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Welcome to The Figuring It Out Podcast.
At 22, I took the plunge to go on the entrepreneurial journey and start a fitness business, 7 years later I’d been the nutritionist for 2 elite sports clubs and private coach to some of the worlds best sportsmen and women.
Now it’s my mission to show fitness coaches how you can put yourself in a league of their own, become the go to coach, and finally eliminate the self-doubt and imposter syndrome that's holding you back from building the business of your dreams.
This podcast will help you figure out how to thrive and conquer the fear that comes with the lonely entrepreneurial journey.
If fear is the only thing stopping us from achieving our dreams, and we only fear what we don't understand, then the antidote to fear is knowledge. All we have to do is find out who has the knowledge that we need to conquer our fears and achieve our entrepreneurial dreams. My name is Callum Walker, and welcome to the podcast that will help you figure it out and conquer this lonely entrepreneurial journey.
Callum Walker:Hello, everyone, and welcome to the podcast. Today, I am experiencing something referred to as central nervous system fatigue. Now, what I'm going to share with you is going to be a counterintuitive approach to how we can address our training, how we can address our own nutrition, and almost kinda like decide what the best course of physical activity and what physical tools I should actually use today. Now I think that like one thing that is, quite confusing and perplexing to me is that in society, it's very much kinda pushed out, like, from an exercise point of view. There's the whole, you know, train when you don't wanna train and leave nothing in the tank.
Callum Walker:Like, make sure that you get up and do the work. Now I think that that message is very important if it's aimed at someone who has no inclination to exercise, who's eating shit, who isn't really training on a regular basis, and effectively isn't already in the realm of that of a high performer. And I think the first message I wanna kinda share to you is be very careful as to what content you consume and what messages you're actually listening to. Because there's certain messages that are put out there through, through social media, through the news, through the world, whatever, that aren't actually intended or aimed at or even useful for you. So as an example, if I look at myself, the mentality of you need to train six times a week, never miss a workout, make sure that you leave nothing in the tank.
Callum Walker:That message specifically is not applicable for me and what I'm trying to achieve within my own life. And I think the first thing that you need to really get clear on, especially when it comes to your own health and fitness is what is a healthy, what is a fit version of you? What do they look like? What are you trying to actually achieve with your own health and fitness? Like, what's your core goal?
Callum Walker:And if I look at my core goal, core goal is a healthy and happy and a well firing nervous system. It's a nervous system that's full of energy. It's a nervous system that's looked after. And if I look at my training, my training is exactly that. It's about utilizing a physical state to put the body in the best physical state for what it needs.
Callum Walker:So what do I mean by that? Well, if we almost kind of look at the standard model of exercise, it's almost like you do one type of training. So the most common sorta, like, form of training is push yourself, send it, leave nothing out there. And I think where the big mistake is is that that is only applicable for a body that's in a certain state because we've got to remember that physical activity results in a physical adaptation that we're looking to achieve And we need to make sure that we're actually doing the type of physical activity that our body is primed to do in that moment. So if I look at today as an example, I'm really fatigued.
Callum Walker:I'm very fatigued. If I look at these past six weeks, it's been very much like in push mode, in a good way. Like I've had a lot of energy. I've taken on a new member of staff. I've been traveling back and forth from Birmingham.
Callum Walker:I've elevated my content game. It's been very much kind of in grow mode. I've made a lot of sales, and I've been pushing on and pushing on and pushing on. But I can feel that at the end of almost kind of this sort of six week sort of stint that the juice in that battery is low and that battery needs to be charged up. Now society will push me and will push us to go, no, you've got to keep cracking on, put in the work, grind it out.
Callum Walker:And I've been there. I've been through that. And that's led me to feeling even more exhausted. It's led me to letting down the people that are important to me. It's led me to get into a place where I'm not actually showing up for the people that are important to me and I'm not showing up for myself.
