Tag Archives: advice

Health advice rollercoaster

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Coffee is bad for you, no wait, it’s good for you! A glass of read wine a day is good for your heart health, no wait, any amount of alcohol is unhealthy! Drink fruit juice, it’s high in vitamins, no wait, there’s too much sugar and not enough fibre in the juice alone! Creatine can damage your liver, no wait, it just spikes the creatine marker for liver issues, it doesn’t actually mean your liver is having issues, just that you have to look at different markers if you supplement your creatine.

From what food to eat, to what vitamins and supplements you should and shouldn’t take together, to exercises that are guaranteed to give you results, it seem like there is always a constant stream of new, updated research and information about improving heath which contradicts something we’ve heard (and believed) previously.

Here are 2 rules to follow as you travel the health advice rollercoaster:

1. The science matters. How big is the sample size, how many other studies suggest the same thing?

2. The messaging. When the threat is over emphasized, the message needs to be taken with a grain of salt. When a product is being pitched, there is an underlying benefit to exaggerating, either the cost of not taking the product or the benefit of taking it. This doesn’t mean that what is being said is true or false, it just means you need a good dose of scepticism unless you’re actually referring back to the science yourself.

Ultimately, it comes down to one question, are you getting research or are you being sold something? It’s not that you shouldn’t question both but rather if it’s advertising, this scrutiny should be significantly greater. And, no matter what it is, you can be certain that it’s probably going to contradict something you’ve heard previously. There are going to be a lot more twists, turns, and loops on this roller coaster before we truly understand how our body works and what benefits it the most.

Accept and place

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I heard this phrase and it really struck a chord with me:

“Accept people as they are, but place them where they belong.”

There are 2 really big ideas here.

First, we are often quick to want people to change, and the disparity between who people are and who we want people to become is often too large of a gap. Step one is accepting people for who they are.

The next step is a bit more challenging. We often spend way too much time on people that are not worth our time. We don’t ‘put people where they belong’. We take amazing people for granted and we focus too much attention on people who aren’t worth our time.

The task sounds simple: accept people for who they are, then place them in your life accordingly.

There are people who would do anything in the world for you. And people who you in turn would do anything for. When that’s the same person, well then you need to prioritize your connection to that person. They deserve a special place in your heart and in your life. They deserve your attention and time. Not the person that cut you off in traffic, not the annoying co-worker, not the friend in need that is never there when you are in need.

“Accept people as they are, but place them where they belong.”

Wise words to live by.

Cognitive overload

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I was tempted to start this by sharing a screenshot of my miserable sleep pattern, as recorded by my new watch. However that feels like I’m somehow bragging about how bad it is, and well, that’s not only nothing to brag about, it’s also not necessary. So just know that above everything else, my sleep cycles have been ‘off’ for a couple weeks.

I’m planning on retiring, I’m trying to document the uniqueness of my job(s) for the next principal. I’m dealing with a second family loss in just over 2 years. A close family member had a scary medical issue this summer that is only now coming to a (thankfully positive) end, and a good friend just started chemotherapy.

Cognitive overload is the term that was shared with me by my counsellor. I dismissed it. That’s not my problem, I’m a high functioning individual, I’ll be fine…

What finally gave? My sleep and my health. And now my ego. Admitting that I pushed too hard has been way too hard. I need to be quicker to listen to my counsellor and to my body.

Im happy to offer advice about the importance of taking care of yourself, but the last to take the same advice myself. The easy excuse this time is that I was in cognitive overload, the honest excuse is that I’m stubborn and believe these kinds of things are what others deal with, not me.

I hope sharing this will help someone else listen to their bodies and the people that support them.

I’ll come out of this just fine, the question is, will I learn from this or just let myself get to overload again?

Walk the talk

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Question to ponder: Would you hire a fitness coach that wasn’t physically healthy?

