Life By Design with Dr. Jamie Richards

We've all been there before. You take out your phone, open your Facebook or Instagram app, start scrolling, start seeing pictures of people on vacation, new homes, new cars, date nights, cute, funny kids, lean trim physiques and you begin to think - wow, what's wrong with me, I don't have any of those things? If you're lucky, those feelings end there, and you get back to your normal life, but sometimes the envy, jealousy, and resentment are much too intense and you end up becoming miserable and ruining your day. The purpose of this podcast is to help give you some reasons as to why we behave this way and a practical strategy to implement so it doesn't happen that often. What we covered:

• Comparing is a necessary component of our human nature and part of how we form concepts. We can't and shouldn't get away from using comparisons, instead learn how to compare in a less negative way.
• Why and how our cultural upbringing has played a role in making us chronically worried about the 'results' and 'status' or others - while taking our focus away from the only person who is truly responsible for our happiness - us.
• Why social media is not a cause to unhappiness or why you compare yourself to others - it's the product of our human nature.
• What, in our personal lives and experience, has been the best way of combating these feelings of "others are so successful, and I'm such a loser."

Oh, the scale. How we all have a love/hate relationship with you.

Looking and feeling good in your body is a goal we should all strive to achieve, especially since it boosts your self-esteem, and helps give you confidence for taking on the day.

The purpose of this podcast is to discuss 5 reasons, that we typically see, as to why you're not reaching the ideal weight/body type that YOU want.

What we covered:

• Why it's challenging to do things consistently that you hate doing. Muhammad Ali famously said, "I hated every minute of training, but I said: don't quit, suffer now and live the rest of your life like a champion." We all know that exercise and eating is part of getting the body you want, but hating it will make it hard to do.
• You haven't been doing it long enough. It would be fantastic if the timeline you had in your head for achieving a goal were the correct timeline; unfortunately, it always takes longer than you think.
• Aristotle, the philosopher not Dr. Kreso's son, famously said, "success is a habit, not an act." Consistency is critical - the shiny penny is fun to chase, but hardly ever leads you to where you want to be.
• There is a lot of 'conventional wisdom' about weight loss and exercise that's not based on physiology, so creating a plan based around how your physiology works is critical to your success.

Thursday, February 21st marks the start of the 2019 CrossFit Open.

Every year CrossFit crowns the fittest man and woman on the earth.

The way you earn this prestigious title is by winning the CrossFit games, and the way you get to the CrossFit games is by entering the CrossFit Open, placing well enough to go to regionals and then winning regionals.

We think you should register for the CrossFit open this year.

Why would we recommend this to you?

For many reasons one of which is not because we get anything from it. It's true we own a CrossFit and training facility with a similar approach, and in general, love the training model, but our recommendation has everything to do with you and your personal growth, development, and health.

We've all heard the saying that growth happens outside of your comfort zone, well, what better way to get uncomfortable about your fitness than registering for the CrossFit open.

Every year the same thing happens during the open. There are people there, who are scared and think they shouldn't be there and they absolutely blow themselves away with how great they perform.

We're willing to bet the same is right for you - deep inside you're much better than you think you are - and this is one way to challenge yourself to reach up and bit a bit better.

But it's not the only way...

On today's episode of Life By Design we talk about getting out of your comfort zone in general and discuss some of the other things you could do!

What we Covered:

• The power behind reaching outside your comfort zone.
• Safety first, please ensure that you're performing these workouts under the supervision of trained coaches and staff. CrossFit is fun but can be hard, do it correctly.
• Why you need a standard to measure against.
• Other ways to "get out of your comfort zone".

Growing up we were always taught that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Breakfast was supposed to serve as a way to get proper nutrients into our bodies and give us the energy to meet the many challenges and needs of the day.

It was also thought that eating a healthy (the jury is still out on what 'healthy' means) breakfast helped give us nutrients that would keep us full throughout the day, and would help us lose weight. However, a new study published in BMJ may disagree.

