Ep 029 – Functional Fitness

Unknown Speaker 0:00
Before we begin today’s episode, I wanted to share a personal anecdote about how social distancing to the corona virus has affected me and the lessons that I’ve learned from it. For those that listen to the show regularly, you know that I’ve been training for a marathon with a specific goal of obtaining a Boston qualifying time. My race, as well as nearly every other race in the country has been canceled for the foreseeable future. Because of the large amount of miles that you have to run per week, combined with the uncertainty of when a race would be available for me to try to hit a Boston qualifying time. I started to get really frustrated about what my next steps were going to be. Most races including the race that I had registered for offered a virtual option where you run with your phone’s GPS to show that you completed a full 26.2 miles. I wasn’t that interested in the option because I had focused so much on that Boston qualifying time, which you can’t get with the virtual option. In the days following I was able to get over my initial disappointment and change my attitude. signed up for the virtual race did my 26.2 miles around my house, my family was super supportive. They drove behind me, cheering me on the whole way. And when I got back to the house, they were congratulating me and saying, Daddy, what a great job that you did. The two lessons that I learned were one don’t put the goal ahead of the process and to focus on the things that you can control. In this case, I was so focused on the Boston qualifying time that I didn’t appreciate the progress that I had made. And two, I was still focused on the fact that I couldn’t obtain a time that I didn’t consider the virtual race and the benefits that it could have. As a result, I was able to have a great day with my family. And while we’re social distancing, I’ll make sure to make the most of that time. And oh, by the way, according to my watch, I made that Boston qualifying time, so I’m ready to try again as soon as I can.

Unknown Speaker 1:51
Health,

Unknown Speaker 1:52
travel finance, parenting and home improvement. This is the Suburban Folk podcast $250 a month into my child’s file. 29 from the month that they start kindergarten, I should be able to pay for 80% of my child’s college.

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I don’t trust that most people will eat their vegetables. So our kind of standard is three servings of vegetables per meal, you take something

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like a two by six and you cut it

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with a circular saw. That’s like a superpower. Those middle school years are not as fun but at that age, they’re still willing to talk to you. Welcome to the Suburban

Unknown Speaker 2:25
Folk podcast. I’m your host Greg. Today’s topic is functional fitness specifically for those aged 50 and older. There are certainly concepts that can apply to people of all ages and all fitness levels. My guest is Liz Grantham. She has over 30 years experience in marketing and advertising providing innovative integrated, thoughtful solutions for global clients like visa shell and Sony mobile while working on various projects including the Olympics. Her love of a challenge and making big things happen together with a need to manage the stress that comes along with running a business, endless deadlines, keeping clients out Happy being a present and mindful mom led her on the journey to what has become the optimal me. Liz, thanks so much for taking some time to join us here today on the show, really excited to talk about your background, a lot of the episodes we’ve focused on with health has been around a younger demographic than your expertise. So I’m going to be very interested to understand what transitions people should go into as they get into that 50 plus range and to continue to stay active and improving their lifestyle. So again, thanks so much for taking the time to join us today.

Unknown Speaker 3:38
Well, thank you so much for inviting me to talk to you. It’s a great pleasure and I hope we have a good hour

Unknown Speaker 3:43
for sure. Can you kick us off by giving us your background? What is it that interested you in developing the optimal knee and what you’re looking for people that are coming into your program to gain

Unknown Speaker 3:59
so I think it’s It’s like everything in life when you when you get to midlife and older we we have a quite a long backstory. So my entire career past 30 plus years has been in advertising. I’ve owned my own agency for the last for more than 20 years and I work with massive clients Visa, MasterCard, shell, you know, I’ve worked on the Olympic Games, as a most of them since the late 90s, FIFA, the big World Cup. So a lot of the work I’ve done has always been very deadline driven. And, and obviously, we’re a small agency here and what happens is we fight against the big guys quite a lot. So my motto has always been we’re only as good as our last job. And what that creates is this really high level of ongoing stress, you know, you live by the tyranny of the clock. You never stop hearing that Tick tock tick tock, and, and life just gets really stressful, stormy, spiteful and added to that. I’m the Mom, a single mom have a beautiful daughter she’s now 24 going on 25 but for most of her life I’ve had my own business and finding a way to work in advertising with the demands of clients etc and be really present mother because that was a decision that I made when I got pregnant was that I was really going to work very hard at being the best mother I could be you know, with a lot to carry anyway what happened was I of course was beyond stressed out most of you know most of my life clients shouting, yelling, doing deadlines, people.

Unknown Speaker 5:37
And I got to a point,

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some years back we I really was things we were getting out of control for me and I wasn’t exercising. I mean, I was living on ibuprofen at lunchtime every day to just sort of get through the afternoon another one at night.

Unknown Speaker 5:51
And you know, I suffered terribly with my

Unknown Speaker 5:53
jaw i’ve you know, had locked your head tech have acupuncture in it to get it undone. You know, it’s ridiculous, stupid. stress and, and my therapist actually said to me if you do not get to the gym or start exercising in some way to balance all of this art, you’re going to end up having a real problem. And you know, he said to me adrenal fatigue, I mean, if you have adrenal burnout, you’re going to end up in a place where you can’t get out of bed for a long time.

Unknown Speaker 6:19
And, and you know,

Unknown Speaker 6:22
blood pressure all of those things and and eventually I just thought if I don’t listen to him, I really been quite stupid. But I was so against going to gym at you know, I’m not an exercise. I was a swimmer when I was younger.

Unknown Speaker 6:38
I don’t love to run.

Unknown Speaker 6:39
I don’t love to really break out in a big switch the thought of breaking out in a sweat with other people doing that around me kind of spinning class or whatever is enough to give me hives. Thank you, and any seem to me you know, you’ve got to find you’ve got to find something and I’m not mad about yoga. I mean, I respect the position Norbert it’s just too slow for me, you know, I’m a gogogo I’ve got to get moving allottees I found sometimes I love dozen other times I found it quite boring because it was Same old, same old and I and I started doing some real research. I’m a big proponent of functional medicine.

Unknown Speaker 7:21
And I’ve been very well

Unknown Speaker 7:22
looked after by two great functional medicine doctors who really made massive sense to me in terms of how they approached, you know, kind of things that happen as we get older menopause and hormones and, you know, physical things which are just constantly wanting to give me a pool and because I don’t really lie, other than ibuprofen, which has always been my friend,

Unknown Speaker 7:46
Ed about the wrist. So

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I was kind of talking to people and and one of my doctors say to me, Well, you know, why don’t you talk to this physiotherapist. She’s quite alternate. She’s got a different view. And she they He said to me, Well, you know, there’s this great guy who does kind of a functional movement class, and it’s all about movement movement is actually what’s important. It’s not about what movement you necessarily do, you just really must be moving. And you need to think about your body and how your body moves. And what’s important, especially for you at this time of your life, and our wings eventually, eventually, I took myself one Friday afternoon to a class that was called move and stretch. And I thought it was five o’clock on a Friday afternoon, and I really was kind of God helped me I can’t believe I’m doing this, you know, sort of gingerly walked into the gym, which isn’t a space I’m comfortable in. Right. And honestly, I had the best hour that I had had in years. I was I mean, I just couldn’t really believe what had happened because as you know, normally, I’m watching the clock. I mean, I love watching the clock, you know, that’s what I do. Come how much longer When can I be finished, got to get on to the next thing.

