blood pressure, but it knows it's a range where you're saying, hey, I need to pay attention, or I need to make a change. And what we've tried to do in Bolton move is give people objective vital signs where you can say, hey, I have a newborn, or I'm on a deadline and my sleep is awful, but I'm just below the vital sign line right now.
[00:08:57.790] – Kelly
This objective measure, and it gives you a place to say, I should pay attention to that or helps to inform you about some blind spots, because, frankly, people are working. They're crazy. They're working hard and have complicated lives, and we need to show them that it's not all or nothing.
[00:09:12.380] – Allan
Yeah. And to kind of give folks an idea, what we're talking about from a range is you guys saw that commercial with the old man trying to lift up his granddaughter. I ball every time I watch.
[00:09:23.650] – Juliet
Me, too. I watch it, like three times a year and just cry my eyes out.
[00:09:26.790] – Allan
I cry every time I see it. And you've got that. So the guy's just trying to lift up his granddaughter to put a star on the tree that he bought for her, and it's just that moment he's been training for. And to go as far as Juliet, your father, who's out there rafting and hiking and doing these things with his kids and keeping up with them, yeah, it's hard, but he's doing it because he's at that level. This is a wide range of fitness that we get ourselves into at this age group, and so it's right for all of us. So I think that's what's really beautiful is this is not just something if you have bad movement patterns. This is a great book. Even if you do, this is how you keep having those patterns and you keep moving. Well, yeah.
[00:10:07.540] – Kelly
One of the things that Julian and I are fortunate enough to be in is a world of high performance sport, and we get to work with alongside a lot of superhumans men and women and really complicated, amazing teams. And what we've realized is that our grounding is in this high performance, but that only is important because it informs us what good practice looks like. And part of what Juliet and I have been trying to do is say, hey, if sport and high performance environments is a laboratory, and that's how we've kind of always viewed them, that if we don't actually apply that science to society and transform our communities, then that stuff is less important to the both of us. It's more hate circus and entertainment. And so we're really trying to sort of conjoin those behaviors. And one of the questions that we regularly ask and you're pointing out is, how is it going? Are we being served by our current lab results? And it turns out that just about anything you care about probably is trending in the wrong direction globally or even nationally, from obesity to being overweight to depression, substance abuse, pain.
[00:11:16.260] – Kelly
And one of the things that we have come to realize is that the underpinnings of any high performance environment is this book. And it's not diet and exercise. And what we're seeing is if we are going to in fact be 100 plus years old, which we're definitely trending towards more and more with science and drugs and surgeries and all the things that are coming, we better think differently about how we're living our lives because the environment person sort of interaction is becoming a little bit more convoluted and complicated.
[00:11:45.990] – Juliet
And one thing I would add to that too is it is a myth that all of these high performers actually are checking all the boxes as well. I think it's easy for those of us who are weekend warrior types to think, okay, well the Starretts work with these elite athletes and they've checked every single box. And in some ways because I think we have gotten so much more sophisticated in training, so much more knowledge is widely available thanks to the Internet. We have this explosion of technology that can be applied to fitness that there's an assumption that all these high performers are getting the basics right, but in some ways they're not. In fact, because of all this, Sophistication they too have forgotten to focus on the basics. And so I think it's important for your listeners to know that the things that we are prescribing to do for weekend warriors everyday movers are the exact same things we are actually prescribing for the highest performers to be doing as well.
[00:12:41.750] – Allan
Yeah. Now there was one thing that you brought up in the book that I think is really important because if you go into any bookstore and you start looking for fitness books that relate to people over 50, you're going to find the stretching books because we've lost a lot of flexibility, we lost a lot of mobility. And so when you bring up mobilization or mobility training, which I bring up a lot, they default to this oh well, I already stretch before I do my workout and I stretch after my workout, therefore I'm covered. Can you kind of compare and contrast what is the difference between mobilization and stretching?
[00:13:18.630] – Kelly
May I, should I take a swing at this?
[00:13:19.720] – Juliet
oh yeah.
[00:13:23.090] – Kelly
When people say stretching, it really is sort of a nebulous term. If I said diet, that could include traditional diets, paleo juice, cleanse keto. It's a really nonspecific idea. And one of the things that we're trying to say with mobilizations that we're prescribing is that you are a complex, amazing, systems based human being. If you just feel tension in a muscle or a tissue that's not necessarily making changes in that muscle or tissue. Because I think when what's happened is we've all known, hey, we should stretch, but we all don't know why. To what end? What is enough? And is it working? Because remember, the goal here is to restore our native range of motion. In fact, what we want everyone to be thinking about here is that your range of motion and ability to move freely has nothing to do with your age. It's the one aspect of your movement that sort of is age independent and age proof that it's more difficult to heal as you get a little bit older. We slow down, but we still heal, but it's slower. It's harder to keep muscle mass on. We know it's harder to change body composition, to lose those stubborn few pounds.
[00:14:34.850] – Kelly
But your range of motion, that's a really stable system. And what we know is that as we get older, maintaining our range of motion allows us to maintain movement options. Movement solutions. Your balance will improve if you have better ankle range of motion. You are more likely to have fewer aches and pains if your hips do what hips are supposed to do. So what we're talking about in the mobilizations are saying, hey, here are some targeted techniques that we actually call in house position transfer exercises. We're doing this slightly different variation on restoring what your tissue should do to a specific aim of restoring a range of motion you should already have. So you might stretch because it feels good, right? Like you just move your neck around. But we can think about stretching. If someone said, hey, I go to yoga, isn't that enough? Well, yoga is a movement practice, and you may feel tension in your musculature and tissues while you do that, but that may be an incomplete way of addressing a range of motion. So what we're trying to do with these mobilizations are introduce some other techniques like contract, relax, and some other sort of key concepts to help people be able to return to their native range of motion in a specific way.
[00:15:49.890] – Kelly
So this is more akin to an exercise that restores your range of motion than, hey, I'm passively pulling on something because someone told me this is good for me at one point in my life.
[00:15:59.590] – Allan
Yeah, and it's sort of that concept. We do the stretching because we want it to prevent us from hurting ourselves. But the reality is it's mobilization and being able to move through the full range of motion that allows our body to do the things it's supposed to do so we don't get injured.
[00:16:15.530] – Kelly
And what you're bringing up is a really important thing. Oftentimes when people come I think when we were working with younger populations and we were earlier in our careers, 15 20 years ago, we were using these sets of mobilizations and ideas of restoring to how your tissues slide and glide and what your joints do. We were using them to restore positions so that our athletes could go out and win world championships. That's great. But that has nothing to do with me as a 50 year old man. And what it turns out is that those same mobilizations oftentimes can be employed to return my, again, native range of motion. What is it my body should be able to do? Everyone agrees that this is what your shoulder should be able to do. Every physical therapist, every doctor, every surgeon, there are these native ranges to every human, not gymnast ranges. I'm not talking about that would be nice, but that's not the reality. What we saw was that when people had pain or stiffness, one of the easiest things we could do was do something to change their physiology. So by getting some input into the tissues that was different than just tension stretching, we saw that sometimes that was enough to restore or change how their brain was thinking about the tissue.
[00:17:25.430] – Kelly
So suddenly that pain didn't mean I was injured. My body was throwing up an error message. And immobilization was a simple way of turning that message off. By changing some aspect of my tissue or by mobilizing, I was able to return or change or improve my range of motion. And my brain thought that was different. So we ended up realizing that we had this sort of spinning coin. And on one side was, let's return your positions so that you can do what you want to do. On the other side was, hey, I'm in pain. Well, what can I do about it? I can restore my positions and own my shapes and own how my tissues move. And that may be enough to get me out of pain or change how my brain is perceiving what's going on in my body.
[00:18:05.260] – Juliet
And one of the things we're really trying to change the perception about in this book, and I think this is particularly relevant for those of us over 40 who do suffer from aches and pains because we're trying to use and move our bodies, is that and Kelly alluded to this a little bit, but pain doesn't necessarily mean you're injured. And I think that's where people often go in their minds, like, oh, I have knee pain. I'm injured. And one of the things we're trying to be evangelist about is, hey, before you take time off work and get seven MRIs and go see twelve chiropractors and physical therapists, you really can take a crack at some basic soft tissue and mobility work and really potentially affect change in your own body. And I'll give you an example. I can't tell you how many people we've had come to Kelly saying, oh my God, I have knee pain. Should I go get an MRI? And I should probably go see the orthopedist
[00:18:59.840] – Kelly
we call this the pain spiral. And it's very common,
[00:19:02.240] – Juliet
and it sort of leads to this medical intervention situation that often ends in a physician not seeing anything on an MRI and instead just telling that person, well, you should stop doing what's hurting. So you may love running, it may bring you joy, but you definitely should stop doing that, which is not what people want to hear. Instead, we're able to say, hey, look, your knee is a system connected above and below with muscles and tons of soft tissue and connective tissue. And I can't tell you how many people we've said, hey, you need to spend seven days doing soft tissue work on your quads and your calves, ten minutes a day that are connected to your knee. And people are blown away like they don't believe us at first that it's going to make a change in their knee pain because they think for sure they're injured. And so one of the things we're trying to do, and we do have some sort of pain toolkits in this book, is to try to reframe thinking a little bit, such that if you do have aches and pains in your joints and shoulders, there obviously will be a time at which it's totally appropriate to go see a physician.
[00:20:05.820] – Juliet
But maybe that shouldn't be your first course of action. Maybe you take ten minutes for a few days to just see if you can make change. Because the amount of people we've been able to see who can is astounding.
[00:20:16.990] – Kelly
And if I may just jump in there. The other side of that is that people fail to appreciate that the environment, the lifestyle decisions we make influence how regular and how tough and durable our tissues are and how our brains perceive what's happening in our bodies. So one of the first conversations we have with anyone when we're dealing with an acute injury or chronic injury or persistent pain is we actually look at their sleep. And then what we know is that if you're a stressed person who's getting less than 7 hours of sleep a night, we know that that is not helping you sort of calm this ringing bell down and that if you want to heal, change your body composition, grow, put on muscle, get skinnier. Whatever your goal is, it turns out eight is a really magic number. So the rest of the book it seems like, and this is what's really confusing, I think, about how we presented fitness and wellness to people is that we are a system and that my moving during the day affects my sleep and my sleep quality and sleep density. But if I can sleep more, I can oftentimes heal more effectively or even just get my brain to stop being so twitchy and freaked out and perceive my body as a threat.
[00:21:29.030] – Kelly
So if pain is a request for change, we want to sort of expand what that means. Well, hey, we can work locally and change some aspect of your tissue or get some different input. But also let's look at these other things that may be contributing to a system that sort of has a blanket.
