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Are you ready to change your life?
Joking but not joking.
If everyone in the developed world implemented these 6 things, most of the time, our public health situation would look very different. Some of these things will seem “stupid simple” or maybe things that you are already familiar with, but the key is consistency. Do these things, most days, most weeks, most months, most years and you will see drastically different outcomes!
Start Walking
Walking is probably the easiest thing that you can do to positively impact your health!
This is for a few reasons:
A lot of modern health issues are due to us having very low activity levels. We don't have to start running marathons, but just getting our steps above 7,000-10,000 a day will make a huge impact!
One of the impacts this will have is improving your appetite regulations
There is a classic study where they compared 3 groups of factory workers with low-activity, moderate-activity, and high-activity jobs to see how much they voluntarily chose to eat. The high-activity group ate more than the moderate-activity group but the low-activity group were eating the SAME as the moderate-activity group. This suggests that at low levels of activity, your appetite and actual nutritional needs become uncoupled.
Now, many of us will not reach 7,000 steps a day just from our standard activities, so I recommend that you schedule a 20-30min walk each day to top it up!
For each km you get about 1500 steps, or for a mile, 2000 steps. So even if you are only at 4000 when the end of the day rolls around, it will only take 20-30mins to make it up.
Action Step
So this week, set up either your fitness tracker, smartwatch or even just the Apple Health app or Google Health app and try to get your steps over 7000 each day.
Manage your Sleep
If there was a secret ingredient to pretty much all factors of health, then sleep would be it!
Everything from mental and physical performance to your mood, food cravings and even how your body manages fat and muscle reserves.
Sleep comes down to three things:
How long you are in bed
How much of that you are asleep
How “well” you sleep
There are many things that you can do to improve your sleep but here are the heavy hitters.
Sleep schedule
Try to get to bed and get out of bed within the same 1hr windows each day. E.g In bed between 10-11pm and get up between 6-7am
Be in bed/lights out for 7-9hrs a night whenever possible
Sleep Environment
Keep your sleeping environment as dark as possible (eye masks are great for this)
Keep your sleeping environment cool. Your body needs to cool down to sleep well. Try to keep your room between 18-20°C (65-68° F)
Caffeine
There is a lot that can be said about caffeine, but I will keep it short here.
Even if you fall asleep, too much caffeine will negatively affect your sleep quality.
Caffeine takes 5 hours (2-10hrs) for HALF of what you had to leave your system.
You should be having no more than 1-2 coffees/small energy drinks per day.
You should get all your caffeine in before midday.
Action Step
Sleep schedule: 7-8hrs, same time each day
Sleep Environment: Room dark and 18-20°C (65-68° F)
Caffeine: 1-2 Coffees max before midday
Eat mostly Fibrous Vegetables and Protein.
Sounds simple, is simple. Most of us don't do it.
In your diet, you need carbs, fat, protein, vitamins, minerals and fibre.
Thats it. Meat/other proteins and vegetables have all of that!
Grains, pasta, potatoes and other “carbs” are fine, but they have a higher proportion of carbohydrates and calories in general. Most of us do not have labour jobs and simply do not need that many calories a day. Protein is also very important for maintaining muscle and joint health, which you will hear more about later on. In case you didn't know, the average modern diet gets about half the protein it could benefit from. By sticking to mostly lean proteins and vegetables, you will meet all of your nutritional needs, AND most likely, you consume an appropriate amount of calories.
Fibrous and lean proteins are also very filling for the number of calories they contain so they will help you feel fuller.
Action Step
Most meals, most days, your plate should be mostly lean meat or equivalent protein and fibrous vegetables. Add dedicated carbohydrate sources as needed if you are more active.
Get Strong
Strength training is truly the fountain of youth.
If you haven't read my most recent blog post on it, then go check it out here.
Spoiler alert, you can expect improvements in all the following:
Bone health
Joint Health
Injury Risk
Mental Health
Healthy Aging
Physical function
Quality of life
Again, you don’t need to live in the gym to reap the benefits.
Most of the health benefits accrue from 1- 2 hours of strength training a week.
This can be on machines, barbells, dumbbells, or body weights, you name it. It just needs to be hard and heavy (if you can do more than 30reps consecutively, it is not strength training)
Action Steps
Pick a place and pick a style of strength training that you like and do it for at least 30-60 minutes twice a week (if you need more inspiration or guidance on this one, it is literally what I am all about so get in touch and let's get you sorted!)
Get your Heart Going
Cardiac health is important for obvious reasons.
Both walking and strength training provide some low and moderate-intensity cardiorespiratory training.
I recommend topping that off with 1-2 20-30 min bouts of dedicated cardio per week.
This could be a 20-minute continuous run where you are training to sustain near the highest pace that you can, or it could be 20 minutes of interval training where you have periods of “sprints” and rests.
Either way, you want to get your heart rate up and your lunges pumping on a weekly basis.
Action Step
Do 1-2, 20-30 min bouts of dedicated cardio per week
Summary
We only get one body, and the better we keep it running, the better and longer it will continue to serve us. This doesn't mean that health and fitness need to become your sole passion in life, but we do need to take responsibility for what we have, and implementing these 6 simple things will get you most of the way there.
Summary of Action Steps
Screenshot, take a picture, copy and paste - do what you need to do and stick this somewhere where you will see it regularly
Walk
Try to get your steps over 7000 each day. If under, add a 20-30-minute walk.
Sleep
Sleep schedule: 7-8hrs, same time each day
Sleep Environment: Room dark and 18-20°C (65-68° F)
Caffeine: 1-2 Coffees max before midday
Eat
For most meals, most days, your plate should be mostly lean meat or equivalent protein and fibrous vegetables. Add “dedicated carbohydrate sources” as needed if you are more active.
Train
Pick a place and pick a style of strength training that you like, and do it for at least 30-60 minutes twice a week.
Do 1-2, 20-30 min bouts of dedicated cardio per week
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