I had an interesting conversation today with a buddy. It was about the dance between personal bias and expectations that isn’t an easy conversation. Reflecting now, the main issue was a question of how important it is that someone helping you is ‘walking the talk’.

Question to ponder: Would you hire a swim coach who can’t swim well, but really knows how to coach?

Where is the line that you personally draw when it involves coaching and advice, when it comes from someone that doesn’t necessarily follow the same advice?

Question to ponder: Would you hire a marriage coach who has been divorced twice and was not in a stable relationship?

I think these are messy questions with no clear line to be drawn. Ultimately it comes down to personal biases. I’d sooner accept a swim coach who has a crappy stroke and doesn’t swim well themselves, before I’d hire an obese fitness coach or a marriage coach with a poor relationship history.

Question to ponder: Would you hire someone to help you quit smoking if they smoked? Would your answer change if they had a 90% succeed rate when most other strategies and coaches max out their success rate at under 50%?

In the end we need to recognize our biases and follow our instincts. Whatever line we draw in one area of our lives might not be the same line we draw in others. It’s not a question of if we have biases, we do. It’s a question of where we draw the line, and are we happy with our biases? Because in the end, if I’m putting time, effort, and/or money into a coach, or counsellor, or taking advice from a friend, I’m the one that needs to feel good about it… given the biases I hold.

Question to ponder: How important is it that the coach, counsellor, or confidant giving you advice walks their own talk?

Making Progress – 11 Tips to Success

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Yes, another fitness post. Yes, another post about building good habits.

Is it just my algorithm or is everyone getting a lot of posts, reels, TikTok’s, and/or YouTube shorts about fitness, wellbeing, and longevity?

Everyone is an influencer now, telling you how to drop weight, tone abs, and build muscle.

Here is what I’ve learned… none of this is mine, it’s all learned from others. These are 11 things that can help you transform your body for the better. (Disclaimer: I’m not a doctor, don’t play one on the internet… these are things that have worked for me. Consult real experts, especially if you have health challenges.)