[00:21:43.250] – Allan
and in the book, you kind of identify basically as that. It's like, okay, here are some things, and you have ten vital signs, is what you call them vital signs, but they're basically checks to kind of do that, check in with yourself, how am I doing with this? How am I doing with that? And it's not subjective. In some cases, it's a little subjective, but in a general sense, you've put measurements. You said, okay, let's try to do this and see how you do. And then from there, we kind of have an assessment of where we stand. And that's always a good thing, because when we talk about goals, you got to have a measurement. You got to know when you're successful, all those different things that go into writing a really good goal. This is the perfect start, the perfect benchmark, and then the tool that makes that stuff happen. So we sound complicated when we start talking about tissue and moving and this and that, and, okay, if it's my knees hurting, how could it actually be my hips that's causing this? And so that's the hard part that you guys have worked out, is you do these assessments, you have a better understanding of where you stand.
[00:22:44.320] – Allan
You do the exercises, the pain goes away, your movement improves. And all of these things, all ten of them, they literally build on each other to form a platform for you to be a better human, to move better, to live that life fully that we talked about all the way through the century mark. And so can you go through just briefly and kind of talk about each of the ten vital signs you have in the book? A little bit about why they're important, each of them is important, and then a little bit about how we could kind of maybe assess them and understand where our weaknesses and strengths are, and then just kind of how to put it all together.
[00:23:20.210] – Kelly
Before we jump into that. I just want to appreciate that the most important part of the book is something that Juliet and I came to work and understand, working with people who are very busy. So if we went to the Marine Aviation Weapons Tactical School, which is a very intense program where they're teaching marine aviation advanced techniques, no one is sleeping. So if we walked in and said, sleep more, that's not a solution. And if we had busy working parents with young people, and we said, hey, we need you to spend an hour a day at the end of your day doing this checklist of things, we also saw that that was impossible for people. And so Juliet and I spent better part of the last decade coming up with something we called a 24 hours duty cycle. And this is important in context, because what I want everyone to understand is you don't have to run this perfect checklist. We've really started to conceive that behavior change starts, when are you going to have some control and agency? When are you going to fit this into your life? So it's yet not another thing you've got to get done.
[00:24:21.280] – Kelly
And our motto around the house is, let's be consistent before we're heroic. And if we don't help people conceptualize where they can sort of layer or feather these things into their lives, it's not going to make a change. So that's the first thing I want people to understand about the book, is that it's a really easy starting place to begin to make fundamental changes. And let me give you an example. If we look at the first vital sign of getting up and down off the floor without your hands, it's really a sneaky vital sign about looking at hip flexion and what your hips should be able to do. But the easiest expression of that is, can you sit cross legged and get up and down off the floor without using your hands or putting your knee down? And that's not a strength issue, and it's definitely not a big range of motion I need to be a gymnast to sit crisscross applesauce. But one of the easiest ways to begin to change that is to say, hey, I'm going to watch TV tonight and sit on the ground for ten minutes while I'm watching TV.
[00:25:15.050] – Kelly
And every time I get uncomfortable, I'm going to fidget. So if most of us are watching TV in the evenings, which we are, right, watching news, we're getting caught up, we're self regulating, we're calming down. All we need you to do is get onto the floor and lean up against your couch and you've already begun to change your behavior, which is putting range of motion into your hips. You're changing shapes, and you're going to have to get up and down off the floor before you go to bed or get that snack or something else.
[00:25:41.140] – Allan
Or just sleep, right there.
[00:25:44.030] – Kelly
We've constrained the environment. We've shaped a behavior without having to make another choice. And that's one of the things we're really trying to do here.
[00:25:51.760] – Juliet
And one interesting note from a data perspective on this particular vital sign, which is get up off the floor. And it's the first one we put in the book, in part because it's kind of a fun test to do and you can get your whole family involved, and I think you learn really quickly where you are when you do that test. But one of the things we know is that in countries where people sleep and toilet on the floor, they suffer from much fewer low back pain orthopedic injuries, hip replacements, knee replacements, and fall risk. Fall risk, which everybody knows once you fall, especially as an elderly person, that's sort of the beginning of the end. And so there's some really interesting data behind it. But what we love about this particular vital sign is that it is so easy to immediately get some information about how your body's working. And then it's also the practices that we have around it, one of which literally is sitting on the floor more often while you watch television. And we know also from data that everybody is watching quite a bit of television a day. It's just an easy way to fit it into literally any busy life.
[00:26:54.120] – Juliet
And just to add a little bit of further context to what Kelly said, and I think it's important on these vital signs, I mean, we spent a lot of years thinking about which ones we did and did not want to include in this book. And the ultimate question for us is what do we do? We are users, we are busy parents of two kids and we work full time jobs and we are like normal people. We're not fitness people that spend 24 hours a day making Instagram videos about our abs like that's not what our life is like.
[00:27:24.180] – Kelly
I would like to have making 24.
[00:27:26.050] – Juliet
Hours, but we are users and these are the basic practices, all ten of these vital signs that we actually are focused on implementing in our own lives. And so getting off the floor is the first one.
[00:27:39.720] – Juliet
I believe our second vital sign is breathing. And people have started to, I think, get some concept of the importance of a breath practice. People have heard of Wim HOF cold therapy plus breathing. But interestingly as people may or may not know, kelly's a physical therapist. And when he has a client come in, especially a client that is complaining of low back pain, which is a very common problem, and I'm sure many of your listeners have or have had the first order of business Kelly does with them is work on their breathing. And we find it to be so critical in terms of how your body functions and also how your brain can think about and manage things like pain.
[00:28:23.280] – Kelly
What's interesting is, again, instead of saying, okay, now here's another practice that you have to do, what are you going to kick out? You're going to kick out making breakfast for your kids so you can do a breathing practice? What we are trying to say is we've got something called a blood oxygen level test, the Bolt test in there and it was popularized by a really brilliant thinker named Patrick McCone, and he is oxygen advantage. And it's a simple idea of understanding how CO2 tolerant we are. So hang on in there everyone. Remember that Juliet and I are really obsessed with being old and maintaining the things that we love to do as long as we can. But the other side of that is that we realize that we never have to have a compromise between being durable and longevity and performance. When we focus on helping the body do what it should do and improve its capacities, it turns out you can play more pickleball and you can do that spin class or whatever it is you like to do more effectively. And one of the things that I think is misunderstood about sort of some of our breathing traditions like yoga or meditation is sometimes we didn't always appreciate the impacts on the physiology.
[00:29:33.580] – Kelly
And that when I could get someone to breathe and do some breath practices. One of the things that we know, for example, is that you can strip off more oxygen off of the hemoglobin. Remember that blood is carrying oxygen, but the mechanism by which that oxygen comes off that blood cell is actually driven by your CO2 levels, the carbon dioxide gas. And so the more I can get my brain comfortable with having higher CO2 levels in the bloodstream because the CO2 is what triggers me to breathe. Suddenly, what we see is that you can actually access more oxygen, which means it's easier to go upstairs, which means if I have pneumonia or emphysema or I'm dealing with a chronic condition or I want to hike more effectively, and destroy the people in my hiking club or my bike group. I'm talking about this is the conversation we've had with our elite Tour de France cyclists. That this same idea of, hey, let's improve the efficiency of the system ends up going a long ways, but it also improves how well your rib cage moves, and it improves how well you can take a big breath, which changes your Vo2 max and makes it easier for you to move and balance and put your arms over your head.
[00:30:43.150] – Kelly
So when we start to see breathing not as a meditation alone practice, but as a mechanical practice, it's shocking the impacts that it has downstream.
[00:30:52.850] – Juliet
And just a note on the practices in our breathing chapter. And again, because our whole focus has been how can we fit this into our lives without adding another hour long breathing meditation practice? We recommend, and we are inspired, of course, by Jacob Nester's amazing book Breathe that one of our future chapters that we can discuss is walking More. And so we don't have a separate breathing practice. We suggest that while you're walking more, you actually just practice nose only breathing. Or one of the things we do a lot in our own practices whenever we're exercising, part of our warm up is just to work on a little bit of breath practice during our warm up. So again, it's not an added new practice. It's something that we're conscious of, we know the importance of, but we're figuring out how to just layer it into other things we're already doing and just bring an awareness to it. So we obviously are huge fans of walking and adding in generally more movement in the day. And so the time when I practice most of my nose only mouth closed conscious breathing is while I'm walking.
[00:31:51.340] – Kelly
What you can start to see in the book is that almost the book is split into sort of two categories. One of them, for example, and another vital sign is extend your hips. We're really trying to look at hip extension, which is my ability to walk and bring my knee behind my butt like I was in a lunge position. Because of the amount of time we're spending sitting, because of just the nature of being a human in today's world. We've seen that this inability or loss of capacity or loss of freedom to put the hip behind us ends up with a phenomenon called tail wagging the dog, where as soon as my leg starts to come behind me, it ends up taking my pelvis with it just because I'm a little bit stiff in that lunge position. And if you look at any of our movement traditions like Pilates or yoga, they are obsessed with hip extension. If you look at our sprinting and some of those practices, they're obsessed with hip extension. So I'd like to be known as the knees behind butt guy. And the idea is that we find that when we're managing again, restoring what the body can do.
[00:32:51.320] – Kelly
And we have something in a test called the couch stretch, which, if you follow our work, you know, is the arch nemesis of every human being. But the idea is it's just, hey, let's take this leg into some extension and challenge the tissues here. And what we find is that ironically, just by improving the shape, we often see commensurate changes in pain around the knee or people's low back starts to feel better and they can go up the stairs, run, get into lunges more effectively, have more movement choice. And again, what we're seeing is part of the book is saying here are some objective measures, like putting your arms over your head, being able to sort of take a breath, looking at balance, and then some end up being very much around the behaviors that make a robust person. Like nutrition, like sleep, like not sitting too much. And so I think what ends up happening in these vital signs, so we don't just kill people with boredom over all the ten, is you take the ones that were maybe a blind spot for you and we can see. Was that sort of a behavior or was that a movement behavior?
[00:33:53.030] – Kelly
Was that a way I was living my life? Or hey, I didn't realize this is something I didn't have access to?
[00:33:57.420] – Juliet
And just one quick backstory on that. I mean, we really backed into what we call sort of these lifestyle conversations. And, you know, from reading our other book, Deskbound, we never set out to be like the standing desk people or the walking people. It's not that sexy, it's way sexier to say that we work with the 49ers or something. But we've really backed into these lifestyle practices. Again, seeing that we've really just missed these base behaviors. People are in our neighborhood, moms and dads are saying, hey, should I be keto? Should I be taking what supplements should I be taking? And what we always go back to is the basics. We say, okay, wait a second. Before you embark on some diet or start taking a bunch of supplements or buy some kind of pod that you sleep in at night, like, are you sleeping? Are you eating fruits and vegetables? Are you moving enough throughout your day? Can you move your body into the shapes that allow you to be able to do the things you want to do? If that's pickleball, great. And so we really did sort of back into the lifestyle side of this book.