Unknown Speaker 9:00
In the class at five o’clock on a Friday,

Unknown Speaker 9:02
we’re such a variety of people, number one men and women. The age the age group was extraordinary. I mean, there were some women and men in that class that were in the 60s and 70s, and even early 80s. And they were quite amazing. I mean, they were moving and doing.

Unknown Speaker 9:21
And the whole concept of what he did

Unknown Speaker 9:23
was quite different. The music was fantastic. I mean, and that that immediately worked for me because I loved music. I would. A lot of the work I’ve done in my life has been in the entertainment and music industry. And it kind of just made the time go by. And what was also interesting was the movements that we were doing and what he what he had us doing wasn’t quite aerobics. You know, I sort of had that picture of I was going to be doing Jane Fonda in leg warmers, and I think it wasn’t

Unknown Speaker 9:53
right.

Unknown Speaker 9:54
There was a little bit of yoga, there were a few bits of politeness things. There were some things that I knew but it was such fun. And it went faster and then slower. And there was a lot of repetition that went on. And through that 15 minutes, I actually felt the whole of my jaw Nick,

Unknown Speaker 10:10
upper body trapezius actually starting to kind of relax.

Unknown Speaker 10:17
And at the end of the class, I was like, I’m actually feeling quite joyful and happy, what’s happened here, ready to go and beat somebody up. And and that is that is where the started so I started doing functional functional movement. And just so embrace some of the people in the class have actually been been working with Jani, who is who is on the optimal knee, he is on his his exercise program is what

Unknown Speaker 10:45
we have. And

Unknown Speaker 10:47
they have been working with him for 25 plus years, some of these older people, and they were telling me they were saying, you know, in the old age home, you know, I’m still picking up my grandchildren or this one’s lifting things off the And climbing a ladder, none of my friends would dig it on a ladder, you know,

Unknown Speaker 11:04
they were,

Unknown Speaker 11:06
they were really so active and so kind of none of them all Baffin, beautiful, which is what you know, for me, I wasn’t really looking for that anymore. I just wanted to feel really good and to feel better.

Unknown Speaker 11:20
So yeah, that’s how the optimally started, I

Unknown Speaker 11:24
went traveling for business, I was abroad, and I was so stiff, and I thought, Oh, if only I had some of those workouts in my pocket. Literally, I was sitting in a hotel room in Barcelona. And I thought if I had that if I had Yanni here with me knowing, you know, in half an hour, I feel great again.

Unknown Speaker 11:38
And

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I phoned him,

Unknown Speaker 11:43
and I said, Look, I’ve just had this idea and I think for a whole lot of reasons we need to do this. And after that initial thought, what happened was that we really, will I you know, I started thinking, but if I’m going to do this, I can’t just be another Kind of perceived exercise program. And I started doing research and I realized that there is very little out there for people in midlife, there’s a lot of exercise and opportunity if you’re going to be doing cool or strength or bat or you know, abs or whatever those things are, but there’s very little around looking at your at how your body moves and how your body works and all of the things that we admit like need to be really focusing on to make sure that we stay independent and active as we get older. And you know, we’re going to live a long time so base that we make sure that we’re looking after ourselves and you know, that’s where that and the whole idea around the optimal me and our and our current offering grew from there and we then thought, Okay, well we talking so much about movement and movement is cool, but what about the Other things that you that confused us or that we need to know more about for good health.

Unknown Speaker 13:04
Nutrition is one.

Unknown Speaker 13:06
And, you know, it’s a really confusing world out there. I mean, I think that whilst this whole digital world has made things so wonderful in many ways, in others, it’s made things a lot harder. Because there’s just such an overload of information and what do you believe? And what do you try and how do you find good information? So you we thought, let’s, let’s start talking about nutrition, not in a way that is prescriptive, or advising people what to do because we’re certainly not nutritionists. But what about if we tell you how you know what good is in what foods What’s going on? Let’s compare different kinds of eating regimes let’s, you know, talk about what things you can eat if you suffer from inflammation read diseases like arthritis is it but what will help you know what could be detrimental So we took that approach from on nutrition and then, of course in midlife, and we thought, what about self, you know, life has changed our parents at our age, we’re kind of old people already. I’m 52 going on 53 and ice, you know, I still feel like I’m in my late 20s most of the time.

Unknown Speaker 14:21
So I am very,

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and I definitely want to stay independent. And I very definitely don’t want my daughter having to look after me because I’m

Unknown Speaker 14:31
kind of

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not able to take care of myself. And and so we started thinking about self and and, you know, that’s kind of covers health issues, you know, what are the things we face now at 50 or 60 or 70? What are the life issues that we’re facing, you know, some of us are having to read career, or maybe we’re not having to but we’re choosing to, we might have to retire at 60 because that’s company policy. But actually, we still want to be working on contributing. So what is it that we can do to help? And how do we get through those times? So

Unknown Speaker 15:06
whilst we have movement at our core,

Unknown Speaker 15:08
because I think movement is at the core of life, we’ve added these these issues around nutrition and self to sort of around out, creating a space that is well curated, that we could be a trusted source of information. And we’re not necessarily telling you what you have to do, but we’re certainly making sure that everything that we publish is fit for purpose and focuses on our demographic. And we’re all about feeling good. Because when you feel good, you automatically look you know, you stand taller, you’re more energized, etc. And I’ve got no issue with anybody who wants to, in the 50s or 60s have a six pack or do any of that. I think it’s fantastic. But it’s sort of unattainable for most of us. So if we can feel great And we’re going to look better, you know, and that’s really that’s really what the optimum is all about. Sorry, it was rather a long introduction.

Suburban Folk 16:10
No, that’s perfect. That gets a good foundation for I think, where the rest of our conversation is going to go. And I think you’re spot on with one of the primary differences between the 50 plus demographic and younger is self sufficiency. And like you said, just being able to be functional, not being at worse, like a burden to your kids, potentially, when you really get into older ages. For example, in this show, we have a lot of episodes dedicated to travel, and in my mind, what a tragedy that would be if you get to those retirement years when you’ve got the money to do more travel and all the sudden, you can’t do it because it’s just too much of a burden, too. To get to the airport, get on plane do the tours and things that you want to do. So I think it definitely makes sense that people that are into this age range, those are the things that they do and should have on their mind as far as the goals that they have. And then to your point, yeah, six pack or the way you look

Unknown Speaker 17:21
is

Unknown Speaker 17:23
fine. And if they have the other goals of being functional, if it’s a byproduct, great, but it probably shouldn’t be the primary goal. And I wonder, what have you found, whether it’s people coming into your program in their background or maybe even your own background? Are there things that people have done leading up to the age of 50 and beyond that have been a detriment? And where I’m going with that is there are certain exercises That can be really hard and your joint I always say I’m a runner and there are a lot of runners who’ve just destroyed their knees after years and years of pounding the pavement and so on. So maybe like you said, you were a swimmer and something that for my own search right now and trying to get in the pool, even though I’m just a terrible, terrible swimmer, way easier on the joints, you still get that cardio, are there things that you have found leading up to people getting to the the older ages that you’re focusing on, that they should stay away from or that they should even focus on? To be in a good spot for longevity?