  1. Weight Loss: The only thing that matters, more than fitness, more than what you actually eat, is being in a calorie deficit. That’s it. If you are in a deficit you will lose weight. Period. Full stop. End of story. So choose an app that tracks what you eat and use it religiously. Want to eat more? Exercise, burn calories, and you can have more calories that day, and still be in a deficit.
  2. Track your workouts. Choose a minimum amount that counts as a workout and track them. Here is one rule that is simple if you build a routine, and hard if you aren’t actually tracking: Never miss 2 days in a row. You can make up other rules or requirements as you see fit, so long as you NEVER break your own rules. One break gives permission for other breaks, then habits are lost and you are stuck trying to be disciplined. Habits are easy, discipline is hard. Track your progress and you will ‘see’ your habits, which will help you perpetuate them.
  3. Protein and Creatine. There is a 99.9% chance that you are not eating as much protein as you should. Quite literally if 1,000 people read this, there would only be one of you actually eating as much as 1 gram of protein per pound on the scale. That’s my goal and I still don’t regularly hit it. Protein is good for the body AND the brain. Same with creatine. Creatine reduces muscle soreness after workouts, and is one of the most studied supplements. Less than 1% of the population can have digestion issues with it. Probably not you and there is literally no other down side and huge upsides to taking it.
  4. Train most of your cardio in ‘Zone 2’. What is Zone 2? If you tried to talk normally while in that zone, it would be challenging to catch your breath, but if you were told at the end of your workout that you had to keep going at the same pace for 5 more minutes you could maintain that pace. So many people think they have to kill themselves with high heart rate cardio blasts. Still do this once per week to improve your Max Vo2, but 80+% of your cardio should be in Zone 2. My tracking requirements are a minimum of 20 minutes. I walk on a treadmill, on an incline, with a weighted vest most days. This is much lower impact than running, and I can still get in the zone. You want better weight loss gains? Cardio tip: Don’t eat before cardio. You want to drain your glycogen reserves and get to fat burn. Food reserves will be used as energy before fat. No food reserves means your body gets to fat burn faster. Mind you, this is moot if you aren’t in a calorie deficit.
  5. Weight train. Lift and carry heavy things. Muscles are quite literally things that you use or you lose. Research shows a direct correlation between larger muscles and longevity. Grandma or grandpa who can do a pull-up and deadlift their own weight are not the ones who are going to stumble and break their hips. They are also more likely to be cognitively’ ‘there’ compared to their sedentary peers.
  6. Weight lift your muscles completely to fatigue. This is called hypertrophy training, you are wanting to build muscle. First, because larger muscles means a longer (healthier) lifespan. Secondly, you are literally telling your body to stay young. Building muscles demands your body to be in ‘growth mode’ rather than in sunset mode on your way to the grave. Pick at least one muscle group and work it to failure. Personal secret: 90% of my workouts are done in 40-45 minutes with 20 minutes cardio and 5-10 minutes stretching. How do I get it ‘all’ done so quickly? Besides cardio and stretching, I just work one muscle group but I work it really hard. Yesterday was shoulders. I did 4 sets of free weight shoulder press (1st one at 1/2 weight for warm up, then 3 progressively heavy sets to 10-12, but the last set I could only get to 9). Then lateral raises, again ending with a set to failure. Today was biceps. Seated curls, then standing hammer curls, then 1 set of elastic ban Bayesian curls to fatigue. In both day’s examples the sets took 20-25 minutes. Tomorrow I’ll do abs and legs to give my upper body a rest, then chest the following day. I love when I go to the gym with a budy and workout more body parts in a workout, but I share my example to emphasize that you can make progress doing an entire workout in less time that it takes to watch a show on Netflix. That said, this is minimal volume and I know I’d make more gains if I did more.
  7. Stretch. I don’t believe you should ever stretch cold. That’s why I do cardio first. Research says that to slightly improve muscle gains, do weights before cardio. But on my daily (early morning) routine, I want to stretch before weights, and I want to be warm when I stretch. I’ll pass on tiny gains to get a routine that works for me. Stretching makes you feel better and more mobile, and helps to reduce injuries. It’s also a way to feel a connection to your body.
  8. Meditate. I cheat and meditate on the treadmill. I clip the emergency stop clip on me, hold the rails, close my eyes, and do a guided meditation. I find the physical activity a distraction that helps me reduce my mind wandering, and this also gives me more time in my tight morning routine because I’m double dipping. Meditation is not a state of quiet mind, it is a continual state of quieting the mind. It’s not about no distraction, but a state of coming back from distraction. Beyond that I’m years into my practice and still a rookie. Get meditation advice elsewhere, but take my advice and start a regular meditation habit. (I track this like I track my fitness, with stickers on a year-long calendar.)
  9. Have a workout buddy. I only get to workout with someone about once every couple weeks. I wish I could do more because being with him pushes me to be better. But even when I don’t work out with him, he and I keep each other accountable. We can share our highs and lows. I tell him I had a shitty workout, he congratulates me on showing up. I hit a personal best, I can share it with him and he’ll celebrate it with me, without it feeling like bragging. It’s our victory. Find someone to share you journey with.
  10. Routine, routine, routine. Build your habit so that you don’t require discipline. My favourite example of reducing workout friction and thus making my routine easier is my workout shoes. In my small basement gym I have workout shoes and a shoehorn. My shoes are pre-tied tight enough to walk (or run) on the treadmill, and I can still slip them on with the shoehorn. Why? Because I hate tying shoes and I hate getting on the treadmill with one shoe feeling tighter than the other. This was a pain point. What are your pain points? Remove them. You workout after work? Routinize having your workout bag by the front door the night before. Then put it on the passenger seat as a visual reminder when you get in the car after work. Reduce the friction and the habit will form, and then you’ll get used to showing up.
  11. JUST SHOW UP! The most important days in the gym are the days you don’t want to show up and you do anyway. These are the days that make the habit an actual habit. These are the days that make a routine an actual routine. The days you had to drag your ass into the gym and do the bare minimum are more important than the days you hit a personal best. And as a bonus, some of the days that you drag yourself in might also be a personal best day when you finally got there. Showing up then becomes a habit, and it no longer feels as hard to do on the hard days. Because if you ‘just show up’ enough on the hard days then showing up no longer feels like work. It’s a self-perpetuating cycle… But the early hard days are the toughest. Go back to tip 2 and Never miss 2 days in a row.