[00:34:57.100] – Juliet
And again, also because these are the things that we've realized in order to feel good and be able to move the way we want to do, those are the things we have to prioritize in our own life.
[00:35:06.310] – Allan
Yeah, and I think you said something that's really important there is you stack this stuff, which is really good about when you go through your 21 day challenge, you stack this stuff and you say, okay, we're going to talk about walking. But at the same time you're walking, there's a breathing technique and there's some things you can do to mix both. I think everyone can relate to the fact that there's kind of this running joke amongst people that I know I'm not getting on the floor until I have a plan to get back up. And so if you relate to that, then there's something in this book for you. The breathing, I think, is kind of an interesting thing because a lot of us can relate to going up a flight of stairs and getting a little winded. I'm carrying luggage and talking to my guests at our bed and breakfast. Sometimes when you're carrying about 50 60 lbs of luggage and you're going up a flight of stairs and you're talking, you get to the top and you're kind of like, wow, I'm a little winded. But instead of me going out there and saying, you know, what I need to do is get up in the morning and run these stairs about 20 times so that I build up this endurance to do this stuff.
[00:36:06.680] – Allan
A breathing technique of just getting my body used to taking in just a little bit more and holding carbon dioxide and being a little more comfortable with that is going to allow my body to use oxygen more efficiently and I'm less likely to get winded walking up the stairs talking. And then for me, mobility has always been a struggle. And it's really a struggle because you spend the first 40 years of your life doing everything wrong. If you're a bodybuilder,
[00:36:32.130] – Kelly
well, you can do whatever you want. Let's be honest, that's the magic, right?
[00:36:35.760] – Allan
But the thing is, you're training as a bodybuilder and it's like full extension is not what they teach you to do. They teach you to do tight and stay tight. So lengthening your hips, because you sit all day, those types of things. As you kind of go through this, I think you're going to go through every vital sign and say, wow, that's important. Oh, that one's important too. Oh, I'm not eating like I'm going to live forever. I'm eating like Twinkies are going to go out, and I'm not going to get another one.
[00:37:02.390] – Kelly
Well, you brought up something, I think that's really great here one is we're talking about a movement practice, or essentially is, can you be useful? Can you do what you want to do? Do you feel like, hey, I'm afraid to ride this bike, or I'm having a hard time skiing because my hips are getting stiff? We have all these conversations. They're all on a continuum. The next question is, okay, what do I do about that? And the next question is, okay, when do I do that? And then how do I get consistent? That right. Well, if I schedule yoga and I go yoga every two weeks, that's probably an incomplete solution. We think that that's great. Go do yoga.
[00:37:37.580] – Kelly
Go it's a movement practice. Breath. It's fantastic. Tons of end range Isometrics built in there. But what we'd rather you do is spend the last ten minutes of the day when you actually have some control in your life or in the evening towards the end of the day, getting on the ground or working on a tissue or working on a position. And what we found clinically was that if we said, okay, take off your shoes, hike up your dress at work, get on the ground in the office, no one's doing that. That's crazy. But if I said, hey, once you're down, shifted a little bit at home, put the roller or a ball next to the TV, next to your coffee table, and let's spend and ask ourselves, what feels stiff? What feels tight? What haven't I done? Where did I work today? What's kind of barking at me a little bit? And now we've connected a soft tissue mobilization practice with what's really happened with someone in the day, and we've done it in a way that they can be really consistent at it. Because we saw that ten minutes ended up being a really sort of critical mark.
[00:38:33.810] – Kelly
If I said 15 minutes or 20 minutes out the door, I'm out. But ten minutes, everyone has ten minutes. And you can do a lot of other things while you're doing that. You could do a breath practice. You could just zone out and watch TV. But if you spent that ten minutes and you aggregated that five or seven days a week, a month, two, it's pretty transformational. So you really brought up this important idea of, hey, I need some additional inputs. Why? To maintain my range of motion. And if something is good, then I don't need to work on it because I've sort of above the minimum, but some other area where I've sort of contest myself or see what's going on or even ask what's sore or what wasn't I able to do today? What we found is that when people made that commitment to just ten minutes with a simple set of tools like a foam pool tool noodle. Or roll on a ball of wine, whatever it is you need to do, we saw that we could actually impact how they felt and impact how they move. Another thing we have around the shop is athletes that feel better, perform better, human beings that feel better, have better lives.
[00:39:32.860] – Kelly
So I think that's a really important piece that you bring up there.
[00:39:35.750] – Juliet
And one of the things we do on this, encouraging people to actually do these things which are difficult to do again, because we all have busy lives and sometimes that one thing is just one too many things is we do this thing called Peppering Our Environment which we are huge fans of this idea. And if you came over to our house and saw our living room because we love TV and we often end our night by sitting down and actually watching TV for an hour, like it's a nice transition for us. And so if you look at our TV room you will see that it is littered with lacrosse balls, foam rollers, different mobility tools. I recently bought these little kind of yoga mats that you can sit on because we do a lot of sitting on the floor and I realized that our floor was super uncomfortable and that was limiting the amount of time I wanted to sit on the floor. So I'm trying to take all these little micro steps to make these habits as easy as possible for me to actually do.
[00:40:30.620] – Kelly
We want you to spend your willpower and doing really hard things.
[00:40:34.240] – Juliet
I just wanted to not take care of your body. One of the other vital signs we think is so important is underlooked. I think overall is balance and it's one of the first things to go as people age. In fact, as we're cresting into 50 we're actually starting to have more and more friends who are reporting feeling that their balance is starting to go even as early as 50. And again, nobody is going to say okay, let's go to a balance class for an hour. Nobody is going to do that. One of the things we do is pepper our environment. We have these little portable slack lines we keep around our kitchen called a slack block. And we have little balance tools in our garage, like an endo board. And we just have little tools around our house and at our desks at work so that we can incorporate things like a really simple balance practice into our day. Again, without adding on, having to go somewhere, go to a class, add on a new behavior. It's just another stacking behavior.
[00:41:29.970] – Kelly
Even the test is a great daily practice that you don't have to do anything. And if you haven't ever seen the old man test, one of our friends, Chris Henshaw, came up with this, and he was an elite triathlete who was trying to come up with a task that he could beat his kids at. And they were such good athletes. And literally is stand on one leg, don't put your other leg down. And put your socks and shoes on. Then stand on the other leg without ever touching the ground again. Put your socks and shoes on. And if you just did that every day, if you just practiced in a year, you would spend hours working on your dynamic balance, trying to balance on one foot, you're going to do it.
[00:42:07.830] – Kelly
So let's just work this in. And now we've just taken that off the table. Holy crap.
[00:42:13.650] – Juliet
And the other thing we've tried to do is make it fun, because I think that's another thing that we've done a horrible job of in the fitness business is we've made it just so like drudgery, where you've got to go to the gym and check these boxes. It's not fun. And just these little balance tools we have around the house are very playful and fun and sitting on the ground with your kids at night and working on your mobility and practicing your balance. And we've just been in our living room with our own kids doing the old man test, and it's hilarious and fun and we don't always make it. And so we've just sort of tried to add like, an element of fun and play to this. Because, again, our thinking here is that a lot of what's out there in this space is about restriction. How can I restrict my diet and restrict the things I'm doing? And we want this book to be about expansion. In our nutrition chapter, for example, there's no restriction. Our nutrition suggestions are appropriate for any diet anyone follows, whether you're vegan or carnivore.
[00:43:10.410] – Kelly
But hold on, I challenge you to hit those two benchmarks. Good luck with it.
[00:43:16.190] – Juliet
What people need is some expansion and less restriction. And in our nutrition chapter, we're just saying, hey, you actually probably need to eat more fruits and vegetables
[00:43:26.540] – Kelly
and you're not getting enough protein that's it.
[00:43:30.370] – Juliet
We're just trying to make it fun and accessible for people.
[00:43:33.360] – Kelly
And one of the things you heard Juliet say was fun and accessibility, that happens in the functional unit of change or health, which is your home. So the second we bring in a physical therapist or a physician or some third party, that really removes our agency and our control. And what we know is that it doesn't work. It's not sufficient enough. Unless your physician and your dietitian and your physical therapist lives in your house, it's not going to happen. And so we see that this functional unit of change is the home we call it that's like a hyper local object, hyper local phenomenon. And that if you have a garage and a kitchen and you put your shoes on and suddenly you realize that your control around feeling better actually happens in your time, under your demands and under sort of your watch. It's not an external piece. And that really feels like a revolution for people.
[00:44:24.130] – Allan
Because it makes it accessible. You're not having to pay those bills. Go to the masseuse, go to the physical therapist, go to the orthopedic guy and get them to do what they do or chiropractor, and you're not going to their place. Limited time, limited exposure, limited attention. Get this done. They give you the homework. It's a piece of paper with some pictures on it. And 99% of the time, they never look at that picture again. They never look at that paper again. The interesting thing that you've said, and it's kind of what brought this full circle for me, is I have this joke. It's not really a joke, it's actually real, but I say, I want to be able to wipe my own butt when I'm 105. And people right, but people think and then it starts to hit him. It's like, wait, so he wants to live to 105. He wants to be able to move and be independent and do these things. He wants to be able to do a squat. He wants to have the mobility and dexterity to do the paperwork. He wants to be able to just go and not worry about whether he's going to make it or not.
[00:45:20.060] – Allan
So there's a lot built into that little sentence. But the cool thing about what you guys have here, and again, that's why I love it so much, is this is going to give you benefits today, and it's going to give you those benefits in the future, because a lot of people will tell me it's, hey, Allan, you're 7, so you're talking 50 years from now. You want to be able to do these things. It's just hard for me to wrap my mind around doing something for 50 years from now. I want to do something that's going to stop my back pain or knee pain. Right now I want to be fit now. I don't want to be fit in a 50 years, but this does both. And I think that's what's so wonderful about the way you guys have approached this is you're looking at it and saying, okay, here's the thing to know how you're doing, to gauge yourself, here's a practice or a few practices that you stack together. You fit them in with what you're already doing. You can stand on 1ft. Close your eyes while you're brushing your teeth. Go for a minute, brushing your teeth at 1ft with your eyes closed.
[00:46:15.420] – Allan
And then the ding goes off. You switch feet. The second minute you're supposed to be brushing your teeth for two minutes, you're on your other foot for that whole time, or like you said, putting your shoe on the old man test socks and shoes. It's extremely hard because I've tried it. It is really, really hard.
