lifestyle choices Archives -

Week 9: Lessons from the Blue Zones

FINISHER: Rich brings the week to a close, but hobbles off

BLUE Zones are areas of the world where people have lived healthy and long lives. These are locations – Loma Linda, California; Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica; highlands of Sardinia, Italy; north main island Okinawa, Japan – where people are measurably happier and can thrive beyond 100.

Dan Buettner has studied the Blue Zones for decades in his capacity as a journalist and author for the National Geographic.

So when I heard his fascinating interview on a podcast recently with ultra runner Rich Roll, it got me thinking along many lines. While I’m not fixated on longevity, I do think what matters more is quality of life.

As our health and well-being directly impacts the quality of our life, should it not be something we take seriously?

The premise of the Blue Zone data was that our health and wellness is very much shaped by our environment and lifestyles.

The people who live in the Blue Zones are active, eat healthily and mostly plant-based, belong to and form strong communities, enjoy the outdoors – all common factors in contributing to their vitality and happiness.

So how does this all tie in with the Amazing 12? For starters, the Amazing 12 promotes strength, movement and a wholefood way of eating. And everyone who does the Amazing 12 is seeking transformation. Transformation is change. Change, for many of us, is difficult. In many cases it requires us to break habits and habits, as I’ve written about many times previously, are sometimes hard-wired into us.

Therefore an important aspect is how we support change. Forcing change doesn’t often work. But what if by changing the smaller things in our lives we can impact the bigger issues?

Our environment is what surrounds us and this could mean the location of where you live and work, the size and style of your home, your streets, the people you share your time with and your support network etc.

For example, you probably have a greater chance of adopting a poor diet if you lived next door to McDonald’s than if your neighbour was a health food shop.

Someone with a garden is likely to be more active and spend time outdoors than someone who doesn’t have one.

An individual who needs more movement and fresh air in their life will possibly have more success if they don’t drive. They’d instead walk and be outdoors more. They’d probably save money and be much fitter as well. Conveniences, for all their benefits, make us lazier.

The Blue Zones tell me that we can do more to stack things in our favour. The people who live in the Blue Zones never go to a gym because they don’t have to. Most of us, though, don’t live that type of life.

ANTIDOTE: we need strengthening exercises to make up for the way we spend most of our days

Those of us who go to gyms often do so to make up for what our lifestyle doesn’t offer us. It can also be protection against what our lifestyle is doing to us.

I see the Amazing 12 as an effective means for accelerating the process of physical transformation (no matter what level you are at). It’s not super-quick, but it’s as quick as it can get without using harmful substances. It is by no means the end either, because there should be no end. If you value life, you should value your body. That means making it last.

If we take the same approach to training and movement as the people of the Blue Zones do to work and activity, we won’t stop until our dying day.

In the northern part of Okinawa, Japan, the word for “retirement’ doesn’t even exist in their vocabulary and a more commonly used word is one that translates to having a “reason for which to wake up in the morning”. A purpose.

COMFORTABLE: Stacey lifting beyond what she finished with on the first Amazing 12

On the Amazing 12 one has a purpose. It is to train five days a week in the gym, follow a healthy eating plan, get sufficient sleep in order to recover, sometimes do additional training outside of the gym sessions etc.

It requires dedication, commitment, organization, application and discipline. But how do we each create our own Blue Zones to make following a program easier?

As Colin Hudon, a physician of Traditional Chinese Medicine said, “Discipline is difficult only until it becomes a habit.”

When I coach people, I ask about lifestyle because I know it’s an obstacle. I’m invested in their results and success.

I’m writing about the findings of the Blue Zones because having the awareness of how much our environment can influence our behaviour is a critical starting point. Some of us probably haven’t ever considered its significance.

While going to the gym or working out (in the right way, of course) or playing sport is important for our health, what matters just as much, if not more, is how we spend the rest of our hours in the day. Is it sitting down? Is it under stress? Is it in a physically demanding setting? Is it indoors in artificial light? Is it facing a computer screen? Is it working endless hours? Is it commuting long distances? Is it doing something that brings us little joy or fulfilment?