Unknown Speaker 18:37
Yeah, so absolutely. And I think you know, everybody, I mean, everyone is unique. Everyone has their own likes, dislikes. You know, the people who they listen to, they have their own advisors, people who they listen to and respect and you know, who whose opinions they follow. And I think there’s no one size fits all but but what they is is a is Fundamental, you know, the science tells us that we need to move. I mean, there is more and more and more research out there that says, moving our bodies is essential. So we talk a lot about being functional. And you know, I’m sure you hear quite a lot of talk now, you know, it’s really coming to the fore is this whole issue around functional fitness, and what functional fitness is.

Unknown Speaker 19:28
And, you know, it means different things to different people.

Unknown Speaker 19:32
Because basically, what functional fitness is, is your ability to do all of the activities of your day, whether it’s at home, at work or during sports, you know, with ease and comfort. Now, for you, that’s going to be one thing because you want to be functionally fit to play with your kids to be able to lift them, run with them roll around, you know, sit with them. You want to be able to run marathons, you need to be fit enough to get in and out of your cars. You’re going off to meetings and and you know, you You probably set quite a lot during your day in between moving around what you very different from a professional athlete

Unknown Speaker 20:07
who may need to be functionally fit in a different way.

Unknown Speaker 20:10
And you know, he might need speed power, so you know really well well muscled explosive quads, they may need real upper body strength for instance because they’re playing a big contact sport like football, you know, what we would call you know, rugby here and in the sphere. But when you get to midlife, again, we need to be functionally fit and as you get older, you still want to be functionally fit and and when you when you’re more senior than midlife, you need to be able to do for a few core functional movements. You know, you need to be able to stand up and sit down and you know, get up from sitting positions. You need to be able to twist and you need to be able to walk well you need to be able to reach Those are real basic functional movements. And if you lose the ability to do those movements,

Unknown Speaker 21:05
which,

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you know, our bodies start degenerating quite young, you know, our bone density starts reducing, all kinds of things happen from when we were in our mid 30s. Already, you know, things aren’t as they were when we were younger. So if you don’t keep practicing those movements and doing them regularly, and not in an isolated way, you know, a lot of a lot of exercise and gym work and stuff is all around isolated kind of movement. So you’ll be working on your biceps or you’ll be working on your quads, so your glutes, so your core. The way we move in life is in an integrated way. I mean, if you walk through your day today, you’ll see that you go from a reaching position to a kind of squatting crouching position to get something out of a bottom drawer or to pick up your kids. Then you stand up, you know, then you’ll bend over into your car to lift your groceries out of have, you know the boot, you’ll have to sit and stand from various different chairs, hearts positions, you’ll be running up and down stairs potentially. Now, if you don’t keep practicing those movements and those movement patterns, so not just doing squats or just doing bridges or just, you know, doing strength exercises on the own, you start losing your ability to be balanced and aligned in your body. And that’s when you really kind of get to a point where the risk of injury escalates. Now, you’ll know that most of the people over 60 that are going to the emergency room are going because they’re broken about they’ve twisted an ankle they’ve fallen, if they’ve taken some kind of a fall because they’ve lost their balance. Now, all of us no

Unknown Speaker 22:48
matter whether you know at your age, at my age,

Unknown Speaker 22:52
when you’re older, what you really want to be focused on no matter what else you’re doing, is to be doing functional movement as part of Your daily exercise practice. Because not only is it going to keep you

Unknown Speaker 23:06
sort of

Unknown Speaker 23:06
flexible, mobile stable on your, on your feet unstable in your body, it helps with strength because a lot of it is resistance. And when your body is aligned and you are balanced, you have a much lesser risk of injury, for tripping, falling, you know, losing your balance, and you’re also able to do all the things that you like doing better. So, I’m sure you stretch before you run and after you run, right. And I’m sure the stretches you do are you know the kind of typical, you’re going to stretch your quads, you know, you’re going to maybe touch your toes a few times, you’re going to maybe do a few upper body twists or turns. But if you could add an integrated movement routine, which is what we call our functional movement, program, if you could add an integrated movement routine before and after your run and if they could be as short as five minute routines. You are going to recover from those runs full lot quicker, which means you’re going to be able to train better. And that means in your life, you know, you’re not going to be stiff and achy and kind of groaning around in between as you recover. So if you’re older, and your function, you know, you’re doing a lot of functional movement, it means this year, you’re planting your spring bulbs, or I mean, I’m not sure what you what you guys are getting ready to plot now you’re gardening, you’re doing activities. When you don’t do that activity for six or seven months, and you go back to doing it. It’s really hard. It’s much harder this year than it was last year. Right? And functional movement helps offset all of that kind of loss of movement in your joints. It keeps your range of motion good, and it keeps

Unknown Speaker 24:53
you flexible. And I think

Unknown Speaker 24:56
you know, that really is is the key to all of us. So So when you’re young You don’t think about it because it’s not really in your space yet. And you do a lot of exercise that is focused on,

Unknown Speaker 25:06
you know, you run or if you cycle it’s

Unknown Speaker 25:07
all lower body, you know, your legs are great your glutes,

Unknown Speaker 25:10
you’re doing all of that you’re not doing much with your upper body,

Unknown Speaker 25:14
you lose your ability to rotate.

Unknown Speaker 25:18
And to twist, you know, your spine isn’t as flexible as it should be, etc. Not great for you know, when you are 50 and you’re and you’re wanting to kind of look at doing those things. So, back to to a lot again, a long answer to your question is Is everybody should be thinking about how the body was designed to move. The body was designed, I mean, if you think about, you know, the hand together, men, they had to be totally functional because it was a question of survival.

Unknown Speaker 25:52
And we now have become thinkers and we are,

Unknown Speaker 25:56
we are sitters

Unknown Speaker 25:59
and sitting

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It isn’t, you know, this, the sedentary life that most of us live now

Unknown Speaker 26:04
is a disaster. So,

Unknown Speaker 26:06
you know, we need to really be working and conscious of how we move and how we move regularly during the day.

Unknown Speaker 26:12
There’s a phrase out there that says, sitting is the new smoking. I think I’ve heard you have,

Unknown Speaker 26:18
you have and it’s terrifying because it’s

Unknown Speaker 26:21
actually true. This

Unknown Speaker 26:23
research about the fact that our lifestyle is so sedentary, that is coming out every day, there’s more, there’s more that, you know, really reputable, very smart scientists and researchers are doing in the field of, of movement and you know, and the cost thing of a sedentary life. And it’s terrifying. And, you know, sitting sitting a lot, causes all kinds of problems. And, and it offsets. I mean, the scary thing I actually read a report yesterday that was just released, that even if you go to gym every morning, and you do 3040 minutes at the gym, or whatever you do If you then spend the rest of your day sitting you may as well have not bothered actually, because the impact is still going to be the same. So on your on your overall health. So we have to become movers again. I mean as a as a species, we have to start moving regularly throughout our day, rather than going from, you know, a bid to sitting to eat to sitting in our cars just sitting at our desks to sitting on the train to sitting for dinner and sitting and watching TV.

