Episode 124. Positivity, Body Image and Habits
Episode 124. Positivity, Body Image and Habits
In today's episode, we'll discuss how looking for the good in yourself, other humans or your new habits will lead you to find good. While looking for the negative will only lead you to find the bad, in all situations. We touch on body positivity and how it could be negatively impacting your long-term health and lastly we talk about how your environment plays a more significant role in your behaviours and habits than you may think.
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Episode 124. Positivity, Body Image and Habits
What is up everybody? Welcome back to the Insitu Health and Fitness podcast. On the Friday show, we wrapped the week up with interesting facts, teachable moments and fun things that we think will help you achieve your health and fitness goals.
01:21
This week I wanted to start today's episode with a quote from a New Scientist, podcaster, influencer maybe, that I have found in the last week called Lex Friedman. He's Russian American, he's very, very popular in the US and like we've heard about him heaps. But Jack and I sort of like, we didn't really get it. We're like, what's all the fuss about? Yeah, tried to listen to a couple episodes here and there, just didn't vibe with it. Yeah, because his podcast episodes are like 3 hours long. They're all guest episodes. But anyway, as you guys know, if you listen to our podcast, I love the human lab Huberman Lab podcast. And Lex was a guest on Hubs's podcast. And I was like, Oh my goodness, I completely overlooked. Licks altogether as a podcast host. So now I the past week have been listening to every podcast between Andrew Huberman and Lex Friedman that I can possibly find. There's just something about the chemistry that the two of them have together. That just makes me see the world completely differently, and they have a very good perspective on life. So this is a podcast. This is a podcast. This is a quote that I found from Lex that I thought was would be very relevant to all of our listeners. And the quote is, if you look for a reason to hate a person, eventually you'll find it. If you look for a reason to celebrate a person, eventually you'll find it. The former leads to resentment and destructive criticism. The latter leads to happiness. Growth
03:00
for you and those you celebrate.
03:04
I really like this for multiple reasons. One, I think it's, I don't know, I just, it's really good. It's really relatable. At this current state in time I feel like everyone being isolated and stuff like that, going back into society, it's super easy to. Find the negative things in people because you're so used to your small circle or spending time with yourself. Yeah I think, yeah. And also I think that it just relates. You can replace the words person like find a reason to hate a person with anything that we talk about on this podcast. So you could replace it with going to the gym, exercise, eating broccoli, eating breakfast, going to bed early, getting up early, drinking. Before I like you can replace it. If you look for the negative things in any of those areas of your life, you're going to find them. Likewise, if you look for the positive things in any of those areas, you're also going to find them and at least the positive. But the positive does make your life better. Whether negative makes your life worse, you end up in the downward spiral or of. Everything's bad. Everybody hates me. I hate everybody and it's just a bad place to be in and then the positive like. I guess a real world example, bringing it back to exercise and that sort of stuff. I had a client today doing some exercises that he's never done before. They're very dynamic, explosive movements, so your whole body needs to be working in use and to complete the movement with proper technique. It's very difficult to do. But anybody that starts off doing these movements similar to a cleaner jerk and ****** those that have done those know that it's very hard, very technical, and it's just very hard to get right because there's a lot involved
05:00
and. Oh, I don't like those ones. And as soon as he said that, I know now to bring up the positives out of these exercises. So he's like, oh, they're not my favorite. And I said, well, they're explosive movement. They're good for this, this and this. And then he's like, yeah, yeah, they are. So straight away I tried to turn his negative into positive. So now he looks at that movement in a positive way. It's gonna work on my explosive strength. That's going to work on my stretch reflex, all that sort of stuff. So instead of looking at as a negative. Now hopefully he looks at it the positive and that's the same with Eddie like you know, you could say that about. Like we've spoken last week about our goals for 2023, to bring more high interval training, high intensity interval training into our lifestyle program. Just I don't like it. So we don't do it. So again we get caught out in this stuff like you've really got to, it's hard because you've got to catch yourself doing these things like. I have focused on the negatives of high intensity interval training. If you do it the wrong way, but if you do it the right way, there's a lot of positives to it. It's just not many people. Do it the right way. And in the past I've done it all the wrong ways. I haven't done it the right way. So I'm excited to be doing it the right way to get the benefits from it. And I've got to continue to see my remind myself of the positives, so I actually do it. So it's not just like this one thing. This this morning, like it's not that one thing that I can say to this client that. OK, like you know these three positive things about this exercise and believe it, it's a continuous working. Thing that you got to be doing. It's not just one positive thing and OK, it's a positive forever. Yeah, you gotta keep working work, especially if your instant reaction is to find the negative thing. Which in the past when we've had like difficult situations