Often, in order to get the most effective results, we need to combine the right activity with the right lifestyle. Does someone in a frenetic job require an intense form of exercise or something more calming? Usually, we seek out a form of movement or activity that either matches our personality or state of mind when, in all honesty, maybe the opposite is needed.

NEAR EMPTY: Stacey squatting well, but too tired to finish the week

The ongoing battle with Stacey, now nine weeks into the Amazing 12 Chichester alongside Rich, has been a lack of sleep. This week she was feeling more exhausted than normal. It reached a point when she pretty much could no longer function. Even though she wanted to work out, she was better off resting than training. She understood that.

For Rich, who had an excellent week of training and continued to make progress, it ended on a down note when he jarred his suspect knee (which has been operated on several times) near the end of the final session.

It was serious enough for us to cut the workout short. I’m hoping it’s not going to put him out of action.

The long-term answer for Stacey, though, is finding a solution to her sleepless nights so not only can she effectively recover from training, but massively improve her quality of life.

For anyone who struggles to sleep, the question is whether they’ve consistently laid the foundations to promote a good night’s rest.

It is made more challenging for Stacey because she has a young son. But she can still load the odds in her favour: black out her room; begin winding/calming down two hours before going to sleep; turn off electronic appliances one hour before sleep time; read a book; drink teas that help; use liquid magnesium; try meditation; wear an eye mask; create the right room temperature…

Buettner has proven how by changing the environment you can change the person. He has set up a company in the United States which, by invitation, facilitates the remodelling of cities where the health of the population is in urgent need of rescuing.

They, for example, created more parks, planted more trees, introduced more cycle paths, more restaurants with healthy options and provided access to fruits and vegetables at affordable prices.

In many of these cities people, without being told, began eating more healthily, moved more, spent a greater time outdoors and in natural surroundings. Consequently, the rates of disease began to fall and quite rapidly.

VALUES: Rich makes his training and diet a priority

Learning about the Blue Zones made me also think about Rich, because he rides his bike to the gym and back to every session (five days a week). This choice means he spends more time outdoors in the fresh air (unless stuck in traffic), gets added exercise (a good warm-up and warm-down for training) and saves on fuel and wear and tear for his car.

“Sometimes I’ll go months without driving,” says Rich, who also walks a lot, which is a trait of people who live in the Blue Zones.

Health and strength matters to him. He has created important cornerstones in his life that are in harmony with the goals he has for himself.

The crux of the information is that, even if we aren’t fortunate enough to live in a part of the world with a great year-round temperature or oceans or mountainscape or greenery, there’s still a lot we can do to increase our odds for success.

Ask yourself first how you want your life and health to be and then what choices you consistently make to bring them more in alignment with your aspirations.

Reaching 50: staying healthy in a changing world

DECADES APART: less hair, but still lifting

I CAN recall quite vividly a conversation I had back in my teens at a gym where I regularly used to train. During that exchange I said to whoever it was, “my goal is still to be training when I’m 50.”

Back then 50 seemed ancient. When you reach 50, you still feel young at heart – or at least I do. So now, if asked the same question about why I train, I’d add that I hope to still be lifting weights and working out when I’m 70 – if I get that far!

And without the lycra shorts!

Longevity has never been my aim. But for as long as I am alive, I want to be in good health. As the saying goes, “the idea is to die young as late as possible.”

Sports, athletics and training has always played a significant part in my life. Thank God I discovered it.

Growing up, I never got into excessive drinking or smoking or drugs because (a) it didn’t make sense to me (b) I took my sport (boxing at the time) seriously and (c) I valued my health enough to not want to subject my body to abuse (ironic considering the sport I chose).

It wasn that way from the beginning. As a child and young person I had a sweet tooth. I’d spoon sugar straight from the sugar bowl and spend my pocket money on chocolates and fast food. Then, over time, I realised the relationship between food and health and human performance and that to have any advantage, I needed to make the right choices.

So while many of my friends were dealing with peer pressure growing up, I was always largely excused. I was in training. That was my escape.

Amongst my peers I was always known as the one who didn’t drink. I designated myself the driver on nights out, which again gave me an ‘out’. When out on the town and, inevitably, asked why I didn’t drink alcohol as though I was someone from Mars, I always felt confident and comfortable in saying it didn’t interest me, that I didn’t ever feel the need for it and wasn’t fussed on the taste.

