#34. How to get a friend or family member started in health and fitness.
Jack
Add in more movement.
Start with a simple exercise.
One to two sessions a week.
Total body workouts.
Don't overtrain.
Avoid injuries.
Don't let it consume your life, add it in.
Finish your workouts with energy.
Mack
Don't cut out foods, add in more healthy food.
Don't change what you eat, just count calories.
Water intake.
Start with making ONE meal better.
Don't tell family or friends they are wrong.
Don't force educate OR force feed.
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Welcome back, everybody, to our very first episode of 2022. We want to start the year off with this episode because we know many of you who listen are already into your health and fitness and on your fitness journey. Generally, we know somebody that we think should start or you should be helping them. Or it could just be a family member that you want to start working on their health and fitness as well to sort of.
Help you along, and it's always better when everybody around you got the same goal. So this episode, you can pass it on, or you can just take one of these tips tricks and add it into your life and their life if they're close enough to do so. But as always, with this sort of stuff, we highly recommend that you start slowly, and it's going to be pretty much our first tip. We'll get into it in a second, but don't go changing your whole life.
We feel like we want to do this episode close to New Year because of everybody. After the change, everything, yeah it's like alright, New Year here, so I'm going to stop doing everything and start doing everything right. So if you're that person, make sure you listen to this whole episode because I think you're going to get a lot out of this. But again, just start slowly adding one thing in and once that's a habit, move on to the next thing. This brings me to my first one. So we're going to go. I'll go with a fitness one, then Mac will go for a health and food one, and then we'll go. Vice versa. I think I've got a few more than you, so we'll end up talking about mine a couple of bits more than yours, as usual. Alright, so my first one is just adding more movement.
I feel like many people think they have to go to the gym and start working out super hard five days a week to get results and start being healthy when you can simply just start walking more. Wake up in the morning, go for a walk, and it doesn't even have to be every day, even if it's just on the weekends. Wake up on the weekends.
Just add a 20-minute walk in on Saturday, Sunday and then that can creep into your week and build from there. It does not have to be. You know, all out on nothing, it can just be simple movements, simple as maybe even just mowing your lawns. Yes, I think I feel like we have talked about neat a lot in the past and its benefit. It is just increasing that. What's that stand for again non-exercise activity thermogenesis?
It's just moved more each day and just doing things that don't exercise. Wash your car once a week—even things like that. Alright, I'll leave it there. What's your first one, cool? So my first one? It is similar to adding small bits of movement. Start by adding more healthy food. So rather than cutting out foods that people think are bad or. That you feel guilty eating, I suppose. Just adding more food and then automatically leaving less room for the quote, unquote bad foods, or high-calorie foods. So yeah, it's super simple to place to start. It is just adding more vegetables to meals or having vegetables as a snack before you have your usual snack of chocolate and chips or something. Yeah, I feel like many people do that, especially with New Year's. They're like, oh, I've eaten way too much of this over Christmas and New Year.
I'm going not to eat that anymore, cut out all that, and then Add all this stuff in, but it lasts about three days. Yeah, and what ends up happening is you eat way more than you would have eaten if you just keep kept having like one chocolate a day and having more vegetables. You'll just end up bingeing and having like a whole box of chocolates in one sitting. Rather yeah, so you'd have to get rid of your favourite foods to be healthy or to reach your goals. Just have to add more fruits and vegetables.
I feel good. One of that is desserts because we don't have dessert, and over Christmas where you started having desserts at our family's place, and I feel like to get out of that, you have more protein at dinner, satisfy you, and you're so full, and you don't want dessert anymore. So just things like that simple proper back to me. Alright? So I've already talked about just adding in more movement.
The next one would be, adding in simple exercises so pushups, air squats, lunges, just full-body functional
movements, as in are you saying just randomly throughout the day or two? Adding them to a workout? Good question, so both are OK. So basically, if you're not a gym person, I'd add these throughout the day. Again, we've spoken about this in the previous podcast and again on the last topic of increasing your needs if you want to do ten pushups. Ten air squats, so just a squad in the air and ten sit-ups five times a day. You know, that's quite a lot of reps, and that's going to get you to need up all day.