[00:46:29.840] – Juliet
It's really hard. Well, I think you bring up a thing that I think a lot about, and I think you're right, it's got to be both. I think very few of us are inspired by, okay, I want to be able to do these things when I'm 100 years old, short game and long game is but, yeah, I think you're exactly right in terms of the short game and the long game. And one of the things I like to point out is that we are all so comfortable with this idea of setting goals either in our home lives or definitely in our businesses. Everybody is aware that you've got to save for retirement and sets financial goals around that. So I would challenge everybody to set some short term and long term physical goals. Because again, I think what happens to a lot of people is they turn 70, 75 and they haven't set those goals. And all of a sudden they've lost the ability to do the things they want to do again, whether that's just play with their grandchildren or go for a hike or whatever. And so there's so many things in this book that can make people feel better, move more freely right now.
[00:47:28.320] – Juliet
And I think this is like your 401k for movement when you're older, because nobody's goal is going to be, I hope I'm stuck in my Lazy Boy or in a skilled nursing facility when I'm 80. That goal is for zero people. So everybody wants to be able to move in some capacity and move freely now and into the future. This book is sort 401k of the movement.
[00:47:52.930] – Kelly
And let me say that that is completely in line with when we come into professional organizations, premier national teams, choose some big crazy organization in sports, on TV. We've been there and working with them. We start with a goal and we literally work backwards into what does it that look like today? What does that look like in a week? And chunk that out might be in three months chunks, might be six month chunks. So Juliet really brings up this important point. No one, or very few of us have actually said that my goal is to be independent, be able to toilet and transfer them 105. Then you can really work backwards and say, what does that look like? Well, it looks like I need to walk today and manage my sleep to the best of my ability. So you've nailed the idea. The other thing that I want people to understand is that these practices create buffer zones. They allow you because as you get older, bad things are going to happen. You're going to fall, you're going to injure yourself. You may have been injured from high school soccer whatever it is, or you may have a disease problem coming down the pathway.
[00:48:52.290] – Kelly
And so we talk about our own experiences in the book here, but understand that sometimes what looks like miraculous outcomes when people are confronted with cancer or a big surgery or trauma, it just turns out maybe they had a little bit more resilience and tolerance built into the system. And so what we're doing here is saying, hey, look, it's going to be unlikely that you get out of the next 50 years completely unscathed without having to go to the doctor. But how you show up for that event is going to definitely impact its outcome. And we're not trying to scare anyone here. Again, our focus is we think you can feel better and move better and do all the bad stuff, but it turns out these things are what is essential about being a functional, durable human.
[00:49:35.740] – Allan
Before I let you go, I think there's going to be one big question. People are like, well, wait a minute, wait a minute. Juliet, Kelly, you can't write a fitness book and not talk about weightlifting and running. You talked a little bit about yoga. Where does exercise fit on all of this?
[00:49:51.840] – Juliet
Well, I will start by saying not including it as one of our ten practices was a very conscious decision, in part because we feel like everybody is fire hosed with information about particularly diet and exercise in this sort of moment in time in our fitness space. And what we realized is, ultimately, we are totally exercise agnostic. You'd think we wouldn't be? We owned a CrossFit gym for 17 years. We've worked with elite athletes. We both have certain ways that we like to train. But one of our own evolutions over the last ten or 15 years is becoming exercise agnostic. Those of your listeners who read the book, you will see we do pay homage to the fact that we both do love to exercise. Exercising is a huge part of our life. It's how we both probably manage our mental health. It's what we like to do. It's our hobby. We used to both be professional athletes. So, yes, we are huge believers in exercise. We believe people should do it. But we really wanted to not write an exercise book. We didn't want to put a stake in the ground about what exercise is or isn't the best.
[00:50:58.150] – Juliet
And our philosophy has really become so reasonable that we are of the mind that, yes, people should exercise.
[00:51:06.600] – Kelly
And we can define that as you should probably breathe hard and you should lift a weight.
[00:51:09.980] – Juliet
You should be under breathe hard and lift a weight. But how you do that, man, the sky's the limit. Because what we've seen over the years is people will do what they enjoy. And what people enjoy is wide ranging. I mean, whether that's pickleball or zumba or CrossFit or orange theory or triathlons or you name it, right. When people are told to do something that they don't enjoy, they don't do it. Period, end. If you don't enjoy doing it, you will not do it. And so we do think it's critical. Anyone who follows us online knows that we do exercise and we love exercising, but we really wanted to sort of stay out of that lane and say, yes, we think you should breathe hard and lift a weight, and how you do that is really up to you. Anything to add to that?
[00:51:56.740] – Kelly
I think Supple Leopard comes out ten years ago in a month, and if you'd asked me then, I would have been like, yes, you should have a double body weight deadlift, and you should be able to write.
[00:52:07.770] – Juliet
That was 39 year old Kelly.
[00:52:11.460] – Kelly
What I will say is one of the things that's nice about this book is that you can actually use it as a diagnostic tool, and that if you enjoy some exercise and you think you're doing it, come in and take some of our tests and see how well your exercise regime is actually supporting your native movement. And ultimately, one of the things we'd like to see is that you can hit some of these things and conjoin some of these things. If you're doing good strength conditioning, you're working on balance, you probably don't need to do lots of extra balance. You can work it in. You're working on breathing in there. But ultimately what we've realized is watching the world expand in sort of hyper technicality, the confusion that is the internet with exercise is that that message isn't getting there. And that if we told people to exercise more and here are more COVID body weight pump shred exercises you can do in your living room with a therapy and a book, that message hasn't changed the range of motions or capacitives of someone. So I think if everyone had a kettlebell and a jump rope or a kettlebell in their kitchen and a hill, I mean, there's an old Russian coach, I think, or he was an Eastern block throws coach, and someone asked him, what should you do for cardio?
[00:53:24.760] – Kelly
And he's like, you should go run or walk a steep hill. And they were like, what if you don't have a steep hill? He's like, I don't know what to tell you. But it was that simple of an idea that go walk up and down the hill until you breathe hard, you feel like you've had enough. And that's a pretty elegant message. I think the fact that we have seen that you can buy bumper plates and Olympic lifting shoes and kettlebells at Kmart and at Walmart means that those tools are available to us. And as Juliet saying, how much is enough? Well, that depends on your goals. I think what's happened is we've taken diet and exercise and made it all about, do I look good naked? Is this about body composition, ego not what am I training for? And I think when we come back to that goal setting that Juliet said suddenly then we can ask, well, are you doing the kinds of training that really does make you a better runner or better at skiing or better at playing pickleball? Then that's a different conversation. But ultimately what we're shouting at people is, hey, let's use this to burn calories because that's the only thing that matters and that's really the wrong conversation.
[00:54:28.460] – Allan
So I asked for three of these and I usually would ask both guests and so I'll give you the option, you guys can alternate and just give me three or you can each give me your three. It's cool. So, Juliet and Kelly, I define wellness as being the healthiest, fittest and happiest you can be. What are three strategies or tactics to get and stay well?
[00:54:48.120] – Kelly
Watch this. We're going to say most important thing and we haven't talked unison. One, two, three. Sleep.
[00:54:53.880] – Juliet
Sleep.
[00:54:56.430] – Allan
Vital sign number three. I mean, number ten.
[00:54:59.470] – Juliet
Exactly.
[00:55:00.670] – Kelly
What would you take next, J, in your own kind of life around those three things?
[00:55:04.880] – Juliet
I would just say I would say sleep and then general movement and movement throughout the day. Again, I'm a fan of exercise, I do it very regularly.
[00:55:14.960] – Juliet
But for me I feel the best when I've added in plenty of non exercise activity type of movement. So that's making sure I'm walking enough in the day, moving around during the day, either standing while I'm working or making sure I'm getting up and down quite a bit if I'm sitting while I'm working. So for me it would be sleep and plenty of movement, especially in the form of non exercise activity. And eating a vegetable. That would be my third thing, eating a vegetable.
[00:55:43.540] – Kelly
We'll leave it there.
[00:55:44.660] – Allan
Okay, cool. Kelly and Juliet, if someone wanted to learn more about you, learn more about your book, Built to Move, and of course the other awesome books you guys have. Where would you like for me to send them?
[00:55:56.450] – Juliet
Sure. Folks can check out. Built to move at builttomove.com you can learn more about the book. Of course, it is available at every bookstore and every online book retailer. You can follow us on Instagram at @thereadystate and all of the other socials as well, twitter, Facebook, @thereadystate.
[00:56:15.170] – Kelly
And I want to shout out to our Juliet and our amazing staff at builttomove.com. We have a 21-day-follow along challenge. It's free. You just need to put your email in. And we've got an email video course, supplemental to the book. It'll really useful to have the book, but we know that sometimes, hey, if I can follow along and get a little sort of nudge and some support, we can go a little bit further. So we've created a whole back end, gorgeous little sort of experiential platform that goes along with the book. And again, just go to builttomove.com. You can sign right up for it. And there's a 20-day sort of follow along challenge that mirrors the book. You'll get some daily reminders and some videos of us showing you what it actually looks like.
[00:57:00.140] – Allan
That's an awesome resource. So, yeah, go check that out. You can go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/584, and I'll be sure to have the link there. Kelly, Juliet, thank you so much for being a part of 40+ Fitness.
[00:57:13.570] – Kelly
Thank you.
[00:57:14.090] – Juliet
Thank you so much for having us.
Post Show/Recap
[00:57:24.730] – Allan
Welcome back. Ras.
[00:57:26.030] – Rachel
Hey, Allan. I probably could have listened to you guys chat for probably another hour. There is a lot you guys talked about with the book, Built to Move. I don't even know where to start. There was a lot to go over.
[00:57:36.680] – Allan
Yeah. The interesting thing is Jill from the last week, Kelly and Juliet, and then another interview that's going to be coming up in a few weeks. Katie Bowman they're all movement specialists. That's what they do. They're into how the body moves, how to breathe, how to optimize the movement of your body. They do work with extreme athletes. They work with normal, everyday people. And it's really what it's all about is using the human body the way it was designed to be used. And so a lot of times we talk about performance and you might think, well, I'm not an athlete. I'm not trying to make the Olympics or NFL team or this or that. But what you are is an athlete from the perspective of the movement patterns that you need to do to be who you need to be, that could be a caretaker. So your ability to help someone get up off the floor when they fall, your ability to get yourself up off the floor when you fall, your ability to play with your grandchildren, your ability to keep up with them, your ability to do all these different things, and all of them are fundamentally built around your ability to move.
[00:58:46.630] – Allan
And a lot of people get into their forty s and fifty s, and they start talking about this ache and that pain and this joint I can't and the doctor said don't, and the only reason doctor is telling you don't is because he knows or she knows that it's going to hurt. And he and she knows maybe you're just not going to do anything to improve your performance, and therefore it's always going to hurt.