BACK IN THE DAY: feeling invincible in my 20s

Without thinking about it too deeply, I cherished being well far more than I did the experience of getting drunk or intoxicated or out of my mind. It wasn’t that I was ever a sick child and scared of being ill again. Quite the contrary. But maybe I saw enough sickness and drunkenness and hangovers around me to make me decide ‘I don’t ever want that’. And the occasions when I was unwell or injured, I remember the feeling as being less than enjoyable.

Let’s face it, being unwell is pretty miserable. Why would I choose that?

As you get older, it becomes more important to stay ‘fit’. The odds begin to stack against you.

We only have one body, which has to serve us for a lifetime. It’s senseless to destroy or weaken or abuse it.

It’s difficult enough as it is, with the best intentions in the world, to remain impregnable against the cascade of attacks on our health. There’s no way to fully avoid all the pitfalls of living in a modern world. But we can limit the damage.

Life can throw curve balls at you at any moment. You have to be ready. I know that the stronger and healthier I am, the better I can respond and the greater my chances of survival.

We have an epidemic in western and First World culture of people crumbling and dying from over-consumption of food and, more precisely, foods deficient in nutrients and laced with toxins and substances we’d often prefer not to know existed. This epidemic is made worse by a consumer culture driven to make life as comfortable and convenient as possible which, consequently, has resulted in populations of individuals becoming ridiculously inactive, physically.

REASONS TO BE HEALTHY: playing with my children

The advent of the technological age now threatens our children and younger generations, many of whom no longer aspire to play freely in the fresh air, but instead would prefer to be fixated, with limited movement, looking at devices that provide all their entertainment.

Additionally, we walk mostly on concrete, wake up to alarm clocks, work in artificial light, live in heated and air-conditioned buildings, wear our feet in tight shoes, over-use prescriptive drugs for illnesses which, largely, can be avoided, find ourselves continually filling the space of every spare second of the day (thus increasing stress levels), all the while no longer really needing to employ much energy or guile to locate, collect and prepare our food in the way we were originally designed to.

It’s not a mystery why many of us are ageing well ahead of time. And so many people look and seem helpless to protect themselves.

It’s easy to fall into the trap. Although I have always been active and gone to the gym or trained at least four-five times a week since I hit puberty, I was for much of my adult life – without even realising it – what they call “active sedentary”.

WRITING DAYS: travelling the world, meeting elite athletes

If I knew at 18 what I now know, I’d have possibly made some different choices in life and career. For instance, I worked as a journalist for more than 20 years in the heart of London. My job required that I commute by train practically every day. I sat at a desk for hours in an office and on a train and in my car. Now the idea of being pinned to a desk all day doesn’t appeal at all. Back then, though, I never gave it a second thought.

I believed, as many of us still do, the one hour or so of exercise each day could offset the endless hours perched on and hunched in a chair in a soul-less building and away from the elements we were supposed to be in contact with. It can’t.

I travelled the world, meaning I spent hours glued to a seat on aeroplanes, breathing cabin air, going across time zones, disrupting my internal body clock, all of which steadily takes a massive toll. The experiences I had may have seemed priceless, but they most likely came at some cost.

It’s all a trade-off. But is it a fair exchange if you don’t know all the risks – if you’re not made aware, for instance, that sitting at a desk for years, as our children do in schools, is likely to wreak havoc on your posture and body later in the life? We still don’t know – because it is a relatively new invention – the full impact of how our addictive mobile devices are affecting us.

Trying to uncover the truth within the war of information isn’t easy. Those that feed us the ‘facts’ have ulterior motives or a strong bias. Sometimes you have to dig and we’re all too busy to do any digging, so we listen to conflicting opinions and messages, wind up confused and, consequently, do nothing.

However, doing something is better than doing nothing, even if it’s the wrong thing. Why? Because if you recognise you’re going the wrong way, you can always change course. It’s never too late.

For instance, about 12 years or so ago I made the choice to stop eating animal products. It was controversial in my inner circles. I’ve never regretted it for a second, though. I feel better for it. I’m not advocating it for everyone. But it was right for me and it still remains so.