Unknown Speaker 27:29
And let’s hit the topic a little bit more on that type of lifestyle. What are the major issues that come up, I’m mmediately. Think like your back, like you said, interesting with being able to twist and your spine and depending on if you’re doing lower body focus exercises only don’t have those other functional movements, what other parts of the body get affected by the constant sitting and like you said, moving from One sitting place to your your desk to getting in your car to sleeping. It’s quite

Unknown Speaker 28:05
sort of terrifying when you think about it like that, you know that that is that’s what we do maybe five days a week, even if we work hard. So I think I’m second Cree lifestyle kind of does a whole lot of issues. So So first of all, I mean, your your whole, your whole body needs to move to work. I mean, that’s how our bodies were booked. So if our bodies are not moving, and you know, our brains start slowing down. So let’s just talk about that for a minute because that’s, that’s terrifying. Okay. Yeah, our brains need, you know, they need messages and they need to be stimulated and inspired. And if we are not moving, our whole system starts slowing down and shutting down. And, you know, when we are just sitting around and not not active, I mean, it has an impact obviously,

Unknown Speaker 28:58
on on our organ, so literally, you’re Heart.

Unknown Speaker 29:01
I mean, if you’re not doing much, that means you’re not cardiovascularly fit. And so you’re going to have heart issues and what’s going to come with heart issues, high blood pressure, potentially, you know, risk of stroke comes next. So, if you just think about kind of that heart disease, diabetes, strokes, high blood pressure, and other chronic diseases from sitting, I mean, even

Unknown Speaker 29:25
cancer, as they say.

Unknown Speaker 29:29
That is,

Unknown Speaker 29:30
you know, your, your inflammation levels rise. I mean, it’s just everything that happens in your body when you don’t move is is a terrifying thing that we don’t think about. And

Unknown Speaker 29:41
also when you’re not doing

Unknown Speaker 29:42
that your mental health and also suffers when you are sitting around

Unknown Speaker 29:46
and you’re not active and you’re not physical and you’re not moving.

Unknown Speaker 29:51
Many people actually start suffering from some level of depression.

Unknown Speaker 29:56
You know, whether it’s whether it’s chronic or not,

Unknown Speaker 29:58
and It’s it really can be problematic, you know, you also then lose

Unknown Speaker 30:07
in all of your joints, you will lose range of motion. So, never mind that your organs are slowing down and that you know, your your, your your and your cardiovascular fitness is null and void. But if you are not moving your joints and we have you know, our whole body is is one big system nothing is is isolated so even when you’re cycling you know your your spine is involved, your arms are involved, you kind of move your hips a bit, you know, they go left to right as you cycle or whatever, but are our bodies an integrated being you know that everything moves together. But if you’re only using some parts of your body, you’re creating an imbalance and when you’re not using the others,

Unknown Speaker 30:53
so

Unknown Speaker 30:55
when you don’t use your joints I mean I’m sure you’ve heard that saying if you if you don’t move But you lose it.

Unknown Speaker 31:01
Right? And,

Unknown Speaker 31:02
and that really is also what happens with the body. So I’m sure that I mean, we have a lovely little test that we do you know, where you put your hands in front of you and you and you rotate your arm backwards, as if you were the hand of a clock to see how far back you can. You can go while you’re, you know, if you’re keeping your hips you’re facing forward. Obviously, if you twist your hips even, how far can you go. And it’s amazing how with a very little bit of functional movement and using all of those joints and working on them, you get your range of motion, back and range of motion. I mean, you know, when you can’t reach behind you when you’re old because you’ve lost the range of motion and your shoulders. You know that that is quite problematic on a whole lot of levels. I won’t give you any really good examples. I’m sure your listeners don’t want to hear about that. But you really, you really want to keep your body working and in good shape.

Unknown Speaker 31:57
Heck, I even think that if you get to really extreme place getting out of bed probably could be something that’s affected, you know, starting your day, right,

Unknown Speaker 32:06
literally, and I think look at midlife, a whole lot of things happen to you and And generally speaking, we all start feeling aches and pains we never felt before. Whether we were active, whether we’re you know, I’ve got friends who are triathletes. I mean, they’re older than me. And what they do in a day kind of makes my head spin. No, I mean, it’s extraordinary. I don’t know how they do, but they do. And they love it. And, and it’s great. And you know, that there are there in cycling for 27 days at a stretch and doing all kinds of extreme med things. But the reality is, is that we start feeling aches and pains that come from nowhere, you know, suddenly today you’re like, oh, that was a bit of a while I’ve got a pain there.

Unknown Speaker 32:50
I haven’t done any exercise or whatever.

Unknown Speaker 32:53
It’s a natural thing that happens with our bodies as we age. I mean, for women we start hitting you know, we become perimenopausal In menopausal that creates aches and pains, and we get stuff much quicker when you know, we don’t recover as fast from exercising. So all of that is a natural part of getting older. And we can choose I mean, this is the wonderful thing we have a choice. We can choose to let it get the better of us. And you do see those people who let it get the better of them walking around, you know, they’re they feel old before they time. Or you see somebody that’s at and buzzing across the street and greeting everybody and energized and happy and lovely. And they feel young and they’re in touch and they’re you know, involved and that is because they are, you know, they’re they’re moving. They’re making sure that they choose life. When you choose to stop moving. You know, you’re making a choice that you don’t have to make. We can all move more. We don’t have to be going to the gentleman you know Doing a massive workout, like me getting too sweaty in a crowd, or whatever. We just

Unknown Speaker 34:05
have to think about how we move. We want to move more we want to move

Unknown Speaker 34:11
in the way that our bodies were built to move, because they really are extraordinary. Our bodies,

Unknown Speaker 34:16
yes. And also, it strikes me when people might think of getting to an older age, and maybe the reason I’m focused on why I’m curious people even leading up to that point in their life. It’s never too late, right? That even if you’ve not done a lot of movements, or not an athlete, or whatever it happens to be getting started sooner, of course, is better. But there’s never a point where you’re a lost cause correct?

