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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. Hello. Hello. Good morning. So for many of you reaching the end of our Christmas challenge, for a lot of you reaching the end of the year, end of your kind of work commitments this week, maybe your workout commitments as well, all this type of stuff.
Speaker 1:So we're winding up for the year. What I like to do at the end of each year is a is a yearly review. So if any of you want the template for this, please email me, and you can get it. But I wanna talk today. Like, I I spoke to Louise yesterday about what we're doing in January.
Speaker 1:So in January, we're doing a four week challenge from the eighth of Jan. Right? And it's gonna be a training challenge. So you're gonna do a quiz or a questionnaire, and it's gonna figure out the best training plan for you. So there'll be about eight to 10 buckets for people to step into in terms of training plans.
Speaker 1:And you'll be in the same bucket as other people in a similar life circumstance as you. Because Louise is saying, I can't fit the workers into my life right now. Like how I've got a new baby, Leo's in his terrible twos as I say but maybe the beautiful twos, just loud and proud. You know, But I was like, Well, you're comparing yourself to a Louise who was doing work that was during lockdown, you didn't have a kid, and all we could do was go wake up in the morning and do a live workout. You were doing five workouts a week.
Speaker 1:And we often always compare ourselves to the time when we were the best at training. And usually that's time gone, like that life has gone. So it's quite, in a way, silly for us to do it. Even though we'd still do it automatically, we're like, oh, well, I felt amazing back end. I was training so much.
Speaker 1:It's like, that's fine. That was you then. What are you doing now, and what's your lifestyle now? So you always start very, very near. You start to what you're doing right now, what time you've got, what equipment you got, can you go to the gym or not, can you you know, how much time do you have?
Speaker 1:Do you have to train change your training hours? Maybe you used to be a morning worker person, but now you have to train midday for five, ten minutes. Or maybe you're maybe it's it's gotta be out at the end of the day. So you gotta figure this out. But we're gonna figure this out for you if you do the quiz.
Speaker 1:Anyone can do the quiz to figure out what training plan will work for them. And don't underestimate short workout plans. You know, don't underestimate a seven or ten minute workout where you've got a short rest period, your gas in the tank, your engine is building, you'll get a real good mental health boost for it. Doing that a few times a week when you can slaughter it in is a lot better than doing absolutely nothing. And I think we're all trapped in this mindset of I wanna do everything, but I can't do everything.
Speaker 1:So right now I'm doing nothing. You know, it's a bit weird that we're in that. But on the note of training as well I wanna talk about and you don't need to train, by the way. For many of you, your goal is weight loss only. And just to reaffirm weight loss only, you're doing you need to get into a calorie deficit.
Speaker 1:You need to hit your protein target because it even if you're not training, higher protein means you're gonna retain more muscle mass. You do not want to lose muscle even if you're a man, you're a woman or whatever. You must retain muscle mass. It is critical for long term health especially as you age. Right?
Speaker 1:You wanna make your step count higher. You wanna keep increasing your steps. That's important as well. Daily movement. Just moving those legs, moving the joints, just walking.
Speaker 1:Getting some movement. And then those are the three critical things. But then when you are then resistance training, which is like using weights or bands or your body weight, there's another layer of additional benefit to this, which is, you know, you're gonna get stronger. You're probably gonna have something you can aim for. It helps with bone mineral density and every all that type of stuff.
Speaker 1:So you can get gains from two workouts a week. Thirty minute workouts two minute two workouts a week is ideal. Maybe you need to break it down and start off with ten minute work or twice a week and you build up. And no, it sounds nuts, you're like, ah, I'm not doing what's the point doing ten minutes? Well, what's the point doing anything and start the small then?
Speaker 1:You can't just jump into stuff all the time. So when you're thinking about the end of this year and you're thinking about going into January, be realistic. Whether it's a bit realistic here. We're not saying do these five workouts a week crazily, high intensity workouts, followed by cardio every day. You know, that's what these online PT coaches tell people to do.
Speaker 1:And does it get results? Yes. If someone sticks to it, it gets results, obviously, because it's such a plan that causes a huge amount of calorie burn. They're doing 10 to 15 steps a day, cardio every day, workout nearly every day, low low calories. What do you think is gonna happen?