I didn’t exactly go about it in the right way, however. But making mistakes is how we learn. Initially, being the only non-meat-eater in my family and amongst my friends, I was defensive of my choices, sometimes fiercely so. I think I offended some people.

I’m a lot more now of the thinking that everyone is entitled to make their own choice. But, armed with the information and feelings I now have, I’d have probably changed my eating much sooner.

Overnight, I went from being a meat-eater to raw plant-based. That was a shock for my body. I lost a lot of weight and fast (not that I wanted or needed to). I tried to say I felt good, but I didn’t – at least not always. I knew the food choices I was making were healthier, but not the healthiest. How I transitioned wasn’t the best.

After I heard people discussing and being concerned for my health because of the weight loss, I made a U-turn and then, in a more sensible manner after educating myself some more, eliminated the foods I no longer wanted to consume.

I’ve found more balance now with how and what I eat. It takes time. I know a lot more about it. I became informed. I’m not obsessed. I just realise it’s important because it affects everything. Much of our immune system begins in the gut. What we eat is therefore critical. For that reason it gets my attention and is a priority.

I feel healthier, stronger, fitter and more nourished and energetic than in a long time. I’m more flexible and mobile even if I am still lacking in flexibility and mobility. I’ve always got work to do, because the work is never over.

As gymnastics coach Chris Sommer says, “You’re not responsible for the hands of cards you were dealt. You’re responsible for maxing out what you were given.”

Had I known sooner about the philosophies of people like Sommer, I probably would have changed my approach to training a long time ago. I didn’t grow up in a world where, unlike today, information was at my fingertips or Youtube existed (technology does have its advantages!).

I did a lot of fumbling around to find a system and methodology that made sense and worked. I made a ton of mistakes. I did a lot of experimenting to figure out a way of eating that also worked and was sustainable.

SHARING: coaching enables me to help others to grow

Doing the Amazing 12 program and learning from Paul McIlroy about training and food has revolutionised how I approach strength and conditioning.

I read a lot and I’m considered in what I read. I listen for hours to podcasts on inspirational and from informative people. I’m a sponge for learning more from the many incredible individuals out there leading the way in that market of the world today.

DISCOVERY: kettlebells and smarter ways of training came late, after much experimentation

I’m older now and don’t have the drive to compete like I used to. I’m happy with that, though. I wasn’t a world-beater as an athlete, even though I had aspirations to be. I’ve let go of that. I’ll leave it to the youngsters.

Frankly, it doesn’t matter to me greatly whether I’m first or last in something. It matters if I try my hardest and if I’ve executed a task with the standards I have set for myself and if I’ve made progress. I’m more at peace with any need to attract recognition for my achievements and exploits.

Of course, it’s nice to be applauded or revered, but it’s not essential or, for me, even required. What’s more important is how we feel about ourselves.

The real challenge is how to find equilibrium in our world with all the demands and distractions it places upon me and my well-being.

We are being bombarded by stressors from every direction. That’s why now the simpler things bring me the most pleasure.

I’m determined to be conscientious for the future of mankind and healthy, to serve and support my family, to be active and fully able to participate and play and interact with my young children for as long as possible. I strive to share what I know with others who feel there is something to learn from me and to help them to help themselves discover the promise that each and everyone of us has the right to.

MY TRIBE: women’s weight-lifting on Sunday mornings

The emphasis has shifted from what I can do for myself – as it does when you are younger – to how much of a positive impact I can have on other people.

And while I feel more selfless now, I still make myself a priority. That may be a paradox, but I’m of no use to anyone – in fact, I become a burden – if I’m not fighting fit for life and operating from a place where my essential needs have been met.

Life is, indeed, a journey of twists and turns and falls and delights and anguish and ecstasy and heartache. But it’s also an amazing place and with so much to explore and learn and experience. Sometimes I feel as if I will run out of time to fully appreciate and discover all I want to.

Many years ago my best friend, Bob Lesson, and I were in France on a beautiful sunny day and he said to me, “I’ve probably only got another 25-30 summers left.”

I’d never thought about my life in terms of summers. But, being a summer person, that’s one way of viewing how, potentially, little time remains and how precious each moment is.