Unknown Speaker 34:48
Never. Never, never, never. I mean, look, Prevention is always better than cure, of course. And unfortunate unfortunately, it’s human nature for me to need a crisis before they’re actually in make a change. You know, I think that that is kind of how it goes, we all know what we should do. But doing it sometimes is really just, we have to do, it’s a step too far we’re tired, we’re overworked, whatever it is, but a small amount of movement everyday can make all

Unknown Speaker 35:17
of the difference. So

Unknown Speaker 35:19
there’s a lot of research out there that talks about how much kind of cardio

Unknown Speaker 35:25
and strength training we should be doing as we get older, to to really make things work and I think it’s between 102 around 250 minutes a week that they talk

Unknown Speaker 35:36
about, but what’s really interesting is

Unknown Speaker 35:40
what that could be and how you do that. So for somebody that’s really not new ages, or nevermind that maybe they’re recovering from surgery or from a fall or whatever it is, and you know, you lose your your muscle mass and your turn very quickly. The older you get, the quicker you you know, you lose not that much You’re younger when you could not do something for six weeks or eight weeks and kind of bounce back quite quickly. And the minute you start doing the smallest of things, and literally even if you decided you were going to do five minutes a day,

Unknown Speaker 36:13
three times during your day

Unknown Speaker 36:17
and you found some fat,

Unknown Speaker 36:19
you know, integrated functional movement, and you just started doing them slowly, slowly, you will see a difference. I mean, I can promise you within a week of doing that consistently, people will already start feeling a difference. It might not be massive, but it will very definitely be clear to them that that they’re doing it and you know, it’s not a wonderful thing about integrated functional movement or integrated movement routines is that they’re not competitive, you know, there’s no, there’s nobody going not you have to Once you’ve done this for one week, this is where you should have put And then only when you progress to this place, can you move to the next thing? Absolutely not. I mean, this is based on nature. So everybody can do this, no matter how old you are, no matter no matter what state you’re in, and maybe you even just do some of it sitting in your chair first because you can’t get out of your chair and you know, you’re just twisting and moving or, or maybe you get out of your chair. more often. I mean, Yanni often says, if you do nothing, the best thing you can do is do something, even if that means every hour you get out of your chair and walk around it and sit back down again.

Suburban Folk 37:39
I would think a lot of ways that is an easier way to gauge how well you’re doing than chasing a number on the scale, more maybe even what clothes you’re trying to wear or anything like that. If you’re starting with a baseline of being To get out of a chair more easily, or get something out of a talk, kitchen cabinet, things like that. your everyday life is going to be the gauge of how well you’re doing. Getting these types of regimens into your life just is your day to day life easier than it was the day before when you were first doing those things. And I’m also curious, another cliche for people that are trying to do a lot of weight loss that keeping it off or taking the weight off is one thing, but keeping it off tends to be even harder. And one of the themes that we’re talking about is being able to stick with routines and repetition but for a different purpose, again, for functionality of life. Are there similar pitfalls that you see in somebody’s doing these functional exercises today Just gain more independence in their life as compared to somebody that’s overweight and trying to lose that weight. And then again, you always hear the pitfalls of not being able to maintain whatever it is that they did to lose weight, and then they go back to those same cycles.

Unknown Speaker 39:16
Absolutely. And I think that

Unknown Speaker 39:18
those issues are life issues. You know, whether it’s weight, whether it’s exercise, whether it’s whatever habits, or goals we have, that we’re trying to achieve, if we don’t spend time before we start figuring out how are we going to make that a part of our life going forward for the rest of our lives? We’re always going to be on that kind of yo yo. Rod where we going up and we’re going down and we’re going, you know, we fit and then we unfertile we thin and then we put on weight again and our codes are taught or we’re, you know, we can run that marathon now and then six months later, we’ve got to start again from the beginning, because we finished it, and we, you know, laid on an eight seven doughnuts a week because we think that I mean that really is, is often we’re often like that as humans, you know. So the optimal mes philosophy is is quite different to all of these things, whether it’s nutrition, whether it’s your, your physical health, whether it’s your, you know, your ability to move your functional movement, when really needs to think for the long term about these things. And, I mean, I’ve had a lot of experiences through my life that we’re all kind of laid up to me doing. So. From a nutrition perspective, I was quite chubby, I wouldn’t say that I was, you know, very overweight or obese, but we’re not just as I turned 40 In fact, my one brother in law who, who I still love, even though I turn around and say to one of my sisters, you know, I know she’s single but honestly, you know, has she not had a little upset because like you she couldn’t wait to come in. Tell me Of course, run, run, run down the passage. Hahaha, you know, my husband thinks that you’re, you know, you’re looking so big that you look like you’re pregnant. And I was like, you know, he is actually a rude, horrible man. But it was, again, one of those things where I was like, you know, if somebody’s saying that about me, I’d better get a grip. And I was never as I say, I was never, you know, kind of obese or anything like that. But because I was working and you know, I’m a single mom and I put so much stress and pressure and demands on me, the way I was eating, don’t eat a lot. Don’t drink a lot, don’t do anything a lot, but I just was out of shape. And, you know, I can’t have to make myself precious little meals every day and you all would cook every excuse I could find. And, again, I found somebody who, who, who gave me a kind of a diet and look at it was one of those things where I lost weight quite fast, but it has become the way that I eat. And I believe that deprivation is

Unknown Speaker 41:59
tyranny. For any human being, I mean,

Unknown Speaker 42:02
I don’t want to ever be deprived of anything. I love life. I love eating. I love good food I love you know, all of that stuff. I mean, I don’t know what the point is, if if we can’t do the things that make us happy, but I Monday to Friday, I’m very disciplined about what I eat. You know what I do? What goes in my mouth, I don’t really drink. I have kept off 17 kilos for 12 years. And I promise you when I go on holiday, and I’m in Italy, or wherever I am, I am eating and eating and eating but I come home and straightaway I go back to that place. Now,

Unknown Speaker 42:38
movement is the same thing.

Unknown Speaker 42:41
We can’t be disciplined all of the time,

Unknown Speaker 42:44
and we can’t do something that’s going to give us a quick one and it might not be that quick. What’s that six months, seven months, but it’s not sustainable in our in our life and in our lifestyle and in what we have to do. So, ideally, no matter what it is, we want To find something that we can really make a lifelong habit with. So it’s important that whatever it is you enjoy, because believe you mean if you’re doing something that you don’t enjoy,

Unknown Speaker 43:11
you’re giving it up as fast as you can.

Unknown Speaker 43:14
And in fact, sometimes be a bit so a bit of this a little bit of that. But we also want to be doing something that makes us feel good because you know, we’re not when we feel good. We are creating dopamine. And dopamine is being produced heavily in our brains and telling us how wonderful it is and how happy we feel and how nice it is. To we find something that does that for us. It’s not so hard to keep doing it because when you stop you think oh, I’m missing that feeling. You know, that was really nice. I I like a missing feeling good like that. So if we find something we can fit into our into our lifestyle and into our routine in our schedule. That isn’t a big huge heavy lift. Because you can do a big, huge heavy lift in the short term, but you can’t do it for the rest of your life.

Unknown Speaker 44:03
And I think that’s

Unknown Speaker 44:06
that that’s part of finding really long term long lasting solves

Unknown Speaker 44:12
that, that help you sustain

Unknown Speaker 44:16
whatever it is. And you know, if you can find something that you can do when you’re 40, or 45, or 50, that you can still be doing when you 60 and 65 and 70 and 75 and 80.

Unknown Speaker 44:28
Half fantastic.

Unknown Speaker 44:30
Probably one of the challenges for any workout program is finding something that you can stick with and something you mentioned as part of your initial journey and getting into a class with a bunch of other folks and seeing what they’re doing. And I assume when people are going on to your site and onto your program, there’s a sense of community and I have found for myself and definitely to experts in the fitness world that I’ve talked to, is a big thing to reduce friction for people to stick with a workout regimen. Is that been your experience as well? And is that something you focus on to make it a community atmosphere?