Callum Walker:I just feeling exhausted, which means that that old model doesn't work for me. If I look at today as an example, so my best friend Al, I'm seeing him today. What time is it now? It's 10:00. And we'd originally agreed that we were gonna go and do a run and we were gonna go and do a 10 k run.
Callum Walker:Now, if I look at the past week specifically, I've been waking up between like half four and half five. Primarily as like more of kind of like an experiment before me to kinda like, it's gonna sound silly, but to like give myself jet lag. Because basically like during the winter, I find that what happens is that because there's a heightened level of melatonin circulating in the system because we're exposed to more darkness. I've been waking up at like like eight, 09:00. And as lovely as that is waking up at eight 09:00 in the morning after like ten hours of sleep from a productivity point of view is not particularly useful.
Callum Walker:Oh bless me. So what I've been doing was intentionally giving myself jet lag by setting my alarm for like 05:30, 6AM. And because I wanted to make sure that I could wake up significantly earlier. And now what's happening is that like, that was quite challenging period to go through, but now I'm naturally waking up at like between five and a half five. And I'm really happy with that because it just seems like I have so much more in the day.
Callum Walker:But with that has come central nervous system fatigue. And also a challenge is that for me to be able to wake up at 05:00. And the reason I've been able to do that is because I've been going to bed at, like, half eight, 09:00. And when I say going to bed, I mean, like, asleep. So I've been able to do that.
Callum Walker:But last night, me and my mom went and did one of our favorite things to do, which is to go and see an Elvis tribute band. Like, me and my mom are massive Elvis Presley fans. I'm a huge Elvis fan. And we went to go and see I think his name was Ben Thompson. It was the first time we've seen him.
Callum Walker:It was really good. We had such a fantastic sight. And the problem and the challenge was I've been used to going to sleep at half eight, and we didn't get in until just gone ten, and I was asleep at 10:30. Now that might not sound very late, but it's two hours later than what I'm used to waking up to. And we have to remember with our circadian rhythm that the body remembers what time we wake up.
Callum Walker:So naturally, by me waking up over the past week at half five, half four, 05:00, my body naturally woke up, like, super early. But my overall sleep duration was shortened and trying to get back to sleep just wasn't happening. So if I almost kind of look at today, not only physically do I feel more fatigued for off the back of that, I feel more fatigued off the back of the fact that I'm coming towards the end of quite an intense six week stint. But also, that fatigue means that I have to change my plans. And, fortunately, I've been, I experimented with, an Oura Ring for a bit, and I didn't really like it.
Callum Walker:So I resorted back to a WOOP. I'll do another episode another time around why I don't like the Oura Ring. But I went back to a WOOP, and if I look at my heart rate variability, which is effectively a mechanism of figuring of establishing, like, how well recovered your overall nervous system is and how well recovered your body is, it's pretty low. And I feel that anyway. I woke up.
Callum Walker:I felt that. So off the back of that, although me and Al had agreed that we were gonna go and do a 10 k run, we've actually had to change the plans. Now, if I didn't change the plans and I went along with what society says, which is you've got to get your exercise in, go and do it. I'd have done a 10 ks run on a nervous system that is not equipped right now to go and do higher intensity stuff. And off the back of that, I would have put myself in a more fatigue state.
Callum Walker:I would have most likely got myself pretty burnt out. And when we're in that almost kinda like that lower level of energy from a nervous system perspective, what happens is that naturally more negative thoughts start to creep in. Like we we start to see the world through a little bit more of a negative lens unnecessarily. So, I had to change the plans. Now, fortunately, my my best friend understands that, and I'm really happy and excited with that.
Callum Walker:So and what I like about the WHOOP is that it kinda gives you, like, a little bit of a score. Now you don't have to almost kinda take that score as gospel, but it's a good indicator as to what would be an ideal thing for me to do. So if I look at my recovery score this morning, it was 39%. And if you haven't experienced a week before, it gives you a score out of a 100 as to how well recovered you are. That recovery score of 39% indicates to me the kind of things that I should be doing.