I don’t know how, but I’ve been fortunate from when I was very young to be able to seek, find and go after what it is that really brings me to life. I almost have an inability to settle for less. I hope I don’t lose that.

AMAZING 12: a way of training and eating that I wished I’d have discovered years ago

Sure, I’ve had some jobs and periods where I felt listless, frustrated and as if I was heading nowhere, but the reality is that those moments served a valuable and essential purpose in getting me to and preparing me for where I did want to be. It nearly always does.

I’m far from perfect. But I try to work on my many imperfections. I’m patient because I have to be and because I know and have learned and understood that’s often how a process works.

If there’s one thing getting older gives you that should be really valued and cannot be ordered on Amazon, it’s experience.

Life should be a long and enjoyable journey. But, even when it’s not, I remind myself that change is constant and the most arduous paths eventually lead to some type of promised land.

Spades and barbells…where two worlds collide

OUR bodies are like gardens. Neglect them and the weeds will grow and, eventually, run the show. But a little daily maintenance and TLC goes a long way.

I’ve been helping out a friend with some gardening lately. It’s surprising how similar his world is to mine. Instead of kettlebells, barbells, dumbbells etc I’ve been using spades, mowers, forks, hedge-trimmers, blowers and sacateurs.

So many gardens are in urgent need of work. They’ve been abandoned and are wildly overgrown. But after several hours, we can have the garden transformed and looking spectacular. Similarly, I deal with many people urgently wanting to get their ‘abandoned’ bodies into shape and condition. The Amazing 12, for example, can do that in three months.

But then what? Here’s where the gardening and get-in-shape worlds collide, because the hard work is in the reshaping and the easy part the maintenance. Really.

Those who put in a little consistent love and effort into taking care of their gardens won’t see the overgrowth return. Similarly, those who regularly follow a sensible, structured training regime and remain consistent with their healthy eating will more easily be able to retain their hard-earned physiques and a good quality of health.

I’ve met many gardening customers who just aren’t interested in doing any of the work and, guess what? It all grows back. The human body is the same.

You also have some gardens which are high maintenance and need more tending to than others. Similarly, some of us have bodies which, for one reason or another – sometimes genetic – require greater attention than others.

Why do so many of us find performing maintenance so hard? After all, we all have the same amount of time in each day. But how we choose to spend that time is key. That decision comes down to what is most important to you, because for many of us life has become a juggling act and we seek to cram so much in.

So the question may be whether our fitness and health is a higher priority than some of the other commitments we have? If it is, we need to find a way to create the time.

Long-term success will also depend on how well you can hold on to the newer, healthier habits instead of reverting back to the ones that contributed to the problem in the first place.

Forming new habits are tougher in the beginning. Do it for long enough – which means sticking with it when and if it gets tough – and it becomes easier and, eventually, routine.

For many, the urge is to sit back and relax when the hard work is done and succumb to the temptations that are always around us. But that leads to the yo-yo effect – the constant battle of getting into shape and condition and then losing it all. The key is to keep advancing, setting new and realistic targets and working towards them.

If you want a lawn that always looks nice, you need to nurture it. Our bodies need continual nurturing as well.

Just as gardens are shaped by the weather and conditions they are subjected to, our bodies are moulded by our environments and the lifestyle we expose them to.

To really succeed, it is vital to take ownership of your life. That means accepting responsibility for what goes into your body and how you treat it. That means simplifying your lifestyle if it’s already too complex and stressful. That also means not shipping out the blame when things don’t go to plan. Weed out the bad habits/choices and keep the good.

Because it lasts for three months, The Amazing 12 can help develop new habits and foster the discipline required to maintain those habits for when the program is over.

The Amazing 12 also gives you the tools to be able to lift and train smartly thereafter. But for it to be effective, you still need to convert into action the skill and knowledge acquired.

After all, there’s no use knowing how to cut the lawn if the mower stays tucked away!

For details of the next Amazing 12 Chichester wave, starting January 9, 2017, send me an email to Claude@Intelligentstrength.co.uk. Be bold. Take that step towards changing your life and your body, learning new skills and creating a better and stronger future.

The No-sit challenge

I WANT to set you a challenge. A no-sit challenge.