Unknown Speaker 45:16
So great, we were still pretty new in terms of our online offering. Um, and we’ve been kind of approaching things slightly differently. We don’t have a very big community yet. And, you know, we’re working on that and building that we don’t have currently, you know, we have feedback loops, and we have testimonials and things. And I think we have fantastic plans for a wonderful community activity and for people to be able to talk to each other and be supportive of each other. And I think it’s really important, you know, that there are people who love that there are people who, who are busy and you know, just want to find something that they can do. But we’ve tried to build out a lot of support within our offering in terms of Not the community support, unfortunately, because that is on our roadmap and in sort of the next six months that will be kind of live and happening. But we try and make sure that everything anybody could need in terms of how to do things if they’re doing it right what things mean. We have a lot of information on our site to just try and get people over that hurdle as they make a habit. And community but community is great, you know, I mean, I look forward to the day that we actually you know, have Yanni who’s who just is, as I say, his workouts are fantastic and I can’t wait for the day that we’re,

Unknown Speaker 46:37
we’re

Unknown Speaker 46:38
in Virginia doing a doing a nice big live class with our community there for fun, you know, that they can come and join in. So

Unknown Speaker 46:46
I really look forward to

Unknown Speaker 46:48
to kind of creating that space for everybody.

Unknown Speaker 46:52
And as I say, we will have our community running. I mean, we you know, we have a Facebook page we have you know, we have those traditional Elements where people can, we’re quite active in terms of being responsive and honoring, you know, we have a, say hello with the optimal knee address where people can write and, and ask us questions or query anything. And our team are very good at being personally responsive. And, you know, when when people have questions and queries, you know, potentially about their health or something that they’ve got going on, and they’re really wanting to check in before they start doing stuff. But I do look forward to having a community because I think what’s wonderful, is also feedback. You know, I think feedback is just it’s a fantastic thing because not you know, good feedback, as well as the feedback where people are saying to you look, I don’t like the so I want that or, you know, and one of the really amazing things on this journey of building the optimal me is, you know, I at 50 odd, decided I was going to build a digital business and Um, I think I thought it was going to be quite quick and simple. You know, I had a lot of experience, I know how to do a lot of things. Right? And let me tell you that I have been on.

Unknown Speaker 48:15
I can’t tell you what I’ve learned in the last three years.

Unknown Speaker 48:17
And, you know, a lot of the, a lot of the stuff I really am I know, I mean, I’ve been doing it, you know, I can produce video, I can, you know, I know how to make things beautiful. I know how to generate content and get writers and people to do things. And, um, but the technical side of this and the user experience has really been an extraordinary journey. And I think for everybody that’s involved because, you know, I know it’s going to sound a bit bizarre, but we won. We are the only online integrated functional movement, that form that that has this kind of exercise in unlimited classes, that that people that are older Can can do. And you know, there’s a lot of exercise all over the internet, but nothing quite like this. And every time I spoke to anybody and said, I want to do this, they would look at me. You mean supply potential suppliers, you know, people that we’re going to develop and do take in their day, but there’s hundreds of exercises. That’s what it is why? Why would anyone want another one? Ah, oh, people aren’t on the internet. Why are you making something for older you know, blah, blah, blah, and all these things. And I, if I tell you the amount of nights that I actually sort of came home or got back from a business trip and sat in a corner, and I thought have I really,

Unknown Speaker 49:36
totally and utterly lost my marbles?

Unknown Speaker 49:38
And anyway, I just kept thinking they don’t really know what they’re talking about. I’ve done my research and I and a few months later, everybody that was involved would go cheapest, you know, there really isn’t anything specifically like that. No, okay, good. But the excitement that we’ve had as a team and even the debate But because you know, most of them are quite young, they’re not, they’re not in our space of really understanding what our audience needs from a technology perspective, or not what they need, but what they’re comfortable with. Because it’s not always the latest version of how you acts, where it’s hitting, or how you know this and that. We really want things that are quick, easy, basic, save us time. And we don’t want to have to look too hard. And please don’t change anything once we’ve gotten to

Unknown Speaker 50:28
no hard works, you know.

Unknown Speaker 50:32
And I’ve had to have sort of real I’ve had to have real long discussions about,

Unknown Speaker 50:40
about things that that our our users have feedback on. But convincing people that actually you know, having a home button on our site is I know it’s old. I know it’s you know, last decade, but actually we want to hold back because it’s quick and easy for us to then find our way around. No, that no No, no, no, no. Nobody wants that and then we would do black broad testing. And that’s exactly what we had fine. So we then go Okay, well now we need to go back and kind of redo our thing and and work on the UX. So, so what’s been a joy really is, is digging into something that’s brand brand new. I mean, sometimes it’s made me feel ancient, and I’m like, why did I, what was I thinking? And, but for me, the great part is is that I you know, I love that according to integrated movement routines on my phone and on my laptop, and

Unknown Speaker 51:34
that I can still

Unknown Speaker 51:35
feel great and not go back to feeling like I was, you know, those few years ago when I was beyond stressed out, etc. Because I’m, you know, doing new things can be can be very challenging in many ways. And as much as it’s rewarding, you know, you got to get to the end.

Unknown Speaker 51:52
So,

Unknown Speaker 51:55
I can’t,

Unknown Speaker 51:56
I can’t recommend Fang in like integrated functional movement enough. to you to, to anybody, actually, I mean, we’re focusing on on people of midlife

Unknown Speaker 52:05
because because we know it’s now more important than ever. At this point in our life, this is more important than ever. And but even you, you know, before and after your friends. Yeah, absolutely. Well, that’s why