Speaker 1:Oh, well, you get a body that you like looking at maybe. Your mental health is in in the pan. You have no yeah. You've kind this kind of taken over your life in a sense because you have to say no to a lot of things if you do a NASH structure. It becomes a burden in the end because there's so much to do every week, and you're not looking forward to it because you're like, I'm doing it every day.
Speaker 1:You gotta do this all the time. So we're not going down that route. If you want to go down that route, happy days, do it. But get the base first. If you haven't got that nailed down, you wanna get there, why don't you start off with a good base?
Speaker 1:And that's all I'm saying about that. So Louise is looking at doing seven to ten minute workouts once or twice a week. She's gonna be tracking That's the type of workout plan she's gonna be following. Some of you might be doing four workouts a week in the gym and you wanna really smash it in a different stage of your life, maybe you don't have kids. And that's what we catered for as well.
Speaker 1:So have a think of these things. There's a study that came out as well on post workout protein for female lifters and what kind of maximizes muscle protein synthesis. Now you can look all the research, la la la la la, what really is important here? Well, if we are gonna consume protein, how much protein do we need to consume in that meal for us to get the most benefit from it? Because we are getting the meal ready, we've got the chicken ready, we've got the protein shake ready, and it might be the difference of adding a half more scoop or a bit more chicken and you get a much bigger benefit from that protein intake.
Speaker 1:Does that make sense? So they looked at it, and basically what they found was 15 grams of protein following a training session didn't really do much to muscle protein synthesis rates above baseline. So if you're doing worker program or you wanna increase your protein in general, you want to have, well, 15 grams in that one meal or that one intake isn't enough to spike muscle protein synthesis enough. So the the group that got 30 grams did have a significant spike. That's why you hear this 30 grams of protein.
Speaker 1:It's been around for a while. The research is backing it as if you're gonna eat protein, make sure you're trying to eat 30 grams of protein in a sitting, whether that's split into three meals, whether it's a snack as well, but 15 grams of protein in a sitting is a bit low. So make sure if you are looking to a new year, getting into your training, especially recovery, 30 grams of post 30 grams of protein post workout, whether that's a protein shake or a meal is what's required. And for other meals ideally, it's the same thing as well. Now you might say, is 60 grams better, 70 grams better?
Speaker 1:Well, research is kinda saying 30 gram is kinda where it gets to its peak and then it might get diminishing returns. Again, more isn't always better. We're looking for the lowest dose, maximum gains. Does that make sense? Lowest dose maximum gains.
Speaker 1:So that was an interesting study that has recently come out and it's done on women, which is great because there's not much research done specifically on trained women. There was another study I looked into about the strawberries as brain food. And it looked at strawberries as brain food and actually when they looked at the research and they were looking doing this test and it was a randomised controlled trial which means gold standard, you know, real gold standard of trials. It did show that people that consumed more strawberries actually did better on mental tasks than people that didn't have the strawberries. And really when you're looking at that study, you're looking at what's the benefits of strawberries and blueberries have got double of what was they were looking at in strawberries that was impacting this.
Speaker 1:So if you do feel like you're mentally kind of slower and your caffeine is really high, whatever your sleep maybe your sleep is fine, you might wanna look at stuff like this. I'm I'm not saying this is gonna change your life and stuff. It's it's it was a twelve week study with like 30 odd people, but it was a really high quality study. And they were looking at anthocyanin. I think I said that right.
Speaker 1:Just wanted to look at, like, what slows cognitive decline and all this stuff. So it's quite an interesting study. And I think it's worth looking at. Have you got again, are you eating fruits in your diet? You know, it's the simple stuff.
Speaker 1:Are you eating any fruits and veggies? Even though it's calories and protein is the main thing, your calories can be made up of whatever quality you want, whether that's unprocessed foods or ultra processed foods. Know, it's good to have a mix because that's how we live. But it is important that you have your fruit, that you have most days. Like I have blueberries every day now.