[00:59:12.520] – Rachel
Right.
[00:59:13.280] – Allan
We create these situations, but if we start moving our body more and we start moving it the right ways, and we start paying attention to how our body was designed to move, then it just makes it a lot easier. I get on the floor all the time to pet my dogs.
[00:59:30.220] – Rachel
Oh, good.
[00:59:31.050] – Allan
When I have grandchildren, that's never going to be a problem. I don't even think about it. I get on the floor, I get back up, and I can keep doing that. And if I wanted to do a cardio workout in my home, that's exactly what I would do. I'll get on the floor and get back up. Get on the floor, get back up. Try doing that for about three minutes. That's a workout.
[00:59:49.940] – Rachel
It would be, yeah.
[00:59:50.880] – Allan
Okay. But just try sitting on the floor and you'll find you squirm a bit, move a bit. The Starretts watch TV with their family sitting on the floor. They're not sitting on standard furniture. Katie, who we'll be talking about too in a few weeks, she's even more extreme. She's conditioned herself to not even need a mattress or a pillow when she sleeps.
[01:00:09.210] – Rachel
Oh my God.
[01:00:10.690] – Allan
Which I've done the last time I talked to her, which about five years ago. I did that for a while. And it will literally change the way you move, the way you feel, because your body adapts and builds capacity that wasn't there. We wear padded shoes, thinking that's protecting our knees. In reality, it's weakening our feet and ankles. And so when we go barefoot, it's really, really hard because our feet hurt because they're not used to being strong enough to support our body weight without that padding. And so as you start thinking about movement, in particular with their books, the Starrett's books, because he did The Supple Leopard, and then there was a second volume of that, and then they did Deskbound, and now they have this book. This book is sort of like, I'm not going to say a step change better, but it's an evolution. He was originally thinking about how athletes could move and should be. So it was a really good book, but it is mostly adapted to athletes. And then he did Desk Bound, which was more of the person who is sitting at a desk or sedentary a lot, not through choice, but just where you are.
[01:01:17.370] – Allan
This one balances it all out and says, what can normal people do to live better? And it gives you all of it in this one book. So I love their books, I love what they do. They're amongst the best books on the market. They're always going to be in my perennial favorites, and this one's no different.
[01:01:36.080] – Rachel
That's awesome. One of the light bulb moments that I had listening to the interview was somebody mentioned about nobody has a goal of sitting in a Lazy Boy for the rest of their life. And I love that, it's so true. But let's think about that for a second. My grandfather was probably in his 70s, so retired, and he loved to play golf. He did a lot of golfing, which is great. He would walk or take a cart, but he'd be out there hitting the balls all the time. Well, his shoulder started paying him and I was too young. I don't know what his shoulder injury was, but then his doctor said, you should give up golf if it hurts when you golf, give up golf. And that's what he did. And it's not that he actually sat in his Lazy Boy for the rest of the life. I'm sure he didn't. But when you're thinking about these later stages, when you retire from work, don't you want to be active? Don't you want to go and do things and play the sports you enjoy playing or travel to the places you want to travel?
[01:02:32.680] – Rachel
So between then and then, between these ages, these decades, even, you can think about, well, what can you do to maintain the range of motion or the endurance of the activity that you want to do, whether you want to do nine holes or 18 on a golf course? And it's just something that I always thought about. He was in his prime of his retirement and then became more or less couldn't do the things that he loved to do. And so watching your range of motions and like they mentioned, peppering your environment with all the tools, the foam rollers and the weights or whatever you want to do, if you have it near you, you're more likely to use it and get benefit from it and like you getting up and down off the floor. These are all activities that will help you stay fit for task as you age with each decade.
[01:03:19.450] – Allan
Well, and that's what I tore my rotator cuff, and I very easily could have gone to a normal doctor, and the doctor would have said, well, okay, stop doing these things, stop lifting these heavy weights, and stop doing these obstacle course races and stop moving. And that was never an option. When I went and looked for the surgeon, I found the surgeon that worked with athletes at the university. I found the physical therapist that worked with athletes at a Division One level school, and those were my team. I brought the best team for recovery for me to get back to being an athlete, if you will. That was my whole goal with the team. And I did the homework when I went in for the surgery. I still could do just about everything except press. And we went in. We're going to get the surgery done. I got the surgery done on Thursday. I was in physical therapy on Monday.
[01:04:21.130] – Rachel
Wow, that's awesome.
[01:04:23.490] – Allan
And like I said, I had one of the best physical therapists. He worked with the football team at the local university for a while. And I went in and I said, no, I don't want to just recover. I said, I want to be back to 100% of what I was before. Let's make that happen. And I did everything he told me to do. I did every bit of homework, and I actually didn't do more than what he told me to do. So there was no rushing it, if you will, to say, no, I've got to recover faster, and doing more is going to be better. It was really just this seasoned approach of saying, this is what's necessary. Get it done and don't injure yourself further by doing something silly.
[01:05:07.880] – Rachel
That's great that you had a team that was not interested so much as fixing you and reducing the pain, but helping you prepare for continued activity. There's kind of a difference in perspective there.
[01:05:19.770] – Allan
There is. If I had been your grandfather and they said, you can't play golf, and I'm like bull, right? I'm not a big golfer, so no, I mean, but realizing if if that was something that was one of the most important things in my life, fix me, what do we do so I can play golf? If the doctor said it, I'm like, I'm going to have to fire you. You're not a team player.
[01:05:44.130] – Rachel
Right. And I'd like to think that at least some of the doctors that I work with, I mentioned, okay, these are my goals in life. This is what I want to achieve, and what do I need to do to get there healthily? I have been injured myself, and I looked for doctors that would be willing to get me back on my feet to running and not just a sedentary lifestyle again.
[01:06:02.900] – Allan
Yeah. So imagine if someone said, Rachel, you broke your foot a second time. You got to stop running.
[01:06:08.220] – Rachel
Yeah, I'd laugh. We all laugh at these things. I need to find another doctor.
[01:06:15.740] – Allan
I'm sorry I got to fire you. I'm not a team player. You're not trying to help me. I'm going to run. You just got to make it happen. And so it's just a part of this has been thinking about where you want to go, and movement is the key for all of it because you're not I mean, who doesn't like sitting in a Lazy Boy watching movies?
[01:06:35.390] – Rachel
Yeah, once in a while, but not retirement.
[01:06:38.650] – Allan
That's not where I want to live for 40 years. And so it's just kind of one of those things is saying, no, get yourself moving the right way. And then books like this are going to start you in a very good way. They're going to teach you the right way and very simple, easy to start. And I think that's one of the values here is it's not like you got to be working out seven days a week. They're not even talking about that. Exercise is the sort of the cherry on top of this thing that we're not even talking about exercise. They're just talking about general day to day movements, patterns that you should be able to do safely and without pain. And if you're doing it right, you're less likely to injure yourself and feel pain. That's part of it, too.
When we breathe properly, we set our body up to have better physical and emotional resilience. On episode 583 of the 40+ Fitness Podcast, we meet Jill Miller and discuss her book, Body by Breath.
Transcript
Let's Say Hello
[00:02:39.730] – Allan
Hello, Ras.
[00:02:40.920] – Rachel
Hey, Allan, how are you today?
[00:02:42.820] – Allan
Doing all right. Just very busy.
[00:02:46.080] – Rachel
Yeah, well, busy is good.
[00:02:47.980] – Allan
Busy is good. Busy is good. We're still sort of in busy season for Lula's. Tammy took the weekend off and went to Jazz Fest and we got some very demanding guests over the course of the weekend. Lots of moving parts, and then I'm actually doing some live training. I was wanting to do it. That's why I was going to launch the retreat, which is now happening. And I was like, okay, I still want to train people in person some. So I went ahead and solicited out to get some new clients. So I'm bringing in new clients to train in person in my studio. And I also now relaunched my program because I realized my normal program, my Be fit for Task program was great for people that wanted to work on fitness, but it wasn't as great for people that wanted to lose weight. The program was twelve weeks and then I condensed it to six weeks. So it's working very, very well for people that want to get more fit. So my Be Fit for Task program works really good for that but it's not so good for the folks that want to lose weight.
[00:03:45.100] – Allan
So I decided to go ahead and launch a new twelve week program that focuses on weight loss.
[00:03:50.470] – Rachel
Nice.
[00:03:51.070] – Allan
And so it has to be twelve weeks because it's just the way the math works in our human body. You can change some things but when you look at really a month and a half you're just really getting into the meat of it and you haven't really had any struggles or any issues happen yet. So it's hard to say how would we manage when this happens. You can write all of the SOPs for yourself that you want to have, but when stuff really happens then you find out. So twelve weeks tends to work a lot better for that. So I just relaunched that program, I'm calling it the Shed program and I just got that going and so I'm starting to onboard clients for all that. We're capping it at twelve like I do with most of my things. I'm not going to have more than that many clients because that's how many I can handle. But it's going pretty good. We're having the kickoff calls and people are getting excited. We're starting some plans and getting going.
[00:04:44.890] – Rachel
That's exciting. I love to hear that. I love to hear people making changes. That's great.
[00:04:49.340] – Allan
They are. All right. How are things up there?
[00:04:51.630] – Rachel
Good. I think it might be spring. At least this last batch of snow has melted so that's wonderful.
[00:04:59.130] – Rachel
But yeah, weather's turn
[00:05:00.600] – Allan
we used to call it. There was a fake spring. You just think it's there. You start pulling out your bathing suits and all your stuff and getting ready and then there's another little cold snap and then same thing for the end of the year. You start going into fall, you're like, oh it's cooling off, it's great. And then you have an Indian summer. It's just another two weeks of really hot weather in September.
[00:05:18.490] – Rachel
Yeah, it's like the weather just can't get it together. They don't know what season to be in quite yet. But as we get to the end of March, beginning of April, then I can kind of feel like I can believe spring is actually coming. Then I kind of feel a little more confident in the weather changes. Yes. In March you can't be fooled. Don't be fooled.
[00:05:39.090] – Allan
Don't be fooled. It can snow as late as April.
[00:05:42.020] – Rachel
Yeah, but it's nice.
[00:05:43.490] – Allan
Well good. All right, well are you ready to have a conversation with Jill?
[00:05:47.400] – Rachel
Sure. Great.
Interview
[00:06:59.500] – Allan
Jill, welcome to 40+ Fitness.
[00:07:01.980] – Jill
Well, thank you for having me. I fit into that demographic, so I'm excited to be here.