Suburban Folk 52:19
I wanted to spend a little bit of time on the sitting part because everything you described, that’s absolutely me, I have a desk job where I’m sitting, staring at a computer screen. I think there’s been so much emphasis in the news about social media and your phones, that maybe one of the unintended consequences is that people don’t count in the amount of time they’re sitting in front of their computer because it’s part of their job, but it’s the same concept that you are sitting, not doing anything with the rest of your body for long, long periods of time. Everybody else is doing it. So You don’t see an alternative way to spend your day, at least for maintaining your health. And that can be a real issue. So no, I think you’re exactly right that it is not just that age range. And that’s also why I think it’s important to have the emphasis of never too late. And also never too early to start to develop a habit and keep it going. And that’s why I think it’s also the interesting comparison of some of the averages of, you know, losing the weight, harder to keep it off well, and we’re talking about habits and being able to break bad habits and adding in new habits, those are important at any stage of life. also say that, you know, what you’re describing around community, I would argue that what you are doing as far as your feedback loop, and being available to your initial testers, and as people get more familiar with the site, that is a sense of community. Even from the standpoint of somebody would have a roadmap, if they want to make sure they’re doing the program correctly, or if like you said, if they even have changes they’d like to see getting feedback from you and your team is a sense of community, even though it’s not necessarily what we think of like you said, you know, the the big mass, fill in the blank, world renown fitness programs, and everybody gets together and does those. There’s something to be said for that. But even getting some personal feedback is huge. Actually a quick comparison. For what I’m doing with my marathon training. I joined a running group for the first time, I am training harder than I ever have, because I’m want to see if I can qualify for the Boston Marathon. And what I have found is that there’s not a lot of runners that are running at the pace I am. So I’m actually missing a bit of that community because I’m not getting the At direct feedback about how I’m doing and what’s going on, so yeah, there’s a big mass of people. But if I’m isolated, for looking for the specifics that I think would help me get to the next level, or coach me to the next level, that certainly is a part of a community in and of itself. So sounds like from my perspective, you’re already doing the right things to create the sense of community as you’re continuing to ramp up and be up and running. So, again, yeah, I think it is definitely important demographic, and it is important to make sure that nobody’s left behind. And you mentioned nutrition, and I totally agree that there is so much information out there, that it can get very, very confusing, so at least having some of the obvious things to keep some of the guesswork out. One of my favorite examples, I always pick up my parents about this. I remember growing up in the 1980s and watching cartoons These sugary cereals and they’d always end their commercials with part of this complete breakfast. And of course, you’d see the sugary cereal with toasts and orange juice and maybe a glass of milk or something like that. And now, people knowing what they know about that not really being the best breakfast habit, probably. It seems ridiculous to go back and listen to those commercials. So I think at least taking some of the guesswork out looking back to say, yeah, there’s some confusion about eggs is a great example. Sometimes it’s something that they say, Yep, have the whole thing. Have the yoke. It’s great for you then seems like a couple years later, it’s different. Okay? That may be something that gets a little bit confusing. Don’t get too far on that. But if you have some hard and fast, obvious things that can be done. I think that again, helps people stay on track because it takes out some of that guesswork and again I think having a feedback loop as people are getting used to your program and what you all are doing, I think that probably is very, very helpful. And one other thing I’m curious of that we focus on on our show, is how what you’re an expert in is translating into other areas of your life have you found that being dedicated to fitness and the program that you’re building has translated into parenting or other things that you do as far as building good habits having a good regimen?

Unknown Speaker 57:36
I by nature, I’m one of those very I am very disciplined I have got a very big discipline gene some way in my

Unknown Speaker 57:44
coding and

Unknown Speaker 57:46
so luckily you know, when I decide something I’m pretty good at going let it and and i’m can be quite black and white and very determined. But I do watch a lot of my friends I mean, my daughter is completely different. Thankfully, she does have a little bit of the discipline habit. And you’ll know from parenting, there’s certain things you just give up on quite early in life when you go, okay? This is going to be a fight forever. So I’m never going to win it. Nature is going to win. So let me just pick my issues about this aside. But what I do find is that

Unknown Speaker 58:21
number one,

Unknown Speaker 58:22
from from a personal perspective, what I love is like, I feel great. I mean, I live a very active, busy engaged life.

Unknown Speaker 58:30
And I feel good.

Unknown Speaker 58:32
I have a lot of my friends and family that we separate, how do you or what do you or why do you or where do you and I, and I find that I’m almost going into the space without ever without ever being intentional. Where I’m getting to talk publicly a whole lot more, where I’m getting to kind of even just talk within my own groups of people within my office,

Unknown Speaker 58:54
even within the

Unknown Speaker 58:55
within our guys that are building the site that on another continent and whatever about All of the wonderful things that we’re learning and the amazing people that I’m getting to connect with and talk to.

Unknown Speaker 59:04
And,

Unknown Speaker 59:07
you know, when you walk, I mean, one of my favorite In fact, it’s probably my only

Unknown Speaker 59:12
real big thing, you know.

Unknown Speaker 59:15
I’m not interested kind of if you’re not going to walk your talk, I have no interest. So for me, you know, words are kind of fairly meaningless. I want to see actions. And because in my industry, you hear a lot of words, lots and lots and they’re fancy and they’re beautiful and lyrical, but mostly aren’t followed by action and you know, then you’re you’re up the creek without a paddle. So, for me when I find so joyous about doing this is, is that I can see that what I put into action every day and as I say, I you know, I’m, I’m very much

Unknown Speaker 59:51
about

Unknown Speaker 59:53
making sure that things fit in my life, that it works for me, doing things that are like, I don’t want to do things. I do. Like, I don’t want to eat food that I don’t like, I don’t want to do exercise that I don’t like. I love that, that what we are working on can actually fit into anybody’s lifestyle into anybody’s day because we’re not coming along and begging anyone with a big stick going, you have to do this for 15 minutes, three times a week and then you want to do this and this No, find a way to make this work within your life and find a way to eat sensibly. So you know, if you if you are having too much sugar, well, you’ve actually got a problem.

Unknown Speaker 1:00:37
You need to get it under control. And it’s one of the hardest things I mean,

Unknown Speaker 1:00:42
sugar along with sitting smoking and stressing kind of becomes the next x is so how do you get how do you work on those things without it becoming such a focus that everything else diminishes and then it’s not sustainable. So I’m loving that Kind of the sustainable way I approach my life is, is becoming a really kind of good example for people around me. I mean, even my clients,

Unknown Speaker 1:01:10
you know, I still work in advertising.

Unknown Speaker 1:01:13
You know, we were getting to talk a lot about this. And what I love is that this is about being healthy and energized and well, and, you know, just being able to really embrace life, and when you don’t feel good, you can’t. So, I mean, for me, I’m loving how I feel, and I live by what we buy what we do. And I hope that other people get to sort of experience that and, and feel the improvements in their own lives.

Unknown Speaker 1:01:44
Absolutely. And it also strikes me there’s a parallel to what you’re doing in the theme of our talk of delayed gratification. So again, if that’s in nutrition, yeah, that cookie tastes good. In that minute that you have it, but not having that and then feeling better, in all other aspects of your life is really the thing that you should be striving for. There’s definitely a parallel in parenting, stopping that tantrum by giving my kid the thing they want right then relieves it in the moment. Not gonna help them later on in life, when they Yeah, when they realize that that’s not how life’s gonna work. And people just aren’t going to want to be their friends basically, if they continue to stand drums and and can’t work well with others financially, of course goes without speaking that or without saying that. Do I really need that clothing article when I could be saving for my retirement or my child’s education or something else like that? It’s probably just being very aware and very conscious of what feels good in the moment. may not Nestle to Sara Lee be the thing that benefits you the most in the long term and just staying aware of that

Unknown Speaker 1:03:06
you’ve got ABCD and E. And you need to make a choice. But should you think about how you’re going to make a healthy choice. And I think a healthy choice isn’t just about what food you’re going to eat. Or if you’re going to have water versus a sugary soda, or if you’re going to go to your sport, commitment or baggage, or if you’re going to, you know, stay up late watching TV. When you know you’ve got to be up early in the morning or whatever those things are those choices that we learn to you know, we have to make we make choices day in and day out all of us in life.

Unknown Speaker 1:03:41
And,

Unknown Speaker 1:03:43
and and some choices just become you know, there’s some that we just get so good at, like we just we don’t even think about how we answer you know, do you want milk and sugar? No thanks. I’ll think man black, or whatever those things are that we know are good for us. We learn those habits

Unknown Speaker 1:04:00
And and what’s amazing is it used to irritate her.

Unknown Speaker 1:04:05
Well, you can imagine you’ve got kids, I don’t know if they’re old enough to be rolling their eyes at you yet or giving you that. But, you know, when I would say to her, Well, you know, think about this, do you want to make a healthy choice or not? And, you know, it feels like it’s a bit passive aggressive, to be honest, as

Unknown Speaker 1:04:21
I say it now.