Speaker 1:Frozen blueberries, 500 grams. I usually get watermelon as well because I love watermelon after training because it's a lot of water in it. And I just find it even nicer to get into something that's got water, you know? I love a watermelon. So yeah, basics basics reaffirmed.
Speaker 1:You know, get your fruit in for god's sake. Don't slack on the fruit. Especially over Christmas period, you know, Instead of munching on a lot of chocolate, maybe say I'm gonna munch on a fruit. Lot Maybe you can dip it in a bit of chocolate if you want, but get the get the fruit in. And the last study to cover is, how body image can affect eating behaviors.
Speaker 1:Now, obviously, we know if we got a bad body image of ourselves, it can push us to disorder eating behaviors, which is extreme dieting, binge eating, and vomiting, stuff like this. And we know the time is coming for Weight Watchers and Slimming World and other big companies to be big on advertising this. Do you wanna finally get the body of your dreams? Are you fed up of being sluggish and slow and hating how you look? Do you wanna live the life or the life you're meant to live, you know?
Speaker 1:And they hit you with this like, you looking at your body and having a bad image of it, basically. And it can lead to then obviously extreme dieting because the first diet that pops in your feed that says, I can help you lose 30 pounds in a month, you're gonna jump on it. And it hijacks over brain. You know, marketers are brilliant at doing this and you can is it unethical? Likely is on the borderline.
Speaker 1:It probably is. It definitely is unethical to do. And that's a fine line with Turtle we're trying to balance because a lot of you guys come to Turtle and you want to lose weight and improve your health and your relationship with food and overall wellness. And weight loss is a big part of the journey for a lot of people who are overweight. But it's not about making you feel bad to start with, to lose weight.
Speaker 1:You can be happy right now, or you can be content right now with whatever body you're in. And you think, no, there's no way. It's true. Like when you look back at photos of yourself when you're leaner, don't have fond memories of loving your body because you always had a problem with your body no matter how lean you got. So the mindset shift has to happen.
Speaker 1:You must learn to really be content or neutral with yourself no matter if you've gained five ten pounds or you're fifty pounds overweight or 100, you've gotta be neutral about it and not have this negative view of yourself like you are the worst person in the world for a You're always looking at yourself going oh my god I'm horrendous or whatever. You avoid revealing any parts of your body, wear just black clothing. You think people are always thinking badly of you and how you look and stuff like that, so you don't go on the beach or on a swimsuit in the pool, stuff like this. And you just have these feelings about your weight and shape, right? So all these things that go through our mind can lead us to decisions that really make things worse.
Speaker 1:Right? We know this. And the path out of it is the slow path. The slow path of saying, you know what? My body right now is storing excess energy.
Speaker 1:I have eaten too much energy over the last few years, and that energy, I've not needed to use it because I haven't been that active. So my body has stored away this excess energy into fat stores, into pockets of fat around my body. Okay? I'm not too happy that it's done this, but it And it's, you know, something I wanna reduce because it's gonna help me with my health. I'm not a bad person for this to happen because the world is very very How can I say consumerism is at its peak?
Speaker 1:I am seeing adverts for foods and this and that. My emotions are all over the place. I haven't really looked into emotional regulation and mindset and stoicism yet. I am coping with food. I'm coping with putting excess energy into my body.
Speaker 1:And all I would need to do now moving forward is I don't judge myself for my decisions and behaviors. It is an outcome of the environment and sometimes an inevitable outcome of the environment we live in because you could be in a very stressful work and they're always bringing in sweets and stuff. And a lot of people could say, well, At the end of the day, some environments are so hard to break free from and there's honestly no judgment on that. So you just say to yourself, like we talk about wine is just old grapes. You know, you say things as a fact, I have just eaten too much energy.
Speaker 1:Now I must reduce my energy intake so that my body needs to use that extra energy that is stored to supply the body with energy it needs. So that means I cannot give my body the energy it needs every day through food. I must give it enough to function, enough food for me to have my nutrients, enough food for me to feel full, enough food for me to enjoy my days, but cut but come just shy of what it needs to hit this all its demands, therefore pushing the body to say, hey, we don't have enough energy. We must go and use the stored energy we have, which is we've got enough stored energy. Let's go and do it.