07:00
in life, I notice myself go into almost like a phase where it will be days, weeks or even months where I am all of a sudden. Something negative has happened. I'm all of a sudden. Always looking at the negative things. I'm always highlighting the negative things. I always bring the negative things about a situation. People, the day, food, weather, shop, shopping, anything. I just bring the negative things to light. And the more that you do that, obviously the easier it is to do. Like most things you do, you think about negative things. So it becomes a lot easier to notice negative things. So what I guess you can try and do and what I try and do is if I. Think of a negative thing. And especially if I say a negative thing, I try and I catch myself. I try to then immediately. Say a positive thing, or replace a negative thing with two positive things. Because it's not going to, like you said, it's not just like you think 1 positive thing and. You love eating vegetables for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Now you have to constantly tell your brain that this is what we want, this is the right path, this is the right decision, this is the right reaction, and that takes a very long time to ingrain. And something bad happening in your life can flip the switch back on, like overnight or within an instant, I should say, well, somebody talked to you in a bad way or upset you. It's very easily to talk bad about them. Or, you know, jump on the bandwagon of somebody else that's happened to, like your friend, and they're talking negative. It's easy for you to jump in and talk negative about that other person as well. So just again, like, I'll catch myself doing this all the time, it's very hard. It's something you do need to work on, but it is something you should be working on. Yeah.
08:50
Part of who you are and like we always say on this podcast, trying to improve your health and fitness. Mental health is part of that as well and this goes into that. And I'm sorry, you go now you go. I was going to say, I think it's very hard to. Stay motivated and to keep doing things that improve your health and fitness when. You are constantly looking at why you hate it. Like I really do dislike when people use exercise like to punish themselves or restrict themselves like with eating because. The negative part of them is that they are overweight, so I'm going to just restrict myself like there's no tomorrow or I'm going to exercise hard and fast as I possibly can because I'm fat and I deserve to hurt. You deserve to be punished from this exercise, which isn't. I'm sure we've spoken about it many times before, but it isn't sustainable. There's always going to be a rebound effect when you. Do things like that. Whereas if you also look at yourself and try to find the positive things in yourself and the positive changes maybe that you've already made, it's a lot easier to be like, Oh well, I've already. Done this, this, this. I've already made this a habit. I might as well just keep going. I'm doing great. I'm a good. I'm a good person. I love my life. You know, it's like a waterfall. Is that the right domino effect? Yeah, definitely. And this sort of goes into the topic eye wanted to bring up and talk about on today's show as well because. Choose that show we talked about. The misfire mistakes that everybody makes when they're first exercising and when I say everybody, I do include us in that. Everybody. I'm not picking on any individuals or anything like that. And a good conversation come out of it with a listener. And I just heard another thing and we spoke about goal setting on our first mistake that everybody makes and setting goals and no one actually sets them properly or thinks about actually setting a goal. They're just like I'm going to lose 15 kilos.
10:58
And then that's it. Yeah. So these would be some sort of structure to the goal. And one of the things we talk about is embodying the person you want to become. So yes, you want to lose 15 kilos, but what is that person doing now that they've lost, lost 15 kilos in the future? Like what do they do today? Today they walk, they eat healthy, they exercise regularly, they sleep well, hydrate, all that sort of stuff. So you've got to embody that person and start doing that activities that they do to become that person and. We just heard or watching something about body positivity and this whole thing about. Love yourself, no matter who you are or what you look like and all that sort of stuff, and it's OK to be overweight as long as you love yourself and all that sort of thing. And look, I think everybody should love themselves no matter what they look like. But. If you're overweight and you're carrying too much body fat, it's very unhealthy and you're causing yourself damage both. In the short term and long term, I strongly believe everybody should live a long and healthy life. And that's why I do this. I want everybody to be happy, love themselves, live a long healthy life. They fit do all the things they want to do, but that doesn't actually matter what you look like.