But if you're somebody that does want to go to the gym and start working out just adding simple exercises when you first go again, you seem to overcomplicate these things. When you go back to the gym or get into the gym for the first time, simple movements if you're going to a gym and it's got machines, and it's your first time there, or you haven't been for a while, jump on a device. I know functional is better, but you can't use those machines if you don't see what you're doing. You sit down and move the machine, and it can only go in One Direction. You're not going to hurt yourself. You're working your muscles. You're creating those habits. Just keep it super simple is all I'm going to say. You don't have to do these weirdly—over-complicated exotic movements. Yeah, as you know, hit this and jumping over that and battle ropes and all kettlebells. Like all valuable tools, all are great for you. But when you're first starting, just keep it simple. Start moving, activate muscles. That's all you need to do. I'll leave that one cool. OK, my next one would be to try not to encourage or not encourage. Try not to tell people to change what they are eating, so don't say, " Oh, that's bad for you. You shouldn't be eating that you should be eating. I don't know chicken and rice and broccoli for every meal instead, so don't do that. Rather, people hate being told what to do, or more so that they are wrong.
So I would suggest encouraging friends or family to start counting their calories. Then they will see for themselves the value of the food they're eating and either that eating too much or not enough and it's not coming from you, learning it themselves, so more likely to want to change through that way rather than being told that they're wrong. Because everybody hates that, especially when it comes from friends or family. Yeah, I feel like they get very defensive. Yeah, what would you know? And I don't know how many times people have said, hate counting calories. But once they start doing it, you get addicted to it because you see the value of your food and how many calories and things you didn't think were higher calories and vice versa. And it's exciting. Yeah, like you're learning about yourself. So many people who haven't done it or don't know once they start doing it are pretty fun and addictive. So it is an excellent way to. Not understand it, yeah, for sure. Alright, so my next one is you've started moving more. You've done simple exercises, and we're getting into the gym and starting to build a routine. And again, this is where people sort of jump in and think. If I'm going to the gym, I need to do five sessions a week, or it's not worth it. And I'd say it's the complete opposite. I would strongly suggest doing it two sessions a whole week body, so you're working every single muscle in your body two times a week. And if you've got the right program and you're doing it right, and you've got a good connection with your body, then that's all you need because you've already built those other habits of working each day, and all that sort of stuff. You were adding in two days of activating each muscle under tension. Is it going to be good for your health? Which will go into my next one, which goes on you might as well keep going. Keep nearly double thing. So that is just going to help avoid injuries, so basically. As a trainer, everybody sort of makes a New Year's resolution all the time. They're going to start working out. They jump in five days a week, two or three weeks in.
They're injured, and they just stopped. So that's what you don't want to do. You don't want to build all these good habits and then all of a sudden not be able to do them because you're injured. So that's why we're building up slowly walking each day, adding simple movements, and then two full-body sessions a week. It's just going to be good long term progress and avoid injuries, so. Avoiding injuries is one of the most significant sorts of things. I want to point out that so many people get injured and don't return to their fitness—journey or back to the gym or anything like that. So avoid injuries. Yeah, can I? I'm just going to say something on top of that that came to mind when. I was starting. I feel like I was quantity over quality a lot initially, and I feel like if you want to take someone to the gym, you should set an example or reinforce that it is the other way around. So quality over quantity because even now, sometimes I see people doing quads and stuff in the gym, and they're going hard and fast, and they're sweating.
I'm like, oh man, like I'm very I'm a very competitive person, and I want to do that but then every time I. Do that. I end up significantly injured and have to go back to the start and lose a lot of my strength in the big lifts. So yeah, the quality quantity for sure, and just while we're there, yeah full range, so yeah, I did say total body workouts or full body workouts but full-range movements, so I'm talking back squats or lay down up. Overhead press deadlifts, significant compounding movements, but doing them to the full range, it's not much point. Doing a back squat if you're only going through half a squad, take your time at work on your range of motion. So work on getting a full depth squat down before you start loading it up.