[00:07:05.860] – Allan
Well, good. Yeah, there's a lot of us these days. More and more people in the fitness space are in this area. I know when I first started trying to fix myself years ago that there was nobody here. Everybody was 20 25 30, and then, well, then you're just supposed to just cast off and we never saw you again. So it's good that more and more of us are actually understanding that taking care of ourselves is a lifelong thing. And there's more and more of us that are in our forty s and fifty s that are out there trying to get these messages out there. Now, one of the ways you're doing it now, this is not your first book, but your new book is called Body by Breath: the Science and Practice of Physical and Emotional Resilience. If I'd had this book five years ago, it would have been so valuable to me. It still is. But five years ago, I just really felt like I was losing the battle for resilience. And I really felt like, okay, stress was beating me up so bad that even when I could get my fitness together, or maybe my health together, I was never whole, if you will.
[00:08:08.570] – Allan
And what I really liked about your book was that it sort of took that whole concept of you're one being and how you take care of your body, it's all connected, and your breath is everything. It's where life and everything happens. And so as you got into this and I'll just say I've read a lot of anatomy books, as you might imagine, as a personal trainer and everything else, and I've read a lot of books about the systems of the body. This is a master class. If you're interested in learning more about your body, this is the book for you.
[00:08:41.830] – Jill
Oh, I'm going to take you on the road with me, Allan, can you do my intros everywhere? That's really awesome. Thank you so much for connecting with it in that way. And just last night I was checking this is coming out after the book is out, but we're in our final four days of prior to publication right now as we record this, and last night it was number one in medical anatomy and anatomy on Amazon. I certainly never, ever in my wildest dream, by the way, my dad's a doctor, so he is like, finally my doctor. But she could have been. Would have been. And not to scare people, the Anonymous is done in, I think, a very accessible way. Those were illustrations that my goodness, I think there's probably five to seven drafts on many of them to just keep finding what's essential, what's going to be able to connect off the page and into people's bodies, because that's really the translation that I want. I want people to have a sense of embodiment through the visual tour of the book. So I'm really glad that that landed with you.
[00:09:45.560] – Allan
It did, because as I was getting into it, I would ask myself the question, I'm like, do we need to go this deep into the anatomy? And then once you started talking about the why this works, we needed that. We needed that basis. And part of what I like about it is there's beauty in the complexity. And what I mean by that is so many people want an easy button. Just tell me how to breathe. And it's like, well, your body actually already knows how to do most of it.
[00:10:14.530] – Jill
We've gotten, in our own way, of being able to have efficient breathing in so many ways. And just to your point about, well, I just want it to be easy, my mother doesn't have easy breathing. My mother is asthmatic. She's been a lifelong asthmatic, chronic asthma. It wasn't until her mid 60s that she even knew how to locate her diaphragm, and it was because I was on a show. My friend Kelly Starrett, the founder of the Ready State, formerly Mobility Wad, he had me come onto a broadcast that he did through a platform called Creative Live. He had me come in and do a seminar for him on fascia and an hour long seminar on breath. This was really revolutionary more than ten years ago. These were topics that really were, I guess, not that hot yet. Although fascia was definitely trending, I showed the participants how to palpate their diaphragm, which is really simple. In fact, you can do it right now as you're listening. You just take your little paws, your little hands and you swing them around the bottom of your rib cage where you can get in you can't get into your ribcage easily all around it, but at the Costa margin, where you have that kind of teardrop shape on the right and left sides of your abdomen.
[00:11:25.120] – Jill
You can get your fingers underneath there. And if you kind of slump over, your fingers can piano play up against all the muscles you're touching, which is obviously your skin, some of the fatty layer of your abdomen, your rectus abdominals, your obliques, your transverse abdominals. But behind all that is your respiratory diaphragm. And then you take a breath in. If you breathe into your hands, you breathe in towards your gut, you'll actually feel the diaphragm contract and try to push your fingers out. So I taught them that process. And I get off stage and there is an enthusiastic message from my mother and she's ecstatic and weeping and so intense, and she says, oh my God, I just felt my diaphragm for the first time in my life. So this is an asthmatic who has lived with lifelong problems and pain and so many other impacts from her breathing posture and from the strain of breathing. But no doctor had ever told her about the primary muscle of respiration. This is also echoed in the very front of the book where I have an incredible yoga professional, a fitness professional, lewis Jackson, he wrote The Ford.
[00:12:30.760] – Jill
He was a lifelong asthmatic and he walked into one of my seminars in his mid 40s, and he had the exact same revelation why didn't anybody teach the asthmatic kid about the diaphragm? He had been dependent on inhalers. It had created a ton of shame for him around at parties, around friends. He was like hiding it all the time. Didn't want to be seen as that sickly, asthmatic kid. But nobody had even in his all his yoga training, nobody had actually described or help him map out the muscles of respiration and what that meant to his whole body. So anyway, so I really do think that just enough anatomy and there's a little bit more than enough, as you mentioned. But it really helps you to map yourself, connect to your core. The lining of your life are your breathing muscles. And why should we over focus on our quads and our biceps? My opinion, the diaphragm is the most important muscle of the body. I mean, I'm saying that above the heart. All right? So that's where I'm coming from here.
[00:13:33.840] – Allan
Well, they're definitely first cousins. They're close.
[00:13:38.630] – Jill
Yes. Well, the diaphragm happens to be a mattress for the heart. The heart sits directly on top of it, and the diaphragm is like humidam Humi dumb. Look how I'm massaging you, Mr. Hart.
[00:13:48.240] – Allan
Above me right now. One of the reasons why I got really excited about the breathing and the body and this whole conversation was because I've always thought of breathing as related to stress. That's when I noticed my breathing. That's when I felt like I had to start paying attention to my breathing, was in those moments of acute stress and then realizing I'm not breathing the way I'm supposed to when I'm in periods of chronic stress. That was me working in the corporate world and realizing I've sat here all day long and I'm actually not breathing most of the day. By not breathing, I mean actually not taking in deep breaths, getting oxygenated, just literally almost in a coma, sitting there and this shallow, almost like panting little dog breath, if you will. And I see it. We've got pets, and whenever they're distressed, they immediately go into that low breathe. And I'm like, that was me 25 years of my life. My days were that kind of breathing. How does breathing and stress resilience pull that together for us so we can understand not just that it's affected, but how we can use it to affect our stress?
[00:15:00.660] – Jill
Sure. Breathing is one of the greatest switches that you can use in your body to be able to pull yourself literally from state to state. You can breathe in such a way that you are up regulated, you're hyper, you're hyped, you're pumped. You can also breathe in ways that calm you down, that pull you out of high stress states. Because breathing is one of these amazing functions in the autonomic nervous system that isn't just autonomic, it's not just automatic. You can actually regulate it. And that's what makes breathing as a health tool so profound. Because healing doesn't take place in a sympathetic, upregulated high pipe state. Healing actually takes place in the rest, digest and recovery. And if we're dampening our ability to enter into parasympathetically, relaxed, rest recover states, then allostatic load the sum total of our stresses, just the pie chart of that is out of proportion. And eventually those lead to stress related diseases. And Ailments, the global indices of disease are all pointing towards that. All cause mortality is increasing due to anxiety related and depression related issues. And so it's important for us as a species to pay attention to what are the levers that this levers is one of the things I think Kelly talks about.
[00:16:24.110] – Jill
What are the levers that we can play around with to see if we can foster a habitat in our body that is okay with that other side of the stress spectrum? That other side of the stress spectrum is our rest, digest, recover, recuperate. So the book while the book is called Body by Breath, the word body is also in there. It's not just breath as the only tool. There are many ways that the book outlines how to use your body and also use some tools to augment a parasympathetic or a relaxation response. And breath is one of the major tools that is used. But the whole body stress is a body wide experience. It's not just in your head. And you know that because you get these really tight shoulder muscles. Your jaw clenches, your sleep starts to be disturbed. We have this body wide expression of stress. So typically one of the easiest and simplest ways to adjust your breath rhythm is to try to put more gas and more duration into your exhales. So long exhale breaths. And this is just a very simple thing. You just think about blowing out more candles on the birthday cake than you already have.
[00:17:37.200] – Jill
So maybe you inhale a certain quantity of air. It doesn't matter how much it is, but you just want to make sure that your exhale is longer than your inhale just to start to grow your capacity. That comfort of getting out of a stress breath, which is more that panting breath or a very shallow breath.
[00:17:55.430] – Allan
Yeah, you used the term in the book and it kind of clicked in my head as I figured something this would but what it was, was you said turning your off switch on. Okay. I would go through my whole day on switches on and you would think, okay then. Now what I'm trying to do is I'm driving home from work and also still in a stressful situation, but I'm trying to then turn off. I never thought of it as other than like if my boss called me up to his office, I would start doing box breathing in the elevator just so I wouldn't do a fight or flight in front of him because I couldn't I had to go face him. But it was just interesting that you put this concept in there because it was just something it was a tool. When I was working in corporate, I just didn't have can you talk a little bit about turning your off switch on?
[00:19:02.620] – Jill
Yeah, in the book I call it turn on your off switch. Thank you so much for asking me about that little lingo statement because it really does summarize the whole book. The book is about recovery, and the off switch in this case is the parasympathetic nervous system. So when we're in a highly stressed state, our sympathetics are basically running rampant and we're responding to that mostly unconsciously. How to take control of that excessive on is to actually try to stimulate a specific nerve called the vagus nerve, which is really the governor of the parasympathetic nervous system. So the ways that we go into the mellow are, one, by turning the on off, but turning the off on. And I know that's very confusing, but it's a little bit of neuroanatomy. So we want to do things that stimulate our vagus nerve because once the vagus nerve starts to come online and we can do this in many different ways and I outline this throughout the book, what happens is the arousal of the parasympathetic nervous system, it down regulates the sympathetic nervous system. So there is a switcheroo happening in terms of what effects start to happen from the brain to the body and also from the body to the brain.
[00:20:28.690] – Jill
So in the book I outline a five phase or five specific things to think about if you're trying to turn on your off switch. And I call this the five P's, and I think it's a very easy formula for people to get comfortable with. It's a five P's of the parasympathetic nervous system. It's a process. It brings you Ps. Lots of p's in there. But here are the five P's. The first P is perspective. Perspective has to deal with a mindset. It's very helpful if you're going to try to flip your stress switch that you bring in your adult brain. You bring in a host that allows your body based experience to occur, because once you start to decrease the speed that's happening in the sympathetic nervous system, you're going to start to have a lot of feelings. The adrenaline and the acceleration in our sympathetic nervous system blunts us to a lot of the subtler senses in our body. This brings me on a quick sidebar into our physiological sensing system is called interoception. And I highlight this in a big way within the book. But basically, these subtle senses are the physiology of your body speaking to you.
