#14. Focus on your health results will follow

Don't try and change everything at the same time, just change little things it might take you 6 to 12 months to change a few things, but that's OK. It's better than changing nothing at all exactly. So first one, as you could have guessed, we're going to talk about. Sleep our favourite. If there was one thing that is the most important here and you should focus on this one thing, sleep would be it. Sleep governs all. But again. It sort of goes in with the others as well, yeah? So will give you a few tips on how to improve your sleep to start with. Yeah, the first one. Probably the easiest one for you to do is get blue light blocking glasses. I feel like they're starting to get a little trendy now. Yeah, that'll be better than they first did when they first come out with safety goals. So essentially they just block you, put them on as the sun goes down and they block the blue light from messing with your circadian rhythm so that it's easier for you to fall asleep. Sleep for longer, have better quality, sleep deeper sleep. You just yeah, the whole concept behind them is that traditionally humans would go to sleep on the sunset and get up when the sun rose and now we don't do that. We watch TV and go on our phones. So instead of getting rid of everything that emits blue light in your house, you can just get blue light blockers and it will help you sleep immensely. Yeah, and this is the best one for people that say I can't sleep anymore. I'm too busy. This is all I can get then like you are sleeping at night so. Improve that sleep you are already getting. Yeah, you don't have to get more. Just improve the sleep you're getting and blue blocks are the best way to do that and I feel like they're an easy place to start because you don't have to change any habit or anything. You just put them on.

Yep, super easy and you can get prescription ones for those people out there that have glasses. The second one is a whoop, so again you can't improve what you don't track. Yeah, I don't know how many people, clients included saying. Yeah, I've got eight hours of sleep. Last night I went to bed at this time and woke up at this time, but that doesn't mean you got that much sleep. The prime example is you and me, so Mac and I basically go to bed and wake up at the same time, but I generally get an hour less, even sometimes more sleep than her and so I have been working on that to get. Better sleep and I had been improving on it. Yeah, it's still not perfect but again I can improve on it because I know of tracking it with the whoop and I know what I'm sleeping or how little I'm sleeping. Yeah, yeah so yeah, just tracking your sleep. I guess it doesn't have to be a whoop, but they're the most accurate at the moment. Yeah yeah, and yeah, I just you can't track what you don't know. So I think a good feature that the whoop has is that we don't use it 'cause we sleep very consistently. Is it suggest how long you should be in bed? So if you've had like a rough day or a stressful day, or you've trained a lot, it'll tell you you need 9 hours, which I feel like some people just need to be told that you need to sleep. Do you know what I mean? Yep. Cool, so the next one is caffeine. We did talk a little bit about this last week, could have been in the after show thing in the Friday wrap up.

Yeah, so essentially cutting back your caffeine or not having I should say not having caffeine within an 8 to 10-hour window of going to bed. So more and more studies are showing that having caffeine within eight to 10 hours of going to bed just ruins your sleep. Even if you say you sleep fine and you can have a coffee right before bed, you're not sleeping fine. Do you track your sleep and do you know that? Or you're just saying you're sleeping that whole time? And. One point that I think is important to bring up is how they said that. Having caffeine within that eight-hour window can wreck your sleep. Yeah, with a 30% to 30% you can decrease the quality of your sleep. I should say up to 30% and essentially doing that over and over and over again. It takes years off your life and it's something so simple like just you can have a hot chocolate or a decaf coffee after what? 11 depends on the time you go to bed. We get a bit early so we stopped having coffee quite early but also super easy behaviour that you can pick up just swapping out your afternoon coffee for something that isn't caffeinated. And the next and last one will touch on is consistency. Now I'm not saying you can't. You can never go out and have fun ever again and stay up. But trying to be consistent with your sleep routine is going to improve it quite a lot. Going to bed at the same time, getting up at the same time, doing the same winddown routine and doing the same wake-up routine each morning is just going to help your body get used to those circadian rhythms. 'cause a lot of us, our circadian rhythms, are stuffed up. And it's all over the place because we will go to bed one night at 11 and then the next night we're super tired so we go six goats about 6 and then it's just all over the place. There's just no consistency so your body doesn't know. When it should be sleeping, and going into those. Deep sleep states when you need it also the whole. If I sleep less on the weekend I can just catch up on Sunday. The thing is a myth. Yeah, you can't do that. Your body doesn't like to reserve hours of sleep for later, like less sleep. It needs to know that it's going to get sleep every day.