One final thought. While I’ve seen significant progress in the past 2 years, I’ve been on this path for 6-and-a-half years. I initially saw a good weight loss and small muscle gains, but it took the addition of creatine and a higher protein diet before I saw the most recent gains. Day-to-day I really haven’t seen a lot a gains anywhere. I share this because many people get discouraged when they don’t see the gains or fat loss immediately. Here are two things to think about related to looking for gains: First, if you are gaining muscle while losing fat, muscle is heavier than fat. Don’t focus on the scale, focus on the habits. And second, if you aren’t getting stronger, you are not really training your muscles to fatigue. These gains are slow too, but if you can only do 10 pushups and 2 months later that’s still your max, you probably could be training harder. If you walk on the treadmill at the same speed and incline every week, with no incremental increase and it still feels just as challenging, you probably aren’t working hard enough. Don’t look for gains weekly, but set goals for progress and even if you don’t hit them, make sure you are trending up. Trending up is often slower than you hoped, but as long as the trend is up… you are doing great!

And finally… if you see something that I’ve gotten wrong, please tell me and help me in my learning journey.

It’s good for you

A new study shows the benefits of creatine for women, (Study, TikTok summary). We already know the benefits for men, it’s nice to see specific research for women, and specifically menopausal women, who tend to be under-researched.

I’m not a medical doctor, I don’t pretend to be one. But I’ll share three suggestions that I have followed, based on my research, that can improve long term health.

  1. Take creatine.
  2. Take far more protein than is suggested in daily recommendations.
  3. Exercise regularly, for both cardio and strength.

These are all things that are good for your health… and the health of your brain. But don’t take my word for it. Look into to these things yourself. Check out doctors Rhonda Patrick, Peter Attia, and Gabrielle Lyon. Oh, and when I went to Instagram to make sure of Gabrielle’s first name, the first video that came up was her talking about women increasing protein intake.

I love seeing how the science of healthy living is becoming mainstream.

Put your own oxygen mask on first

Arianna Huffington is 74 years old and she just recently started a new AI business. She started the Huffington Post at age 55 and sold it 6 years later for 315 million dollars. In this The Diary of a CEO podcast interview with Steven Bartlett she shares this gem of a story.

The moral of the story is simple: Leaders need to take care of themselves, and get enough sleep, in order to be at their best. She says, “All the science now makes it very clear that when we are depleted we are going to make bad decisions.”

Then quoting Jeff Bezos, “I sleep 8 hours a night… I’m judged by the quality of my decisions, not the quantity of my decisions.”

As the new school year begins, take this as a reminder to take care of yourself first, if you really want to take care of your staff and students. It’s not good enough to only exercise, and eat well, and get enough sleep when you are not busy. You owe it to yourself, those you serve, and your job, to treat yourself well. It’s not selfish to put on your oxygen mask first, it’s how you get enough air to take care of others.

Build good habits and take the time to care for yourself first, when you are busiest, and it will become very easy to do so all the time. You will benefit as a person, as a friend, as a partner, as a parent, as an employee, and as a leader. It starts with you taking care of you.

Trade your expectation with appreciation

I was listening to The Tim Ferriss Show today and heard this great quote from Tony Robbins: “You want to change your life fast then trade your expectation for appreciation and you have a whole new life.”