Callum Walker:So here's a couple of changes that I've made today. So first of all, the one I've already articulated to you around me and Al switching up our training. And instead of going on a run, what we've actually done is booked ourselves into this, a sauna and an ice bath place. It's called Ojas Sauna. I really like it.
Callum Walker:There's a lady called Amelia who runs it, and, she basically converted a horse box into a sauna. And she's got some ice baths, and that's fantastic. So I'm going to be doing that. And then also in terms of the physical activity I'm going to be doing, I'm just going to go and do a yoga flow, and that's my level of physical activity. Now, also, in terms of from nutritional point of view, what am I doing?
Callum Walker:Well, normally, I I typically do and practice intermittent fasting, but intermittent fasting is more of a sympathetic nervous system dominated activity. So what do I mean by that? Well, when you're fasting, naturally, what happens is that you're elevating levels of adrenaline, and it puts the body into go mode. I don't need to be in go mode today. I need to be in slow mode.
Callum Walker:So practicing intermittent fasting today, intermittent fasting isn't the tool for me to go and practice today. The tool for me to go and practice is actually I had a breakfast, which is mental for me. But around I think it was about 08:30. I had a breakfast, some full fat Greek yogurt, some double cream, some pecans, half a scoop of white protein powder, and then I had some blue berries. And I had that as my breakfast.
Callum Walker:So naturally as well, my sole focus is on making sure that I could activate my parasympathetic nervous system. Even something as simple as throughout the day, I'll be switching up my breathing. I'll be focusing on more ex exhales. So, again, I've done a podcast on this previously. I believe it was the science of dopamine.
Callum Walker:Definitely go and give that a listen. Scroll down. It's probably about, like, ten, fifteen episodes earlier than this, but go and give that a listen because I run through how we can switch up the breath to either get ourselves into go mode or get ourselves into slow mode. And in terms of almost kind of like slow mode, if we the go mode, if we're focusing on inhales, if we're very inhale dominant, some do big inhales all of the time, and I'm not focusing on exhales. And what's happening is that I'm actually putting myself into go mode because that drives up adrenaline.
Callum Walker:Whereas if I want to get into slow mode, what I do is that I focus more on exhales. So when you're doing a long exhale, so what that does is it activates the parasympathetic nervous system, which is our slow mode. It lowers level of adrenaline. So if I look at today on a day where I'm more fatigued, where I need to be recovered, what happens is that I'm actually focusing more on my exhales throughout the day. I'm incorporating a breakfast.
Callum Walker:I'm not pushing myself at sending myself into high heart rate zones. I'm staying in lower heart rate zones. I'm doing more mindful movement. And more importantly, what I'm doing is I'm focusing solely on being as present as I possibly can today. I'm limiting the number of inputs that are coming into me, and I'm trying to make sure that I can decrease the amount of stimulation throughout the day.
Callum Walker:And I think that this is a really important thing because I'm going to make this into a two part series. So the next episode, I'm going to run through specifically how I actually spread my training out throughout the week and also how I actually almost kinda like spread my training across season to really make sure that I can give my body what it actually needs. Because remember, our exercise is a way of changing the state of the body to put it into the state that we want to be in. So if I need to be in more of a slower state, I can do some form of activity. I can change up my nutrition.
Callum Walker:I can expose myself to a different temperature in a different condition to put my body into the state it needs to be. But so if I need to be more, active, if my body and my nervous system is more primed to do that, then I'll go and do specific activities to go put myself into go mode. But if I need to be in more slow mode, I'll do the same. Never forget, if every one of your clients gave you one new client, you've doubled business.
Callum Walker:If you got a client who isn't losing weight right now and you have absolutely no idea why? And maybe you're worrying that if nothing changes, they could drop off at any moment? Well, I've got a free nutrition masterclass for you where I reveal the secret nutrition strategy that guarantees that that stuck client loses two to four pounds in the next seven days without lowering their calories, upping their cardio, or even tracking macros. Click the link in the description to get access to the free elite nutrition secrets masterclass and get your client moving in the right direction, stopping them dropping off today.