I am supposed to function optimally. So when you're sleeping properly, your body is in better balance. The hormones are in better balance, so you're going to be happier. You get a. Going to be less stressed so your body is going to store less body fat. Your body adapts to the training that you did during that day. Any stimulus you put into the brain adapts to so you do need to dial in that sleep again. It doesn't. You don't have to get more necessarily but improve on that sleep that you are getting. Take one of those things we just talked about, work on it. Once you got that down pact, move to the next one. Easy done alright? The next one would be nutrition. So same thing we recommend you just choose one or two of these, change them, and then one set a habit and you're doing it. You go on to the next one. Yeah, cool. So the first point that I wanted to bring up. I feel like it's quite easy to start doing and that is having less or minimally processed food, so doesn't mean like you can't have bread pasta oats like that kind of process, but I mean like junk food like things that have. I know upward of ten ingredients, things that have ingredients you don't even know what they are like. How is your body supposed to know what to do with that? Those ingredients? I feel like it's an easy thing to do like just buy one less packaged or processed food every time you go to the shops or start to look for alternatives to things that you could make, maybe to replace the treats that you're buying. Like, have a little less takeaway every week. All like small little things you can do to reduce the amount of processed food you have in your life, and you probably won't even notice and you'll feel a lot better. Uhm, and then variety and a wide variety of colours. As Mac always says when it comes to vegetables and this is another big thing we see with a lot of people.

Clients coming in. It's just the old meat and veg and that is it's yeah and the veggies are usually just Gray and sometimes green. So just going with variety, don't be afraid to sort of venture out and have new different vegetables. Good for you. It sort of isn't super healthy, too healthy to be eating. The same thing all day every day, so there's every single colour and every single vegetable and fruit has different micronutrients. So if you're eating the same vegetables, you're getting the same micronutrients and it's very easy to start lacking in vitamins and minerals. If you're just eating as I know, what are potatoes and broccoli? Yeah, yeah. So go variety again. Same thing as what Mac said with the processing, so you're cutting out a processed ad. In a different vegetable that you don't normally have. So I cut out one processing, adding a vegetable simple and just do that regularly each day for a couple of months and you'll find that your plate looks completely different, yeah? The next one is oh water so. Drinking enough water I guess would be the aim of the thing, so I generally aim for three leaders, but that is very different to what Jack aims for. So again, like everything, it's personal to personal. Target choice I guess. So the main indicator to know that you're hydrated is that your weed is light yellow to clear.

Yeah, and also listen to your body if you feel thirsty. Have water, not coke or coffee or another liquid just for the sake of having a liquid-like your body wants water. We evolved to drink water like the thirst signals are there for a reason so. I guess. Yes, start listening to them. And also I know a lot of my clients struggle to get enough water in, so I guess making habits like getting up in the morning and putting a bottle of water next to your phone because I forget people don't drink water first thing in the morning like I guzzle water in the morning so just small things like placing water bottles in common areas that you're in, setting alarms even on your phone. Yeah, and it's just it's super important like it'll help your cognitive function. It's good for your joint recovery. Good for your blood so yeah, all those macronutrients, micronutrients here eating are going throughout your body. Yet, and that I do so, I did suffer from cramps a lot, so muscle cramps used to get him real bad and the biggest thing I changed was water. Water intake and making sure I drink enough so. That's a little side note for those that get muscle cramps. The next one would be counting calories. Now, why would that be into health? Because a lot of us and I've got a good question. We're going to go into the Friday wrap up about why we have to count calories these days while you go back 200 years and counting calories wasn't even a thing. And why is it so important now? So tune in to the Friday show for that answer. But basically, you just don't know how much you're eating. You could be overeating, undereating, and. Both of those things are unhealthy, so your body needs a certain amount of energy, which is calories to function properly each day. And if you're not doing that, you're either overdoing it and storing body fat, which means you're going to have visceral fat, which means it's going to get her in around your organs, which is going to shorten your life quite a lot. Or if you go on the other way, you're going to be depleting all your body's nutrients and micronutrients, and all that sort of stuff.