(Listen to the full gratitude & appreciation quote by Tony Robbins here.)

It’s easy to forget sometimes how blessed we are. It can be all consuming as we seek and want more, while forgetting how much we have already.

Possible future you robs happiness from the present you.

Don’t let future you steal your happiness today.

Bask in appreciation of what you have: Family, friends, health, work, hobbies, food, health, wealth… you might not be exactly where you want future you to be, but if you take stock right now, you probably have a lot to appreciate and be happy about.

Rhyme (and) reason

Sometimes something happens without rhyme or reason, with no logical reason for it to happen. Other times it is abundantly clear… to some people but not to others. So while an observer can see and make connections between events or experiences, the person in the situation believes there is no rhyme or reason, no connections at all. I witnessed this first hand in a conversation recently.

I was talking to someone who was very upset with the behaviors of another person. Why couldn’t this other person understand how to help themselves? Why did this other person not do what needed to be done? There was much frustration because this other person wouldn’t respond well to feedback. Then the person I was talking to shared a personal struggle, and it was abundantly clear to me that the rhyme and reason for their struggle was identical for them as it was for this other person. The situation was completely different, but the points of struggle were the same.

Isn’t that fascinating how we can see and be frustrated with the challenges we see others struggle with, and yet be blind to how we struggle in similar way? Simultaneously asking ‘Why can’t this other person see what needs to be done’, while being oblivious to the fact that we struggle in the same way in other areas of our own lives. Maybe I’m being unfair in saying they are oblivious? Maybe the frustration they see in themselves is precisely why there is frustration in the other person.

‘I hate seeing this other person struggle, because in this other person I see the thing I least like about myself.’

I saw the rhyme and reason. But that doesn’t mean I handled it well. On the contrary, and upon reflection, I could have navigated the conversation much better. I realize this only after the fact. The person I was talking to knew the other person wouldn’t respond well to feedback because they knew they wouldn’t. When I saw the connection, the parallel relationship, I should have realized the it was the wrong time for me to offer feedback. It wouldn’t be well received… it wasn’t well received. The pattern was there for me to see, but I missed it.

We don’t always see the rhyme and reason for why we do what we do. But maybe it’s easier to see this in other people… maybe we project our own insecurities and frustrations on others because we struggle ourselves. The very reason it bugs us in others is because it bugs us in us. But even knowing this, it hurts to hear it.

VO2 Max

When it comes to health and fitness, the two people I follow and learn from the most are Dr. Rhonda Patrick and Dr. Peter Attia. Recently I’ve been hearing them both talk about how important your Maximum VO2 is to improving you health. VO2 max is the maximum amount of oxygen your body can absorb and use during exercise. It is a great measure of both your aerobic fitness level and your overall health.

Here, Dr. Patrick shares information about a VO2 study as well as the Norwegian Protocol, to help improve VO2 Max:

I usually do 20 minutes of cardio, but yesterday I tried this protocol, and did 31 minutes on the treadmill: 3 minutes warmup, followed by: 4 minutes high intensity and 3 minutes cool down, repeated 4 times. It’s challenging, but totally doable. I’m going to commit to doing this at least once a week.

I was not going to get a heart monitoring watch until I retired, but I think I’ve changed my mind. I’d like to get one because my tracking has not been great and I’d really like to ensure that when I’m trying to get my heart rate up past 80%, I’m actually getting it there and not just guessing. I also want to get my maximum VO2 measured so that I can have a baseline for where I am.

Today I’m not pushing like that again, my hips feel tight and I might just walk on the treadmill and increase the incline as I loosen up. One and maybe sometimes two Norwegian protocols a week will be enough. They aren’t fun. But if I’m going to commit to daily exercise anyway, at least once a week I should make sure I’m doing something to really push myself and maximize outcomes.

Watch the video above, and think about how you can exercise your way into being healthier… and quite literally younger at heart.