12:18
So it's like funny that you bring up about positivity and that sort of stuff and yes, we did talk about. We didn't really dive into this and body positivity in that goal. If you haven't listened that episode, go back and listen to that, just that first goal setting bit and then come back to this episode and we'll make a bit more sense. Because. Yes, you can love yourself and you should love yourself no matter what. But you shouldn't love yourself in an unhealthy situation. You know what I'm saying? Like it's hard. Sometimes it's very hard to. You know, because if I love myself and it doesn't matter, I could sit on the couch all day and eat what I want. Yeah, stop. But I'd be very unhealthy and die a lot sooner. So yeah. Yeah, I definitely agree. I think it's also in the past we've spoken about it. Like in both directions, because obviously there's this big movement at the minute that you should love yourself at any weight like you said. And generally that is. Said by maybe or about overweight people, but it's also relevant to people that are severely underweight, like. Either end of the spectrum. I'm pretty sure we've spoken about the spectrum right where you have to find the healthy middle. I can't remember the exact name of what we called it in past episodes, but. Yeah, I don't know. Society sometimes makes it hard to for people like the general public to know what is right and what is wrong. So. Like generally,
14:00
health practitioners, like anyone in the health realm, will say you've got to be this weight or this BMI to be considered healthy. But now? There's all these influences that have like a higher status than the health practitioners who used to be the highest status. And they might be overweight and they just come out and say I'm overweight and I am happy. So it's OK if you want to do that too. And the health practitioners aren't as maybe aren't respected or aren't in the limelight as much so. Like, the risks of, like, living your entire life overweight are sort of muted out or dampened by, like, the overflowing amount of influences that are saying it's OK for you to be overweight. Yeah. And that's probably why heart diseases and all that sort of stuff are still the leading causes of death all around the world. Yeah. This is a whole issue. Like somebody says they want to lose 15 kilos, but then you've got this influence saying no, you're fine the way you are, but. It's not the way that. It's not your intended yet so. Like yes, you might actually need to lose 15 kilos so you can continuously live a life. And like I said, everybody should be able to live a life and. If you need to lose 15 kilos, you need to lose 15 kilos like you need to be healthy. Let's disregard about how you actually look in that. Let's just focus on getting you to be healthy so you can actually continually living a life. So. I just wanted to sort of bring that up a little bit because, yeah, people will get a little bit caught up in that in, you know, again, I'm just using this 15 kilos as a random goal of people wanting to lose weight. People sort of get a bit confused, like over analysis of goal setting and that sort of stuff, so I just want to bring that up as well. I also think it's important to note that. Like, you can be overweight and be happy with your life and your body and
16:00
still want to change because like, just because someone told you it's OK to be overweight doesn't mean it's wrong for you to be happy and change. Yeah. Like, it's like that should be and it can be hard, but that should be like the healthy place that you are at when you start your weight loss journey. Like, you should be OK with your body and then still want to change. Yeah and yeah, 100% and we'll leave it there. I'll stop caring. Good topic though. The other thing that I wanted to talk about today is a little very OK. It's very different pace to what we just spoke about, but. It is. I've named it resetting the space. I don't know if you've noticed me doing this, but I think I located it already, but I've just sort of made it a thing so it's much more satisfying. So when I say resetting the space. You know, I think I did do this a lot before, but anyway, whenever I leave a room or a space, so say I. Get dressed in the morning and I leave the bedroom and I'm not going to come back to the bedroom until we go to bed. I like to set the bedroom in the way that I want it when I'm ready for bed. Right. So that going to bed is as easy as it possibly can be because I've already set it up like 8 hours 12 hours prior, or like if we're done watching TV, I try to put the blanket back, put the cushions back nicely, put the remote away and set the space. So it's not as easy for me to just resume watching TV, I guess. And then same thing for like my desk or the kitchen or anywhere in the house really, whenever. Leave the space. I try to think when am I coming back here and how do I want it to be when I come back? Why do I want it to be like that? Usually it's for productivity, time saving reasons. But I don't know. This little past week I have found it extremely satisfying and motivating, but I think that just for anyone that's trying to.