The more range you work your muscles, the more activation you get, which means you're building more muscle and burning more fat. All that sort of stuff, cool, cool. OK, the following point that I have is. Encouraging family members or friends to drink more water. I feel like it's pretty obvious. It's pretty basic, but a lot of the time, when people think that they're hungry or craving something, they're just thirsty. So without even having to tell people to drink more water. I know Christmas is over, but great gifts like a litre water bottle. Super simple and they're probably just going to drink more water in having a water bottle with them. Also, it helps you stay full for longer if you're drinking more water. And I know when I'm around family and friends that I like to make my water fancy. You know, because I don't drink much alcohol, I'll put like lemon or lime and things like that in it. And then other people are like, oh cool, maybe I'll do that too and then subconsciously, you're encouraging them to drink more water without actually telling them to drink more water. And it helps with everything like brain function, bodily functions moving—micronutrients around your body. Joint health everything you need water, yeah, so it's an easy one to work on. Excellent, so my next one is carrying on from the injuries and all that sort of stuff, but he doesn't. It's don't overtrain. So what I mean by this is very spoken about not diving into it five days a week. All that sort of stuff is built up slowly, but once we start building a routine and go to the gym two to three times a week, don't overtrain, so don't overdo it. This comes into what you're doing outside the gym as well. So what does your life look like? Everything can overload your body, and training is one of them. But you know work stress is just being around family and a bit more pressure than holds. You're partying a little bit more.
You're eating all the foods that you might not be eating. Generally, all that sort of stuff adds to your body's stress. You know your body can't digest alcohol and processed foods as well, so that's more stress on your body. So adding in high-intensity training on top of all that you're going to overtrain because your body is already at a high point of stress, and you're just adding more stress on top of it.
If you are at the beach all day, surfing, running, walking, all that sort of stuff. So that is all that I consider training as well, and it can overload your body, so make sure you take a bigger step back and look at your life and how it is. I know at the moment a lot of my clients I've just got doing straightforward workouts, not too intense. Just keeping it simple. Like I said, just going through activating each muscle, and that's all you need for this time of the year. Most of them are already stressed and. Got things going on that they don't normally do out of normal routine, so just taking it easy and just sort of having a look at your life and make sure you don't overdo it because again, you overdo it. You might not hit an injury, but you might overtrain and just hit a wall and get less motivated feel more sleepy during the day. Feel like you don't want to do anything. It's because you have overtrained, and it's not necessarily a physical injury, but it could be a mental injury as well. Yeah, which is probably harder to come back. Arguably 100%. Cool down with that one. Yeah, OK, so another thing I guess or another good place to start would be focusing on yourself or getting a family member to improve one meal. So rather than having the mentality of tomorrow, I'm going to eat healthy for the rest of my life. That doesn't work. So just focus on one meal. Probably the most leisurely meal for you to either cook Prep or a meal that you know you always. Eat at home.
