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Micro wisdom delivered to your ears every morning in voice notes ranging from 3 to 15 minutes long. Wisdom on how to live a healthier and more fulfilling life. Every podcast will ground you in the present moment to ensure you know what's important, the here and now.
Hello everyone, welcome back to the one day at a time podcast. So I've been off for a bit because I've had ulcers and it's so hard to speak, it's so painful, but calorie intake super low, hack if you want to reduce your calorie intake. Same as when if any of you have had Invisalign before, you pull that in, you can't be bothered to eat because you got to pull it out, got to wash it, so you definitely eat less. And does it just goes to show like a slightest inconvenience, a tiny bit of pain, well, it was a lot of pain, or Invisalign out, you know, reduces your kind of snacking and stuff, do know I mean? And there's a lesson in that, especially the Invisalign one because a lot of the time we're just picking and eating because it's easy and it's there, and all we gotta do is make it a bit harder to do and then we might not do it.
Speaker 1:We know this as well from studies on designing your environment where you make like water, buying water super easy by the till and then you move water to the main thing like 10 feet away and then, you know, Walter sales go up 25% because it's just in front of them at the tail and they just buy it. And this is kind of how do we shape our environment, is something to think about. But today I wanna talk about, perceived stress and stress because I think on day six of the podcast, there's a podcast about stress and all the science of it and people really like it. And from reading the WhatsApp and all that stuff and still the same kind of you'd you'd be you'd be surprised surprised how consistent the same things come up. We all think we're unique but we're not.
Speaker 1:Like the same patterns come up, the same worries, the same thought processes come up on everyone. And it's mainly driven by anxiety about things, about control, and our stress and how we don't really think we've got much control over it and we let our stress get out of control in a sense. And really the stress that we need to focus on is not the stress of the training in and the stuff like that, so a perception. It's not really the duration and frequency but the severity of the perceived stress that we have, that's probably what matters the most. The ancient stoics and other people have gone on about this for a while, It's not things that upset you, but your opinion about the thing that upsets you.
Speaker 1:That's what they say is common. Right? But there's even research out now that when we look at people who have greater perceived control, it doesn't actually mean you've got more control, because what do you really have control over at the end of the day? You know when you let go of trying to control every little thing and you just focus on your attitude and effort, you kind of have a lot less stress in your life because you're moving away from outcomes and you're moving into actions you can try and do. That's the main thing to switch.
Speaker 1:A lot of people complain, I saw a post, I'm four days in and I haven't lost weight. Okay, what's happening in the mind there? Well, I'm four days in, new plan, haven't lost weight, can't control this, I can't control my weight coming under four days, I'm stressed now, it's not gonna work. And then go on a rampage, and then maybe tomorrow try and eat 900 calories, gets to 7PM. It's been a stressful day watching TV now and think, you know, I'll be going to have two Maltesers, then end up eating 54 Maltesers, and then go almost a point and eat an ice cream and then thinking, what's the point in all of it?
Speaker 1:And the thing that broke that was the fact that thinking that results come that fast for one, and focusing too much on the outcome is the problem there. Because actually it doesn't really matter the outcomes you're going through at the start. It's more so are you putting in the right type of effort in the right direction, because you can go the wrong direction for a long time, you can put as much effort in as you want but you're going the wrong way. So the first thing is to have flexibility in approach. The second thing is to take away the pressure on your weight coming down instantly, just focus on your actions, your protein intake, your calorie intake, your step count, you can do those things and let go of the rest.
Speaker 1:Then the perceived control you have goes away from did I lose three pounds today more towards what you actually can control which is did I put the effort in today? Am I happy with my effort? Did I try and hit my calorie target and my protein target and steps target? You've got more control over that than your weight tomorrow morning, for for sure. Your weight tomorrow, god knows where it's gonna be.
Speaker 1:It could be two pounds up. It could be one pound down, 1.7 pounds up, five pounds down. Who knows? It's like nearly random. You can have the most perfect track in day to day, and you still put weight on tomorrow because of water retention.