18:00
Start and a little healthier. Drink more water, like be more productive or mindful. Having a cluttered space is the worst. Like it feels overwhelming, like not making your bed. Almost makes it super easy to just jump back in there in the middle of the day and take a nap for no reason. You know what I mean? Does it make sense? Yeah.
18:25
It's like when I work with people online to home gym. I'll always say leave it neat and tidy. Don't clutter it up and don't have it like a lot of people would just say a home gym, but it's like a magnet. A couple dumbbells and they put it in the cupboard. And then they forget about it because they can't see it. And that sort of stuff. Yeah, definitely. Always set your home gym up so it looks pleasing. It's nice and neat and all that sort of stuff. So then you want to actually use it and then. Set it back up so it's pleasing to use it again after you've just used it. Don't just leave **** laying around, because if you leave your dumbbells and all that sort of stuff laying around, then you're like just put this other thing there and then all of a sudden it's just a cluttered corner. Yeah, I think we're just humans in general under rate. How much our environment. Like impacts our ability to make decisions because. I don't know like for example if you are folding the washing on a Sunday afternoon and you keep out like a set of workout clothes and put them in the bathroom in the morning. Then your old habit might be to get up, go the bathroom, go to the kitchen and make a coffee in your pajamas. Whereas if you Sunday night have reset the space in the bathroom to how you want it to be in the morning, you're going to get up, go to the bathroom and see your clothes there and you'll be reminded, oh, that's right, this week I just decided that I want to start going for a 10 minute walk in the morning. And the clothes are already there and the trigger is there and it's just a lot easier for you to there's a lot less effort you have to put into it. Well, I think everybody at home. Listening.
20:00
It would know and it just experienced over Christmas how the reverse happens. So everybody's got their routine, you're smashing it out, you're doing the right things, and all of a sudden your family comes over and your environment changes. How hard is it to actually keep up your routine when that happens? So even for us it's so hard and that's environment matters and it's just. Listening, if you guys go back over the last couple of weeks, I'm sure everybody environments changed and you couldn't do what you normally do. And again, sometimes it's not bad, like sometimes it's more important to spend time with your family than. Do a workout, but it's just like your environment does change and when it does change like that, it's just a good. Way to reflect and go. Oh yeah. So that does actually change my life a fair bit. So if I can learn from that and implement different things to improve myself, yeah, use it in your favor, right? Because I feel like we're only ever exposed to it in a negative way, like over the holidays. We don't often think about using it in our favor to create habits or whatever it is you're trying to achieve. So I just got one listener question. This week everybody's still holiday in and enjoying themselves. We didn't even put a question box up. This comes from an in person clients and it's to do with how much you should do. So this person's just got into health and fitness and they are consuming all the content as you do and it's very hard because you follow five different fitness influencers for lack of. Would that you're going to have five different opinions. And a lot of the time they're very extreme. And I find we even do this sometimes, our content. And unfortunately you've got to be extreme to one end of a certain thing because people go, oh wow, really drives me nuts. But
22:00
honestly, it's just somewhere in the middle and you don't have to stress about it too much. And two of the things that come up in the conversation was about eating your meat first. Then so it was protein, carbs, fat, no, protein, veggies, carbs, fats one even in the mix. Ohh, OK. And it's like this guy was saying you have to eat every single meal this in this direct order. And we've said in the past how it's important to eat protein first like sort of stuff. And yes it is. But this guy was very extreme and it's like this every single meal and it's like. It doesn't have to be like. Yes, that is the optimal way to eat your protein 1st and then everything else on your plate, but. Does it matter? Yes, but not as much as this guy was carrying on about. So it's just funny how you can go to extremes that way and then.