Here are the rules. No sitting on any furniture for an entire day. If that sounds too hard, try for two hours to begin with and then add another hour each time you try it. Or set yourself a time that you think you can achieve, but would prove challenging. I’ll make an exception for when you have to drive your car, but, if you want to be hard core, take public transport instead and stand. Or, better still, use a bicycle.

Sitting on the floor or in the bottom of a squat is permitted. You can also kneel on one leg or both or keep switching. But the aim of the challenge is to use your body more, not less. Use it or lose it, as they say.

Pick a day when this is most practical, like a non-working day, and report back to me with your results. Observe how it makes you feel, what you do instead of sitting and how your body responds.

So why the no-sit challenge?

I’m a sit-less advocate. As a fitness instructor, I have clients who come to see me to get into shape or fitter or stronger or all of the aforementioned. However, I know that what I prescribe in one hour is only a part of the transformation. What goes on outside of the gym is equally, if not more important and I’m not just talking about food intake.

Here’s a quote from biomechanist Katy Bowman that touches upon some of my concerns: “The social conditions that promote inactivity have been building for decades”.

From my experience, the factors that MOST undermine success from fitness training are (a) lifestyle choices (b) a lack of patience.

The following is a fairly typical chain of events for many people: wake up, SIT at a table to have breakfast. Go to work, either by SITTING in a car or SITTING on a train or bus. Arrive at work and SIT for hours at a desk. During lunch you will probably find somewhere to SIT and eat. On the way home the pattern is repeated. SIT on the train or bus or in the car. Arrive home. SIT down for dinner and then SIT on a couch or sofa and watch TV. Go to bed and lie down for between six-eight hours.

That adds up to a lot of sitting, stillness and lack of movement. Our bodies adapt to the demands – or lack of – that we place upon them. So should we be surprised when our bodies adopt the form that they do and begin to fail us? And is it realistic to believe just a few hours in the gym or exercising each week will reverse or offset that?

So my point is that we sit far too much, dramatically reducing our activity levels, while shortening and stiffening our muscles and much more that I won’t even go into here. All of which undermines the work you put in at the gym or your chosen activity and, over the long term, leads to our bodies crumbling long before they were ever supposed to.

Grab a piece of paper and do an approximate and honest calculation of the average number of hours you might spend each day sitting down.

It’s not what our bodies were designed for. We were built to move.

And, when you really think about it and look around you, you will see how everything in our culture of comfort and ease and instant gratification is designed to make us move and do less: we have lifts and elevators and moving walkways and transportation vehicles and lazy couches with remote controls so we never have to stand up. In fact, I heard the other day that Denver airport in the US doesn’t even have a set of stairs!

If each day you train or do physical activity for one hour, but spend, say, eight hours lying down asleep and, cumulatively, a further 7-10 hours seated or hunched over a desk staring at a computer, what shape will your body most likely adopt and how will this affect the way your body performs? Multiply this by weeks and years and you can see the larger problem facing humankind.

For many of us it all starts when we go to school. The average time a child will spend seated at a desk during their school life (in western society) is 15,000 hours! Think what that can do to your body and spine over time.

The challenge facing children is being addressed in some quarters with, for example, initiatives to introduce standing desks to classrooms. This is in the early stages, but the initiative has shown many benefits, including burning more calories, less body pain, improved attention, greater flexibility, increased productivity…

In California, for instance, Juliet Starrett, wife of Kelly Starrett (of CrossFit fame), started a campaign for standing desks called Standup Kids to improve the health of thousands of children. It’s now slowly spreading throughout the US. There are movements like the Chair-Free Project that are now gathering momentum as we realise the harmful of effects of too much sitting.

Ever wondered why children, especially boys, shuffle in and swing on their chairs? It’s not always because they need the toilet! It’s because they can’t get comfortable. Children at that age want to move. But with the rise of electronic devices and less outdoor play, that is going to change rapidly, which is a subject matter for another day.

Why do I allow floor-sitting in my challenge? It’s a better alternative because it permits our bodies more movement and to adopt more postures than sitting on a chair.

This challenge is to make you more aware of what sitting and lack of movement does to us – how it makes us more lazy and inactive and, eventually, broken and sick.

BUT here’s the really good and life-changing part: YOU can do something about it.