Speaker 1:That's absolutely fine. And the stored energy will slowly reduce over time. And once the stored energy is reduced to a level you're happy with, you're gonna have a different body shape and so forth forth. But on that journey, to that lower stored energy state, you can't be thinking that once you've reached the level of body fat percentage that you're gonna be happy. You're fooling yourself.
Speaker 1:You have to work on the mindset from the start and you can honestly feel completely different in a matter of days. Yourself. Your relationship with yourself, how you view the events, how you view yourself is under your control. How you are right now, you can't change it right now. Okay?
Speaker 1:So the only thing you can change is your relationship. So I love chocolate. I love when I go home, my mother's got, like, scotch eggs as if she makes us lush. So my relationship with food at home is different to my relationship with food when I live in a flat in London. My relationship with food at home is there's comfort in, there's my mother's food and stuff like realise that relationship is more to do with the comfort of home as opposed to my needs of calories and food.
Speaker 1:So when I go home I need to look at that relationship. I don't blame the food, I try and change that. I'm just saying my relationship home food, do I need to have this extra food? Am I just comfort eating? Stuff like this.
Speaker 1:The awareness of these things actually leads to change. You might not think it does, but when you spot it in the moment, light bulbs go off. Right? Light bulbs go off. But back to this study, a bit of a tangent there, the it looked at like the worse a person's body image, the more likely they were to display disordered eating.
Speaker 1:Okay? And really what comes up to this is if you have got a really bad body image and you speak negatively about your body all the time, or you notice one of your friends is doing this and you you check-in on their eating, check-in on how they're they're coping with that. But it did show in a study, and a point I'm alluding to here is that people with higher BMI's were not more likely to have negative body image. So this comes from acceptance, neutrality, I'm neither positive nor negative, this is me. I'm more than my body, obviously.
Speaker 1:We're all more than our bodies. If you don't think that, then it's quite a sad existence, really. And I think it's important for us to work on our relationship with ourselves and our food and stuff every day. That's in your control. And ultimately, it leads you to a state where you couldn't believe, and I promise you, Gary, you couldn't believe how much effort and straining and catastrophizing you used to do over a few pounds of fat or over how you looked if you didn't look specific way for a specific place, specific event.
Speaker 1:You realize this about, you know what, I wanna be myself. I wanna unleash my full potential. I wanna be the person I wanna be. I wanna put out that good energy into the world. And that doesn't necessarily mean I'll put out better energy when I'm like really thin.
Speaker 1:A strong correlation there. It's about your mindset and relationship. So please work on it. But have a good day. Obviously bring it back to this like one day at a time mindset is that even though it is the December 20 right now, it doesn't mean that we say, hey, let's just, like, go mental and just eat loads of foods and drink loads.
Speaker 1:And I'm and honestly, don't do this just because it's gonna reduce your weight gain. Do it for the sake of your mental clarity. You'll feel much better if you moderately drink, moderately eat. Do you know why? Because you won't be bloated and feel terrible.
Speaker 1:You won't have a hangover and waste a beautiful morning at home with your friends and family, but you could have gone for a nice walk with them and had a nice chat and catch up. You you you don't put yourself in these scenarios where you're wasting hours and days because you've overdone it. You know, Socrates had a good quote on this that Hunger is the best relish, which means, you know, being a bit hungry makes food taste the best, not necessarily like chugging on the ketchup which is disgusting. And he said paradoxically, we actually feel better from self restraint than self gouging. So whilst you might gouge on the extra chocolate and Maltese as you think this is gonna taste so nice, it gets to the point where you start getting a bit disgusted by it.
Speaker 1:And waking up the next day knowing you've moderately eat is a far better feeling than the that gain we think we get from eating a bit too much that we think we're gonna get. Do know mean? So, yeah, keep those in mind. But check-in again tomorrow. Focus on your protein your calories and your steps today.
Speaker 1:Even if it's just calories and steps or even if it's just steps, whatever you can handle. Get one big thing in. And have a good day and I'll speak to you soon.