22:55
Oh, what's his name? The Goggins, David Goggins, yeah. So. And then obviously you see a couple of David Goggins posts in there and quotes and that sort of stuff and he's like, do you really need to do this much and what? No, you do not need to do that much exercise to the point where these people are saying, again that is very extreme. Because he also brought up another post that he's seeing contradicting that about somebody who was on Joe Rogan's podcast saying actually tearing shreds off Joe Rogan, which is pretty nice. Well, he was on the Joe Rogan podcast because Joe Rogan's all about as much volume as you can push hard. All that sort of stuff in his workouts as well. And this guy was saying when I work with clients. To start with, they'll do 5 pushups. In the workout, and that's it, because the next day they're not going to be sore and they can do another five the next day and they're not going to be sore the next day. So over a week, they've done 25 push-ups where if I got them to do 25 pushups on the first day, that would be too sore and I wouldn't see them for another five days. So you're better off breaking up that volume over those couple of days. So it was just pretty cool. And he's like, well, this client said, well, what's right, which way? And I said look in between, like for this guy, he could do a little bit more. Quad pushups, obviously. So we push a little bit harder and it's this thing, it's very different for everybody, right? Five pushups is too much for some people and it's not even close to enough for some other people. So and this is the thing like. David Goggins and all these other people for push-ups as nothing to them. So they're out there doing 100 pushups and like 100 pushups is easy. Everybody should be able to do pushups. That's not not everybody. Like chill out, like it's just funny, that conversation of. Same thing. There's a lot of info out there, but you've just got to be mindful of what actually works, what works for you, and don't take everything you see on social media as. The must. And that is precise info. Yeah, it's probably. There's probably some truth to it, even though it could be extreme
25:00
to one way or the other. There is some truth to it, but you've got to be smart enough to look through it and understand it for yourself. Yeah, just, I feel like just trying. Like look at it and. Think what can I take from this and what level of this can I add into my life sustainably like if he's saying doing 100 pushups. Maybe you like, recognize that pushups are an important movement to have in your exercise routine, but pushups doesn't suit you, so you just start somewhere else. Like start with where you're at, not with where David Goggins is at. Also. I have a slightly off topic thing that I wanted to bring up, but did you wanna finish on what you're saying? I just had that from like I said, one of the person claims. I thought it was pretty good to bring up when observation. Yeah, definitely. When you said how that guy on the Joe Rogan podcast gets his clients to do 5 pushups the first session, 10 pushups the next session, it just reminded me of like an anecdote that James Clear uses in the book Atomic Habits about building the habit of exercise. And it was a story. Of a reader of James Clegg's blog I believe, and he started going to the gym in the New Year. But he just physically went to the gym and did. He didn't do anything. He just went there and he just was like, I can't going to be here for 5 minutes. If I stretch, walk on the treadmill, whatever, I'm just going to the gym for five minutes. And he did that for a week or two weeks. And then eventually like the next after a week or so, he's like, well, I'm already here. I might as well do 15 minutes of walking. And then I've got, actually, I've got an extra bit more extra time today. I might as well do 30 minutes of resistance training and it just gradually. Built but. It was like it built as a sustainable habit because he started slowly and it was just like, at this time of the day, this is what I do. I just go
27:00
to the gym. It's not like I go and I do a hard, grueling weightlifting workout. It just started as the habit of I'm going to the gym and it just grew and built into something more. And then they enjoyed it and it was sustainable and wasn't sore because he started out gradually. And I just feel like it's very overlooked, especially this time of the year because everyone wants to start with. 125% effort. Yeah, yeah, and burn out in a week. Yeah, and never do it for 12 months. And then New Year's ****. Do it again. But just remember that just physically going to the gym is still more than what you were doing last month. Like we always say this in all my posts, a little bit of change is better than none. Yeah, it doesn't matter how small of change it is. A little bit is better than nothing. And people just underestimate how much little change can add up. Yeah, definitely. So don't you listening. Do not underestimate it and just change a little bit. Alright, let's leave it there going deep and wide in podcast. Thank you for listening. If you're still here, we pray. Appreciate you and we'll talk to you all in the next episode. Bye.
