Life By Design with Dr. Jamie Richards

The amount of low and no calories sweeteners that children get in their diets has increased two hundred percent in recent years. Obesity rates have also been climbing with one-third of children between the ages of two and nineteen overweight or obese. The obvious (maybe not so obvious) conclusion that children's weight should be decreasing or staying the same has made researchers question what's going on. It would be safe to assume that fewer calories and less sugar should amount to a decrease in weight. There's an important disclaimer that needs mentioning - weight loss does not necessarily amount to good. We don't have objectively measurable qualifiers for health, only for disease. Some studies are suggesting that swapping artificially sweetened drinks for those high in sugar might promote weight loss in children and teens, but there is also data to suggest that doing so increases health risk in other areas. Bottom line there are better ways to lose weight and improve health than drinking artificially sweetened drinks. The purpose of this podcast is to discuss the study and give it interpretation from a Life By Design perspective. What we covered

• The study itself - how the data was collected and some of the pitfalls from doing it that way.
• Interpretation - did drinking artificially sweetened drinks make an impact in calories consumed, are calories a useful marker for health, what else could be at play?
• Ways we've found helpful for changing diet in our kids.

I recently finished Cal Newport's book, Digital Minimalism and really enjoyed it.

There were two concepts which I found to be both urgent and vital to include in my life as soon as possible. The first was a distracted mind's intrusion on our solidarity - a topic for another day. And, two, the issue of free time and how it affects our mind.

I'm paraphrasing what I've read and what my takeaways are so, please feel free to dismiss both if you'd like. But at least give me the change to share what I think and see if it resonates with you.

The purpose of this podcast is to have a closer look at 'free time' and see if there is a better way to spend it than just mentally drifting.

What I covered

• Is free time a paradox? We spend most of our time 'wanting some time off,' even though when we get it; it doesn't seem to make us any happier.
• What is happiness and is it important?
• Does a lack of structure, free time, generate more happiness or less?

"Drvo se savija dok je mlado" - Croatian Proverb The above statement translated into English means that the "tree is bent when it is young." This saying can also be a metaphorical statement implying that the habits and environment experienced as a child tends to continue into adulthood. The is precisely the mindset the United Nations Public Health Agency had in mind when they made their newest recommendations for sleep, exercise and screen time in 1-5 years olds. Previously, there were no recommendations for children below five years old. However, due to the idea (and evidence) that children who are obese, tend to become adults that are obese (obesity increases all-cause mortality, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes) the United Nations Public Health Agency is trying to help 'bend the tree' in the healthy direction by creating guidelines surrounding screen time, exercise and sleep, for children under five. The purpose of this podcast is to review those guidelines and offer suggestions on how to make them a reality for your family. Here's What I Covered:

• A review of the World Health Organization recommendations if your child is under one year old.
• A review of the World Health Organization recommendations if your child is between one and two.
• A review of the World Health Organization recommendations if your child is three to four years old.
• How to make these recommendations a reality...it's easy to read something and understand it, much harder to implement something and start doing it regularly. We help share our tips and tricks for making this a realistic plan in your household.

"Everything is amazing, and nobody is happy" are words famously (it might be notoriously now depending on who you're asking) spoken by comedian Louis C.K in a late night talk interview with Conan O'Brien.

The context was how incredible it is to be able to fly in an airplane and how even 60 years ago if you wanted to travel across the country, it could take days or weeks, not a few hours.

C.K also alluded to the fact that you could get the internet now on an airplane (the interview is 2 years old when the internet was novel on flights) which prompted the man next to him to get upset because it wasn't as fast as he would have liked instead of being grateful and happy that this 'awesome' technology was possible.

Having the pleasure of being alive in 2019 is fantastic. The opportunities presented to us are outstanding and abundant. So, then, why aren't we happy? Why is mental illness still a thing? Why are young people full of nothing but potential taking their lives? Why is there more addiction?

The purpose of this podcast is to comment on what we believe to be a central idea to creating and achieving happiness. Yes, it's a complex topic, and we don't have to cover everything, but we share what we believe, and have experienced, to be one important idea.

What we covered:

• The definition of happiness and success and why definitions and knowing your terms is essential to success. If you don't have a clear idea of what you want to achieve you'll never get.
• What, in our personal experience, has to lead to our personal feelings of unhappiness, depression, and anxiety.
• How we've achieved happiness and success in our lives.

An interesting study was published in the Annals of Internal Medicine looking at supplementation levels vs. nutrient levels and all-cause mortality. This means they were searching to see if people who took supplements (in general) lived longer. The Cohort study was conducted on 30 899 adults in the US above the age of 20 years old. The participants were required to answer questions and complete a survey. The findings were as such: Adequate intake of vitamin K and magnesium resulted in decreased mortality - this was limited to obtaining these nutrients from food, not supplements. Adequate intake of vitamin A, K and zinc resulted in decreased mortality from cardiovascular disease - this was limited to obtaining these nutrients from food, not supplements. Excess intake of calcium was associated with an increased risk of death from cancer - this was related to consumption of 1000 mg/day of supplement intake and not with calcium found in food. What I covered:

• A discussion of the results and what I found interesting.
• We just covered this a couple of weeks ago, but there are numerous limitations with this kind of study which I discuss including the concept of causation vs. correlation.
• What could be causing these results - I share my thoughts.
• The importance of real food good first.
• The importance of testing, retesting and optimization vs. just taking a supplement (or anything for that matter) Carte Blanche.