And yeah, so your body starts breaking down muscle organs and all that sort of stuff just to operate, which you don't want. So you want to be in that middle. So just count your calories for a bit to understand what's going into your body and making sure you're feeling it enough is a healthy thing to do. Yeah, it's not like you have to do it forever, just long enough for you to learn. A bit more about the food that you're eating I guess. And again, the last point that we had for nutrition was consistency, so I guess it ties in with calories very nicely. As in you have to. You should be aiming to eat consistent calories. You should be aiming to eat consistent meals consistently. Having colour consistently drinking water. Yeah, just I guess if you don't have that consistency, that's when. Your body, like you, tells you that you're starving and you need sugar, or you need chips, and that's when all of the processed food slips back in again. So yeah, being consistent. It's just an easy way to overcome all of those cravings and bad choices. Alright, the third one is movement or exercise so. The biggest one I can stress enough is resistant training as a base. So what do I mean by that? It's actually if your goal is just health and well being, it is important to have a variety of different exercises. Don't just focus on the one thing and that is health like. I'm just going to use running for example. I'm not saying running is bad, but if all you're doing is running, you're going to have joint issues. Like stress issues like I've even heard of shin fractures just from running too much. All that sort of stuff where if you're if you have a resistance training like weight training as a base and then you do running on top of that, you're going to be a lot healthier. Your bones are going to be stronger, U joints are going to be stronger, your muscles are going to be better.

So and in longevity, more and more studies are coming out now that there are two things you need to be. Come to have to live a long healthy life and there is resistance training and protein. So strong muscles. Yeah, the strong muscles are going to support everything throughout your body without without strong muscles you are just a skeleton and you'll fall in a file around yes, so having that strong base and having enough protein to keep your muscles strong and healthy throughout your life is the most important thing I can suggest and then yet add in whatever you. Goals you want from there. So if it's running Crossfit's swimming adventure stuff then add that on top, but you need resistance training as a base for any other movement that you're doing, and that includes yoga and stuff like that. Yeah, 100%. So yoga is great. I strongly recommend yoga plays all that sort of stuff, but again, you should have resistance training as a base to have strong muscles to support your joints. The thing that I thought about this morning when we went for our walk was. There's a lot of people running, and I feel like running is the common way to start being healthy like it's like I want to lose weight. I want to be healthier. I'll start running, which it shouldn't. It should be resistance training when when is it going to change from running to resistance training? So if you do go running, don't go running around now in the morning 'cause we've judged the **** out of you.

And that's the thing, like running is a practice in itself and you should be working on it and getting better at it. And a lot of people just hitting the pavement, pavement, stomping around. And I just look at their knees and the ankles and just go. A couple of months. So, but then again, 'cause it consistency like this is where this sort of whoop comes into it. Again, like the whoop will track how much movement, how much activity you're doing, and there is a certain amount of activity you should be doing to be a healthy operating normal human being each day and your whoop tells you what that is, and even if you're not getting that much, getting trying to get closer, that is going to improve your health. Like yeah, heaps. Just for any little example that I use on the training call, the other night was this month. Jack and I trying to hit our strain, which is like a recommended amount of movement for the day from your whoop each day which is calculated depending on your heart rate variability and. Your recovery and it's very hard actually, but the days that I have hit my recommended strain, my recovery the next day is so so much better and I feel so much better. And it's like I feel like a lot of the time people are like I'm tired. I shouldn't exercise when your body probably needs that movement and it doesn't have to be high-intensity crazy intervals. Yeah, a stupid amount of resistance training as well like. Just the right amount, like going for a good walk. Yeah, will get the strain upon your work. Yeah, it doesn't have to be crazy. Bad exercises, all that stuff. Just moving, doing stuff like just mowing the lawn, washing your car. Just walking that little bit more each day. Just being active throughout the day is more beneficial than just smashing out one hard workout and then sitting on the couch for the rest of that, yeah. I did talk about consistency with that did not. Yeah yeah. Good consistency here. At the last one guys stick with us, sorry the 4th one we've got is well being and a purpose I guess. So. Yeah, I feel like the thing that impacts a lot of people's well being that they don't think about really is stress. Not even just stress from work and life but stress from the wrong exercise. Stress from too much junk food. Too much alcohol, not enough sleep. Overtraining. Do I say that I think I said that, yeah, but stress is going to negatively impact all of the things that we've previously talked about? And if you don't manage your stress, then it's going to be a lot harder for you to be healthy and get the results you want, I guess.