According to the study people who ate breakfast ended up about around 260 calories more per day than those that skipped breakfast and ended up weighing slightly more (less than a pound) than breakfast eaters.

The purpose of the podcast is to discuss the study, explain how we think this information is relevant to you and discuss the physiology of losing weight.

What we cover:

• Discussion of the study, what we liked about it, what we didn't like about it and our interpretation of the results.
• Is breakfast really the most important meal of the day, what about intermittent fasting and people who don't eat until much later?
• Is weight loss just a simple calories in vs. calories out equation or is there more to it than that?
• Do we eat breakfast, and if we do, what do we eat?

Skills are cheap passion is priceless

-Gary Vaynerchuk

As we search the internet looking for topics that we believe would be helpful for you, we can't help but feel overwhelmed.

Overwhelmed at the biases, overwhelmed at the atrocious and dishonest headlines, overwhelmed at context drops, overwhelmed at the rude poorly thought out comments towards others, overwhelmed at the lack of empathy and overwhelmed at the ignorance of one of the major factors that will actually make people's lives better... self-responsibility.

The overwhelm hit its peak while examining the Canadian Government's phase two of its new Food Guide release: the extra labeling of food that is 'high in sugar, high in saturated fat and high in salt.'

You might be wondering why it sounds like we don't like that idea?

We don't like that idea because it fails to bring into consideration the most important aspect of whether someone will buy the product and eat it - their desire. The old saying, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink, comes to mind.

Look at the tobacco industry. Is there anyone on the planet that doesn't know that cigarettes are unhealthy? Look at the labeling - it flat out says this product causes cancer (and other diseases) and has a horrifying and shocking graphic of a poor cancer surfer who is visibly disfigured by their condition. Yet, does this stop people from buying cigarettes?

It's overwhelming that the world has become a place where social pressure is replacing freedom of choice. Where if you have a different opinion than the mob, you need to be singled out and beat into submission.

The purpose of this podcast is to help preserve your mind as an individual and to help you understand that your choices and actions (both good and bad) should be yours, not your family's, not the government's, not your neighbour's, but yours.

What we covered:

• Keeping the mind of the beginner - how to understand your biases and set them aside as you're learning and gathering information before you make a decision.
• Since it's ultimately your life, we believe that your self-esteem depends on your ability to make decisions for yourself.

January 30th is Bell's Let's Talk day and we know what's coming...

Many people in our lives will share both excruciatingly painful and incredibly inspiring stories about their previous struggles and triumphs over their mental health challenges.

It's always surprising who posts because you would have 'never expected that person to have a mental health problem,' and that's exactly the point - there is not one person that's not affected by mental health challenges whether directly or indirectly.

The Canadian Mental Health Association reports that 1/5 people every year will have a mental health episode, almost 10% of the population will experience a major depressive state in their lifetime, and suicide is the leading cause of death from adolescence to middle age for both men and women.

These mental health struggles and challenges also include us. We have both had more than our fair share of problems, triumphs, successes, and misfires, and we believe sharing those with you could be of tremendous benefit.

The purpose of this episode is to share what, in our experience, we have found helpful in positively affecting our mental states and how we've managed to overcome our own, personal mental health challenges.

What we covered:

• Our own person mental health challenges and what that meant growing up and in adult life.
• How we've managed, and the tips and tactics that we have personally found the most helpful day to day in dealing with our own mental health struggles.
• A review of books that we've read, courses we've taken, or people we've found that have been valuable in helping create and maintain our personal mental health.

The FDA has announced that in 2021 there are changes coming to the way food is labeled in America.

Some of the changes include changing the serving size (they say nobody eats just 1/2 cup of ice cream), larger, bolded font for calories and a category of 'added sugars' helping people know the difference between sugars that naturally occur within the food vs. the ones that are added in.

The original idea of forcing food manufacturers to use food labels was transparency. It was assumed the more people that knew about what was in their food, the more they would be aware of what they were putting in their bodies and the better the decisions they would make.

But has that been the case?