Speaker 1:You cannot control it in the short term. The long term game is that you will be chipping away at your fat and eventually that will be seen on the scales, but you don't want to focus on it in small kind of time windows. Does that make sense? So go on what you can control, man. Perceived control.
Speaker 1:This is the main thing. It's a perception. It's a fugazi. Right? Like, doesn't you don't need to have full control.
Speaker 1:You just need I can control my steps today more than my weight tomorrow, so what should I focus on? My steps or my weight. I can make you do something and you could lose your weight tomorrow, total weight, you know, we can do it, there are things that can help. But that's not the goal, why do we care about losing some water weight? It's a false goal.
Speaker 1:So many people are chasing the false goal because it feels good to see the pounds come down. I hesitate to congratulate people when they say I'm three days in and I'm four pounds down, I'm like it's great but like you know it's not fat right now, you walk the weights down a bit. Don't celebrate that, it's a kind of some people's weight will go down, some people's weight will maintain, you know what I mean? That's not what we you know should be celebrating at that point. So when it comes to martial arts and stuff like that, like the coaches, especially in jujitsu and it's very technical, they're not celebrating you doing one arm bar or one attack luckily the first time.
Speaker 1:They celebrate you doing the technique and understanding the concept and breaking through that way rep after rep. Doesn't actually mean you're gonna be able to do it in a in a fight straight away because that's not the that's not the outcome. The effort is on. Am I listening to the coach and am I doing it like he's saying? And can I do it properly in training?
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah. But, coach, I did five arm bars, against someone last night. Yeah. But they weren't technically the right way to do it, and it was because you went against five people in their fifties who were doing jujitsu for fun. You know?
Speaker 1:That is a false goal. Okay. You've had five submissions. You're getting better. No.
Speaker 1:That's not true. Are you drilling the technique, and can you do the technique correct under pressure eventually at some on the same level, that's the end goal, but that takes time. So your perceived control or your control is I can do the lesson itself, over time the results will come. Does that make sense? And in this research they were looking at like daily stressors and 1,700 people, fifty seven percent were women, and they were rating stressors, right, and rating it.
Speaker 1:And basically people were more likely to resolve their stressors on days they felt more in control than usual. This is not a shock, right? It's not a shock. But you don't feel if you start the day and weigh yourself and think, my god, my weight's gone up and I feel bad, you've already felt like you've lost control of the day. You've just made your day much harder to handle.
Speaker 1:Now what's the advice? Okay, you see the weight go up. The first reaction you get which is going to be instantaneous or you know super quick is oh my god why is my weight gonna feel bad. That's automatic, you can't control that, that's baked in your mind like you know the stoics would call it initial impressions or proto impressions, proto emotions, They will just happen as fast. You see a number.
Speaker 1:It's gone up. You feel bad. That's not why you have power. You don't have power in that. You have power in your response to that.
Speaker 1:That's the key. You can respond to that rationally and say, it's probably water weight. What did I do yesterday? You ate your calories. You brought in the steps.
Speaker 1:Fucking brilliant. That's the main thing. That actually means I'm gonna actually get to the goal I'm after, not the fake goal that people have on the scale. Does that make sense? So if you're waking up today, your weight's gone up, you're doing the right action, brilliant.
Speaker 1:Let go of the end goal of weight loss, it will happen over time. Okay? Get back control on the things that matter, is your actions, and I promise you life is a lot easier that way because you folks know what you can do, things will handle themselves. Life works like that. It has a funny way of working out when you focus on your actions with a smile on your face and a bit of a laugh and make it less serious.
Speaker 1:You know, I always like training with people in jitsu who who are more fun, have a laugh. You know? You learn more. It's less less pressure. It just feels fun.
Speaker 1:It's a lot better. Right? And you go against people super serious who have to win every point, and it's horrible. The environment's terrible. The atmosphere is bad.
Speaker 1:And that's the atmosphere you create for yourself when you're so tense about this one pound gain in the scale this morning. Loosen up. Have a laugh. Water weight. Who cares?
Speaker 1:Am I doing my actions? Yes. Let's get on with the day, guys. Take that mindset today, and have a good one, and I'll speak to you all soon.