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit." -Aristotle If you've ever read a self-help book or spent any time scrolling through your phone, it's very likely that you've seen this quote by the philosopher Aristotle on the power of your habits. However, as easy as it is to understand that your habits are important and that your beliefs, actions, and luck have gotten you the results you currently have, it doesn't tell you which habits you should adopt and how to implement those habits into your life. Often times principles and ideas are easily understood, but deciphering which habits to adopt and how to adopt them is much more confusing. Just like it's easy to read a book and the mechanics of a push-up, it's much harder to learn and train to do 100 push-ups with impeccable technique. The purpose of this podcast is for us to discuss our favorite habits that we believe have been responsible for our happiness, joy, and success. These might not be the right habits for you, but they mean the world to us. More importantly, it is how we installed these habits into our life. Just like you, we weren't born a certain way, and change can be hard sometimes. What we covered:

• What is a habit, why is it important, and why have them at all?
• Cue, Routine, Reward the three components of a habit according to Charles Duhigg and his book "The Power of Habit".
• Which of our routines we think are the most powerful.

A large recently published study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association concluded that adults who consumed higher amounts of cholesterol had an increased chance of dying from cardiovascular disease. Cholesterol is thought to raise LDL (often referred to as 'bad' cholesterol) and is considered a risk for heart attack and stroke. These results came at an interesting time since the U.S Government recently removed it's recommended restriction (300 mg/day) on cholesterol stating that 'cholesterol is no longer a food of concern for over-consumption.' The general consensus among scientists was that cholesterol from food had little to do with what showed up in the bloodstream. The purpose of this podcast is to take a look at and discuss the study. What we covered:

• How the study was conducted. The research... 29, 615 ethnically diverse people were questioned about what they ate and then were followed up with over 31 years, the median was 17.5 years.
• The conclusion of the study - all things being equal, total serum cholesterol increases your chance of having cardiovascular disease.
• The flaws of the study - as you can imagine there are many things that could have been done better and more accurately in a study like this, so we take the time and discuss some of the liberties taken by researchers. The questionnaire was only completed once asking participants to recall what they ate over the last year, serum cholesterol levels were not actually measured, changes in diet were not accounted for, etc.
• We can't make recommendations on specific food choices but we will discuss whether or not this information is changing our eating styles.

Every once in a while, I read or hear quotes like the following: "A bad day for your ego is a good day for your soul." "When ego is lost, limit is lost. You become infinite, kind and beautiful." I'm not sure if I'm reading or hearing this more often than before, or whether I'm more sensitive to it now than I was in the past, but either way I disagree wholly and entirely with such sentiments. Your ego is you - the part of you that is unique and distinct from everyone else. The part that reasons, decides, chooses, loves, achieves and thinks. It's the best part of you and denying it - or worse - creating a systematic plan on how to 'conquer it' does not lead to good in your life. I know this because for the first 20 years of my life I attempted to conquer my ego - it was not pretty and it led to a lot of pain, anxiety, and frustration. It wasn't until I started listening to that part of me that my life turned around dramatically. The purpose of this podcast is to share my experience of how listening to my ego made my life better. What I Covered:

• Definitions of terms. I know this sounds incredibly boring but knowing precisely what's being talked about and what's not being talked about is the starting point to all knowledge. Is there a difference between ego, soul, consciousness, mind? Or, are all these the same thing?
• Is it a wise strategy is disown parts of yourself? Or, would it be better to accept all of your elements and then change those parts that are not serving your goals or purpose?
• Why your ego is not the enemy and why it's the potentially the source of the good in your life.
• The importance of independent thinking and why being able to think, judge and chose are vital to our human nature.
• Why it's essential to nurture and create a healthy ego and how to do that.

Our kids are the most important members of our family. It's our job as parents to raise them and prepare them for meeting the challenges of the world. The challenge of raising healthy, well-adapted kids is harder now than it was for our parents. There are more social pressures, larger problems, and a much different society than when we were growing up. Yet, human nature and children's physiological needs have not changed. How can we as parents still meet the needs of our child in a society more difficult to traverse than ever? On this week's podcast, we look at an article from The Military Wife And Mom and share our thoughts about the habits to raise healthy children. What we covered:

• Why it's important to have boundaries with your kids and where some of our boundaries are with our children and why we chose them.
• The purpose and importance of routines, the benefit of teaching your child a routine and why schools like Montessori implement them really well.
• Why sleep is essential to a growing child. It's also marvelous to for adults!
• How and why emotional intelligence is necessary for a child's health and development.
• The need for human touch and connection.
• Why playing with our kids is a great idea, and how we like to do it.
• The importance of time spent outdoors.
• How to give your kids responsibility around the house.
• How to balance and manage screen time.
• Why we love to create experiences for our kids vs. giving them only material things.
• The power of joy and music.
• And anything else we like to do as parents that we believe is essential to our children's growth and development.

Sorry about the swear word but it's not us… it's our guest.

Since the time this original episode aired, Mark Manson's book, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F#*K has gone on to become a New York Times Bestseller.

Congrats to Mark!

We thought it would be fun to go back and listen to what Mark had to say about the principles in his book in this interview with Dr. Kreso.

The book is really about how to live a better life and that something we preach on Life By Design!

Mark is an author, blogger and entrepreneur. Mark writes about personal development and has a lot of people reading his stuff… so check it out.

What we covered:

• Why most people seem to be continuously stuck and unhappy.
• What you can do to become unstuck and start living a healthier and happier life.
• Mark's book "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a ****" and how it's different from all of the other stuff that's out there.