It is my birthday!  And the last installment of my 32 thoughts on fitness and nutrition.  I hope it has been helpful!

The last eight are my biggest mistakes and lessons.  Enjoy the struggle =)

25.  Anxiety needs exercise, supplementation, and good food.  I have intense anxiety and always was told healthy eating and exercise will help.  However, that blanket statement is not specific enough.  You need gut-healthy food.  You need strength training and interval conditioning.  You need more than a multivitamin, for me it took exogenous ketones.  If you find yourself stressing over everything, don’t assume that your response is the only way.  Yes, all stress can be challenging, but when it is over every little detail of your life, it is time to come at it with some lifestyle changes.  Please ask for help if you struggle with this.  Most high performing people suffer.

26.  Do not marry your understanding of nutrition because new information will come out every day.  It will be opposing, heated, and probably counterintuitive.  Question ALL information, but if something new arises, don’t be adverse.  At one point in my life, I ate exactly like the food pyramid told me to.  I proceeded to lose a significant amount of hair.  I used to think calories were calories.  It is clear that this is not the case now.  Eating the right foods will cause significant change if our body’s function and composition.  Controlling the amount of calories will work for a while, but your body actually wants food. (NEW INFORMATION, jk.)  It will begin to not need as much

27.  If you do not address the reason you want to be a specific weight, you will never be satisfied.  I speak with a lot of people about specific weight goals.  I used to have those 5-10lb goals too.  However, I was small (size 0), but I couldn’t see it.  In fact, I had a friend tell me firmly that I needed to stop saying I needed to lose weight.  After some life experience, I realized my pound goal was totally linked to my wish that I would not yo yo diet and feel bloated.  I wanted to eat well all of the time.  (It took me ONE podcast about dementia and gut health to change my tune.  It is comical how fast I changed my mind.  YEARS of indecision and it took an hour podcast telling me that an exposure to a specific food would have a three week healing time for my body changed my mind.) Once I was eating properly, I stopped having the weight fixation.  Get real with yourself when it is something like 5lbs or 10lbs as a goal.  Is it how you feel about yourself?  Is there a different desire?

28.  There will always be something difficult on the path to longevity performance, but you have some control.  My family has been stricken with dementia and diabetes.  I do not think that I am destined to this fate and I will do everything I can to prepare my body and mind for thriving.  Get out of your head that your genetics decide your fate.  Shit will happen, but you can do things TODAY that help.  This should be your main reason for not putting off your healthy choices.  Every day is affecting tomorrow.

29.  Cheat days are one of the hardest things to control.  The amount of reasoning that goes on before and after you have a cheat day should be an indication of the stress that it puts on your body and mind.  The negative emotions associated with cheat days completely outweigh highly stimulating food for minutes of enjoyment.  Find values, not diets.

30.  Don’t be scared of weight training.  I never smartly weight trained until almost a decade ago.  For the moment in my life when I was an athlete (almost 20 years ago), I went into the weight room and quickly denied its importance because I had no understanding of what I was supposed to do.  If this is your experience, talk to a coach.  We have plenty of people who have had bad experiences with exercise, have been hurt, have never been in a strength training program, who haven’t been training properly in the weight room…talk to a good coach.  PLEASE.  Weight training became the obvious choice for lifestyle activity when someone was guiding me.

31.  Be a leader in health for those around you.  There is no greater accountability.  When you can become the role model (not the expert, necessarily), it makes integrity your motivation.  It takes time and persistence, but perhaps the best way to maintain health at the highest level.

32.  Set up a success session for next week through this email today and do not cancel it and show up and I will give you a $175 gift card.

Now go kick some ass!

In wellness,

Erin and Rod