Unknown Speaker 1:04:24
But I really was kind of trying to be this conscious parent, you like really living through teachable moments, you know, I’m not going to tell you what you have to do, but try and evaluate the choice you make. And it’s extraordinary how good she is even now in her 20s at making healthy choices, because she learned she could choose it was up to her. I wasn’t, I mean, unless it was a really bad choice. I wasn’t necessarily going to stop her. And, and I certainly didn’t put up with their behavior, but we all can get into the discipline of making healthy choices. And when we do that, Healthy Choice my feet Look, I really I really haven’t, you know, had a cookie for the last seven days and actually, if I don’t have this one now I’m going to start just dreaming about cookies because I really feel like I need to have a cookie. And I’m and I’m listening to myself and my my body and maybe I just do need a little bit of

Unknown Speaker 1:05:21
something.

Unknown Speaker 1:05:24
So we can decide on everything, how we spend money,

Unknown Speaker 1:05:28
how we, where we go, what we do, what we eat, how we exercise, what what health advice, we listen to you because let’s be frank about that too often the advice we get may seem like it’s healthy, but it’s not really you know, can have all kinds of other impacts, etc. So, I like to think about making healthy choices. And and that I think it makes it easier. You know if you’re going to make 10 choices in a week, and eight of them are healthy. choices. Unless the other two are really catastrophic. Like, you know, you, you’re doing well,

Unknown Speaker 1:06:08
presumably it builds on itself. So even one of the themes that we talked about, if you’re starting at five out of 10 of those choices, and you get up to eight, just as an example, then great, you’re only have yourself as the baseline for improvement. So the more you can keep building, you know, the more you get the snowball effect of healthy choices, healthy ways of living,

Unknown Speaker 1:06:33
we throw down on ourselves a lot of the time. I mean, I think that we’ve become our own worst enemies to a large degree, you know, we self flagellate, a lot. We set lofty goals that we know are probably not attainable in the short term or

Unknown Speaker 1:06:48
are not even necessarily attainable for us

Unknown Speaker 1:06:50
in that in the state that we’re in at that time, or whatever we unrealistic about what is doable. What is real. reasonable. What is good enough, you know, as opposed to perfection. And I think that is, that is one of the things that is really a cornerstone of our program is that it is about the fact that it’s progressive. You start small, you don’t try to, you know, kind of be the next to ever, in three months time or whatever, you take it at your own pace, and you continuously make small improvements. And it’s wonderful how the psychology of that is completely different. When you’re making small improvements versus failing at the goal you set out to achieve because it was just absurd in the first place. You know, there was no way that you were ever going to lose 10 kilos in the first two months of the year, or and keep it off or whatever it is. So we also need to learn to be kinder to ourselves, because I think we aren’t

Unknown Speaker 1:07:56
that

Unknown Speaker 1:07:56
and the one lovely thing for me that I I’ve learned on this journey is to be kind to myself, you know, sometimes I

Unknown Speaker 1:08:05
make it sometimes I fail sometimes

Unknown Speaker 1:08:07
I don’t achieve what I wanted to achieve. Sometimes I wanted to do a 30 minute workout, I stop off the 15

Unknown Speaker 1:08:14
or whatever it is.

Unknown Speaker 1:08:17
Sometimes I do a workout with one of my friends

Unknown Speaker 1:08:19
and they might go, oh, but you can do this so well. And I’m so bad at this. Or I might look at them and think, Oh, my word, look how flexible they are. And I’m battling. The reality is it doesn’t matter. I’m doing the best that I can do at the time. And that actually is good enough. And I think that if we learn to actually be good to ourselves and Contra selves, good enough that I was working out that I was doing an integrated movement routine, I could have been sitting down reading a book or watching TV or on my phone or whatever. Instead, I’m moving.

Unknown Speaker 1:08:54
Well done me.

Unknown Speaker 1:08:56
If we can just stop making small changes that we can build on and you know, and be contrast helps if we don’t always get to it. I think that that also changes the kind of behavior arc and and we’ll see a whole a much better long term result than the kind of hard fast we wanted or no space that a lot of us are in.

Unknown Speaker 1:09:20
I think that’s good advice and probably a good place for us to conclude, is there anything that we didn’t talk about that you’d like to mention as far as the program or just even functional movements and fitness?

Unknown Speaker 1:09:38
So I think just just one kind of

Unknown Speaker 1:09:41
last thing we’ve covered so much so I mean, you know, we all know why we should move. So you know, movement. Just to recap, I think it reduces your risk of chronic disease, heart disease, diabetes, strokes, high blood pressure. Very importantly, you know, functional movement and integrated functional movement will improve your mobility, stability, flexibility and strength. And when you’re doing that you’re improving your bone and muscular strength, which we all know is, is key. I mean, I think it’s 64% as I was saying of injuries come from falls. And so you’re reducing your risk of injury when you do that. And, and the wonderful the wonderful other issue around around good functional movement is that it improves your brain health and memory. And it decreases you know, your feelings of potentially depression, anxiety and stress.

Unknown Speaker 1:10:34
And I think that

Unknown Speaker 1:10:36
on its own, I mean, those are for very simple reasons to move and what I just say to everyone is we say that, you know, with optimal me, you can find your physical freedom in just 15 minutes a day.

Unknown Speaker 1:10:51
And I think that’s,

Unknown Speaker 1:10:53
you know, that’s a small step. It’s not a it’s not a big step. It’s a small step to find 15 minutes in

Unknown Speaker 1:10:57
your day

Unknown Speaker 1:10:59
and The rewards are massive. So

Unknown Speaker 1:11:04
you know going and

Unknown Speaker 1:11:07
keep researching about about integrated functional movement and what functional movement can mean for you. And please visit our site at the optimal.me. So that’s www dot the optimal as one word.me. And we’d love to hear anybody’s comments. We’re always looking for feedback.

Unknown Speaker 1:11:27
The program is the optimal meet the website is the optimal.me. We will have that in the show notes. And Liz, do you have any other contact information or social media contacts that you’d like to give out, we have

Unknown Speaker 1:11:41
a Facebook page and you can find us on Facebook at the optimal.me the same for LinkedIn. And I’m going to have to email you Greg my Instagram and or because off the top of my head, I don’t remember. I think it is also the optimal. I don’t think it’s a.me. It’s me, but I will pop that through to you now after this. Perfect.

Unknown Speaker 1:12:07
Yeah, yeah. And when the show gets published, we will be sure to have some Instagram posts where we tag you so that folks know exactly where to get you. And then again, we will have that in the show notes. Well, Liz, again, I really appreciate you taking the time to be on the show. And we will be in touch.

Unknown Speaker 1:12:26
Fantastic. Well, yeah. And let us know when when you’re going to publish and we will make sure that we share that on all of our social platforms, too.

Unknown Speaker 1:12:33
That sounds great.

Unknown Speaker 1:12:34
Yeah, brilliant. Have a great day.

Unknown Speaker 1:12:38
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Transcribed by https://otter.ai