Start with saying I don't know breakfast is a good place to start, but it's the first meal of the day. So start by adding vegetables or fruit to that meal or even have a vegetable and fruit smoothie because then you get vegetables in maybe if you prefer fruit or cold breakfast. And making smoothies and things like overnight oats and chia puddings, and. Breakfast that isn't just eggs and bacon but has some vegetables with it as well while you're staying with family or camping or on holidays or whatever other people will just look at that and be like oh wow, your breakfast looks so good like something you get at a cafe like I know my family does that a lot. Just starting with one starting at one place, the easiest place for you, or the easiest place you can see for a family member is a great way to build momentum to improve the other two or three meals. Yeah, I think that's very underrated. I feel like many people might hear meal prep and go. That's three meals a day. Five days in a week, yeah, and that's just all of a sudden blown out to all these meals. I have to prep. Where if you just prep dinner? It's nights a week. That's only five or six meals. You need to prep. Yeah, and then you know you can go to the beach all day, and you know that when you get home, all of your vegetables are already cut up, or you have a meal in the fridge ready to go. Yeah, and you can still enjoy your holidays. Super easy, yeah, good point cool alright. The next one I guess we're following on from the overtraining and looking at your life is don't let fitness or the gym or working out consume your life. I feel like many people start this, and then everything else gets put on the back burner. They stop doing fun things. They stop going out for dinner. I've got to get these results. I can't mess with this workout. All that sort of stuff where. It should be seamlessly in your life, yeah, but not a hindrance to your life
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so don't get to the point where you can't do anything else other than work out and focus on meal prepping and all that sort of stuff. So I just want to sort of add that in there as just a sort of thing that I remind. A reminder that there is life outside of a gym and working out and that sort of stuff you don't have to sacrifice the fun things to be healthy and fit, yeah. Yeah, I guess that goes into the conversation of maybe jumping off social media for this time of the year because many people see all the beach bodies and all that sort of stuff on Instagram and go, Oh my God, look like that behind. You have to catch up and stop doing all the fun things, so you don't know what they're going through, and they might not be healthy people, and that could be from last summer and that person to big fatty exactly. So don't stress about what everybody else is doing. Focus on your own thing. Focus on your health and Wellness. Focus on things we've been doing, and don't let them consume your life. Cool, OK, I'm just going to wrap my last two points into one. I feel like I've already slightly covered this one, which is don't tell family or friends that they're wrong because people don't like that. And then more likely to not want to change. Don't force educate, and don't force feed. So by that, I mean don't tell somebody while they're eating a sausage in bread that they're going to get heart disease and die or something like that.
People don't want to be educated. If they don't choose to be so, people will only learn if they decide to understand you. Telling them that they're eating the wrong thing and it's terrible for their health is probably going to. Because they to do more of it as they're in retaliation. I know my family would do that anyway, and As for, don't force-feed, I mean as in if you're having. I don't know, like a salad sandwich or something for lunch and they have deep-fried dim Sims, don't say or don't you think you should be having this salad or here have this salad. I think you should eat this salad instead of your dim Sims because also that hurts peoples feelings. After all, it makes them feel like they don't know what they're doing with their lives. And my family does it to me in the opposite way. So if I'm eating something healthy, they'll be like. Why are you eating that? Why don't you eat sausages in bread for dinner instead? Do you know? So I know both ways. It's not that great, and both ways. It is probably mentally, emotionally, physically. I guess for me. It's going to hurt the other person, either way, so whether you're trying to force-feed someone healthy food or whether someone trying to force-feed you unhealthy food, yeah, just avoid that situation. So people sort of have to come to their conclusion rather than you telling them that they are wrong. And just to wrap mine up super simple. Like I said, start simple and work your way out. Just adding in a little bit of movement each day, simple exercises, and then doing a full workout once or twice a week is fine and just building from there and again. You don't want to get to the point where it entirely consumes your life. You're missing out on life because you're trying to chase a goal or something that is. Unachievable. Or something like that, and all this wrapped up should leave you with more energy to function in life. If you're doing this and you feel like it's draining and it's not working, and you finish your workout, and you haven't got any energy to go out and do stuff during the day, you're doing it wrong. So everything we've talked about in this episode should give you the energy to live a healthier, fitter life, and you should feel better and want to go out and do more stuff. I thought you were going to skip that last point, did you?
Yeah, because I. I like that. Don't like jacks? Got written down. Finish your workouts with energy, so I feel like I came into exercise doing CrossFit, and you don't do that. You use all of the energy you have available in the workout, and then you are dead for the rest of the day. If you follow CrossFit or you follow a CrossFit means page, you'll see so many memes about people doing the morning CrossFit and then being dead for the rest of the day. And since we've changed our training style, it is like I can train any time of the day, and I still feel OK to go back to work or go for a swim or whatever. Like still live my life. Yeah, yeah, 100%, and most clients who do my workouts say it is energizing when you finish. Yeah yeah. So again, it just goes into your workout. Should energize you for the day, the food you eat should energize you and wrap it all up into one. You should be energized throughout the whole day.