Yes, so but then the rest of those things we just talked about can help with your stress. So just doing a nice workout or going for a walk or just eating a good healthy meal can make you feel better and less stressed. Yeah? So the next one would be time making time for all this sort of stuff. And that's again a huge thing. We understand that people are busy. Life gets in the way, but again, if nothing if you don't change anything, nothing changes. Yeah, so you've got to change something for something to change. And again, that's why we suggest just choosing one or two of these, making it super simple doesn't take up much time and just working on it so it is a daily practice that you do and you don't even notice it anymore. Then you add some more stuff in. And then slowly you're working up to be a healthy person. So although it's hard, just take some time. I do feel like time is a mindset thing. People with a good mindset. Tend to feel like they have more time in the day or they are better at managing their time and people with a crappy mindset. Have that mentality that I have no time my life so busy like the world's against me. So if you start doing the things that we've already mentioned and you start feeling better then you will start to move towards that more positive mindset and without even focusing on the time you will just have more time for the things you want to improve on.

The next one was being outside, I feel like. People take this for granted a lot, as in just being outside like looking up at the sky just sitting there being present, breathing because I feel like life is so busy and trying to do all the things that you're trying to do in the day and work. And kids and everything like that. Like when was the last time that you just sat outside and looked up. I feel like I do this every single day. And I try to do it between the transition from work and not work because we work from home. Yeah, and it is just so nice and it's just like everything I was stressed about during the day. It's like it doesn't matter like what doesn't matter anymore. Yep. But that also comes into being in the moment. Just taking time to not stress about stuff. So at the moment, you're not in the past and stressed about everything you've done, all the mistakes you know, the things you've said during that day, or you're not thinking about the future, 'cause you can't predict the future. So you're stressing about the future. So if you're just in the moment for a little bit, yeah, weather again it could just be a workout or going for a walk or just taking. A couple of breaths looking outside. Yeah, just being in that moment just gives your brain your body time to just chill out and not worry about anything and that is very beneficial. Also side note, just being outside for 15 minutes on your lunch break is probably going to give you more energy than getting a coffee and then that coffee is also going to wreck your sleep later. Yeah, can you bring up the post on Facebook that I put in the group chat yesterday in our group? So and we're going to finish off with this one and. It sort of wraps it up to the purpose and everything you're doing. And it's about self-love. So do you want to read out from the caption on the photo? Yep, you really can't ever force yourself to be healthy. The journey only begins when you love yourself enough to change. Yeah, and I can't stress that enough. Self loves a lot of people will put themselves down and say bad things about themselves even think thinking bad thoughts about themselves. All that sort of stuff. But starting to think better about yourself. Showing some self-love. Appreciate the things you are doing. It's going to work a lot better if you're doing that, and you're going to appreciate it more. You're going to love yourself more, so you're going to want to do it more. You want to be a healthy person, so just take that time. Show yourself some love are set in in that post with that photo.

We all tell our family and friends and everything as we love them all the time. But we never stopped looking ourselves in the mirror and telling ourselves we love him. Yeah ourselves and telling yourself you love you is OK and you should be doing it. And trust me, if you start doing it and start showing a bit of self love these things will start to come naturally and you'll want to do it. Yeah for yourself rather than for other people's eyeballs. Yep. Uhm, cool, we'll leave it there as always, if you got something out of this, please share it with some other people. If you're listening and you haven't pressed, follow on Spotify and make sure you do that. It helps us reach more people and take a screenshot. Share it on social, tag us and we'll share it as well. Thanks to those that have started doing that, it's quite awesome to see those people listening for a little fan group at the gym happen. It's pretty good, so thanks to you guys and you know who you are, make sure you head over to our website and download something. Free and will talk to you all on Friday for the wrap-up.

@jack_insitubody

@mack.insituhealth