[00:21:50.690] – Jill
And so it's helpful to have a mindset that welcomes those feelings to occur, because sometimes those feelings are a physical feeling and other time those feelings are emotions. So we want to be a welcome host to our experience. So in a mindset in that perspective chunk, you would want to say things to yourself that are positive, like, all of me is welcome here or I embody my body. So you're going to welcome your experience.
[00:22:16.600] – Jill
The Second P is place. The place is not always ideal, right? You're in the elevator on the way to speak with your boss. You're in line at an airport, just hoping you can get off the standby list. So place is not always ideal. It can be cacophonous, it can be loud, it can be bright, it can be hostile. But in an ideal setting let me talk about the ideal setting for the parasympathetic nervous system, we're in a place that is warm, that is dark. Those are some of the things that the parasympathetic nervous system really likes. And if you can't be in those places, maybe if you're in a loud, clangy, bright place, you can pretend fantasize.
[00:22:55.790] – Jill
So maybe cast, if it's safe to do so, cast yourself in an imaginary space. It is very helpful. All right, so place.
[00:23:03.550] – Jill
The third P is position. Typically, for position, we want to get grounded. We want to get low to the ground. You could do this by reclining on a bed or a sofa or lying back in a chair. But to really maximize position, especially for the vagus nerve, we actually want to try to get our head lower than our heart, lower than our pelvis. And what this looks like, if you're in a reclined position is just elevating your pelvis up a few inches. I like to elevate my pelvis on my tool. It's called a gorgeous ball. But you can put your pelvis on a stack of books. Body by Breath is a very thick book. You can always put your pelvis on the Body by Breath book. Or a yoga block. We love those. Or a rolled up pillow or everybody's got something they can stick their tush on top of. And what that gentle slope does is it takes advantage of a neural feedback loop called the baroceptor reflex. And what the baroceptor reflex is, is there are nerve sensors in the sides of your neck and the carotid artery that are vaguely mediated.
[00:24:04.330] – Jill
And when your body starts to sense due to gravity that too much blood is flowing towards your brain, your brain can't afford that. Your body can't afford that. And so these stretch sensors in these arteries send a very quick feedback loop through the vagus nerve to the brain and suddenly there's a state shift. Your stroke rate will slow down so your heart will slow down and your breath pace will slow down and all the arteries within your body constrict. And this is to minimize blood flow to the brain so that you maintain your blood barrier, your blood brain barrier. But the consequence of that, the result of that is a mellowing. You get chill by doing this gentle slope.
[00:24:41.830] – Jill
The fourth P is what most people think the book is going to be entirely about is pace of breath. And I already mentioned to you the pace of breath. You typically want to have exhales that are longer than inhales. Although there are paradoxical breathing patterns that are reversed that can be very effective too, but for the most part exhales longer than inhales.
[00:25:01.720] – Jill
And then the fifth P has been my specialty for a very long time palpation. And then in this case, palpation, I teach self massage strategies that down regulate the sympathetics and up regulate the parasympathetic nervous system through gentle touch, through gentle motion and through depth of pressure, comfortable depth of pressure, especially into certain regions of the body where the vagus nerve is available. So we can affect the vagus nerve through manual or through mechanical means through pressure.
[00:25:33.350] – Allan
So as we work through this and we could do it as a stress resilience or we can just do it for an overall resilience perspective, sure, I like that. There's some tools out there I like whenever there's something that makes it to where someone can beyond just knowing that I feel less stressed, I'm sleeping better, those types of things. We can actually measure our performance, if you will, as far as if we're trying to do this. And one of the ways but interestingly enough, it was athletes where I've heard this from, they want to make sure that they are recovered enough to go into training because they train so hard. They use heart rate variability to measure basically their recovery. But it's a tool we could use if we're really stressed out. We're in a high stress job, and we want to make sure we're doing the right things and we're not overstressing ourselves. Because I've had some clients that are, like, wanting to train harder and harder, and I'm like, okay, you're already in a chronically stressful environment. Adding this extra stress of a harder workout to your workload, that's a load. That's a stress load.
[00:26:41.410] – Allan
We call it allostatic load. It just adds up. And workouts can be good hormetic. They can be good for you, but they can also be a part of the problem. Can you tell us a little bit about heart rate variability and what that's measuring and how we could use it as a tool to understand our stress management?
[00:27:01.260] – Jill
Sure. Well, I don't wear tech. My husband does, so I get to collect data. But I don't know. I'm very old fashioned. I want as few rays near me as possible, and I tend to do my own heart rate analysis through interoception. So I'll do different heart rate tests by sensing my pulse and also checking my heart rate. So I just wanted to put that out there because I know a lot of people are checking their reads. Okay, what heart rate variability is the beat to beat changes within your heart. So your heart actually, when you're amplified, your heart has a very regular beat threshold. So let's say when you're running, maybe you're at 120 to 130 beats per minute, right? It's very rhythmical. It's very on. And that's because the excitation within the body subdues or prevents the vagus nerve from firing upon the heart. When you're in a relaxed state, when you're not in an amplified stress state, the vagus nerve should be firing upon the heart, and that creates a sympathetic parasympathetic toggle within the heart itself. But when we are in sympathetic states, it dampens the strength of the vagus nerve signaling to the heart.
[00:28:27.620] – Jill
And so we get the steady, steady, steady state heart rate. When people are so they're psyched, like, oh my God, it was 130 beats per minute, but you're in high stress state, which we need for output and for exercise. But after that stress state, you should be able to come down. And the faster you come down, of course, without crashing, but you should be able to come down and that your heart then goes back to its normal between 60 and 80 beats per minute. Much of this is dependent on so many different factors, but the reason we have these beats to beat changes is because of the effect of the vagus upon the heart. When you have very highly trained athletes that also do a lot of recovery work, their resting heart rate can be lower than 60, and they're extremely healthy. And that is a signal. It's a sign of good vagal tone, meaning that when their body doesn't need to be amped up, it's not sympathetic. They have their parasympathetic resilience in place, helping them. To recover, rest and regenerate.
[00:29:28.550] – Allan
And the value of that, when you start thinking about it from a historical perspective, is you're walking through the jungle or through the woods or through the field. You're just calm, everything's cool, and then something happens. You need to be able to respond quickly. But we're not supposed to stay there. We're supposed to then get back to that rest and recover. Because if we spend too much time and we're not recovering well enough, there's going to be a time we don't get away because we didn't recover well enough to perform well enough when it was time to do that. And unfortunately, most of us are spending so much time in a chronic stress state that, like you said in the book, I think turning on that off switch is kind of an important thing that we've forgotten how to do.
[00:30:16.390] – Jill
Yeah, I think that I would like to see people engage in recovery based practices that really do impact the body and its structure in very therapeutic ways so that it builds what I call their endurance. For parasympathetic tolerance, I do tend to find that people, many people, not all the people that come into my studio, but many of the people that come to work with me, have been so conditioned to upregulation that when they enter into parasympathetic states, their body feels unsettled, it feels threatening, it feels scary. And for these people, meditation, like stillness, meditation, has been abysmal and really is something that is uncomfortable, causes the wiggles, causes the fidgets. And what I try to do is help those high anxiety individuals to find recovery based practices that aren't triggering another sympathetic response. I think some of the there's a chapter in the book around the vagus nerve, and I also highlight the work of Dr. Stephen Porges, who has a theory called Polyvagal theory, which is, please read the book so you can understand polyvagal theory. It's a little difficult to explain in short, shrift on a podcast, but incidentally, he was the first person to quantify HRV.
[00:31:40.570] – Jill
The many things that Dr porsche talks about is the evolution of the vagus nerve and how our bodies, as humans, have appropriated it from reptilian all the way up to primate and mammal and primate to help us identify these body based feelings and, I guess, harness the impact that the vagus nerve can have on our overall health and well being.
[00:32:09.130] – Allan
Yeah, well, the key of it to me is and it's one of the reasons why I think your book is so valuable, is it really does kind of explain we're not just this physical thing, we're not just this emotional thing. And it's really hard to talk about one without talking about the other if you really understand how it all works, because your emotions affect your physicality and your physicality affects your emotions. And all the trauma and all the history and everything that you've had, it's all a part of this jumble of what we become as a person. And if we want to be healthier, it's important for us to just understand how all that works and to find the right ways for us to turn off when we need to be off and turn on when we need to be on. And having these tools, I think, is extremely valuable. Now, in the book, you do share all of these exercises and that was really when the rubber hit the road. So the lessons that you get in the front half of the book are really important. Take your time, go through those. It's a reference manual for how your body works and all of this, then the exercises are excellent and very well photographed and set up so you understand exactly what's being done.
[00:33:25.890] – Allan
And now you know why you're doing it. Which for a lot of people looking at exercises, like, why does she have her hips way up on that and her feet way up on the wall? And that looks uncomfortable. You're not staying there forever. You're just staying there long enough to let a few things happen and settle within your body. But again, as we start looking at these exercises, you had one set and I was like, okay, this is important. I don't know that I'll be able to get my wife to do these exercises. But anyone that's struggling with sleep, I think, has found themselves and their brain is racing and they're suddenly in this almost a fight or flight mode. 02:00 in the morning. And how can they turn it off? Because because they might not be able to completely get up and do a whole workout at 02:00 in the morning. But you do have one. You call it Let sleep. I don't know if you know the full workout, but can you talk about a few things that people can do to help their body just go back into a rest state and go back to sleep easier?
[00:34:27.190] – Jill
Yes. So for that acute wake up, I feel for you. I mean, I feel for all the over 40 fitness people, especially females, that are waking up. Hormone changes are no joke. And as a woman in my perimenopausal years right now, I was absolutely astonished at how radical perimenopause changed sleep for me. So I will say, on a global level, one of the ways that I've dealt with the problematic early morning waking for myself is I've adjusted my bedtime. Because no matter what time I would go to bed, I'd wake up right around 04:00 a.m. And so I decided no more 10:00 p.m. Night time. I go to bed at 8:30. Now, with my kids, that's really helped.
[00:35:22.000] – Allan
Me that's my normal bedtime is 8:30 9:00.
[00:35:26.410] – Jill
If my body wants to wake up at four and my acute practices aren't helping me get back to sleep, then I just need to listen to this bigger sort of chronological change that's happening and work with it rather than against it. But that being said, I do have a few things that I do if I have other wakings during the night, and breathing is very helpful. Here's what I'll say first. Gosh, there's so much I want to say about sleep because I think one of the biggest things we miss, or our bodies miss, is that there is a natural melatonin wave that just comes up in your body right? In the morning we have our cortisol wave, and at night we have melatonin wave. And if you push past that melatonin wave because you really want to finish the episode, or you really want to finish reading the chapter, or you've got to send five more emails or you haven't finished with your food prep, you're going to have a rocky sleep. So it is very critical to attune yourself to interceptively. So this brings us back to interception physiological listening, to be able to pick up on that wave and know that that wave has something to say to you, which is lights out.