The planned action and change has started a conversation and a debate about the whether food labeling has caused more harm than good with some research stating that food labeling, because of it's abstract terms, lack of public education and lack of over diet context, have done more harm than good.

What I Covered:

• How to read labels using Eat By Design as a starting point and context. I'm not saying this applies to you, but this is how I do it.
• The pros and cons of having labels and why reading them, even with a good amount of nutritional knowledge can be very difficult.
• Why I don't believe changing the labels, even to more 'realistic' measures, will have a positive impact on people's health.
• Some basics that, if you're going to read labels, you might want to watch out for.

As it stands, there is no date set just yet but it has been confirmed that Canada is set to update their food guide. From everything we've read, it sounds like the updated food guide will be released sometime this year. What's different? As it sounds, from all the data and articles we could read, the new guide will be recommending fewer animal products, particularly dairy, and more plant-based products and whole grains. Hasan Hutchinson, director general of nutritional policy and promotion at Health Canada, said that the goal was to base the recommendations on the best available evidence recognized by international organizations. Hutchinson also said that his department is not saying that animal products aren't nutritious, stating the new guide will continue to recommend low-fat dairy, cheese, yogurt and leaner cuts of meat and poultry. The purpose of this podcast is to discuss these changes and give our rationale for what we think, and what we would recommend. What we covered:

• The purpose of nutrition and what our body genetically expects from an evolutionary perspective. We've known about macro and micro-nutrients from some time now, so this isn't rocket science. This is important because to answer the question, what should I eat, you need to understand why eating is a value and how your body works.
• A conversation about whether or not the current food guide helps us, as humans, meet our nutritional requirements.
• A discussion about whether or not these proposed changes are in the right direction, keeping in context that we don't know exactly what all the changes will be.

Of course it is!

Everything that any human interacts with in their environment alters their brain. Please don't just believe this headline because the obvious situation that's assumed here is that by 'altering' they mean in a negative way.

On today's podcast, we examine a study on how screen affects the brains of children and attempt to discern if this is something parents should be concerned about. The study looked at 11,000, 9-10-year-olds throughout the United States and found that:

• MRI scans found significant differences in the brains of some children who reported using smartphones, tablets, and video games more than seven hours a day.
• Children who reported more than two hours a day of screen time got lower scores on thinking and language tests.

The article also mentioned the traditional concerns around screen time such as increased risk of obesity, increased risk of depression, how social media affects the brain, and sleep alteration. The purpose of this podcast is to discuss these results and create context around what we believe you can realistically do about screen time with your child. What We Covered

• Don't just be a headline reader. If you're going to read something read the entire research paper before formulating an opinion. This article is a clear example of that.
• What came first the chicken or the egg? Does the screen negatively affect your child's brain, or do children who have less cognitive potential crave more screen time?
• Is screen really something that warrants your concern?
• Why screen time and social media are very separate things and why you shouldn't equate the two.

There are many misleading health articles, plenty of half-truths and an abundance of incorrect information. On today's podcast we focus on the concept of becoming 'toned.' Our definition of the word toned means - not just losing weight but maintaining or increasing your lean body mass in way that leads to visible muscle on your body. So how do you do it? Well, if you paid attention to most articles on the internet you would just have to perform these 8-10 different exercises every day, and in just a few short weeks you'd be toned. Can this advice work? Of course, if you've already done most of the hardest and longest work, changing exercises or adding different exercise comprised of different reps, tempos, and weight will help, but that's not the whole story. The purpose of this episode is to give you a better and clearer understanding of what getting toned means and how to go about doing it. What we covered

• The difference between health and getting toned up quickly. We're willing to bet that you'd be a little more hesitant to trade your body for that body if you understood just how poor their health typically was.
• Why habits are the real key to becoming toned in a sustainable way.
• The importance of patience if you're going to do this the correct way.
• The difference between optimal body types and forced body composition change.
• Why the basis of proper body composition change is nutrition and what you need to know about it.
• The basics of what's necessary in the kitchen.
• The basics of what's essential in the gym.