LISTEN TO THIS WEEK’S SHOW ON iTUNES, STITCHER OR SPOTIFY OR LISTEN RIGHT HERE:
Now onto the show…
There’s a lot of stress around exercise and there need not be. I’ve brought Alex Fergus PT & Health coach to top executives back on the show (remember our sleep chat last year?) Alex’s down to earth nature and relaxed attitude will have you understanding the importance of exercise, sure, but how little one needs to to to get big returns as well as tips to incorporate movement throughout the day that doesn’t need to be in the form of a ‘focused class’. If you want to learn about the effectiveness of exercise and getting bang for your buck, this show will be perfect for you.
Here’s a little snapshot of the goodies in today’s episode…
- Alex’s advice is to ditch the early morning workout, and sleep in! Sleep is one of the most important aspects of good health and feeling your best.
- Melatonin (the sleep hormone) is released about 4 hours after your body experiences darkness. Melatonin (amongst other things) creates a release of the hormone Leptin, which kickstarts the body’s natural resting and recovery process through all the various bodily processes that occur. One of these processes is our metabolism, so the body is burning fat whilst it’s sleeping. If you’re sleep deprived your body is going to start shutting down at some level, it will burn less heat, slow down the metabolism, etc. You’re going to reach for the short term fixes – sugar, caffeine, etc… which long term makes you feel worse!
- Physical exercise is just another stress on the body, so if you’re experiencing stress in your life already, then putting more stress on your body is one of the last things you should be doing.
- Hormones matter more than calories, if your hormones are completely messed up, then burning calories isn’t going to count towards helping you feel better…
- Exercise releases cortisol. Elevated cortisol leads to an elevated heart rate. Which leads to an adrenalin release, which increases glucose in the blood stream for an immediate fuel source. Which produces an insulin response…. all of this means that continually high glucose levels in the bloodstream can mean you can become diabetic just through constant adrenalin or stress in the body.
- Everybody should be doing some form of resistance training once a week or even once a fortnight. Resistance training leads to improved insulin resistance, improved bone density, it leads to a release of BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factors) post training which helps with brain health – the synaptic connections in the brain. There are so many health benefits.
- The 2 types of exercise Alex suggest you incorporate into your week are: something slow (walking or yoga), something short and sharp (weight training or sprints – or both if you’re feeling great!)
THIS WEEK’S LIVE HAPPIER, HEALTHIER CHALLENGE: We have a threefold challenge this week;
1. For the next week, go for a half hour walk every single day. If that has to be 2 x 15 min walk that’s fine.
2. In the next 7 days also add in a short / sharp sprint session – eg 10-15 seconds sprinting with a 1 min recovery (do this 5 or 6 times)
3. Make time for some kind of resistance training just once during the week – this can be something at the gym, or perhaps more conveniently something at home using your own body weight (squats or push ups work, or sit against the wall bracing yourself, etc). Note – this is not a pump class, or anything that gets your heart rate up for a long period of time, it’s something super short that pushes your muscles to failure!
Here are all the important links:
Check out Alex’s books HERE
Read more about (and sign up to) Alex’s Sound Asleep e-course which is simple and super effective HERE
Super Slow training book – Body by Science by Doug McGuff
Read Alex’s success story with superslow training
Check out the Health/Fat Loss protocol Alex’s website
If you want to click through to iTunes from here to subscribe to the podcast and listen to this week’s show, and the episodes that have aired since our launch in July 2016, GO HERE
If you want to listen on your android, download Stitcher or click through HERE or you can buy the Pocket Cast App for android.
Enjoy the show and thanks again for taking the time to rate and review the show – it’s like tipping the bartender and it means the world. (To do this from your phone, you can’t be ‘in the show list’ – go to the podcast search function and type low tox life, and then click on the show and click ‘review’. Annoyingly tricky but hey. I figured I may as well help you out if you’re going to take the time to leave a review!)
Low Tox. Happy us. Happy planet