[00:36:46.920] – Jill
And so if we miss the wave, it's going to jank up our sleep. So that's one, don't miss the wave. If you miss the wave and you are having fitful sleep, there are a couple of different breath practices that have been proven to be an anxiety reliever and a parasympathetic inducer. And this just came out recently in oh, gosh, I can't remember. OD, I think it was in cell. And it was a study done by Melissa Balaban, David Spiegel and Dr. Andrew Hooverman up at Stanford, and they compared a few different breathing strategies against mindfulness meditation. And I'm bringing this into the sleep realm. The breathing practice is called cyclic sighing. And in cyclic sighing, what you would do just stay in bed. You don't need to move position, you don't need to do anything fancy. What you do is you take a big inhale, pause the inhale for a moment, and then take a second inhale on top of that so you're completely full, and then exhale slowly out through your nose or mouth in body by breath. I call this a chocolate chip breath or chocolate chip cookie breath. And this was a breath I designed in an acute way for my six year old, who started to get panic attacks within months of the pandemic happening and was frightening to watch her go through the inability to breathe and was really struggling.
[00:38:20.120] – Jill
And she doesn't have asthma, there's no other. It was all stress and emotion related due to the changes in the pandemic. And so what I had her do is take a gigantic sniff of warm chocolate chip cookies, try to just fill her body with that chocolate chip cookie scent, pause for a moment and then take an extra kind of cheat sniff, get more scent in, and then exhale slowly and let it go. And so the cyclic sighing breath, you don't have to imagine chocolate chip cookies because that might be too arousing for you in bed. But know that it's a two part inhale followed by a long extended exhalation. And this triggers a reflex in the brain stem of a certain area of the brain stem called the parafacial nucleus. That was discovered by Dr. Jack Feldman, who is a respiratory neuroscientist. But this also is a stoker of our parasympathetic nervous system. So you wake up, your mind is spinning, you start to fidget, start doing these cyclic thighs. Don't count them, just keep doing them and you might find yourself drifting off to sleep. So that's one that's very helpful. There's another breath strategy.
[00:39:31.030] – Jill
Here's the other thing. If you have a partner in bed, there's a little stress there because you start to realize that you can hear your breath go through your nose. So maybe don't let them sleep with you so you can do your breath practice and not wake them up. The other breath strategy I like to do is in the book also, it's called Psychic Alternate Nostril Breathing. This is the one that works for me. It's called an Anolum Vilom. And Anolum Vilom, you imagine the breath alternating from nostril to opposite brain hemisphere and then moving to the other side of the brain and then out the opposite nostril. So you're basically creating a little loop de loop of imagined air pattern or imagined airflow. And I don't know why it works for me, but it does. Ultimately, there are about 23 different breath strategies in the book. You might find one that works for you. So even though I'm saying, oh, well, science said cyclic size are the thing that's going to help coax you down, it may not be true for you because you might have a paradoxical reaction to any of these breath strategies.
[00:40:37.920] – Jill
That's one of the things that makes this so interesting. The other thing I would say is prior to sleep is to get in during the day some recovery based practices because there is a build up over time of your ability to click into that parasympathetic mode. So I think it's a good idea to start to build your tolerance for relaxation earlier in the day. And then you might find that there's a carryover at night. There's other individuals that I work with that find doing the fascia facial work. So in body by breath, there's some head, neck and face rollouts to help massage and stimulate different vagally mediated muscles of the face, neck and head. And so doing really gentle work on the jaw, the temples, even deep into the sides of the neck near the carotid, these can be things that, again, down regulate, sympathetics up regulate parasympathetics and help you nod off. And if you're a jaw clencher, it's very helpful to do the jaw massage close to bedtime to just change the resting tone of those muscles.
[00:41:49.650] – Allan
Yeah, I bring up sleep a lot because I do believe it's critical. It's just one of those big things. And I know that a lot of us over 40, particularly women, struggle with sleep. I'm the guy who's falling asleep each time I've taken yoga, and they use the non sleep. What is it called? Yeah, I'm out.
[00:42:14.250] – Jill
So that's interesting, too. That's a whole other chapter. So there's four tools. The tools are breath, breathe, roll, move, non sleep deep breast, also known as yoga nidra. And there is that category, or there is that segment of the population that when they go into non sleep deep breaths, they actually bypass the focus and they just pass out. And so that would be like an excessive vagal dominance, the non sleep deep breath. From where I'm coming from, if you need to sleep, you should sleep. I mean, that really is an indicator to me of absolute exhaustion. But ultimately, with non sleep deep breaths, we wouldn't be able to train ourselves to maintain attention, to maintain focus on our physiology in this interesting liminal state. And I detailed that in the chapters.
[00:43:00.230] – Allan
Yeah, it was one of those things where if it was a calm yoga session, because I did have one that was like combat yoga, and that one I didn't I was bruised up. I was beat up by the time that one was over. But, yeah, it was kind of interesting. But most of them because it's just this relaxing the breathing, this and I'm laying flat on my back. I'm like, out.
[00:43:24.530] – Jill
Yeah.
[00:43:27.730] – Allan
So, Jill, I define wellness as being the healthiest, fittest, and happiest you can be. What are three strategies or tactics to get and stay well?
[00:43:40.230] – Jill
Number one, I'd say become aware of your breathing and which zone of respiration you tend to live in. So those zones of respiration I detail in the book, we have three zones the gut, the rib cage, and the stuff above the rib cage. And depending on becoming aware of where you're breathing is really step one towards adjusting yourself into, I think, a healthier, happier place. Number two would be help your body move and find something that commands your curiosity and focus within the movement. And so that could be body parts that you're interested in, or it could be a phenomenon outside of yourself, like a goal of being able to play with your grandchildren for the rest of your life. And then number three for being healthy, happy, and well is use self massage to regulate your emotions and help yourself physically.
[00:44:42.410] – Allan
And your book, Body by Breath details most of that, particularly the massage and the movements and everything else. So, Jill, if someone wanted to learn more about you or learn more about your book, Body by Breath, where would you like for me to send them?
[00:44:58.510] – Jill
We have a really helpful website, bodybybreath.com, that is everything about the book. My company is tuneupfitness.com, so people can also head to the website and check out the offerings there. We have filmed all hundred exercises within the book and those will be going up on the website eventually. I know we're in post production on that. I have lots of programs that also detail fascia and rolling. I have partner programs with my dear friend Kelly Starrett, also Tom Myers, who is one of the godfathers of functional fascia understanding, and then my friend Katie Bowman. We have a program called Walking Well. So there's lots of offerings and classes on the website and then there's lots of free stuff on YouTube, so cost is a barrier. I have so many free videos on YouTube that explain in very digestible chunks of the work. And you can find me on Instagram @thejillmiller. That's where I'm most active. But there's also teachers all over the planet. We have about 500 tune up fitness teachers that teach yoga, tune up, role model and body by breath methods. So you can find them by heading to the website of tuneupfitness.com and putting in your zip code.
[00:46:11.270] – Jill
And you can actually work one on one or in groups with our teachers.
[00:46:16.770] – Allan
Great. You can go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/583, and I'll be sure to have the links there. Jill, thank you so much for being a part of 40+ Fitness.
[00:46:28.430] – Jill
I'm so happy to connect with you. Thank you so much for welcoming me and for your deep interest in my book. I really appreciate it.
Post Show/Recap
[00:46:45.490] – Allan
Welcome back, Ras.
[00:46:47.080] – Rachel
Hey, Allan. Every time I think I've heard everything about breathing, you have an interview with somebody that introduces yet another thing I haven't thought about. And it was just really interesting because in this discussion there was a moment where you were talking about having a longer exhale than the inhale. That was one thing that I just never thought too much about. But I was on a run over the weekend, running uphill, my heart's pounding because it was a challenging run. I was on on this trail and I'm like, okay, I'm going to try this. And I started to take some longer exhales and sharper inhales and I don't know, it was a hard run anyway, but I feel like at least it gave me something to focus on. And I did feel better. I felt a lot better once I was done with the hill. But it was an interesting practice that I actually used from your interview. So that was super cool.
[00:47:41.670] – Allan
Yeah. Key takeaway, kids, practice what you're going to do in the race. Don't just do it in the race.
[00:47:48.090] – Rachel
That's right. That is right.
[00:47:51.590] – Allan
All right. So it worked out pretty well with you breathing.
[00:47:55.750] – Rachel
It really does. And especially for runners, we have all these different conditions and whether you're running calm and in an easy pace or you're charging up hills or even windmilling down the hills, which is really fun, there's different moments where breathing in different patterns can have a real huge benefit while you're running or walking or doing whatever. So, yeah, it's always fun to listen to these different techniques and to put them into action to actually try them.
[00:48:24.390] – Allan
Well, what I really liked about this was that Jill's book was really just practical. Breath is a part of movement. Breath is a part of relaxation. Breath is a part of huge sleep. It's a part of everything. So the better you breathe, the better you're going to do in all of those things. And when you get that all kind of balanced out and you're breathing right the way your body was designed to breathe, using your diaphragm and using it correctly, then your body has what it needs as part of that whole, okay, I've got plenty of oxygen, I've got rid of enough of the carbon dioxide. My body doesn't have to feel like it's about to die. I can just relax a little bit more. And again, that's one of the keys. One of the keys for people who are really good at running is that they get adequate oxygen in and carbon dioxide, they get a right balance and they keep that right balance at what is basically a very low level of exertion for them. But they're moving really quick. So there's this disability. But then the other side of it is, well, they are going to put up with a whole lot of pain for that duration of that run.
[00:49:40.970] – Allan
But the breathing is the big piece because most of these runners, their resting heart rate is in the 40s when they're really pushing themselves, they might get their heart rate up to 150, whereas an average person, I get 150 just jogging down the street. But it's one of those things where breath is really a part of movement. It's part of all of it. There are some good exercises in here for you to go through and understand how to breathe better. And that's going to make everything else better.
[00:50:21.430] – Rachel
Oh, absolutely. And you just mentioned relaxation. And in every aspect of life when you've had a really tough day at work or you're frustrated with the kids or something is stressing you out. Really taking that time to practice some relaxation technique type of breathing. It sends your body into such a relaxed state so that your mind can actually think better and then you can problem solve a little better and not be so anxious about what's going on but actually have the wherewithal to deal with it properly. And I think few people just take you hear it all the time, just take a second, calm down. But if you actually did it, don't ever tell your wife to calm down. I'm just saying. But when you actually do take a second, take a deep breath, then it actually does put you in such a relaxed state that you can deal with troubles so much better. And I think that's missed on a lot of people.
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